Satanic Panic Research Paper

During the 1970s to the early 1990s, people of any sort of Christian background were obsessed with the dangers of the counter movement in America and the new fears that the movement brought. This obsession caused those against the movement to obsess over the young people’s interest in Satan and Satanism. This was pushed by mainstream media, particularly with the evangelical Christians of that time period (). The evangelical Christians used ‘therapists’ and ‘priests’ to help keep children on the straight and narrow. The evangelicals also used ‘news’ outlets to voice what they wanted the world to believe was really happening to their children. The abuse of the ‘news’ media by this sect of Christians caused another hysteria. A hysteria presented based on devil worshiping by teenagers and those that were different than what they saw as normal. The term ‘satanic panic’ was soon created to describe this hysteria. The Satanic Panic brought out the fears of people from the medieval times and applied those ideas to today’s world. People in America were once again on a ‘witch hunt’ but for Satanists this time (). This hunt made investigations more challenging as people were spreading rumors like wildfire about how new each new case was caused …show more content…
Echols tried to explain about his Wiccan beliefs, but these beliefs were soon construed into satanic rituals. All three men were found guilty based on little evidence. The West Memphis Three trial helped in reaffirming the fear of satanic worship in that it was dangerous and could kill innocent lives, like the lives of the three boys. By using the fear of Satan, Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley were all tried wrongly to prison or death. Echols on the other was sentenced to death. His charge was three counts of first-degree murder, but, unlike Baldwin and Misskelly, Echols did not show any signs of remorse for killing the children during the