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The real history behind Stranger Things 4’s Satanic Panic plot
In the first episode of Stranger Things season 4, Eddie, the leader of Hawkins High’s “Hellfire Club” of Dungeons & Dragons players, gleefully reads from a Newsweek article about how the game is for Satan-worshippers. “The devil has come to America,” he reads out. “Studies have linked violent behavior to the game, saying it promotes satanic worship, ritual sacrifice, sodomy, suicide, and even murder.” It seems impossible to think there were really mainstream news pieces like that in the 1980s. But there were — and there were also kids who thought that was cool. They had to deal with adults who wanted groups like the Hellfire Club to be exorcized.