The Satanic Panic


In the 70's and 80's, there was this thing called "the Satanic Panic".  A minister or two began claiming that if you played certain rock music backwards, you'd hear messages encouraging devil or Satan worship and your subconscious would pick up on it and you'd become possessed or influenced by the devil.

I remember hearing about it "at church" and at school.  People would talk about it with comments ranging from, "That's so cool!" to "That's a load of BS." to "We've got to stop all you all from listening to that devil music!"

People were genuinely terrified. Horror movies were just beginning to be popular, from my memory at least, and the fear of the devil coming through rock music fit right into it all.  Anything associated with hard rock music was opening you up to the influence of the devil.

I remember watching an instructional/educational video about it with church people and, as the video ended with everyone in stunned silence, I accidentally knocked a glass bottle over on the floor and just about everyone in the room looked like they were about to jump out of their skin.

When you watched the videos or TV interviews of the ministers talking about "backward masking" - the term for hiding messages in albums played backwards - you were led to hear things that were more than a bit of a stretch to hear.  And it was just assumed that what they were saying was true and real.

Watching those old videos now, it's embarrassing to think how bought into all of that we were at the time. Culture was still kinda less educated and more susceptible to people leading your thoughts and minds - and you just assumed because it was on video and sounded serious, it must be true.

_______________

Things haven't changed a whole lot since all that happened. People still latch on to ideas and get scared or excited about a variety of things if they're said from the right set of platforms and said in a way that sounds authoritative.

Anything from politics to religion to economics to entertainment and just about everything in between is fair game.  People can be easily led.  There's a lot of reasons for that which can be addressed in another post/another time, but it is 100% the case that some people can be steered and not know it's happening.

If anyone were to have taken the time to ask questions about backward masking back then and done some research, they'd have figured out that it was a well meaning person who thought up the idea or someone who was looking for attention and found a way to get it.

Obviously, information back then was harder to come by with no internet and much less access to just about anything. You'd have had to track down musicians, music producers and psychologists back then to ask them directly about it all.

And even if you could have asked them all about it, many of them did not want to deny backward masking because it was a money maker for them.  Even though wasn't true at all, as was figured out later, everyone who benefited from the attention wanted to keep that attention flowing.  Keep it vague and profitable.

Plenty of people have been thrown under a bus, plenty of bad decisions have been made, plenty of distractions have gotten profitable attention because so many people desire to be in power and on the side of those who look or seem like they're on "the right side of history".

_______________

Now we have SO much information available, the lack of it is not a problem.  The challenge now is how to know if the information/data you have are reliable and valid.  Or super biased.  Or complete fiction.  Or skewed for or against something.  And what impact it will have if you agree with one side or another.

Truth is social.  It always has been really.  You believe what you're told is valid and reliable.  Your standard of what is valid or reliable is given to you.  Over time, you hear variations or alternatives of what is considered valid or reliable, but the fact that you heard it from someone still makes it a social thing.

It's interesting to think about how much information flows at us today and how much the current group or network of people or organizations we're connected to will shape how we filter and interpret that information. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When you get to heaven...

Image
  Some thoughts on what's after this life. First , when you die, you do not become an angel. From scripture, we will be like Jesus. Our bodies will be like his after he was raised from the dead. 1 Cor. 15 describes it pretty well. Paul, one of the Bible writers, says we'll actually judge angels! So, while I understand the sentiment, becoming an angel might actually be a demotion from what he says we're gonna be like. Second , you'll know people and they'll know you. A lot of people fear "getting there" and finding out that someone they love didn't make it and so they say, "Well the Bible says there'll be no tears in heaven" so we probably will be in some kind of trance state so we can't know who is or isn't there so as to prevent tears and sadness. Actually Revelation says that God will wipe away all tears.  An old song we sang in church said, "No tears in heaven", not scripture.  These are different things.  Does that ...
Read more

Two years since the big shift

Image
I created the logo above after a staff member that preceded me in leaving had been “released”.  He was the third person before me to be “released” in those few years before I chose to leave. Those last few years among the almost 35 that I “was there” were among the most challenging. Challenging for those among the leaders who remained to make some strong decisions about where things were going.  Challenging for me as I was wondering less about the direction of that particular congregation and more about what was real and worth investing into. If you’re not drinking the Kool-aid of a particular part of a church group or if you don’t match up to the favored persons or personality slants of certain collections of individuals, you’re usually set up with a “performance improvement plan” and/or slated to be given the option to “step down” in exchange for some kind of sweet deal/severance package. Knowing that was where I was headed, I decided to snuff out my own torch after 34 years...
Read more

How much grace you get

Image
We used to get tiny glasses of orange juice, IF we got any at all.  Remember the frozen can of juice you'd add to water in a larger pitcher?   And that was for the whole family.  It seemed as if we tried to dole it out to as to make it last for a few days, so you would get what seemed to be a shot glass full of juice and that was it.   It was like a scurvy prevention level serving of OJ. That is how I grew up thinking about God's patience, grace, and forgiveness with us.  You get a little and that's it!  And you better not waste it or not be really appreciative of it!   It's limited in supply and so very costly that you can only have a little so you better make it last. Much later, as an adult, I ordered a glass of orange juice at a restaurant, thinking I'd get the familiar shot glass of juice and, to my surprise, they brought a full sized glass full of OJ - and for a moment, I was like, "Is this for the whole table to share...?" __________ In Ephesian...
Read more