The Satanic panic in Utah is part of a broader moral panic that began in the 1980s as children in the United States, subjected to coercive interviewing techniques at the hands of zealous social workers, made unsubstantiated allegations of bizarre Satanic rituals and horrific sexual and physical abuse at the hands of day care workers.
As the decade unfolded, clients of believing therapists began to make similar allegations, which are now generally seen as confabulations caused by iatrogenic therapeutic techniques such as hypnosis and automatic writing rather than the discovery of repressed memories.
Despite the similarities between the allegations of adults and children, investigations produced only circumstantial, and in many cases contradictory evidence of the patients' disclosures.
[2] In the summer 1985 a resident of Lehi, Utah, Sheila Bowers took her children to see Barbara Snow, who divulged that they had been sexually abused by their babysitter, the teenage daughter of the local LDS Church bishop.
[3] At the trial a Utah County chief deputy attorney testified that he observed Snow coaching children through a two-way mirror.
"[3] Snow countered that as a therapist, not a law enforcement investigator, she needed to create an environment where hesitant children who might have been threatened to be silent could feel comfortable disclosing abuse.
[3] Stephen Golding, director of clinical psychology at the University of Utah testified that Snow's techniques were "subtly coercive and highly questionable.
[8] Mike King, the coauthor of the report, told news media that the specific accusations against church leaders were "absurd", and Jerry Lazar, the head of psychiatry at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, said he "has never been able to independently verify memories of satanic ritual abuse".
The state of Utah conducted a 30-month investigation of the claims after the Pace memorandum was leaked to the press in 1991, concluding that there was no evidence found to substantiate the testimony of the alleged victims.
In apostle Richard G. Scott's sermon in the April 1992 general conference, he warned Latter-day Saints against "detailed leading questions that probe your past may unwittingly trigger thoughts that are more imagination or fantasy than reality.
[16] While the church was not named a defendant, the suit claimed that victims approached apostle Neal A. Maxwell, who gave them a priesthood blessing and told them to "forgive and forget," and also insinuates that Nelson used his influence to cover up the abuse.
[18][19] During the early 2000s, Teal Swan claimed to have uncovered suppressed memories during therapy sessions with her therapist Barbara Snow.