Horse killings: Satanic conspiracy or bad reporting?

Another horse mutilation in Cornwall — this one a beheading — has locals blaming Satanists. Again. Photo by flickr user Beer Coaster.

Someone in Cornwall doesn’t like horses. At least, that’s what their newspapers want you to believe.

In recent days, locals found a beheaded horse on Pentewan Beach, and a mutilated, pregnant mare dead in a field. They are, predictably, fingering Satanists for the attacks — and many reporters are listening.

A headline in the Telegraph proclaimed, “Satanic cult blamed for beheaded horse on beach: Fears are growing that a Satanic cult may be behind a spate of animal sacrifices.” Where did those fears come from? A local expert on Satanic practices? No. A fisherman:

A local fisherman told the Sun: “The head seemed to have been surgically removed in a sort of ritual. The way the artefacts were arranged made me shudder.”

No pesky details that would complicate the fear factor — just conjecture and enough scare words to get the imagination going.

In fact, that fisherman seemed to get around, talking to the Sun and the Daily Mail:

Speaking about the Cornwall horse killing, a fisherman told The Sun: ‘The way it was arranged makes me shudder. I believe whoever did this is sick and needs help.

…

‘It really seems like some sort of black magic ceremony has taken place.’

Reports of the attack on the pregnant mare, 19-year-old Penny, from This is Lincolnshire were thankfully much less sensationalistic, but that didn’t keep other major news outlets from lumping the attacks together — and using locals’ speculation to fuel tales of a Satanic conspiracy.

Let’s look at their evidence:
* They claim the horse slaughters were tied to the full “supermoon” May 6. The pregnant horse died May 3 or 4. The beheaded horse was found May 7. Neither happened on the full moon.
* The beheaded horse was found with a dead seagull and a cross. “Rest in Peace” was written in sand near the body. None of this is particularly Satanic.
* Three bulls had recently been “mutilated with blunt instruments” (how is that even possible?!) in St. Tudy, Cornwall.
* In January, another horse was slaughtered on a made-up “Satanic sacrifice day” that journalists didn’t bother verifying.

If indeed all these crimes were committed by the same person, that person would have to be incredibly dedicated. Pentewan Beach is 25 miles from St. Tudy and another 25 miles from Stithians, the site of the January killing. Stithians is more than 30 miles from St. Tudy. And Cornish roads aren’t like major motorways; traveling 25 miles can take an hour or more. Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, where the pregnant mare was killed, is more than 360 miles away from any of these places. The chances that they’re all linked are very, very small.

I give this link a workout, but in general, Satanists don’t sacrifice animals. However, the Romans and ancient Irish and Hindus did. I doubt any of these groups are offing horses in England, either, but pinning the crimes on them would at come closer to accuracy. Likewise, it’s amazing that, so many years after the Satanic Panic, the idea (and fear) of Satanic cults still exists, despite the lack of evidence.

It’s much more likely that bored teens in a few places are taking their frustrations out on animals — and locals should find out, because such acts are signs of antisocial personality disorder, or sociopathy. Someone who’s killing horses now may move on to killing humans later.

How not to get hysterical about a pentagram

Pentagrams and walls seem to go hand in hand — like bored teens and vandalism. Photo by Flickr user The Trousered Ape.

As the weather turns warmer, kids in suburban and rural areas go outside. They’re bored. They’re looking for something to do. They’re angry, or at least irritated. Maybe they have a magic marker in their back pocket. They’re walking through town, maybe past a church, and an idea strikes them.

Churches in Santa Rosa, California, and Prairie Grove, Arkansas, have suffered recent vandalism — one more seriously than the other. In Santa Rosa, The Church of the Incarnation was tagged with a few pentagrams and other designs. In Prairie Grove, the Illinois Chapel Baptist Church has been vandalized repeatedly over the years, culminating with arson late last month.

Two different cases, in two different parts of the country, reported in two very different ways. Let’s look, shall we?

From Arkansas Matters:

A church is set ablaze in Prairie Grove and officials find satanic symbols spray-painted on the building.

From the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:

The Church of the Incarnation on Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa was tagged with possible Satanic graffiti on Wednesday afternoon, and police said they may have a suspect.

Hmm. One seems more cautious than another. Let’s look again.

Prairie Grove:

“Devil worshiping signs, you know, and stuff, this is nothing but the Devil … People that does this stuff, they are lost … They haven’t the slightest what hell is really about.”

But everyone we spoke with said, there is one thing still standing strong, and that is their faith.

