Satanic ritual abuse
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
media in the 1980s, spreading throughout the country and eventually to many parts of the world, before subsiding in the late 1990s. Allegations of SRA involved reports of physical
Physical abuse
Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Belting*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
and sexual abuse
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
of individuals in the context of occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
or Satanic ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
s. At its most extreme definition, SRA involved a worldwide conspiracy
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
involving the wealthy and powerful of the world elite in which children were abducted or bred for sacrifices, pornography
Child pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
and prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
.
Nearly every aspect of SRA was controversial
Controversy
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion. The word was coined from the Latin controversia, as a composite of controversus – "turned in an opposite direction," from contra – "against" – and vertere – to turn, or versus , hence, "to turn...
, including its definition, the source of the allegations and proof thereof, testimonials of alleged victims, and court cases involving the allegations and criminal investigations. The panic affected lawyers', therapists', and social workers' handling of allegations of child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
. Allegations initially brought together widely dissimilar groups, including religious fundamentalists, police investigators, child advocates, therapists and clients in psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
. The movement gradually secularized, dropping or deprecating the "satanic" aspects of the allegations in favor of names that were less overtly religious such as "sadistic" or simply "ritual abuse" and becoming more associated with dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
and government conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
.
The panic was influenced to a large extent by testimony of children and adults that was obtained using therapeutic and interrogation techniques now considered discredited. Initial publicity generated was by the now-discredited autobiography Michelle Remembers
Michelle Remembers
Michelle Remembers is a book published in 1980 co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his psychiatric patient Michelle Smith. A best-seller, Michelle Remembers was the first book written on the subject of satanic ritual abuse and is an important part of the controversies beginning...
(1980), and sustained and popularized throughout the decade by the McMartin preschool trial
McMartin preschool trial
The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case of the 1980s. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran...
. 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 the attention of talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
s, sustaining and spreading the moral panic further throughout the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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. Scholarly interest in the topic slowly built, eventually resulting in the conclusion that the phenomenon was a moral panic
Moral panic
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...
.
Official investigations produced no evidence of widespread conspiracies or of the slaughter of thousands; only a small number of verified crimes have even remote similarities to tales of SRA. In the latter half of the 1990s interest in SRA declined and skepticism
Skepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
became the default position, with only a minority of believers giving any credence to the existence of SRA.
Historical precedents
The SRA panic repeated many of the features of historical moral panics and conspiracy theories such as the blood libel against Jews by Apion
Apion
Apion , Graeco-Egyptian grammarian, sophist and commentator on Homer, was born at the Siwa Oasis, and flourished in the first half of the 1st century AD....
in the 30s AD, Christians in the Roman empire
Persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire
The Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire is the religious persecution of Christians as a consequence of professing their faith. It began during the Ministry of Jesus and continued intermittently over a period of about three centuries until the time of Constantine when Christianity was...
, later allegations of a Jewish conspiracy alleging the killing of Christian babies
Child cannibalism
Child cannibalism or fetal cannibalism describes the act of eating a child or fetus. Accounts, especially modern ones, are often dismissed as rumours or urban legends. However, there have been some media stories pursuing incidents involving the consumption of children and fetuses...
and desecration of the Eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
, the witch hunt
Witch trials in Early Modern Europe
The Witch trials in the Early Modern period were a period of witch hunts between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, when across Early Modern Europe, and to some extent in the European colonies in North America, there was a widespread hysteria that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as...
s of the 16th and 17th centuries. Allegations of horrific acts by outsider groups — including cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
, child murder, torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
and incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
uous orgies — may have served as a form of "Othering"
Other
The Other or Constitutive Other is a key concept in continental philosophy; it opposes the Same. The Other refers, or attempts to refer, to that which is Other than the initial concept being considered...
for minority groups, as well scapegoat
Scapegoat
Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals , individuals against groups , groups against individuals , and groups against groups Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any...
ing to provide simple explanations to complex problems in times of social disruption. Torture and imprisonment were used by authority figures to coerce
Coercion
Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way...
confessions from alleged Satanists, confessions that were later used to justify their execution. Records of these older allegations were linked by contemporary proponents in an effort to demonstrate the contemporary Satanic cults were part of an ancient conspiracy of evil, though ultimately there is no evidence for devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
-worshipping cults in Europe at any time. A more immediate precedent to the context of the United States was McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
in the 1950s.
The underpinnings for the contemporary moral panic were found in a rise of five factors in the years leading up to the 1980s: The establishment of Fundamentalist Christianity
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
and political organization of the Moral Majority
Moral Majority
The Moral Majority was a political organization of the United States which had an agenda of evangelical Christian-oriented political lobbying...
; the rise of the Anti-cult movement
Anti-cult movement
The anti-cult movement is a term used by academics and others to refer to groups and individuals who oppose cults and new religious movements. Sociologists David G...
which spread ideas of abusive cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
s kidnapping and brainwashing children and teens; the appearance of the Church of Satan
Church of Satan
The Church of Satan is an organization dedicated to the acceptance of the carnal self, as articulated in The Satanic Bible, written in 1969 by Anton Szandor LaVey.- History :...
and other explicitly Satanist groups that added a kernel of truth to the existence of Satanic cults; the appearance of the child abuse industry and a group of professionals dedicated to the protection of children; and the popularization of posttraumatic stress disorder, repressed memory
Repressed memory
Repressed memory is a hypothetical concept used to describe a significant memory, usually of a traumatic nature, that has become unavailable for recall; also called motivated forgetting in which a subject blocks out painful or traumatic times in one's life...
and corresponding survivor movement.
