Satanic panic
The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organized abuse, or sadistic ritual abuse) starting in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today. The panic originated in 1980 with the publication of Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient (and future wife), Michelle Smith, which used the controversial and now discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make claims about satanic ritual abuse involving Smith. The allegations, which arose afterward throughout much of the United States, involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. Some allegations involve a conspiracy of a global Satanic cult that includes the wealthy and elite in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifices, pornography, and prostitution.
Nearly every aspect of the ritual abuse is controversial, including its definition, the source of the allegations and proof thereof, testimonies of alleged victims, and court cases involving the allegations and criminal investigations. The panic affected lawyers, therapists, and social workers who handled allegations of
Initial interest arose via the publicity campaign for Pazder's 1980 book Michelle Remembers, and it was sustained and popularized throughout the decade by coverage of the McMartin preschool trial. Testimonials, symptom lists, rumors, and techniques to investigate or uncover memories of SRA were disseminated through professional, popular, and religious conferences as well as through talk shows, sustaining and further spreading the moral panic throughout the United States and beyond. In some cases, allegations resulted in criminal trials with varying results; after seven years in court, the McMartin trial resulted in no convictions for any of the accused, while other cases resulted in lengthy sentences, some of which were later reversed.[5] Scholarly interest in the topic slowly built, eventually resulting in the conclusion that the phenomenon was a moral panic, which, as one researcher put it in 2017, "involved hundreds of accusations that devil-worshipping paedophiles were operating America's white middle-class suburban daycare centers."[6]
A 1994 article in the New York Times claims that: "Of the more than 12,000 documented accusations nationwide, investigating police were not able to substantiate any allegations of organized cult abuse".[7]
History
Origins
Among the explanations of why the panic occurred when it did, or "took the shape that it did", include
- Three films that opened and ran near the beginning of the panic having to do with Satanism, namely Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976).[8] According to scholar Joseph Laycock, patients hypnotized by therapists to recover memories of SRA, often "seemed to be recalling scenes from these films".[8]
- The reaction against the surge of new religious movements (NRMs) in the 1960s due to both the immigration reform allowing missionaries for Asian religions, as well as new religions, (including the Church of Satan), arising from the counterculture of the baby boomer generation. Sometimes called the "cult wars" or "cult scare".[8][9]
- The Tate–LaBianca murders committed by Charles Manson and his cult of "mostly lonely teenagers from broken homes"[8]
- Mike Warnke's 1972 memoir The Satan Seller, Warnke claimed to have led a group of 1,500 Satanists that engaged in rape and human sacrifice before he converted to evangelical Christianity. A bestseller, that was praised by Moody Monthly and The Christian Century, it told of Warnke's leading a group of 1,500 Satanists in their campaign of rape and human sacrifice and his later conversion to evangelical Christianity. (Two decades later the book was debunked by an evangelical magazine Cornerstone.)[8]
Early history
Allegations of horrific acts by outside groups, including
A more immediate precedent to the context of Satanic ritual abuse in the United States was
Michelle Remembers and the McMartin preschool trial
Michelle Remembers, written by Canadians Michelle Smith and her husband, psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder, was published in 1980. Now discredited, the book was written in the form of an autobiography, presenting the first modern claim that child abuse was linked to Satanic rituals.[19] According to the “memoir”, at the age of five Michelle was tortured by her mother for days in “elaborate satanic rituals”. As the torture reached a climax, a portal to hell opened and Satan himself appeared, only to be driven away by the Virgin Mary and the archangel Michael. Explanations for a lack of any evidence of abuse on Michelle’s body were that it had been miraculously removed by St. Mary. Not explained was testimony from Michelle’s father and two sisters, contradicting the memoir, as well as a 1955/56 St. Margaret’s School yearbook. The yearbook includes a photo taken in November 1955 showing Michelle attending school and appearing healthy, when according to Pazder’s book Michelle spent that month imprisoned in a basement.[8]
