Wuhan Journal of Cultic Studies
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Volume 2: Issue 2, 2024
ARTICLE The Wicked Witches of Wonderful Wollongong: A Case Study in Rumour-Panic and Contemporary Legend Bernard Doherty Charles Sturt University Abstract In the lead up to Halloween 1993, the city of Wollongong was awash with strange rumours about an imminent international meeting of Satanists about to descend on the city, with local Christians calling for communal prayer against this impending threat and police rushing to investigate. Reported extensively in the local Illawarra Mercury newspaper, by mid-November these rumours had largely dissipated with no visible event transpiring other than an attempted arson attack on a building owned by a longstanding local women’s charity who found themselves embroiled in these stories. Utilising insights from the study of a number of similar rumour-panics which occurred from the 1960s through to the 1990s, and tracing the development of contemporary legends surrounding Satanism in Australia over the same period, this article seeks to illuminate some of the wider societal factors and the distinct social ecology of 1980s and 1990s Wollongong which helped feed these rumours and their connection with a series of far more sinister—but far less “Satanic”—crimes ranging from systemic institutional child abuse to murder. Keywords: Satanism; Satanic Ritual Abuse; Rumour-Panic; Contemporary Legend; Ostension; Evil Folklore | ||