Internet users, too, aligned with esoteric belief systems. In many ways, non normative spirituality found a home in the anonymity of the early inter-net. Following in the wake of the satanic panic of the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a general desire to keep non-hegemonic spiritual practices, particularly those that could be conflated with Satanism, out of the public eye. The early internet provided a perfect means for occult practices both new and old to be passed around with speed and enthusiasm. Pre–World Wide Web, the dominant forms of hobbyist computer use was through Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) and Usenet. These systems often gave a primacy to text-based documents of “hard-to-find print materials,” ultimately developing, according to Driscoll, into a “distinct genre of electronic publishing.”38 While esotericism was not the only worldview that circulated on these systems, occult materials and texts certainly benefited from their streamlined methods of transmission. For instance, MagickNet (later PODSnet—the Pagan Occult Distribution Systems Network) was a network of over seventy esoteric-themed BBSs, as diverse as Wicca, Paganism, Hermetic magic, Discordianism, Satanism, Setianism, and generalized spirituality, many of which housed text-based documents of often out-of-print occult texts, ultimately creating their own book of shadows.39 Usenet groups such as alt.magick, alt.chaos, and alt.discordia created a space where internet users could share and compare magical practices. These online venues were well populated and active, even after the World Wide Web became dominant. alt.magick served almost 16,000 threads of content between 1991 and 1999.40 Of course, it was not only Neo-pagans and the magically inclined who found safety in the anonymity of the early internet. Avery Dame-Griff chronicles how the early internet was a source for supporting emerging trans identities.41 Thus, the rise of the internet created a protective space for those who did not feel that their identities aligned with the broader hegemony of cultural beliefs. Yet Adler and Luhrmann’s surveys of Neo-pagans occupying a cozy home in early computer industries and cultures suggest that a disproportionate percentage of early internet users aligned with non-hegemonic spiritual practices. (Source)