ABSTRACT
From 1987 to 1992 allegations that children were being abused and sacrificed in rituals of devil worship spread like a rash1 through Britain. The claims followed similar phenomena in the United States a few years earlier. Allegations, although fewer, also surfaced in other parts of the (mainly English-speaking) world.2 The details of what was alleged to have happened and the identity of the accused varied, but a clear common pattern made it reasonable to consider them all as forming part of the same social phenomenon. In particular, in no case was material evidence or independent corroboration brought to support the charge; the existence of the satanic rituals was only a matter of allegations.3
