Rosemary's Baby

"We’ve been discussing works of fiction that had a big impact over time in how people perceived of Satanism and the Devil. Rosemary’s Baby is a bestselling novel from the 1960s, very influential in terms of pop culture and horror movies. It introduced the idea of how your seemingly benign elderly neighbors next door could be Satanic leaders out to get your baby. That’s the plot of Rosemary’s Baby . Rosemary and her husband move into a new apartment and befriend the neighbors who end up impregnating her with the Devil’s baby and the story goes from there. It became a movie as well, starring Mia Farrow, and it had a huge impact on how people perceived Satanists because of the visuals of these Satanists yelling, “Hail Satan!” and doing rituals on women and getting the baby. It made people have this negative conception of Satanists as engaging in evil behavior and in conspiracy. You could argue that that fed into the Satanic Panic later in the 1980s and 90s, when people were accused of engaging in Satanic practices and abusing children when there was no basis whatsoever in the accusations. Yes, and it’s ongoing today with QAnon. People’s lives and reputations are still being ruined because of false associations and rumors about them being associated with the Devil. Yes, over the centuries and even now, people have been accused of being Satanists and they’ve been put on trial, they’ve been executed or just rubbed out. That’s very much part of the history. That’s why people who adopt the label today are standing up for those persecuted in the past and present"