Pazder was also responsible for coining the term ritual abuse.[20] Michelle Remembers provided a model for numerous allegations of SRA that ensued later in the same decade.[19][21] On the basis of the book's success, Pazder developed a high media profile, gave lectures and training on SRA to law enforcement, and by September 1990 had acted as a consultant on more than 1,000 SRA cases, including the McMartin preschool trial. Prosecutors used Michelle Remembers as a guide when preparing cases against alleged Satanists.[22] Michelle Remembers, along with other accounts portrayed as survivor stories, are suspected to have influenced later allegations of SRA,[19][23] and the book has been suggested as a causal factor in the later epidemic of SRA allegations.[24][25][26]
The early 1980s, during the implementation of
In 1983, charges were laid in the McMartin preschool trial, a major case in California, which received attention throughout the United States and contained allegations of satanic ritual abuse. The case caused tremendous polarization in how to interpret the available evidence.[32][33] Shortly afterward, more than 100 preschools across the country became the object of similar sensationalist allegations, which were eagerly and uncritically reported by the press.[34] Throughout the McMartin trial, media coverage of the defendants (Peggy McMartin and Ray Buckey) was unrelentingly negative, focusing only on statements by the prosecution.[35] Michelle Smith and other alleged survivors met with parents involved in the trial, and it is believed that they influenced testimony against the accused.[36][37][38]
Conspiracy theories
In 1984, MacFarlane warned a congressional committee that children were being forced to engage in
In 1985, Patricia Pulling joined forces with psychiatrist Thomas Radecki, director of the National Coalition on Television Violence, to create B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons). Pulling and B.A.D.D. saw role-playing games generally and Dungeons & Dragons specifically as Satanic cult recruitment tools, inducing youth to suicide, murder, and Satanic ritual abuse.[43] Other alleged recruitment tools included heavy metal music, educators, child care centers, and television.[43] This information was shared at policing and public awareness seminars on crime and the occult, sometimes by active police officers.[43] None of these allegations held up in analysis or in court. In fact, analysis of youth suicide over the period in question found that players of role-playing games actually had a much lower rate of suicide than the average.[43]
Among the conspiracy theories alleged by the panic were that thousands of people a year were being killed by a network of Satanists, what one psychiatrist writing in a psychiatric journal called “a hidden holocaust”.[44][8]
Explanations for how Satanists covered up this slaughter included their infiltrating media and law enforcement, as well as morticians and crematorium operators to make sure no bodies were ever found. Other versions claimed that there were no missing persons because Satanists used certain women as breeders, providing Satanists with thousands of babies for human sacrifices.[8]
By the late 1980s, therapists or patients who believed someone had suffered from SRA could suggest solutions that included Christian psychotherapy, exorcism, and support groups whose members self-identified as "anti-Satanic warriors".[45] Federal funding was increased for research on child abuse, with large portions of the funding allocated for research on child sexual abuse. Funding was also provided for conferences supporting the idea of SRA, adding a veneer of respectability to the idea as well as offering an opportunity for prosecutors to exchange advice on how to best secure convictions—with tactics including destruction of notes, refusing to tape interviews with children, and destroying or refusing to share evidence with the defense.[46] Had proof been found, SRA would have represented the first occasion where an organized and secret criminal activity had been discovered by mental health professionals.[47] In 1987, Geraldo Rivera produced a national television special on the alleged secret cults, claiming "Estimates are that there are over one million Satanists in [the United States and they are] linked in a highly organized, secretive network."[48][49] Tapings of this and similar talk show episodes were subsequently used by religious fundamentalists, psychotherapists, social workers and police to promote the idea that a conspiracy of Satanic cults existed and these cults were committing serious crimes.[50]
In the 1990s, psychologist D. Corydon Hammond publicized a detailed theory of ritual abuse drawn from
Religious roots and secularization
Satanic ritual abuse brought together several groups normally unlikely to associate, including psychotherapists, self-help groups, religious fundamentalists and law enforcement.
