Tag Archives: witchhunts

Oprah and McMartin Preschool ‘Retrials’

Cross-posted on the Corner. In a post yesterday, I mentioned the contribution made by Oprah Winfrey to the ritual satanic abuse witch hunts of the 1980s. One of the most notorious cases of that era was the McMartin preschool trial, and … Continue reading

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Oprah, Subjective Truth and Salem 2.0

Cross-posted on the Corner: Over on the homepage Philip Devoe rightly laments Oprah Winfrey’s fondness for pseudoscience and New Age ‘thinking’. It would only be fair to also mention the role she played in the 1980s Satanic ritual abuse panic. … Continue reading

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21 Years

Witch trials. Still with us. The Guardian reports: Dan Keller has left an Austin jail, a week after his wife was released – and 21 years after the pair were given a 48-year sentence for sexual assault during America’s “Satanic … Continue reading

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Ghana, 2012

Via The Independent: Around 700 women and 800 children live in Gambaga camp, and in five other witch camps across northern Ghana, where they are virtually cut off from the outside world. Housed in flimsy mud huts, without enough food, … Continue reading

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London in the 21st Century

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, here’s Damian Thompson with a terrible story about superstition and murder in contemporary London: A 15-year-old boy is tortured to death for witchcraft. In London. In 2010. And the private reaction of police and social … Continue reading

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Salem’s Lot

Over at the Corner yesterday, I linked to Dorothy Rabinowitz’s fine WSJ piece on the involvement of Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate in the Massachusetts senate race, in the persecution of the Amirault family, the true victims of a now notorious sex … Continue reading

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