“The Devil can’t beat us down, not as long as we hold faith in Him … I know the good Lord is with us,” said Burnett.

Santa Rosa:

[Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Mike] Lazzarini said the suspect also tagged St Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church, as well as other buildings and signs.

“It’s not church specific,” he said.

A pentagram is a five-pointed star connected with lines considered by some to have magical connotations, and to have satanic meaning when inverted with two points up.

Lawrence said while the pentagrams are potentially upsetting to members of the church, “it’s not enough to make us feel threatened.”

You could chalk up the sensationalism of the Arkansas article to the fact that the crime is more serious, but there have been plenty of times when graffiti like Santa Rosa’s has been reported in a tone more like Prairie Grove’s. In fact, more alarmist reporting tends to be the norm. The Press Democrat reporters offer something refreshing: a report of the crime that doesn’t hysterically imply that the Devil controlled the vandal’s hand — or did the dirty deed himself.

The fact remains, most such vandalism is made by bored, aimless people — kids especially — and not Satanists with an anti-Church agenda. Reporters should write their articles this way, unless they know for certain who the suspect is, and what his/her motives are.

And yet, it’s still plenty interesting to read. Factual reporting that doesn’t descend into fear-mongering. When’s the last time you saw that in a story like this?

A hoodie isn’t a death sentence

I want to break with form a little bit today and talk about the controversy sparked by Geraldo Rivera’s comments regarding Trayvon Martin’s outerwear choices last week. On Twitter, he said:

@GeraldoRivera: Trayvon killed by a jerk w a gun but black & Latino parents have to drill into kids heads: a hoodie is like a sign: shoot or stop & frisk me
@GeraldoRivera: His hoodie killed Trayvon Martin as surely as George Zimmerman.
@GeraldoRivera: Justice will come to Zimmerman the Fla shooter-but I’m trying to save lives like Trayvon’s-Parents Alert: hoodies can get your kid killed
@GeraldoRivera: My own son just wrote to say he’s ashamed of my position re hoodies-still I feel parents must do whatever they can to keep their kids safe
@GeraldoRivera: Its not blaming the victim Its common sense-look like a gangsta&some armed schmuck will take you at your word
@GeraldoRivera: Critics of my hoodie comments think they’re mad at me but they’re really mad at the undeniably unfair reality of young male black/brown life
@GeraldoRivera: It hurts to be assailed-but anger doesn’t change reality-a minority kid in a hoodie in a hood not his own is a 911 call waiting to happen-

And on Fox News, he said:

“Every time you see someone stickin’ up a 7-11, the kid’s wearing a hoodie,” he said. “Every time you see a mugging on a surveillance camera or they get the old lady in the alcove, it’s a kid wearing a hoodie. You have to recognize that this whole stylizing yourself as a “gangsta”… well, people are going to perceive you as a menace.”

I understand where he’s coming from: he’s saying that minority kids might be safer if they don’t wear hoodies, entirely due to the public perception of these kids when they wear such garments. But if they got rid of the hoodies, what would it be then? The baggy jeans? The big sneakers? The puffy jackets? The baseball caps? The bandanas? The sports t-shirts? Do we want minorities to dress like “white kids,” when even white kids don’t dress “like white kids”?

However, the fault isn’t with the clothing. It’s with our culture’s enduring perception of minorities — even kids — as criminals, as threats. And Geraldo — himself a Latino — is doing nothing in these statements to protect vulnerable kids from that perception.

It’s no different from telling goths to stop wearing black clothing and makeup, or telling Middle Eastern metalheads to wear white button-down shirts, or telling Iraqi emos to give up the skinny jeans and eyeliner — because otherwise, they’ll be beaten, arrested, or killed.

Youths, and people who “dress young,” who embrace rebellious clothing styles, have a right to do so — and to pass freely in society without the fear of attack. To say otherwise is to blame them for all who might do them harm because of the way they look. That is not where the blame belongs. And there are many things about their appearance that young minorities can’t change — things that some still perceive as automatically suspect.

By now, I hope, most people know better than to listen to Geraldo Rivera. For those who don’t, I will remind you how he fanned the flames of the Satanic Panic, which in turn destroyed many families.

How fundamentalists control the story

Dawn Jewell’s horse, Erik, was slaughtered in Cornwall last weekend. Probably not by Satanists.