International spread
In 1987, a list of "indicators" was published by Catherine Gould,[61] featuring a broad array of vague symptoms that were ultimately common, non-specific and subjective, purported to be capable of diagnosing SRA in most young children.[40] By the late 1980s, allegations began to appear throughout the world (including Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia), in part enabled by English as a common international language and in the United Kingdom, assisted by Gould's list of indicators. Belief in SRA spread rapidly through the ranks of mental health professionals (despite an absence of evidence) through a variety of continuing education seminars, during which attendees were urged to believe in the reality of Satanic cults, their victims, and not to question the extreme and bizarre memories uncovered. Proof was provided in the form of unconnected bits of information such as pictures drawn by patients, heavy metal album covers, historical folklore about devil worshippers, and pictures of mutilated animals. During the seminars, patients provided testimonials of their experiences and presenters stressed that recovering memories was important for healing:[62]
- In 1986, the largest symposium on child abuse in history was held in Australia, with addresses by vocal SRA advocates Kee MacFarlane, Roland Summit, Astrid Heppenstall Heger, and David Finkelhor.[63]
- In 1987, writings on the phenomenon appeared in the United Kingdom along with incidents featuring broadly similar accusations such as the Cleveland child abuse scandal; allegations of SRA in Nottingham resulted in the "British McMartin", advised in part by the British journalist Tim Tate's work on the subject.[40] Along with the list of indicators, American conference speakers, pamphlets, source materials, consultants, vocabulary regarding SRA and allegedly funding were imported, which promoted the identification and counseling of British SRA allegations.[40][54] The Nottingham investigation resulted in criminal charges of severe child abuse that ultimately had nothing to do with Satanic rituals, and was criticized for focusing on the irrelevant and non-existent Satanic aspects of the allegations at the expense of the severe conventional abuse endured by the children.[64]
- In 1989, San Francisco police detective Sandi Gallant gave an interview with a newspaper in the United Kingdom.[65] At the same time, several other therapists toured the country giving talks on SRA, and shortly thereafter SRA cases occurred in Orkney, Rochdale, London, and Nottingham.[66]
- In 1992, charges were laid in the Martensville satanic sex scandal; charges were overturned in 1995 on the grounds of improper interviewing of the children.[67][68]
- A wave of SRA accusations appeared in New Zealand in 1991, and in Norway in 1992.[69]
- In the mid-nineties in Egypt, tabloids such as Rose Al Youssef started publishing articles about an alleged subculture of Satan worshipping and rituals spreading among the teens and youth of the middle and upper-middle class and associating it with heavy metal music, bands, symbolism, and graffiti. The original article published on 11 Nov. 1996 was written by Abdallah Kamal, but soon other writers and journalists, including Adel Hammuda and others. The public intrigue eventually led to the security apparatus raiding the homes of some young people in the music scene and their friends, confiscating posts and tapes and CDs, forcing short hairstyles on them and subjecting them to religious reformation sessions, before releasing them,[70][71] but the scare continued to be stirred from time to time until the mid 2000s, and became books and talk shows.
- In 1998, Jean LaFontaine produced a book indicating allegations of SRA in the United Kingdom were sparked by investigations supervised by social workers who had taken SRA seminars in the United States.
- In 2021 and 2022, two consecutive reports by Swiss Television journalists Ilona Stämpfli and Robin Rehmann presented evidence that conspiracy theories closely related to the Satanic panic were still held by various groups and individuals in Switzerland, among them teachers, psychotherapists, high-ranking police officers, and a senior physician of Clienia, the largest private psychiatric clinic group in Switzerland.[72][73] As a reaction to the first documentary, two of the interviewed teachers as well as the senior physician were let go by their employers.[74][75]
Skepticism, rejection, and contemporary persistence
Media coverage of SRA began to turn negative by 1987, and the "panic" ended between 1992 and 1995.
Some
Some groups still believe there is credence to allegations of SRA and continue to discuss the topic.
The
Definitions
The term satanic ritual abuse is used to describe different behaviors, actions and allegations that lie between extremes of definitions.
By the early 1990s, the phrase "Satanic ritual abuse" was featured in media coverage of ritualistic abuse but its use decreased among professionals in favor of more nuanced terms such as multi-dimensional child sex rings,[58] ritual/ritualistic abuse,[103] organized abuse[104] or sadistic abuse,[56] some of which acknowledged the complexity of abuse cases with multiple perpetrators and victims without projecting a religious framework onto perpetrators. The latter in particular failed to substantively improve on or replace "Satanic" abuse as it was never used to describe any rituals except the Satanic ones that were the core of SRA allegations. Abuse within the context of Christianity, Islam, or any other religions failed to enter the SRA discourse.[105]
Cult-based abuse
Allegation of cult-based abuse is the most extreme scenario of SRA.
