{"id":10099,"date":"2022-10-27T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10099"},"modified":"2022-12-08T08:04:20","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T13:04:20","slug":"halloween-countdown-we-were-all-crazy-then","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10099","title":{"rendered":"Halloween Countdown: We Were All Crazy Then"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Cemetery\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

San Francisco\u2019s Mechanics\u2019 Institute library\u2019s Writer\u2019s Lunch series recently hosted a discussion perfect for the season: Writing Suspense, Fear, and Spookiness. In the wide-ranging discussion<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Participants mentioned some notable books related to the season, one of which was Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s<\/a>. It\u2019s about the cultural hysteria of nearly 40 years ago, when many pop culture media were believed to be promulgating satanic notions. The twenty essays it contains illustrate how easily and how far off the beam we got. (Remember the flaps about Dungeons & Dragons?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My only excuse for missing this cultural trend entirely is that my daughter was born in 1981, and I was otherwise occupied. For that reason, I was surprised when I encountered it in literature\u2014in an excellent book by National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon, titled Ill Will<\/em><\/a>. Crazy as satanic messaging may seem. it\u2019s not so very different than thinking a cannibalistic pedophilia ring is operating in the lower regions of a Washington, D.C. pizzeria. In that suggestible mindset were the seeds of QAnon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Ill Will<\/em>, a man convicted of murdering four family members\u2014parents of his adoptive brother and two cousins\u2014is exonerated thirty years later by DNA evidence. His trial \u201ccame to epitomize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults.\u201d He proclaimed his innocence, yet, despite the lack of physical evidence, \u201cthe jury believed the outlandish accusations.\u201d When he\u2019s released, some serious familial reckoning is due.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As fantasy, science fiction, and horror author H.P. Lovecraft wrote, \u201cthe oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.\u201d Satanism, hauntings, werewolves. As long as you believe living-and-breathing people are behind a phenomenon, even if you don\u2019t know for sure who it is, the mystery at least seems knowable. The moment different forces could be at work, well . . .  No surprise, Lovecraft was greatly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, who launched so many literary forms in his short life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further Reading
<\/strong>There\u2019s a nice long Wikipedia essay about the Satanic Panic<\/a> that is sure to stoke the fires of authors\u2019 imaginations.
\u201cWhat Horror Can Teach Us<\/a>\u201d by Kelsey Allagood<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Francisco\u2019s Mechanics\u2019 Institute library\u2019s Writer\u2019s Lunch series recently hosted a discussion perfect for the season: Writing Suspense, Fear, and Spookiness. In the wide-ranging discussion Participants mentioned some notable books related to the season, one of which was Satanic Panic: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Yes, some of the more outlandish memes seem bizarre today. Think back 40 years.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1288,266,1160,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-history","category-horror","category-the-morgue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2CT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10100,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099\/revisions\/10100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}