Michelle Remembers and the McMartin preschool trial
In 1980 the book, Michelle RemembersMichelle Remembers
Michelle Remembers is a book published in 1980 co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his psychiatric patient Michelle Smith. A best-seller, Michelle Remembers was the first book written on the subject of satanic ritual abuse and is an important part of the controversies beginning...
, written by Michelle Smith and husband/psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder
Lawrence Pazder
Lawrence Pazder was a Canadian psychiatrist and author. Pazder is known for discredited autobiography, Michelle Remembers published in 1980, that he co-wrote with his patient Michelle Smith, and for his involvement in the satanic ritual abuse moral panic.-Background:Pazder was born in Edmonton,...
, was published. The book, now discredited, was written as an autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
and was the first known claim linking the abuse of children with Satanic rituals. Pazder was also the individual responsible for coining the term "ritual abuse". It provided a model for allegations of SRA that followed. 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.Michelle Remembers, along with others portrayed as survivor stories, are suspected to have influenced later allegations of SRA and the book has been suggested as a causal factor in the later epidemic of SRA allegations.
In the early 1980s, during the implementation of mandatory reporting laws there was an exponential increase in child protection investigations in America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and other developed countries and an increased public awareness of child abuse
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
. The investigation of incest allegations in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
was also changed, with cases led by social work
Social work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...
ers using leading and coercive interviewing techniques avoided by police investigators, and alterations to the prosecution of these cases that resulted in a greater number of confessions in exchange for plea bargain
Plea bargain
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...
s from fathers. Shortly thereafter some children in child protection cases began making allegations of horrific physical and sexual abuse by caregivers within organized rituals, disclosing sexual abuse in Satanic rituals and the use of Satanic symbols, garnering the label "satanic ritual abuse" in the media and among professionals. Childhood memories of similar abuse began to appear in the psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
sessions of adults.
In 1983 charges were laid in the McMartin preschool trial
McMartin preschool trial
The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case of the 1980s. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran...
, a major case in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, which received attention throughout the United States, and contained allegations of satanic ritual abuse. The case caused tremendous polarization in how to interpret the evidence that was available, and shortly after more than 100 preschools across the country had similar sensationalist allegations eagerly and uncritically reported by the press. Throughout the trial the media coverage against the defendants (Peggy McMartin and Ray Buckey) was unrelentingly negative, focusing only on statements by the prosecution. Smith and other alleged survivors met with parents involved in the trial, and it is believed that they influenced testimony against the accused.
Kee MacFarlane
Kee MacFarlane
Kathleen 'Kee' MacFarlane was the Director of Children's Institute International. She developed the concept of the anatomically correct doll for children to use during interviews concerning abuse and played a significant role in the McMartin preschool trial.-Professional training:She received a...
, a social worker employed by the Children's Institute International
Children's Institute International
Children's Institute International is an anti-child–abuse organization in Los Angeles that was started in 1950 as "The Colleagues" to raise funds for Big Brothers Big Sisters...
, developed a new way to interrogate children with anatomically correct doll
Anatomically correct doll
An anatomically correct doll or anatomically precise doll is a doll with some of the primary and secondary sex characteristics of a human. In colloquial vernacular it usually refers to the genitals being depicted. This can be for realism or educational purposes, as well as to satisfy inanimate...
s and used them in an effort to assist disclosures of abuse with the McMartin children. After asking the children to point to the places on the dolls where they had allegedly been touched and asking leading questions, she diagnosed sexual abuse in virtually all McMartin children, and coerced disclosures using lengthy interviews which rewarded discussions of abuse and punished denials; testimony during the trial was often contradictory and vague on all details except for the assertion that the abuse had occurred. Though the initial charges featured allegations of Satanic abuse and a vast conspiracy, these features were dropped relatively early in the trial and prosecution continued only for non-ritual allegations of child abuse against only two individuals. After three years of testimony, McMartin and Buckey were acquitted
Acquittal
In the common law tradition, an acquittal formally certifies the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as the criminal law is concerned. This is so even where the prosecution is abandoned nolle prosequi...
on 52 of 65 counts, and the jury was deadlocked on the remaining 13 charges against Buckey, with 11 of 13 jurors choosing not guilty. Buckey was re-charged and two years later released without conviction.
Conspiracy accusations
In 1984 MacFarlane warned a congressional committee of scatological behavior and animals being slaughtered in bizarre rituals which children were forced to watch. Shortly after, the United States CongressUnited States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
doubled its budget for child-protection programs. Psychiatrist Roland Summit delivered conferences in the wake of the McMartin trial and depicted the phenomenon as a conspiracy theory
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
that involved anyone skeptical of the phenomenon. By 1986 social worker Carol Darling argued in a grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
that the conspiracy reached the government. Her husband Brad Darling gave conference presentations about a Satanic conspiracy of great antiquity which he believed now permeated American communities.
By the late 1980s therapists or patients who believed someone had suffered from SRA could suggest solutions that included Christian psychotherapy, exorcism
Exorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
and support group
Support group
In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic...
s whose members self-identified as "anti-Satanic warriors." Federal funding was increased for research on child abuse, with large portions of the funding going towards 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 the destruction of notes, refusing to tape interviews with children and destroying or refusing to share evidence with the defense). 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. In 1987 Geraldo Rivera
Geraldo Rivera
Geraldo Rivera is an American attorney, journalist, author, reporter, and former talk show host...
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." Tapings of this and similar talk show episodes were subsequently used by religious fundamentalists
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
, psychotherapists
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
, social work
Social work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...
ers and police to promote the idea that a conspiracy of Satanic cults existed and were involved in serious crimes.
