Today’s article comes from Alex J. Coyne, a journalist, author, and proofreader. He has written for a variety of publications and websites, with a radar calibrated for gothic, gonzo, and the weird.
Podcasts pick up where radio stations might have left off, but with one crucial difference in their content: Radio stations are regulated, generally, by the same standards that govern mainstream news in terms of their accuracy and content. However, Many podcasts operate without editorial oversight, and listeners must be diligent in verifying what they hear, especially from unregulated or independently produced shows.
The famous War of the Worlds broadcast by Orson Welles on CBS Radio (USA) in 1938 showed how media can blur fact and fiction, causing localized panic by fooling its listeners into thinking an alien invasion had truly arrived. As it turned out, not every listened had tuned in at the right time to hear the disclaimer that it had all been fiction.
Flag of South Africa [Public Domain
Anyone with basic audio equipment could host their own podcast right now. However, podcasts and their interviews are often quoted and syndicated as though anything that’s said on a podcast must be true. Furthermore, republishing information doesn’t mean the original information was correct.
Podcasts contain interesting and useful, sometimes first-hand information about various topics.
Podcasts can also contain inaccuracies and falsehoods, or outright false news that gets picked up and widely syndicated—“he-said-she-said” stories that would have been unacceptable as courtroom testimony can easily become believable lies.
What could go wrong?
Here’s a look at why podcasts should be consumed with a grain of salt.
The (Original) Satanic Panic
The “Satanic panic” describes a period during the 1980s, whereby various religious and fundamentalist groups claimed that Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) was taking place throughout the United States.
Parents and teachers were horrified at the allegations that children were being subjected to ritualized abuse. Upon serious investigation, no proof of ritual abuse allegations were ever uncovered.
Advocacy groups and churches took a strong stance against any popular media accused of glorifying Satanism or the devil, including books, music, video games, and board games.
Claims of “ritual abuse” stemmed from false testimonies, usually from people who also claimed to have converted to Christianity as a result of their experiences.
The book Michelle Remembers is credited with starting the early panic. Once advertised as a true text detailing the experiences of an abuse survivor, the book was later entirely discredited as being made up.
Unfortunately, the Satanic Panic had been taken as gospel truth by media outlets and was widely reported in mainstream media.
Television stars like Oprah Winfrey invited abuse survivors to their programs. Much like podcasts, television shows blurred the lines between truth and lies, while many people claimed to have survived cults or ritualistic abuse, none of the claims checked out beyond what people said in interviews.
The original Satanic panic should have taught us a lesson we didn’t learn during the Salem Witch Trials. Something isn’t true just because it seems true when you hear it, or because someone swears it’s true.
The same reasoning also gave us the legends behind Pinky Pinky, Bloody Mary, Freddy Krueger, and Bigfoot.
The Panic Spreads to South Africa
The Satanic panic arrived in Southern Africa about a decade later than it had shown up in the United States. Sanctions and governmental bans meant popular music, media, and hysteria took a while to arrive.
As South Africa evolved into a democratically free country, many of its citizens chose to cling to their conservative beliefs. Political paranoia converted well into religious fear, and conservative Christians chose to shift their paranoia to fear of the devil.
Churches considered the devil a living, breathing being that could impart an influence on the world. The devil could be everywhere, and he was after your children!
Anyone who might have grown up in 1990s South Africa will remember parents or authority figures banning something or other from the house for its supposed evil influence. Musicians like Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne were off-limits, and the myth that the band name AC/DC stood for ‘Anti-Christ Devil’s Child’ persisted in some circles despite being unfounded.
Rodney Seale is credited with fueling the panic further in South Africa. The release of Maak Skoon Jou Huis (Cleanse Your House)—an anti-occult book and video series—inspired many households to throw out anything remotely linked to faiths other than Christianity.
The cleanse recommended throwing out playing cards or statues that could be seen as “housing” for evil spirits. The idea, unfortunately, spread far and wide, moving steadily into households faster than the devil’s actual influence could have.