Satanic fervor has overtaken both British newspapers and Internet forums following the death of a 2-year-old stallion last weekend. Details of the death have been scarce, stoking public imagination. Because he died either late Sunday night, Jan. 8, or early Jan. 9, on the full moon (Jan. 9) and close to the supposed Satanic holiday of “St Winebald Day” (Jan. 7), speculators believe the horse’s death must somehow be related to Satanists or the occult.

BBC’s first article played up the “St Winebald” idea. Other, more predictable British papers, took it even further. “Eric the horse mutilated on ‘Satan sacrifice day’,” screeched the Sun, which also shared a few gruesome details. Their piece also contains this potentially libelous gem:

Rumours are rife among locals that the butchery in Stithians, near Falmouth, Cornwall, was part of an evil occult ceremony.

The Daily Mail, meanwhile, has attempted to connect Erik’s fate to a second horse’s death nearly 300 miles away, in Wales.

However, in a followup story, the BBC has toned down the Satanism:

Some internet forums have contained speculation that the most recent killing coincided with St Winebald Day on 7 January, which is said to have been included on Satanic calendars as a date for blood rituals.

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall police said: “We’re keeping an open mind with many lines of inquiry as to what happened. There is nothing specific to suggest that this is the case, there are no facts, it’s speculation.

“It was a savage attack on or near a date, but there is nothing to suggest that it is things like a Satanic worship attack.”

Worrisomely, if you look up “St. Winebald’s Day” on Google, the first link you come to is one from The Forbidden Knowledge, which presents a “Satanic” calendar without sources or explanation. Click through to the front page of this site and you’ll see an above-the-fold warning that, “Your government is poised to inject you with a tracking chip manufactured by Applied Digital Solutions called, ‘Veri Chip.’ Don’t believe me? Click below, I’ll prove it to you.” Reporters who visit this site should be backing away, as quickly as they can, from any information it contains.

However, the second link with information about this “holiday” is a piece by pagan leader and former cop Kerr Cuhulain debunking the aforementioned calendar. He believes the source is the Calvary Chapel, a fundamentalist Christian organization, based in West Covina, California. In other words, not exactly experts on occult and Satanism — in fact, they have a vested interest in making such faiths look bad.

Cuhulain explains:

This calendar claims that Satanic groups perform between 4 and 8 human sacrifices (“blood” or “Da Muer” rituals) per year. It also claims that every year these groups must engage in 10 sexual orgies with males and females between the ages of 1 and 25 as well as with animals. Let’s look at this awful calendar in detail:

“DATE: Jan. 7, CELEBRATION: St. Winebald Day, TYPE: Blood, USAGE: Animal or Human Sacrifice, AGE: 15-33.”(5)

NOTE: January 7 is Sekhmet, the ancient Egyptian New Year’s Day. It is not a Satanic holiday. Winebald was the brother of Saint Walburga, also known as Walpurgis.

Reporters, or even Internet speculators, don’t seem to have gotten as far as link #2. Or even questioning link #1.

Regular readers of this blog already know that Most Satanists do not practice animal sacrifice. That’s not to say that people playing at “devil worship” won’t hurt animals. It just means it likely has nothing to do with established faiths or the people who follow them.

In short, a calendar cooked up by evangelicals is being used by some police, locals, and even British newspapers to explain a horse’s death — one even going so far as to finger a butcher shop and accuse workers both of horse slaughter and occult activity. Meanwhile, Satanists and occultists who actually follow their faith and their laws are quietly implicated.

Next, people will be believing that the government wants to put a chip in their brain.

Remember when the Satanic Panic ended? Apparently, it’s not over for everyone.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a panic swept the nation. People became convinced that both adults and children had been conned into joining Satanic cults, where they were forced to do all manner of horrific things — and then repressed those memories because they were so traumatic. In other words, they forgot.

Do you buy that? A lot of other people didn’t, either.

The phenomenon, now thoroughly debunked, was known at the time as Satanic ritual abuse. Psychologists no longer believe in it. Well, most of them don’t.

Lisa Nasser, 41, is suing her former therapist, Mark Schwartz, and the Castlewood Treatment Center in St. Louis, Missouri. She was a patient at Castlewood for 15 months, undergoing treatment for anorexia.

In her lawsuit, Nasser alleges that Schwartz hypnotized her while she was under the influence of psychotropic medications used to treat depression. During those sessions, she says he brainwashed her into believing that she’d been part of a Satanic cult. Among the implanted memories were that:

she was involved in or perpetrated various criminal and horrific acts of abuse. One of those acts included participating “in a ritualistic eating of babies,” according to [Nasseff's lawyer Kenneth] Vuylsteke.

