April 27, 2025

8. The fall of Apartheid and South Africa's satanic panic

56 minutes

Teenagers, rock music, pentagrams... and a country on the brink of collapse. In this episode, we dig into one of the strangest moral panics in South African history — when fears of Satanism swept through churches, schools, and headlines during the final days of apartheid.

But this wasn’t just about devil worship. It was about white fear, gender violence, and a society terrified of change. From American conspiracy theories to remote town exorcisms, we unpack how a global panic took on a very South African shape — and why its legacy still haunts us today.

Sources:

Nicky Falkof (2012) ‘Satan has come to Rietfontein’: Race in South Africa's Satanic Panic, Journal of Southern African Studies, 38:4, 753-767, DOI:10.1080/03057070.2012.732290

Nicky Falkof (2017) “The devil destroyed us”: Satanism and gender violence in South Africa, Feminist Media Studies, 17:3, 426-439, DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2016.1235597

Danielle Dunbar & Sandra Swart (2012) ‘No less a foe than Satan himself’: The Devil, Transition and Moral Panic in White South Africa, 1989–1993, Journal of Southern African Studies, 38:3, 601-621, DOI: 10.1080/03057070.2012.719688

Collins, L. (2024, January 11). The strange origins of the Satanic Panic: How one Canadian book started a worldwide witch hunt. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/arts/satan-wants-you-filmmakers-q-a-sean-horlor-steve-j-adams-1.6822213

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Theme music: War Machine (The Purpose of a System Is What It Does) by Sister Ray Davies. Check them out: https://www.instagram.com/sisterraydavies

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