National Police soon took the idea of occult crimes and the devil seriously, beginning the Occult Related Crimes Unit (ORCU) in 1992. Headed by Dr Kobus Jonker, the government-funded police department investigated any crimes deemed as occult or Satanic, with disastrous, ill-informed results.
One of the major issues with the supposed police unit was that it operated from a religious perspective, rather than approaching cases with true knowledge of the occult and its practitioners.
Anything from witchcraft-related muti killings to teenagers drawing pentagrams on their walls could be seen as a possible “occult crime”.
The Occult Related Crimes Unit has been the subject of mass publicity, becoming the topic of a VICE feature. It’s considered a relic of apartheid’s paranoid past, though officially defunct, reports suggest the unit may have remained active in some investigations as late as 2016.
Horror novel Die Duiwel se Tuin (The Devil’s Garden) explored the panic from another perspective. What if a cult were operating in Cape Town, South Africa?
Author François Bloemhof captures the height of South African occult paranoia during the 1990s, though he admits during interviews that he had received threats and intimidating letters after publishing it.
The Satanic panic appears to have died down… Or has it really?
The South African Satanic Panic… Resurrected
Conservative values are back in the spotlight for 2025—Southern Africa and the United States have crossed swords on a political front, with Afrikaner farmers invited to relocate under President Donald Trump (with supporting act, South African-born investor Elon Musk).
Has the Satanic Panic been resurrected in South Africa?
The South African Satanic Church was inaugurated in 2021, though its founders promptly jumped ship. Founder Riaan Swiegelaar had emerged on a podcast by 2022, stating that he would “give his life to Jesus,” whom he said appeared to him in a vision.
The South African Satanic Church was served with multiple legal notices, including ones that applied to branding copyrighted by other churches. For now, the group’s future is unsure, though its quick closure might indicate that the panic is alive and well.
The same podcast featured interviews with Errol Musk, which were widely syndicated through the news as an exclusive. However, where should we draw the line between accuracy and fact on podcasts and interviews?
If one believes everything said about Elon Musk on the podcast, surely you also have to believe that Jesus physically appeared to Swiegelaar in a vision—and no rational, thinking person should leave that much space for an open mind, should they?
Zeena Schreck speaks out during an hour-and-fifty-minute interview with Dr Jordan B. Peterson. The difference is that Zeena speaks from her own experiences—unlike the podcasts mentioned above, which rely on second-hand testimonies.
Testimony about Elon Musk from a family member remains second-hand, unlike Zeena Schreck’s direct account of her own experiences. Zeena, speaking from her own experiences instead, provides first-hand evidence of someone’s verifiable experiences.
If you’re wondering, the Satanic Panic affected everyone negatively and left considerable scars on innocent ones within the Church of Satan, including Zeena.
Information should always be considered carefully. Did you hear it somewhere? Was it someone talking about their own experiences? Was it someone talking about someone else, or repeating what they might have heard?
Mainstream Media and Religion
According to the Press Code, publications should ensure their coverage and content remain unbiased; however, for many countries and regions, podcasts exist outside this regulatory space.
A podcast could say anything, but could also likely be syndicated to thousands of news outlets within minutes. That doesn’t mean what you’ve heard is true, only that what you’ve heard is popularly believed.
Unfortunately, podcasts like Only God Rescued Me make modern claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse. Worryingly enough, that’s not the only example out there to find if you’re prepared for a religious rabbit hole that’ll turn your stomach.
The effect doesn’t stop at podcasts. Conservative media embraces the approach, fueling the second wave of the occult-related panic, fear, and paranoia.
Outlets such as Maroela Media and linked groups like Solidariteit and AfriForum Youth have made no secret of their foundation in what they call “Christian principles”. What about everyone else in a diverse country, or worldwide?
“AfriForum Youth is based on Christian principles and our goal is to promote independence among young Afrikaners and influence the realities in South Africa by launching campaigns and actively taking a stand for young people’s civil rights.”
Unfortunately, this creates an environment with a default bias—an “us and them” mentality that allows biased, conservative media to have its glorified poster children and its demonized scapegoats.
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