Criminal and delusional satanism
A third variation of ritual abuse involves non-religious ritual abuse in which the rituals were delusional or obsessive.[99] There are incidents of extreme sadistic crimes that are committed by individuals, loosely organized families and possibly in some organized cults, some of which may be connected to Satanism, though this is more likely to be related to sex trafficking; though SRA may happen in families, extended families and localized groups, it is not believed to occur in large, organized groups.[113]
Acting out
Investigators considered graffiti such as the pentagram to be evidence of a Satanic cult. Ambiguous crimes in which actual or erroneously believed symbols of Satanism appear have also been claimed as part of the SRA phenomenon, though in most cases the crimes cannot be linked to a specific belief system; minor crimes such as vandalism, trespassing and graffiti were often found to be the actions of teenagers who were acting out.[100][101][102]
Polarization
There was never any consensus on what actually constituted Satanic ritual abuse.[114] This lack of a single definition, as well as confusion between the meanings of the term ritual (religious versus psychological) allowed a wide range of allegations and evidence to be claimed as a demonstration of the reality of SRA allegations, irrespective of which "definition" the evidence supported.[37] Acrimonious disagreements between groups who supported SRA allegations as authentic and those criticizing them as unsubstantiated resulted in an extremely polarized discussion with little middle ground.[115][106] The lack of credible evidence for the more extreme interpretations often being seen as evidence of an effective conspiracy rather than an indication that the allegations are unfounded. The religious beliefs or atheism of the disputants have also resulted in different interpretations of evidence, and as well as accusations of those who reject the claims being "anti-child".[106][116] Both believers and skeptics have developed networks to disseminate information on their respective positions.[117] One of the central themes of the discussion among English child abuse professionals was the assertion that people should simply "believe the children", and that the testimony of children was sufficient proof, which ignored the fact that in many cases the testimony of children was interpreted by professionals rather than the children explicitly disclosing allegations of abuse. In some cases this was simultaneously presented with the idea that it did not matter if SRA actually existed, that the empirical truth of SRA was irrelevant, that the testimony of children was more important than that of doctors, social workers and the criminal justice system.[116]
Evidence
The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect conducted a study led by University of California psychologist Gail Goodman, which found that among 12,000 accusations of ritual or religious-linked abuse, there was no evidence for "a well-organized intergenerational satanic cult, who sexually molested and tortured children," although there was "convincing evidence of lone perpetrators or couples who say they are involved with Satan or use the claim to intimidate victims."[7] One such case Goodman studied involved "grandparents [who] had black robes, candles, and Christ on an inverted crucifix—and the children had chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease, in their throats," according to the report by a district attorney.[7]
The evidence for SRA was primarily in the form of testimonies from children who made allegations of SRA, and adults who claim to remember abuse during childhood, that may have been forgotten and
With both children and adults, no corroborating evidence has been found for anything except pseudosatanism in which the satanic and ritual aspects were secondary to and used as a cover for sexual abuse.[118] Despite this lack of objective evidence, and aided by the competing definitions of what SRA actually was, proponents claimed SRA was a real phenomenon throughout the peak and during the decline of the moral panic.[120][121] Despite allegations appearing in the United States, Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia, no material evidence has been found to corroborate allegations of organized cult-based abuse that practices human sacrifice and cannibalism.[122][123] Though trauma specialists frequently claimed the allegations made by children and adults were the same, in reality the statements made by adults were more elaborate, severe, and featured more bizarre abuse. In 95 percent of the adults' cases, the memories of the abuse were recovered during psychotherapy.[124]
For several years, a conviction list assembled by the Believe the Children advocacy group was circulated as proof of the truth of satanic ritual abuse allegations, though the organization itself no longer exists and the list itself is "egregiously out of date".[125]
Investigations
Two investigations were carried out to assess the evidence for SRA. In the United Kingdom, a government report produced no evidence of SRA, but several examples of false satanists faking rituals to frighten their victims. In the United States, evidence was reported but was based on a flawed method with an overly liberal definition of a substantiated case.