She’s apparently not the only patient of Schwartz’s to go through this, though none have officially come forward.

Let’s step away from Nasseff for a moment and look at Schwartz. Anyone old enough to be a practicing therapist at this point is likely to have a) lived through the “Satanic panic” brought on by the SRA/false memory phenomenon, or b) learned about it in the course of their psychological training. If indeed he did what Nasseff claims, you have to wonder a couple of things. One, why would he introduce these kinds of ideas, knowing they’d been debunked before? And two — the part I want to explore — what do these kinds of “memories” say about our cultural perceptions of Satanism?

Despite assurances, people still seem to believe widely that Satanists practice different forms of sacrifice, from animals to people. Apparently, some even believe they eat babies. All of this comes from longstanding public-relations problems, and popular fiction certainly hasn’t helped.

Nor has the media, which plays up the “Satanic” angle whenever it can. Satan’s the biggest bogeyman in the Western world, and he apparently sells a lot of newspapers and television airtime, because reporters love to use the term to describe just about anything people don’t like. It’s also a very imprecise term, as Satanism expert Diane Vera points out:

Newspapers too are more likely to refer to our criminal fringe as “Satanists” rather than “Devil worshipers,” if only because the word “Satanist” is shorter and can fit more easily into a headline. And there isn’t much that anyone can do to change this, because no one has a copyright or trademark on the word “Satanism.” The word “Satanism” was in dictionaries long before any of today’s public Satanists were born.

Fortunately, casses like Nasser’s are few and far between — unlike 20 years ago. But as long as they arise, they speak volumes about our cultural fears. Fears which wind up getting directed at people who legitimately practice Satanism peacefully.

Hopefully, nobody who reads about Nasser’s case will think her “memories” could be true. Unfortunately, to judge by <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/therapist-accused-implanting-satanic-memories/comments?type=story&id=15043529#.Tt0S0HNWFRQthe comments, some do.

A new Satanic Panic comes alive in Lebanon

Bassem Deaibess, singer for the Lebanese metal band Blaakyum, has been arrested twice for his appearance and musical taste amid nationwide accusations of blasphemy and Satanism.

In Lebanon, a headhunt is on. In recent weeks, at least eight Lebanese residents have been arrested on charges of blasphemy. This is the third time since 1996 that so-called “Satanists” have been rounded up by Lebanese authorities. Most of the accused were heavy metal fans, known for their long hair, black clothing, and, occasionally, their menacing demeanor.

Technically speaking, Satanism itself is not illegal in Lebanon. Practicing Satanism in private won’t land you in jail. According to Nizar Saghieh, a Lebanese lawyer and human rights activist, blasphemy, insulting of religious symbols and rites in public is punishable by up to three years in prison. How many heavy metal bands use such imagery in their songs, stage performances, album art, and t-shirts? Bassem Deaibess, singer for the Lebanese metal band Blaakyum (pictured above), says he has been arrested twice by the authorities, though he escaped this time. Elia Mssawir, a Beirut-based rock concert organizer and agent for several Lebanese heavy metal bands, was nearly arrested earlier this month, but charges against him were dropped before he was taken into custody.

The moral panic began 15 years ago, as all good moral panics do, with a young person’s suicide. The son of a high-ranking military officer shot himself, leading officials to blame heavy metal and “Satanism.” According to Deaibess:

[Hard rock and metal music] were depicted as an epidemic, as the new pest. ‘If this music gets to your child’s ears, he/she will commit suicide.’ This was the message…The government benefited at the time, because Lebanon was under Syrian occupation, and by creating this ‘Satanism’ scare they diverted people’s attention from the real, important problems.

A second wave followed in 2002/2003, when some 50 people were arrested. Most were eventually let go.

There is some debate over whether young people actually practice Satanism in Lebanon. While Deaibess and Mssawir both cast doubt on the idea, the Lebanese Daily Star spoke with a former “devil worshipper,” who told them:

“Around 40 people used to gather in the underground church that I attended,” he said, adding that it was in the Kesrouan town of Bouar. “There were inverted pentagrams and other satanic signs,” he added, referring to the five- pointed star encircling the face of a goat, which is said to represent carnality…

“Sometimes [we listened to] gothic and classic music and at other times it was heavy metal or death metal,” the former worshipper said. “People also took drugs as they tried to boost their moods during the mass.” …

“It is a temporary phase someone passes through … many of today’s teenagers are wearing emo clothes, which has become the new phenomenon in the country,” he said, referring to a popular style of music and dress.