In the 1990s psychologist D. Corydon Hammond publicized a detailed theory of ritual abuse drawn from hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy is a therapy that is undertaken with a subject in hypnosis.The word "hypnosis" is an abbreviation of James Braid's term "neuro-hypnotism", meaning "sleep of the nervous system"....
sessions with his patients, alleging they were victims of a worldwide conspiracy of organized, secretive clandestine cells
Clandestine cell system
A clandestine cell structure is a method for organizing a group of people in such a way that it can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization. Depending on the group's philosophy, its operational area, the communications technologies available, and the nature of the mission,...
who used torture, mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
and ritual abuse to create alternate personalities
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
that could be "activated" with codewords and were trained as assassins, prostitutes, drug traffickers and child sex worker
Sex worker
A sex worker is a person who works in the sex industry. The term is usually used in reference to those in the sex industry that actually provide such sexual services, as opposed to management and staff of such industries...
s (used to create child pornography
Child pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
). Hammond claimed his patients had revealed the conspiracy was masterminded by a Jewish doctor in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, but who now worked for the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
with a goal of worldwide domination by a Satanic cult. The cult was allegedly composed of respectable, powerful members of society who used the funds generated to further their agenda. The patients' lack of memories (and the failure to find evidence for their claims) were cited as evidence of the power and effectiveness of this cult in furthering their agenda. Hammond's claims gained considerable attention, due in part to his prominence in the field of hypnosis
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
and psychotherapy.
Religious roots and secularization
Initial accusations were made in the context of the rising political power of conservative ChristianityConservative Christianity
Conservative Christianity is a term applied to a number of groups or movements seen as giving priority to traditional Christian beliefs and practices...
within the United States, and religious fundamentalists were enthusiastic in promoting rumors of SRA. Psychotherapists who were actively Christian began advocating for the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
(DID) and soon after accounts similar to Michelle Remembers began to appear, with some therapists believing the alter egos of some patients were the result of demonic possession
Demonic possession
Demonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...
. Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
was instrumental in starting, spreading and maintaining rumours through sermons about the dangers of SRA, lectures by purported experts and prayer sessions, including showings of the 1987 Geraldo Rivera television special. Secular proponents began to appear, and child protection workers became significantly involved. Law enforcement trainers, many themselves strongly religious, became strong promoters of the reality of the claims and became self-described "experts" on the topic. Their involvement in child sexual abuse cases produced more allegations of SRA, adding credibility to phenomenon. As the explanations for SRA were distanced from evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
Christianity and into the realm of "survivor" groups, the motivations ascribed to purported Satanists shifted from combating a religious nemesis to mind control and abuse as an end to itself. Clinicians, psychotherapists and social workers documented clients alleging histories of SRA though the claims of therapists were unsubstantiated beyond the testimonies of their clients.
International spread
In 1987 a list of 'indicators' was published by Catherine Gould, featuring a broad array of vague symptoms that were ultimately common, non-specific and subjective, capable of diagnosing SRA in most young children. By the late 1980s allegations began to appear throughout the world (including CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
), in part enabled by English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as a common international language and in at least 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 alleged victims and to not 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 Satan worshippers, and pictures of mutilated animals. During the seminars, patients provided testimonials of their experiences and presenters stressed the importance of recovering memories in order to heal.
- In 1986, the largest symposium on child abuse in history was held in Australia, with vocal SRA advocates Kee MacFarlane, Roland Summit, Astrid Heppenstall HegerAstrid Heppenstall HegerAstrid Heppenstall Heger, M.D. is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the USC Keck School of Medicine and the founder and Executive Director of the Violence Intervention Program at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in East Los Angeles....
and David FinkelhorDavid FinkelhorDavid Finkelhor is an American sociologist known for his research into child sexual abuse and related topics. He is the director of Crimes against Children Research Center, Co-Director of the and Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire in the US, from which he received his Ph.D....
invited to give addresses. - In 1987 writings on the phenomenon appeared in the United Kingdom along with incidents featuring broadly similar accusations such as the Cleveland child abuse scandalCleveland child abuse scandalThe Cleveland child abuse scandal occurred in Cleveland, England in 1987, where 121 cases of suspected child sexual abuse were diagnosed by Dr Marietta Higgs and Dr Geoffrey Wyatt, paediatricians at a Middlesbrough hospital...
; allegations of SRA in Nottingham resulted in the "British McMartin", advised in part by the BritishBritish peopleThe British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
journalist Tim Tate's work on the subject. 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. The NottinghamNottinghamNottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
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. - In 1989, San Francisco police detective Sandi Gallant gave an interview with a newspaper in the United Kingdom. At the same time, several other therapists toured the country giving talks on SRA, and shortly thereafter SRA cases occurred in Orkney, RochdaleRochdaleRochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...
, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and NottinghamNottinghamNottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
. - In 1992 charges were laid in the Martensville satanic sex scandalMartensville satanic sex scandalThe Martensville satanic sex scandal occurred in Martensville, Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1992, where an allegation of day care sexual abuse hysteria escalated into claims of satanic ritual abuse.-History:...
; charges were overturned in 1995 on the grounds of improper interviewing of the children. - A wave of SRA accusations appeared in New Zealand in 1991, and in NorwayNorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
in 1992. - 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.
