Except for one of the biggest, Lauren Stratford. She almost certainly believed her lies. She testified in court cases in ways that would almost certainly put her at risk of perjury. She later became a fake holocaust survivior. She was delusional. She was a pathological liar.
How about Mike Warnke. He didn’t just lie about his “Satanism”, he lied about military experience and education. Both of these things were easy to verify and debunk. Either he was an enormous idiot, or he was delusional as well.
My point is that con-men are typically careful about their constructed lies. They are careful not to create unnecessary traps for themselves. They think about their lie, in other words. The charlatans involved with the “Satanic Panic” were not con-men. They were delusional individuals who created fake worlds that they most likely believed to some degree. At the very least, they had some psychological problem with lying. This puts them more int he L. Ron Hubbard camp. People who deceive themselves.