Whether it’s legitimate religious practice or the kind of symbolism that goes along with heavy-metal culture, these pursuits have come under attack in nations around the globe, from Catholics taking Polish metal singers to court to misfit teens in Arkansas blamed for crimes they didn’t commit. The Satanic Panic is always alive somewhere, it seems.

And the result, for those who love this music and who need to explore their spirituality freely, can be frightening and devastating. Acrassicauda, the Iraqi thrash-metal band, eventually fled their home country because their devotion to music attracted too many death threats — again, over their alleged “Satanism.” Likewise, an Afghani band, D.U., must hide their identities because of the numerous death threats they’ve received.

Prohibiting such music, or the “Satanism” and “blasphemy” that goes with it, doesn’t make it any less necessary to those who live in embattled nations. Many in the Middle East risk their lives to listen to heavy metal. And for them, as for any listener, metal is a lifeline. Take Hazem Abu Zeid, a 29-year-old rebel fighter in Libya, who recently told Al Jazeera about his love of Metallica and heavy metal:

“I mix war with music. Death metal gives the real part of humanity; most music talks about love, beaches, cars, but this talks about real things, brutality, poverty, the soul.” His Iron Maiden T-shirt denoting the slogan ‘matters of life and death’ made for the perfect war gear.

“I have to stay on the front line, I can’t go back to my home and wait for Gaddafi to come and kill my family. We win or we die.”

A sequel to the “Satanic Panic?”

Kids and adults play together at the annual Summerstar pagan festival in Washington State. Photo by Dannelle Meyers Photography.

The people of New Forest, England, recently faced an unlikely scourge: an anonymous “whistleblower” going by the name of “Alice,” who claimed in several online forums that Rosicrucian and Wiccan practitioners in the area were sexually abusing children.

In one such posting, shared on ShameOnYou.mobi, she wrote:

There is the secret Wiccan group in New Forest, England. Praying to “witches” and the devil and worse torturing children for the sake of their sick “religion”. They film and make fotos, which they distribute on the net.

Their leader, a demented Nick ####, called “Your Highness” by the other cult members. He lives in Minstead, preaches in the local church and pretends to be the “good guy” next door. Privately he boasts to be “an important Mason”, “your Highness” and doing incredibly sick stuff to children in his garage. He also abducts children occasionally, in the New Forest area. He abuses the children of his friends, drugging them and scaring them to death, so the children do not confide to anybody.

Other members of that particular paedophile ring are: His entire family. These family members have been abused and introduced into the Wiccan doctrine by Nick #### himself. They now abuse their own children.

“Alice” also turned up in the comments on a GodDiscussion.com post in which theistic Satanist Diane Vera addressed the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and early 1990s, pointing out that allegations of child abuse by Satanic groups had been entirely debunked. In those comments, and in many other postings, “Alice” identifies specific residents of New Forest and the surrounding areas. Many of her posts have since been removed, likely because her actions could qualify as libel.

This is almost precisely how the first “Satanic Panic” began, in the late 1980s, as locals were accused of sexually abusing children during Satanic and/or Wiccan rituals in UK towns. In all, 52 children were taken from their parents and made wards of the court, while three men faced charges — but police found no evidence of the alleged “Satanic abuse.”

In America, the fires were stoked by books such as Michelle Remembers, written by psychologist Lawrence Pazder about a patient he said suffered from multiple-personality disorder as a result of her abuse experiences. (She later married him.) Those stories were eventually debunked, but not until well after the story had been picked up by the mainstream press, including Oprah, frightening millions. There don’t seem to be any good statistics on how many children were separated from their families — or from preschools they loved — during this period.

It’s true that, as a nation, we know more than we used to about Wiccans and even Satanists than we did in the 1980s. They’ve emerged as a much more everyday and benign presence in society. But fear is not behind us, and the conservative religious movement — embodied in the Evangelical Christian and to some extent the Tea Party movement, is gaining both ground and power in America.

Ultimately, the demonization and criminalization of people who practice alternative faiths, from Wicca to Satanism and everywhere in between, is not over. As long as reporters continue to draw connections between criminal activity and paganism, this can’t end. Facts must supersede fear, and paranoid individuals like “Alice” must be taken for what they are.