Skepticism, rejection and contemporary existence
Media coverage of SRA began to turn negative by 1987, and the "panic" ended between 1992 and 1995. The release of the HBO made-for-TV movie Indictment: The McMartin TrialIndictment: The McMartin Trial
Indictment: The McMartin Trial is a made for TV movie that originally aired on HBO on May 20, 1995. Indictment is based on the true story of the McMartin preschool trial.-Summary:...
in 1995 re-cast Ray Buckey as a victim of overzealous prosecution rather than an abusive predator and marked a watershed change in public perceptions of satanic ritual abuse accusations. By 2003 allegations of ritual abuse were met with great skepticism and belief in SRA is no longer considered mainstream in professional circles; although the sexual abuse of children is a real and serious problem, allegations of SRA were essentially false. Reasons for the collapse of the phenomenon include the collapse of criminal prosecution against alleged abusers, a growing number of scholars, officials and reporters questioning the reality of the accusations, and a variety of successful lawsuits against mental health professionals.
Some feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
critics of the SRA diagnoses maintained that, in the course of attempting to purge society of evil, the panic of the 1980s and 1990s obscured real child abuse issues, a concern echoed by Gary Clapton. In England the SRA panic diverted resources and attention from proven cases of abuse and resulted in a hierarchy of abuse in which SRA was the most serious form of abuse, with physical and sexual abuse being minimized, marginalized and "mere" physical abuse no longer worthy of intervention. In addition, as attention towards SRA turned negative, the focus by social workers on SRA resulted in a large loss of credibility to the profession. SRA, with its sensational makeup of many victims abused by many victimizers, ended up robbing the far more common and proven issue of incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
of much of its larger significance to society. The National Center for Abuse and Neglect devised the term religious abuse to describe exorcism
Exorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
s, poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
ings and drownings of children in non-satanic religious settings in order to avoid confusion with SRA.
A small number of individuals still believe there is credence to allegations of SRA and continue to discuss the topic. Publications by Cathy O'Brien
Cathy O'Brien
Cathleen Ann O'Brien is an American who claims to be a victim of Project Monarch, an offshoot of Project MKULTRA, a program funded by the Central Intelligence Agency to research the use of drugs for intelligence purposes...
claiming SRA were the result of government programs (specifically the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
's Project MKULTRA
Project MKULTRA
Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human experimentation program, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continued at least through the late 1960s, and used U.S...
) to produce Manchurian candidate
The Manchurian Candidate
The Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....
-style mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
in young children were picked up by conspiracy theorists, linking belief in SRA with claims of government conspiracies. In the book Mistakes were made (but not by me)
Mistakes were made (but not by me)
Mistakes Were Made is a non-fiction book by social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, first published in 2007. It deals with cognitive dissonance, self-serving bias and other cognitive biases, using these psychological theories to illustrate how the perpetrators of hurtful acts...
, authors Carol Tavris
Carol Tavris
Carol Anne Tavris is an American social psychologist and author. She received a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan, and has taught psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles and the New School for Social Research...
and Elliot Aronson
Elliot Aronson
Elliot Aronson is an American psychologist. He is listed among the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th Century, best known for the invention of the Jigsaw Classroom as a method of reducing interethnic hostility and prejudice; cognitive dissonance research, and influential social psychology...
cite ongoing belief in the SRA phenomenon despite a complete lack of evidence as demonstration of the confirmation bias
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.David Perkins, a geneticist, coined the term "myside bias" referring to a preference for "my" side of an issue...
in believers; it further points out that a lack of evidence is actually considered more evidence, demonstrating "how clever and evil the cult leaders were: They were eating those babies, bones and all."
Definitions
The term "satanic ritual abuse" is used to describe different behaviors, actions and allegations that lie between extremes of definitions. In 1988, a nationwide study of sexual abuse in U.S.United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
day care agencies, led by David Finkelhor, put forth a threefold typology to describe "ritual abuse" — cult-based ritualism in which the abuse had a spiritual or social goal for the perpetrators, pseudo-ritualism in which the goal was sexual gratification and the rituals were used to frighten or intimidate victims, and psychopathological
Psychopathology
Psychopathology is the study of mental illness, mental distress, and abnormal/maladaptive behavior. The term is most commonly used within psychiatry where pathology refers to disease processes...
ritualism in which the rituals were due to mental disorders. Subsequent investigators have expanded on these definitions and also pointed to a fourth alleged type of Satanic ritual abuse, in which petty crimes with ambiguous meaning (such as graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
or vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
) generally committed by teenagers were attributed to the actions of Satanic cults.
By the early 1990s, the phrase "Satanic ritual abuse" was featured in media coverage of ritualistic abuse but its use decreased among professionals in favour of more nuanced terms such as multi-dimensional child sex rings, ritual/ritualistic abuse, organised abuse or sadistic abuse, 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
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
or any other religions failed to enter the SRA discourse.
Conclusions on the origins of allegations of cult-based abuse can include actual abuse by organized groups, pseudosatanism, distortions and false memories, mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
resulting in false reporting, deliberate lying or hoaxes and in the cases of child testimonies, allegations may be artifacts of the questioning techniques used, and TV special broadcasts.
Cult-based abuse
Allegations of cult-based abuse is the most extreme scenario of SRA. During the initial period of interest starting in the early 80s the term was used to describe a network of SatanSatan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
-worshipping, secretive intergenerational cults that were supposedly part of a highly organized conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
engaged in criminal behaviors such as forced prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
, drug distribution
Illegal drug trade
The illegal drug trade is a global black market, dedicated to cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of those substances which are subject to drug prohibition laws. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs by drug prohibition laws.A UN report said the...
and pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
. These cults were also thought to sexually abuse and torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
children in order to coerce them into a lifetime of Devil worship. Other allegations included bizarre sexual acts such as necrophilia
Necrophilia
Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia or necrolagnia, is the sexual attraction to corpses,It is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The word is artificially derived from the ancient Greek words: νεκρός and φιλία...