United Kingdom
A British study published in 1996 found 62 cases of alleged ritual abuse reported to researchers by police, social and welfare agencies from the period of 1988 to 1991, representing a tiny proportion of extremely high-profile cases compared to the total number investigated by the agencies.[126] Anthropologist Jean LaFontaine spent several years researching ritual abuse cases in Britain at the behest of the government, finding that all of the cases of alleged satanic ritual abuse that could be substantiated were cases where the perpetrators' goal was sexual gratification rather than religious worship.[127] Producing several reports and the 1998 book Speak of the Devil, after reviewing cases reported to police and children's protective services throughout the country, LaFontaine concluded that the only rituals she uncovered were those invented by child abusers to frighten their victims or justify the sexual abuse. In addition, the sexual abuse occurred outside of the rituals, indicating the goal of the abuser was sexual gratification rather than ritualistic or religious. In cases involving satanic abuse, the satanic allegations by younger children were influenced by adults, and the concerns over the satanic aspects were found to be compelling due to cultural attraction of the concept but distracting from the actual harm caused to the abuse victims.[37][128]
In more recent years, discredited allegations of SRA have been levelled against
United States
The Netherlands
Dutch investigation journalists from Argos (NPO Radio 1) collected the experiences and stories of over two hundred victims of organized sexual abuse. A hundred and forty victims told Argos about ritual abuse. Six well-known people were mentioned as perpetrators by multiple participants in the investigation, and over ten abuse locations. A warehouse in the Bollenstreek was marked as a location for 'storage' and the production of child pornography. During the investigation the Argos journalists received an anonymous email stating the journalists had to 'beaware' because "they know about your investigation", remarking "they're going to get rid of evidence – just like they did with Dutroux". The same day as the journalists received the e-mail, the warehouse in the Bollenstreek burnt down. According to Argos, the damage had been classified so severe by the fire department, that a cause of fire could not be determined.[133]
As a response to parliamentary questions following the Argos investigation, Dutch minister of Justice and Safety Ferdinand Grapperhaus said on August 27, 2020, that there would be 'no independent investigation into Ritual Abuse' of children in The Netherlands.[134] The Green Left, the Socialist Party and the Labour Party criticized Grapperhaus for his decision.[135] On October 13, 2020, the Dutch House of Representatives approved a motion in which the PvdA, GL and the SP requested that an independent investigation be conducted into the nature and extent of "organized sadistic abuse of children", bypassing Grapperhaus' original refusal to investigate.[136]
In a Skeptical Inquirer article JD Sword discusses the outcomes of a subsequent commission appointed by Grapperhaus and led by Jan Hendriks, professor of criminology from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and associate professor Anne-Marie Slotboom. In December 2022 Hendriks returned a report which found there is no evidence of organized abuse with ritualistic features and “Overall, victims are the only primary source reporting this type of abuse and no support for its existence is found from other sources.”[137]
Patients' allegations
The majority of adult testimonials were given by adults while they were undergoing psychotherapy, in most cases they were undergoing therapy which was designed to elicit memories of SRA.[55][138] Therapists claimed that the pain which their patients felt, the internal consistency of their stories and the similarities of the allegations which were made by different patients all proved the existence of SRA, but despite this, the disclosures of patients never resulted in any corroboration;[139] The allegations which were obtained from the alleged victims by mental health practitioners all lacked verifiable evidence, they were entirely anecdotal and they all involved incidents which occurred years or decades earlier.[140] The concern for therapists revolved around the pain of their clients, which is for them more important than the truth of their patients' statements.[117] A sample of 29 patients in a medical clinic reporting SRA found no corroboration of the claims in medical records or in discussion with family members.[141] and a survey of 2,709 American therapists found the majority of allegations of SRA came from only sixteen therapists, suggesting that the determining factor in a patient making allegations of SRA was the therapist's predisposition.[142] Further, the alleged similarities between patient accounts (particularly between adults and children) turned out to be illusory upon review, with adults describing far more elaborate, severe and bizarre abuse than children. Bette Bottoms, who reviewed hundreds of claims of adult and child abuse, described the ultimate evidence for the abuse as "astonishingly weak and ambiguous" particularly given the severity of the alleged abuse. Therapists however, were found to believe patients more as the allegations became more bizarre and severe.[124]
In cases in which patients made claims that were physically impossible, or in cases in which the evidence which was found by police is contradictory, the details which are reported will often change. If patients pointed to a spot where a body was buried, but no body was found and no earth was disturbed, therapists resort to special pleading, saying that the patient was hypnotically programmed to direct investigators to the wrong location, or the patient was fooled by the cult into believing that a crime was not committed. If the alleged bodies were cremated and police point out that ordinary fires are inadequate to completely destroy a body, stories include special industrial furnaces. The patients' allegations change, and they creatively find "solutions" to objections.[143]
Children's allegations
The second group to make allegations of SRA were young children. During the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s, the techniques used by investigators to gather evidence from witnesses, particularly young children, evolved to become very leading, coercive and suggestive, pressuring young children to provide testimony and refusing to accept denials while offering inducements that encouraged false disclosures.
