A Roleplaying Game or an Introduction to Witchcraft?

I will be the first to admit that the majority of this occurred before I was alive, but I feel that it is still one of the more interesting experiences with witchcraft in the recentish times. What I'm talking about is the panic over the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons that occurred primarily in the 80s. From what I have learned, it erupted when a high school student committed suicide in 1982, and his mother came to the conclusion that his hobby of playing Dungeons and Dragons was to blame. She then started the organization Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons, or BADD, which held that the game "Uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings",

When looking at that list, what stood out is that almost that entire list is a reflection of things we either discussed in class or was part of our readings. It is a list of ways to be socially or sexually deviant, and when combined with the existing fear that there were widespread satanic cults and satanic rituals across the country, it lead to a resurgence of ideas and fears that seemed to have disappeared centuries ago. There wasn't much in the way of evidence either for Dungeons and Dragons alleged wickedness, and unlike the Dark Dungeons comic I never found any rituals or magical incantations in the rule books. 

This brought me back to our discussion today, where we talked about how we looked at the material reasons for the werewolves and how unreal it seemed that the witch hunts and werewolf hunts could happen as they did. We chalk it up to religious influence and that so few were willing to try and consider alternate possibilities, and when we look at the punishments received as stressed with the "Who is the monster here" question, it almost seems like a way for us to separate ourselves from the actions and ideas. I caught myself several times trying to convince myself that these people were all out of their minds, that there is no way our society now we would get caught up in that kind of panic or social hysteria. Yet I feel like looking at how three decades ago our society got caught up with fears of witchcraft and Satanic worship. And while we did not call the inquisition to get confessions, we learned how easily a confession could be influenced by careless questions by investigators and psychologists alike, which is interesting when you consider that the confessions in the old witch hunts and the more modern ones, neither are very reliable. 

Then again, the panic in the 80s was definitely less lethal, so I suppose more has changed, but it does make me wonder how people will interpret what happened in a few centuries. Maybe they'll be sitting in a room as the professor lists all the reasons that could have explained away their fears, yet they chose to panic instead of trying to find out what could explain the strange events other than Satan's influence.

But what do I know? Intelligence was my dump stat.