About a week ago, I decided to write a book about the Satanic Panic. I already drafted an introduction, talking about what inspired this and what exactly I aim to accomplish with this project. But I’ve hit my first roadblock after only working at this for about a week.

A little backstory: I am a member of the Satanic Temple. I’ve attended local chapter meetings, I’ve met other members, and I’ve read every piece of literature I can find on the subject. I joined because the tenets are moralistic and align with the way I already live my life. No, I don’t worship Satan. No one in the organization does. However, I realize that this is a huge part of my bias.

As a researcher, it is my goal to only present facts. As of this writing, I have spent a good portion of my days, roughly several hours a day, researching, reading, and then writing. I have found a wealth of information on the topic, and I plan to cover as much as I possibly can. Because, ultimately, I have found the roots of the Satanic Panic to go all the way back to the 1400 and 1500’s. This is even before I’ve begun exploring the biblical history of Satan and witchcraft and all that. This doesn’t even include the events that people think of when they hear, “Satanic Panic.”

Here is the roadblock: I am fervently searching for legitimate literature on where the Christian interpretation of Satan/the devil/Lucifer/whatever comes from. I can’t find it. Plenty of interpretations have been expressed from scholarly sources that suggest that Satan has been demonized throughout history, because the original source itself doesn’t support what the Christian faith is trying to say. That original source? The Bible.

So the big questions are these: Where did it come from? How did it come this far? Why did such differing interpretations of the same material happen at all? It simply doesn’t make sense. Maybe this sentiment belongs in the book as the overall statement about the subject.

What does it say about human nature when it becomes clear that nothing but hysteria has caused the grossest misinterpretation in the entire history of mankind? It is clear reason was tossed aside during the Satanic Panic, that’s why it’s called a “panic.” The term usually doesn’t constitute a logical response to a stimulus. But could it be that the entire story that humans so fervently believe is the moral code that guides good behavior is nothing more than a complete lie? To many (myself included) this seems obvious. However, as a scholar with the intent of presenting facts, I am frustrated with the complete and utter lack of proof.

How did we get here? How has thousands of years gone by, and how have these principles shaped mankind as it is today, if it is utterly and completely baseless? Is the entire concept of Satan the same as it was during the Satanic Panic, only it happened hundreds of years ago? It is gradually getting more and more obvious that everything we think we know about religion, about the bible, about God, is wrong. So, so, wrong.

For a while, Baphomet was synonymous with the devil. Now, we know it’s not. Historical documents proves that it has nothing to do with the devil, and it only did when the Christian faith made it so. Even then, the reason behind that isn’t clear.

Some people see an upside-down cross as a symbol of the devil. It’s not. It’s called Saint Peter’s cross. The origins of it have nothing to do with anything Satanic. The Christian faith bastardized it. Why? I can’t find the answer.

All of my research thus far keeps leading to me to dead ends: religious websites that keep spewing the same nonsense, over and over it, with absolutely no established fact or logic.

My devotion to objectivity and to finding the facts continues to hit the same brick wall, no matter how many times I try to see everything with an open mind.

This book has quickly become my passion project. Everything I believe in, everything I think I know, is being put to the test. As I keep working, I will have to decide if I even include the Biblical implications of Satan. Perhaps I’ll keep blazing forward, writing about FACTS and TRUTH, because so far, they haven’t let me down yet.

I had no idea that this is where my life was going to go. But I’ll ride this train straight down to Hell itself if I have to.