Specific allegations from the cases included:
- Seeing witches fly; travel in a hot air balloon; abuse and travel through tunnels;[146] identifying actor Chuck Norris from a series of pictures as an abuser;[147] orgies at car washes and airports, children being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused, then cleaned up and presented back to their unsuspecting parents[146][148][149] (McMartin preschool trial, no forensic evidence was found to support these claims)
- Being raped with knives (including a 12-inch bladedrink urine; tied naked to a tree[151] (Fells Acres day care sexual abuse trial; no forensic evidence was found to support these claims)
- Ritual murder of babies; children taken out on boats and thrown overboard; trips in hot air balloons;[152] babies were thrown against walls; children were penetrated with knives and forks; the walls and floors of the center's music room were spread with urine and feces[153] (Little Rascals day care sexual abuse trial; no forensic evidence was found to support these claims)
- Forced to act in child pornography and used for child prostitution; tortured; made to watch snuff films[150] (Kern County child abuse cases; no child pornography was ever found to substantiate these accusations)
- The mentally disabled abuser with Noonan syndrome drank human blood in satanic rituals; abducted the children despite being unable to drive;[154] forced the children to eat urine and feces; abducted the children to secret rooms; committed violent sexual assaults and beatings; killed a giraffe, rabbit and elephant and drank their blood in front of the children.[155] (Faith Chapel Church ritual abuse case; no forensic evidence was found to support these claims)
A variety of these allegations resulted in criminal convictions; in an analysis of these cases Mary de Young found that many had had their convictions overturned. Of 22 daycare employees and their sentences reviewed in 2007, three were still incarcerated, eleven had charges dismissed or overturned, and eight were released before serving their full sentences. Grounds included technical dismissals, constitutional challenges and prosecutorial misconduct.[114]
Skepticism
As a moral panic
SRA and the so-called "Satanic Panic" have been called a moral panic[156] and compared to the blood libel and witch-hunts of historical Europe,[11][16][76] and McCarthyism in the United States during the 20th century.[46][157][158] Stanley Cohen, who originated the term moral panic, called the episode "one of the purest cases of moral panic".[159] The initial investigations of SRA were performed by anthropologists and sociologists, who failed to find evidence of SRA actually occurring; instead they concluded that SRA was a result of rumors and folk legends that were spread by "media hype, Christian fundamentalism, mental health and law enforcement professionals and child abuse advocates."[115] Sociologists and journalists noted the vigorous nature with which some evangelical activists and groups were using claims of SRA to further their religious and political goals.[158] Other commentators suggested that the entire phenomenon may be evidence of a moral panic over Satanism and child abuse.[160] After skeptical inquiry, explanations for allegations of SRA have included an attempt by radical feminists to undermine the nuclear family,[161] a backlash against working women,[46] homophobic attacks on gay childcare workers,[162] a universal need to believe in evil,[163] fear of alternative spiritualities,[109] "end of the millennium" anxieties,[164] or a transient form of temporal lobe epilepsy.[165]
In his book Satanic Panic, the 1994 Mencken Award winner for Best Book presented by the Free Press Association,[166] Jeffery Victor wrote that, in the United States, the groups most likely to believe rumors of SRA are rural, poorly educated, religiously conservative white blue-collar families with an unquestioning belief in American values who feel significant anxieties over job loss, economic decline and family disintegration. Victor considered rumors of SRA a symptom of a moral crisis and a form of scapegoating for economic and social ills.[167][168]
Origins of the rumors
Information about SRA claims spread through conferences presented to religious groups, churches and professionals such as police forces and therapists as well as parents. These conferences and presentations served to organize agencies and foster communication between groups, maintaining and spreading disproven or exaggerated stories as fact.
Scholarly and law enforcement investigations
Jeffrey Victor reviewed 67 rumors about SRA in the United States and Canada reported in newspapers or television and found no evidence supporting the existence of murderous satanic cults.[175] LaFontaine states that cases of alleged SRA investigated in the United Kingdom were reviewed in detail and the majority were unsubstantiated; three were found to involve sexual abuse of children in the context of rituals, but none involved the Witches' Sabbath or devil worship that are characteristic of allegations of SRA.[176] LaFontaine also states that no material evidence has been forthcoming in allegations of SRA; no bones, bodies or blood, in either the United States or Britain.