Readers, how were your lives affected by the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and 1990s? Did the stories frighten you? Were you suspected of wrongdoing because of your beliefs or interests? How could we keep it from happening again? Share your stories in the comments.

Letting teens confront their own fears

Geraldo Rivera did more than his fair share of fear-mongering, convincing parents that heavy metal would harm their kids. Photo by Flickr user John Brian Silverio.

Being a kid or a teenager today is, in some ways, very different than it was when I was growing up. Many fewer kids walk to school (or ride the bus) on their own. Eating, television, computers — every aspect of their lives are closely monitored. Instead of simply teaching kids not to give out personal information, we write software that does it for them. We read something in the paper or see it on TV and get scared. We stop trusting the world to keep our kids safe, and in turn we stop trusting our ability to teach our kids to navigate an unsafe world — and we stop trusting our kids’ ability to learn to navigate it independently.

But kids still pick up on the fact that it’s a scary world. STDs, gunfights, terrorism, war, dictatorships, massive fires and floods — you don’t arrive at adolescence without at least a vague awareness that the world is a pretty messed-up place. But if you’re shut off from the music and media that can help you process those impressions, then what happens? There’s little left to do but internalize it.

Fortunately, many teens find their way toward catharsis — even if it’s forbidden. Justin Norton wrote this piece for Invisible Oranges about heavy metal music and its role in helping him — and other teens — confront their fears.

The family across the street had a reputation for fighting and arguments that ended in screaming and door-slamming. While my parents were at work, the imposing live-in boyfriend slept through the day like Nosferatu (vicious hangovers were the likely culprit). A giant record store standee from Iron Maiden’s Killers dwarfed his window. The victim’s arms reached up at Eddie, but it was obviously too late. I looked up at Eddie every day, scared.

Everyone my parents wanted me to avoid seemed to have a tangential relationship with metal. The tough who flailed his nunchucks on the front lawn – he would have been perfect in a Mike Judge film – played Judas Priest on his boombox. Troublemakers had metal stickers on car bumpers. The music, while taboo, seemed a readily accessible way to enter a world that oozed strength and defiance.

The fear and power associated with metal became alluring. I was 13. Junior high was more brutal than elementary school, and I looked for ways to set myself apart. My bowl haircut damned me to comparisons to another nerd who had since left the school. I wanted to be something and someone else. I needed to change.

At the same time Justin was discovering heavy metal, television personalities like Geraldo Rivera and political influencers like Tipper Gore were telling parents to be afraid of this music. They said it caused children to become victims of Satanic plots, or caused them to become violent, even sexually violent. (We’ve since seen the same tactic applied to certain video games.) Teen metalheads were portrayed as the victims of a monstrous record industry who only wanted to prey on their curiosity and innocence, selling them toxic messages packaged as entertainment.

If you listen to metalheads, however, you discover that they were — and are — not unwitting victims. They know what they’re getting into with this music. They think a lot about the music and lyrics, and how those messages reflect against their own life experiences. They know when something in the music scares them. Sometimes they put it down, other times they investigate that fear until they conquer it. You can see that in Justin’s piece, which speaks for the experience of many teens who discovered metal in the 1980s, or who are discovering it now.

On the other hand, parents bought into the scary messages they heard:

Geraldo Rivera’s “Satanic panic” special was the worst. “This is not a Halloween fable, this a real life horror story”, Geraldo said before claiming teenagers could be “driven to commit terrible deeds”. The report immediately cut to video clips of Venom and Mötley Crüe, likely boosting record sales. Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast” played in the background. Geraldo mentioned that most kids who listen to the music won’t end up killers, but the implication was clear: heavy metal will turn your kid into the equivalent of Jim Thompson’s sociopathic narrator Lou Ford in The Killer Inside Me.

Watched decades later, the piece is laughable and frightening in a real way. These kinds of stories can ruin lives. Megadeth is called a Satanic band, despite never writing a Satanic song and the eventual conversion of their frontman to Christianity.

It’s hard to say for sure why so many parents fail to see through this kind of anti-metal propaganda, particularly when their kids — the very kids they assume are blank, undiscriminating slates — are the ones thinking hard about this music, its messages, and its relevance to their lives. It’s so important to trust kids, to trust their instincts when it comes to media. Sure, talk to them about it and make sure they’re actually listening to those instincts. But then let them explore. Take the training wheels off. Let them ride off on their own, fall down, pick themselves up again, and ride on.

Did your parents ever “protect” you from anything they thought was an unsafe influence — something that really enriched your life? Share your stories in the comments.