The era of satanic panic was a golden era for MTG. Magic was new as was its influence over the minds of the young and gullible. Many children of evangelical families were first learning about the game through warnings from their pastors to parents to save the souls of their children.
“I thought it was so cool,” Bill Henderson told us. “I used to bring Magic cards over my friends house just so I could watch their parents freak out. If you wanted to get someone new playing Magic with you, that was how it was done. There’s nothing cooler to a 12 year old than playing with forbidden cards with occult themes. When we’d play at lunch, people would glance at us and whisper. People kept their distance, not really sure if what people were saying about this demonic game as true or not.”
Bill Henderson and many others wish for a return of demonic possession of toasters, and hidden messages in breakfast cereal.
“It’s not like that anymore. No one really cares. Most of the time when you tell people you play MTG they just say, ‘People still play that?’ I’d much rather people assume I’m a devil worshipper rather than a smelly neckbeard who lives in my mother’s basement.”
Henderson later on told us that he was staying with his mother temporarily due to the pandemic.
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