Kenneth Lanning, an
There are many possible alternative answers to the question of why victims are alleging things that don't seem to be true. ... I believe that there is a middle ground—a continuum of possible activity. Some of what the victims allege may be true and accurate, some may be misperceived or distorted, some may be screened or symbolic, and some may be "contaminated" or false. The problem and challenge, especially for law enforcement, is to determine which is which. This can only be done through active investigation. I believe that the majority of victims alleging "ritual" abuse are in fact victims of some form of abuse or trauma.[58]
Lanning produced a monograph in 1994 on SRA aimed at child protection authorities, which contained his opinion that despite hundreds of investigations no corroboration of SRA had been found. Following this report, several convictions based on SRA allegations were overturned and the defendants released.[66]
Reported cases of SRA involve bizarre activities, some of which are impossible (like people flying),[144] that makes the credibility of victims of child sexual abuse questionable. In cases where SRA is alleged to occur, Lanning describes common dynamics of the use of fear to control multiple young victims, the presence of multiple perpetrators and strange or ritualized behaviors, though allegations of crimes such as human sacrifice and cannibalism do not seem to be true. Lanning also suggests several reasons why adult victims may make allegations of SRA, including "pathological distortion, traumatic memory, normal childhood fears and fantasies, misperception, and confusion."[178]
Court cases
Allegations of SRA have appeared throughout the world. The failure of certain high-profile legal cases generated worldwide media attention, and came to play a central feature in the growing controversies over child abuse, memory and the law.[179][verification needed] The testimony of children in these cases may have led to their collapse, as juries came to believe that the sources of the allegations were the use of suggestive and manipulative interviewing techniques, rather than actual events. Research since that time has supported these concerns and without the use of these techniques it is unlikely the cases would ever have reached trial.[20]
In one analysis of 36 court cases involving sexual abuse of children within rituals, only one quarter resulted in convictions, all of which had little to do with ritual sex abuse.[169] In a survey of more than 11,000 psychiatric and police workers throughout the US, conducted for the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, researchers investigated approximately 12,000 accusations of ritual or religious abuse between 1980 and 1990. The survey found no substantiated reports of well-organized satanic rings of people who sexually abuse children, but did find incidents in which the ritualistic aspects were secondary to the abuse and were used to intimidate victims.[7] Victor reviewed 21 court cases alleging SRA between 1983 and 1987 in which no prosecutions were obtained for ritual abuse.[180]
During the early 1980s, some courts attempted ad hoc accommodations to address the anxieties of child witnesses in relation to testifying before defendants. Screens or CCTV technology are a common feature of child sexual assault trials today; children in the early 1980s were typically forced into direct visual contact with the accused abuser while in court. SRA allegations in the courts catalyzed a broad agenda of research into the nature of children's testimony and the reliability of their oral evidence in court. Ultimately in SRA cases, the coercive techniques used by believing district attorneys, therapists and police officers were critical in establishing, and often resolving, SRA cases. In courts, when juries were able to see recordings or transcripts of interviews with children, the alleged abusers were acquitted. The reaction by successful prosecutors, spread throughout conventions and conferences on SRA, was to destroy, or fail to take notes of the interviews in the first place.[181] One group of researchers concluded that children usually lack the sufficient amount of "explicit knowledge" of satanic ritual abuse to fabricate all of the details of an SRA claim on their own.[182] However, the same researchers also concluded that children usually have the sufficient amount of general knowledge of "violence and the occult" to "serve as a starting point from which ritual claims could develop."[182]
In 2006, psychologist and attorney Christopher Barden drafted an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court of California signed by nearly 100 international experts in the field of human memory emphasizing the lack of credible scientific support for repressed and recovered memories.[183]
Dissociative identity disorder
SRA has been linked to