, forced ingestion of semen
Semen
Semen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
, blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
and feces
Feces
Feces, faeces, or fæces is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus or cloaca during defecation.-Etymology:...
, cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
, orgy
Orgy
In modern usage, an orgy is a sex party where guests engage in promiscuous or multifarious sexual activity or group sex. An orgy is similar to debauchery, which refers to excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures....
, liturgical parody such as pseudosacramental use of feces and urine; infanticide
Infanticide
Infanticide or infant homicide is the killing of a human infant. Neonaticide, a killing within 24 hours of a baby's birth, is most commonly done by the mother.In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible...
, sacrificial abortions to eat fetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
es and human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
; satanic police officers who covered up evidence of SRA crimes and desecration of Christian graves
Grave (burial)
A grave is a location where a dead body is buried. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as graveyards or cemeteries....
. No evidence of any of these claims has ever been found; the proof presented by those who alleged the reality of cult-based abuse primarily consisted of the memories of adults recalling childhood abuse, the testimony of young children and extremely controversial confessions. The idea of a murderous Satanic conspiracy created a controversy dividing the professional child abuse
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
community at the time, though no evidence has been found to support allegations of a large number of children being killed or abused in Satanic rituals. From a law enforcement perspective, an intergenerational conspiracy dedicated to ritual sacrifice whose members remain completely silent, make no mistakes and leave no physical evidence is unlikely; cases of what the media incorrectly perceived as actual cult sacrifices (such as the 1989 case of Adolfo Constanzo
Adolfo Constanzo
Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo was an American serial killer, drug dealer and cult leader. His nickname was El Padrino de Matamoros .- Early years :...
) have supported this idea.
Pseudo-satanism
Satanic ritual abuse is also used to describe the actions of "pseudo-satanists" who sexually abuseSexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
children and use the trappings of satanic rituals and claims of magical powers to coerce and terrify victims, but do not actually believe in the rituals. A survey of more than 12,000 SRA allegations, which found no substantiating evidence for an intergenerational conspiracy, did document several examples of abuse by pseudo-satanists.
Criminal and delusional satanism
A third variation of ritual abuse involves non-religious ritual abuse in which the rituals were delusionDelusion
A delusion is a false belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence. Unlike hallucinations, delusions are always pathological...
al or obsessive. 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 regional groups, it is not believed to occur in large, organized groups.
Acting out
Investigators considered graffitiGraffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
such as the pentagram
Pentagram
A pentagram is the shape of a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes...
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.
Polarization
There was never any consensus on what actually constituted Satanic ritual abuse. 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 claims, irrespective of which "definition" the evidence supported. Acrimonious disagreements between groups who supported the reality of SRA allegations and those criticizing them as unsubstantiated resulted in an extremely polarized discussion with little middle ground. 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 atheistic or religious beliefs 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". Both believers and skeptics have developed networks to disseminate information on their respective positions. 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 empiricalEmpiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
truth of SRA was irrelevant, that the testimony of children was more important than that of doctors, social workers and the criminal justice system.
Evidence
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 recovered during therapyRecovered memory therapy
Recovered-memory therapy is a term coined by affiliates of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in the early 1990s, to refer what they described as a range of psychotherapy methods based on recalling memories of abuse that had previously been forgotten by the patient...
. 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. 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. Despite allegations appearing in the United States, Holland, 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. 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% of the adults' cases, the memories of the abuse were recovered during psychotherapy.
For several years, a conviction list assembled by the Believe the Children
Believe the Children
Believe the Children was an advocacy organization formed by the parents involved in the McMartin preschool trial to promote the idea that allegations of satanic ritual abuse were factual and not a moral panic as is believed by most scholars...
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".
Investigations
Two investigations were carried out to assess the evidence for SRA. In the United States, evidence was reported but was based on a flawed methodology with an overly liberal definition of a substantiated case. In the United Kingdom, a government report produced no evidence of SRA, but several examples of false satanists faking rituals to frighten their victims.United States
David FinkelhorDavid Finkelhor
David Finkelhor is an American sociologist known for his research into child sexual abuse and related topics. He is the director of Crimes against Children Research Center, Co-Director of the and Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire in the US, from which he received his Ph.D....
completed an investigation of child sexual abuse in daycares in the United States, and published a report in 1988. The report found 270 cases of sexual abuse, of which 36 were classified as substantiated cases of ritual abuse. Mary de Young
Mary de Young
Mary de Young is a professor of sociology at Grand Valley State University, where from 2000-2003 she served as the head of the sociology department...
has pointed out that the report's definition of "substantiated" was overly-liberal as it required only that one agency had decided that abuse had occurred, even if no action was taken, no arrests made, no operating licenses suspended. In addition, multiple agencies may have been involved in each case (including the FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
, local police, social services agencies and childhood protective services in many cases), with wide differences in suspicion and confirmation, often in disagreement with each other. Finkelhor, upon receiving a "confirmation", would collect information from whoever was willing or interested to provide it and did not independently investigate the cases, resulting in frequent errors in their conclusions. No data is provided beyond case studies and brief summaries. Three other cases considered corroborating by the public —the McMartin preschool trial
McMartin preschool trial
The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case of the 1980s. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran...
, a pre-school in Country Walk
Country Walk, Florida
Country Walk is a census-designated place Miami suburb in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The population was 15,997 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Country Walk is located at ....
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and the murders in Matamoros
Matamoros, Tamaulipas
Matamoros, officially known as Heroica Matamoros, is a city in the northeastern part of Tamaulipas, in the country of Mexico. It is located on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas, in the United States. Matamoros is the second largest and second...