A survey of 12,000 cases of alleged ritual or religious abuse found that most were diagnosed with DID as well as post-traumatic stress disorder.[132] The level of dissociation in a sample of women alleging SRA was found to be higher than a comparable sample of non-SRA peers, approaching the levels shown by patients diagnosed with DID.[194] A sample of patients diagnosed with DID and reporting childhood SRA also present other symptoms including "dissociative states with satanic overtones, severe post-traumatic stress disorder, survivor guilt, bizarre self abuse, unusual fears, sexualization of sadistic impulses, indoctrinated beliefs, and substance abuse."[184] Commenting on the study, Philip Coons stated that patients were held together in a ward dedicated to dissociative disorders with ample opportunity to socialize, and that the memories were recovered through the use of hypnosis (which he considered questionable).[141] No cases were referred to law enforcement for verification, nor was verification attempted through family members. Coons also pointed out that existing injuries could have been self-inflicted, that the experiences reported were "strikingly similar" and that "many of the SRA reports developed while patients were hospitalized."[115] The reliability of memories of DID clients who alleged SRA in treatment has been questioned and a point of contention in the popular media and with clinicians; many of the allegations made are fundamentally impossible and alleged survivors lack the physical scars that would result were their allegations true.[30]
Many women claiming to be SRA survivors have been diagnosed with DID, and it is unclear if their claims of childhood abuse are accurate or a manifestation of their diagnosis.[195] Of a sample of 29 patients who presented with SRA, 22 were diagnosed with dissociative disorders including DID. The authors noted that 58 percent of the SRA claims appeared in the years following the Geraldo Rivera special on SRA and a further 34 percent following a workshop on SRA presented in the area; in only two patients were the memories elicited without the use of "questionable therapeutic practices for memory retrieval".[141] Claims of SRA by DID patients have been called "...often nothing more than fantastic pseudomemories implanted or reinforced in psychotherapy"[196] and SRA a cultural script of the perception of DID.[197] Some believe that memories of SRA are solely iatrogenically implanted memories from suggestive therapeutic techniques,[198][199] though this has been criticized by Daniel Brown, Alan Scheflin and Corydon Hammond for what they argue as over-reaching the scientific data that supports an iatrogenic theory.[200] Others have criticized Hammond specifically for using therapeutic techniques to gather information from clients that rely solely on information fed by the therapist in a manner that highly suggests iatrogenesis.[198] Skeptics said that the increase in DID diagnosis in the 1980s and 1990s and its association with memories of SRA is evidence of malpractice by treating professionals.[201]
Much of the body of literature on the treatment of ritually abused patients focuses on dissociative disorders.[115][202]
False memories
One explanation for the SRA allegations is that they were based upon
Paul R. McHugh, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, discusses in his book Try to Remember the developments that led to the creation of false memories in the SRA moral panic and the formation of the FMSF as an effort to bring contemporary scientific research and political action to the polarizing struggle about false memories within the mental health disciplines. According to McHugh, there is no coherent scientific basis for the core belief of one side of the struggle, that sexual abuse can cause massive systemic repression of memories that can only be accessed through hypnosis, coercive interviews and other dubious techniques. The group of psychiatrists who promoted these ideas, whom McHugh terms "Mannerist Freudians", consistently followed a deductive approach to diagnosis in which the theory and causal explanation of symptoms was assumed to be childhood sexual abuse leading to dissociation, followed by a set of unproven and unreliable treatments with a strong confirmation bias that inevitably produced the allegations and causes that were assumed to be there.
The treatment approach involved isolation of the patient from friends and family within psychiatric wards dedicated to the treatment of dissociation, filled with other patients who were treated by the same doctors with the same flawed methods and staff members who also coherently and universally ascribed to the same set of beliefs. These methods began in the 1980s and continued for several years until a series of court cases and medical malpractice lawsuits resulted in hospitals failing to support the approach. In cases where the dissociative symptoms were ignored, the coercive treatment approach ceased and the patients were removed from dedicated wards, allegations of satanic rape and abuse normally ceased, "recovered" memories were identified as fabrications and conventional treatments for presenting symptoms were generally successful.[205]
See also
- Carl Raschke – American philosopher, academic, author, and "expert witness" who was prominent in Satanic ritual abuse claims during the late 1980s and early 1990s
- Mike Warnke – American comedian, evangelist, and author who made now debunked false claims about Satanic ritual abuse
- Day-care sex-abuse hysteria – Moral panic and series of prosecutions
- List of abuse allegations made through facilitated communication
- List of conspiracy theories#Paganism
- False accusation of rape § Justification for lynchings
- False allegation of child sexual abuse
- National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
- Outreau case
- Regression – film by Alejandro Amenábar
- Backmasking
- Fall River murders
- Pizzagate
- QAnon
- West Memphis Three
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External links
- Ritual abuse at Curlie
- Skeptical views on satanic ritual abuse at Curlie