, by Adolfo Constanzo
Adolfo Constanzo
Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo was an American serial killer, drug dealer and cult leader. His nickname was El Padrino de Matamoros .- Early years :...
— ultimately failed to support the existence of SRA. The primary witness in the Country Walk case repeatedly made, then withdrew accusations against her husband amid unusual and coercive inquiries by her lawyer and a psychologist. The Matamoros murders produced the bodies of 12 adults who were ritually sacrificed by a drug gang inspired by the film The Believers
The Believers
The Believers is a horror/neo-noir film directed by John Schlesinger, released in 1987 and starring Martin Sheen, Robert Loggia and Helen Shaver...
, but did not involve children or sexual abuse. The McMartin case resulted in no convictions and was ultimately based on accusations by children with no proof beyond their coerced testimonies. A 1996 investigation of more than 12,000 allegations of satanic, ritual and religious abuse resulted in no cases that were considered factual or corroborated.
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. Anthropologist Jean La Fontaine spent several years researching ritual abuse cases in Britain at the behest of the government. 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 La Fontaine concluded that the only rituals he 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.Patient allegations
The majority of adult testimonials occurred as a result of adults undergoing psychotherapy, in most cases therapy designed to elicit memories of SRA. Therapists claimed the pain expressed by the patients, internal consistency of their stories and similarity of allegations by different patients was evidence for SRA, but despite this, the disclosures of patients never resulted in any corroboration; Allegations of alleged victims that were obtained from mental health practitioners lacked verifiable evidence, were anecdotalAnecdotal evidence
The expression anecdotal evidence refers to evidence from anecdotes. Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be true but unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise unrepresentative of typical cases....
and involved incidents that were years or decades old. The concern for therapists revolved around the pain of their clients, which is for them more important than the truth of their patients' statements. 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. and a survey of 2709 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. 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.
In cases where patients made claims that were physically impossible, or evidence found by police was contradictory, the details 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
Special pleading
Special pleading is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves. Essentially, this involves someone...
, saying the patient was hypnotically programmed to direct investigators to the wrong location, or that they were fooled by the cult into believing a crime was not committed. If alleged bodies were cremated and police point out ordinary fires are inadequate to completely destroy a body, stories include special industrial furnaces. The patients' allegations change and creatively find "solutions" to objections.
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. The interviewing techniques used were the factors believed to have led to the construction of the bizarre disclosures of SRA by the children and changes to forensic and interviewing techniques since that time has resulted in a disappearance of the allegations. Analysis of the techniques used in two key cases (the McMartin preschool and Wee Care Nursery SchoolWee Care Nursery School
The Wee Care Nursery School was in Maplewood, New Jersey and was one of many day care child abuse cases that went to trial in the 1980s. Though initially successful in its prosecution of Margaret Kelly Michaels, the decision was overturned after five years in prison, on the basis of improper and...
trials) concluded that the children were questioned in a highly suggestive manner. Compared with a set of interviews from Child Protective Services
Child Protective Services
Child Protective Services is the name of a governmental agency in many states of the United States that responds to reports of child abuse or neglect. Some states use other names, often attempting to reflect more family-centered practices, such as "Department of Children & Family Services"...
, the interviews from the two trials were "significantly more likely to (a) introduce new suggestive information into the interview, (b) provide praise, promises, and positive reinforcement, (c) express disapproval, disbelief, or disagreement with children, (d) exert conformity pressure, and (e) invite children to pretend or speculate about supposed events."
Specific allegations from the cases included:
- Seeing witches fly; travel in a hot air balloon; abuse and travel through underground tunnels; identifying actor Chuck NorrisChuck NorrisCarlos Ray "Chuck" Norris is an American martial artist and actor. After serving in the United States Air Force, he began his rise to fame as a martial artist and has since founded his own school, Chun Kuk Do...
from a series of pictures as an abuser; 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 (McMartin preschool trialMcMartin preschool trialThe McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case of the 1980s. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran...
, no forensic evidence was found to support these claims) - Being raped with knives (including a 12-inch blade), sticks, forks, and magic wands; assault by a clown in a magic room; being forced to drink urine; tied naked to a tree (Fells Acres Day Care Center preschool 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 balloonHot air balloonThe hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. It is in a class of aircraft known as balloon aircraft. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air...
s; 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 (Little Rascals day care sexual abuse trial; no forensic evidence was found to support these claims) - Forced to act in child pornographyChild pornographyChild pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
and used for child prostitution; tortured; made to watch snuff filmSnuff filmA snuff film is a motion picture genre that depicts the actual death or murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects, for the express purpose of distribution and entertainment or financial exploitation. For-profit snuff films are generally regarded as an urban legend, whose...
s (Kern County child abuse casesKern County child abuse casesThe Kern County child abuse cases started the day care sexual abuse hysteria of the 1980s in Kern County, California. The cases involved claims of Satanic ritual abuse that were performed by pedophile sex rings with as many as 60 children testifying they had been abused. At least 36 people were...
; no child pornography was ever found to substantiate these accusations) - the mentally handicapped abuser who suffered from Noonan syndromeNoonan syndromeNoonan Syndrome is a relatively common autosomal dominant congenital disorder considered to be a type of dwarfism, that affects both males and females equally. It used to be referred to as the male version of Turner's syndrome ; however, the genetic causes of Noonan syndrome and Turner syndrome...
drank human bloodBloodBlood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
in satanic rituals; abducted the children despite being unable to drive; forced the children to eat urine and feces; abducted the children to secret rooms; committed violent sexual assaults and beatings; killed a giraffeGiraffeThe giraffe is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all extant land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant...
, rabbitRabbitRabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
and elephantElephantElephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
and drank their blood in front of the children; (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
Mary de Young
Mary de Young is a professor of sociology at Grand Valley State University, where from 2000-2003 she served as the head of the sociology department...
found that many had had their convictions overturned. Of 22 day care 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.
As a moral panic
SRA is considered a moral panicMoral panic
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...
and compared to the blood libel
Blood libel
Blood libel is a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays...
and witch-hunt
Witch-hunt
A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials...
s of historical Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, and McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
in the United States during the 20th century. Stanley Cohen
Stanley Cohen (sociologist)
Professor Stanley Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics.-Life:Cohen was born in Johannesberg, South Africa in 1942. He grew up in South Africa and was an undergraduate at the University of Witwatersrand, studying Sociology and Social Work. He came to London in...
, who originated the term "moral panic," called the episode "one of the purest cases of moral panic." 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
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
that were spread by "media hype, Christian fundamentalism, mental health and law enforcement professionals and child abuse advocates." 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. Other commentators suggested that the entire phenomenon may be evidence of a moral panic over Satanism and child abuse. Skeptical explanations for allegations of SRA have included an attempt by "radical feminists"
Radical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
to undermine the nuclear family
Nuclear family
Nuclear family is a term used to define a family group consisting of a father and mother and their children. This is in contrast to the smaller single-parent family, and to the larger extended family. Nuclear families typically center on a married couple, but not always; the nuclear family may have...
, a backlash against working women, homophobic attacks on gay childcare workers, a universal need to believe in evil, fear of alternative spiritualities, "end of the millennium" anxieties, or a transient form of temporal lobe epilepsy.
Jeffery Victor says that in the United States the groups most likely to believe rumours of SRA are rural, poorly educated religiously conservative
Conservative Christianity
Conservative Christianity is a term applied to a number of groups or movements seen as giving priority to traditional Christian beliefs and practices...
Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
blue-collar
Blue-collar worker
A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled, manufacturing, mining, construction, mechanical, maintenance, technical installation and many other types of physical work...
families with an unquestioning belief in American values
Culture of the United States
The Culture of the United States is a Western culture originally influenced by European cultures. It has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, and folklore...
who feel significant anxieties over job loss, economic decline and family disintegration. Victor considers rumours of SRA a symptom of a moral crisis and form of scapegoat
Scapegoat
Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals , individuals against groups , groups against individuals , and groups against groups Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any...
ing for economic and social ills.
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. Members of local police forces organized into loose networks focused on cult crimes, some of whom billed themselves as "experts" and were paid to speak at conferences throughout the United States. Religious revivalists also took advantage of the rumours and preached about the dangers of Satanism to youth and presented themselves at paid engagements as secular experts. At the height of the panic, the highly emotional accusations and circumstances of SRA allegations made it difficult to investigate the claims, with the accused being assumed as guilty and skeptics becoming co-accused during trials, and trials moving forward based solely on the testimony of very young children without corroborating evidence. No forensic or corroborating evidence has ever been found for religiously-based cannibalistic or murderous SRA, despite extensive investigations. The concern and reaction expressed by various groups regarding the seriousness or threat of SRA has been considered out of proportion to the actual threat by satanically-motivated crimes, and the rare crime that exists that may be labeled "satanic" does not justify the existence of a conspiracy or network of religiously-motivated child abusers.Investigations
Jeffrey Victor reviewed 67 rumours about SRA in the United States and Canada reported in newspapers or television, and found no evidence supporting the existence of murderous satanic cults. Lafontaine states that cases of alleged SRA investigated in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
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. 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 FBI expert in the investigation of child sexual abuse, has stated that pseudo-satanism may exist but there "little or no evidence for ... large-scale baby breeding, human sacrifice, and organized satanic conspiracies".
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.
Lanning produced a monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
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.
Reported cases of SRA involve bizarre activities, some of which are impossible (like people flying), 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".
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. 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.In one analysis of 36 court cases involving sexual abuse of children within rituals, only one quarter resulted in convictions and the convictions had little to do with ritual sex abuse. In a 1994 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 group cult sexual abuse based on satanic ritual. 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. Victor reviewed 21 court cases alleging SRA between 1983 and 1987 in which no prosecutions were obtained for ritual abuse.
During the early 1980s, some courts attempted ad hoc
Ad hoc
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning "for this". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes. Compare A priori....
accommodations to address the anxieties of child witnesses in relation to testifying before defendants. Screens or CCTV
Closed-circuit television
Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....
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. 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. 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."
Dissociative identity disorder
SRA has been linked to dissociative identity disorderDissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
(DID, formerly referred to as multiple personality disorder or MPD), with many DID patients also alleging cult abuse. Many DID patients report memories that they allege are forms of ritual abuse though most are undocumented. The first person to write a first-person narrative about SRA was Michelle Smith, co-author of Michelle Remembers
Michelle Remembers
Michelle Remembers is a book published in 1980 co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his psychiatric patient Michelle Smith. A best-seller, Michelle Remembers was the first book written on the subject of satanic ritual abuse and is an important part of the controversies beginning...
; Smith was diagnosed by her therapist and later husband Lawrence Pazder
Lawrence Pazder
Lawrence Pazder was a Canadian psychiatrist and author. Pazder is known for discredited autobiography, Michelle Remembers published in 1980, that he co-wrote with his patient Michelle Smith, and for his involvement in the satanic ritual abuse moral panic.-Background:Pazder was born in Edmonton,...
with DID.
A survey investigating 12,000 cases of alleged SRA found that most were diagnosed with DID as well as post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Posttraumaticstress disorder is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity,...
. 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. 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". Commenting on the study, Philip Coons stated that patients were held together in a ward dedicated to dissociative disorders with ample opportunity to socialize, that the memories were recovered through the use of hypnosis (which he considers questionable). 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". 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.
Many women claiming to be SRA survivors have been diagnosed as sufferers of DID, and it is unclear if their claims of childhood abuse are accurate or a manifestation of their diagnosis. A sampling of 29 patients who presented with SRA, 22 were diagnosed with dissociative disorders including DID. The authors noted that 58% of the SRA claims appeared in the years following the Geraldo Rivera special on SRA and a further 34% 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." Claims of SRA by DID patients have been called "...often nothing more than fantastic pseudomemories implanted or reinforced in psychotherapy" and SRA as a cultural script of the perception of DID. Some believe that memories of SRA are solely iatrogenically
Iatrogenesis
Iatrogenesis, or an iatrogenic artifact is an inadvertent adverse effect or complication resulting from medical treatment or advice, including that of psychologists, therapists, pharmacists, nurses, physicians and dentists...
implanted memories from suggestive therapeutic
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
techniques, 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. 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. Skeptics claimed that the increase in DID diagnosis on the 1980s and 1990s and its association with memories of SRA is evidence of malpractice by treating professionals.
Much of the body of literature on the treatment of ritually abused patients focuses on dissociative disorders.
Two "survivors" have re-evaluated their own allegations of SRA, believing the memories of satanic ritual abuse were the result attempt to deal with actual abuse using dissociative processes that produced false memories.
False memories
One explanation for the SRA allegations is that they were based upon false memories caused by the over-use of hypnosisHypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
and other suggestive techniques by therapists underestimating the suggestibility of their clients. The altered state of consciousness induced by hypnosis rendered patients unusually able to produce confabulation
Confabulation
Confabulation is the process in which a memory is remembered falsely. Confabulations are indicative of a complicated and intricate process that can be led astray at any given point during encoding, storage, or recall of a memory. Two distinct types of confabulation are often distinguished...
s, often with the assistance of their therapists. Advocates of false memory syndrome (FMS), a controversial term promoted by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation
False Memory Syndrome Foundation
The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 by Pamela and Peter Freyd, after being accused by their adult daughter Jennifer Freyd of sexual abuse when she was a child...
, claim that the purported "memories" of ritual abuse are actually false memories, created iatrogenically
Iatrogenesis
Iatrogenesis, or an iatrogenic artifact is an inadvertent adverse effect or complication resulting from medical treatment or advice, including that of psychologists, therapists, pharmacists, nurses, physicians and dentists...
through suggestion or coercion. The FMSF has used the idea of ritual abuse as a strategy to illustrate their position that most allegations of sexual abuse uncovered by the suggestive techniques used during recovered memory therapy are false "memories" of events that never happened. According to Kathleen Faller this has contributed to the sensationalization of the ritual abuse cases in the media.
Paul R. McHugh
Paul R. McHugh
Paul Rodney McHugh is an American psychiatrist, researcher, and educator. He is University Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the author, co-author, or editor of seven books within his field.- Education :McHugh was born in Lawrence,...
, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
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
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
Freudians", consistently followed a deductive approach
Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning, also called deductive logic, is reasoning which constructs or evaluates deductive arguments. Deductive arguments are attempts to show that a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of premises or hypothesis...
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
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.David Perkins, a geneticist, coined the term "myside bias" referring to a preference for "my" side of an issue...
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 decades until a series of court cases and medical malpractice
Medical malpractice
Medical malpractice is professional negligence by act or omission by a health care provider in which the treatment provided falls below the accepted standard of practice in the medical community and causes injury or death to the patient, with most cases involving medical error. Standards and...
lawsuits resulted in hospitals failing to support the approach. In cases where the dissociative symptoms were ignored, the coercive treatment approached 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.
See also
- Day care sex abuse hysteria
- West Memphis ThreeWest Memphis ThreeThe West Memphis Three are three men who were tried and convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was sentenced to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Jason Baldwin was...
- Elizabeth LoftusElizabeth LoftusElizabeth F. Loftus is an American psychologist and expert on human memory. She has conducted extensive research on the misinformation effect and the nature of false memories. Loftus has been recognized throughout the world for her work, receiving numerous awards and honorary degrees...
- False allegation of child sexual abuseFalse allegation of child sexual abuseA false allegation of child sexual abuse is an accusation that a person committed one or more acts of child sexual abuse when in reality there was no perpetration of abuse by the accused person as alleged. Such accusations can be brought by the alleged victim , or by another person on the alleged...
- False Memory Syndrome FoundationFalse Memory Syndrome FoundationThe False Memory Syndrome Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 by Pamela and Peter Freyd, after being accused by their adult daughter Jennifer Freyd of sexual abuse when she was a child...
- File 18File 18File 18 was the title of a law enforcement newsletter published by Lt. Larry Jones of the Boise, Idaho police department and head of the Cult Crime Impact Network . Issue #1 was privately published on May 2, 1986....
- Peter Hugh McGregor EllisPeter Hugh McGregor EllisPeter Hugh McGregor Ellis is a former Christchurch child care worker who has been at the centre of one of New Zealand's most enduring judicial controversies. In June 1993 Ellis was found guilty in the High Court on 16 counts of sexual offences involving children in his care at the Christchurch...
- Affair of the Poisons
- Recovered memory therapyRecovered memory therapyRecovered-memory therapy is a term coined by affiliates of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in the early 1990s, to refer what they described as a range of psychotherapy methods based on recalling memories of abuse that had previously been forgotten by the patient...
- List of satanic ritual abuse allegations