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Ritual abuse

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Ritual abuse exists all over the world. There have been reports, journal articles[1][2][3], web pages[4][5][6][7][8][9] and criminal convictions of crimes against children and adults [10][11][12].

Definition

Ritual abuse has been defined as:

a brutal form of abuse of children, adolescents, and adults, consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, and involving the use of rituals. Ritual does not necessarily mean satanic. However, most survivors state that they were ritually abused as part of satanic worship for the purpose of indoctrinating them into satanic beliefs and practices. Ritual abuse rarely consists of a single episode. It usually involves repeated abuse over an extended period of time. The physical abuse is severe, sometimes including torture and killing. The sexual abuse is usually painful, sadistic, and humiliating, intended as means of gaining dominance over the victim. The psychological abuse is devastating and involves the use of ritual/indoctrination, which includes mind control techniques and mind altering drugs, and ritual/intimidation which conveys to the victim a profound terror of the cult members and of the evil spirits they believe cult members can command. Both during and after the abuse, most victims are in a state of terror, mind control, and dissociation in which disclosure is exceedingly difficult.[13]

and as

WHAT IS RITUAL ABUSE? (BROAD DEFINITION) Ritual abuse is the abuse of a child, weaker adult, or animal in a ritual setting or manner. In a broad sense, many of our overtly or covertly socially sanctioned actions can be seen as ritual abuse, such as military basic training, hazing, racism, spanking children, and partner-battering. Some abuse is private...some public. Public ritual abuse may be either open or secret. WHAT IS RITUAL ABUSE? (NARROW DEFINITION) The term ritual abuse is generally used to mean prolonged, extreme, sadistic abuse, especially of children, within a group setting. The group's ideology is used to justify the abuse, and abuse is used to teach the group's ideology. The activities are kept secret from society at large, as they violate norms and laws.[14]

Origins of the term

Pazder introduced the term "ritualized abuse" in 1980, describing the experiences of an adult survivor that was disclosing satanic abuse memories. He defined the phenomenon as "repeated physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual assaults combined with a systematic use of symbols, ceremonies, and machinations designed and orchestrated to attain malevolent effects." Later definitions came mostly from professionals addressing ritual abuse in child care settings. Finkelhor, Williams, Burns, and Kalinowski elaborated on Pazder's definition, defining ritual abuse as "abuse that occurs in a context linked to some symbols or group activity that have a religious, magical or supernatural connotation, and where the invocation of these symbols or activities are repeated over time and used to frighten and intimidate the children." Kelley referred to ritual abuse as the "repetitive and systematic sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of children by adults as part of cult or satanic worship"[15].

Evidence

There is a great deal of evidence supporting the existence of ritual abuse crimes as a worldwide phenomenon. Bottoms, Shaver and Goodman found in their 1993 study evaluating ritual abuse claims that in 2,292 alleged ritual abuse cases, 15% of the perpetrators in adult cases and 30% of the perpetrators in child cases confessed to the abuse[16]. "In a survey of 2,709 members of the American Psychological Association, it was found that 30 percent of these professionals had seen cases of ritual or religion-related abuse (Bottoms, Shaver & Goodman, 1991). Of those psychologists who have seen cases of ritual abuse, 93 percent believed that the reported harm took place and 93 percent believed that the alleged ritualism occurred....The similar research of Nancy Perry (1992) which further supports (the previous findings)…Perry also conducted a national survey of therapists who work with clients with dissociative disorders and she found that 88 percent of the 1,185 respondents indicated ”belief in ritual abuse, involving mind control and programming”[17].

Recently an online survey[18] of over one thousand people answered questions about ritual abuse and extreme abuse crimes. In a summary of the survey [19], it was found that ritual abuse/mind control is a global phenomenon. Fifty-five percent stated they were abuse in a Satanic cult. Seventy-seven percent of the adult survivors that responded "had been threatened with death if they ever talked about the abuse." Also, "257 respondents reported that secret mind control experiments were used on them as children." Eighty-two percent reported being sexually abused by multiple perpetrators.

Anne Johnson Davis in her book Hell Minus One reported that her parents confessed to her abuse in writing and verbally to clergymen, and to the detectives from the Utah Attorney General’s Office. Her suppressed memories started when she was in her mid-30s, which were fully substantiated by her mother and stepfather[20][21].

Many scientific journals articles have discussed the reality of ritual abuse and its effect on its victims. Some of these articles have discussed the extreme nature of these crimes[22], proof of the reality of the ritual abuse phenomenon and victims' symptoms[23], the connection between ritual abuse, multiple personality disorder and mind control[24] and the connections between ritual abuse reports and the higher levels of symptoms of childhood sexual and physical abuse[25]. Several additional studies and organizations have compiled research on the reality of ritual abuse crimes[26][27][28].

Ritual abuse and mind control crimes have also been confirmed in other books[29][30].

A study which identified 270 cases of sexual abuse in day care settings found that allegations of ritual abuse occurred in thirteen percent of the cases[31]. Additional evidence of ritual abuse in day care and child abuse cases has been found in news reports, journal articles and legal transcripts[32][33][34][35][36][37].

Ritual abuse occurrences have also been found in the Netherlands[38]and England[39]. Reports of ritual abuse have also been found in multiple personality disorder sufferers[15]. Kent believes that intergenerational satanic accounts are possible and that rituals related to them may come from a deviant interpretation of religious texts[40][41].

References

  1. ↑ Satanic Ritual Abuse evidence
  2. ↑ 2008 Publications on Ritual Abuse and Mind Control
  3. ↑ Lacter, E (2008-02-11). “Brief Synopsis of the Literature on the Existence of Ritualistic Abuse”.
  4. ↑ http://ritualabuse.us
  5. ↑ http://www.ritualabusetorture.org/
  6. ↑ http://www.ra-info.org
  7. ↑ http://www.survivorship.org
  8. ↑ http://theawarenesscenter.org/ritualabuse.html
  9. ↑ http://www.endritualabuse.org/
  10. ↑ Believe the children (1997). “Conviction List: Ritual Child Abuse”.
  11. ↑ The Satanism and Ritual Abuse Archive
  12. ↑ Noblitt, PhD, J. R. - An Empirical Look at the Ritual Abuse Controversy (2007)
  13. ↑ Report of the Ritual Abuse Task Force - Los Angeles County Commission for Women
  14. ↑ Survivorship - Frequently Asked Questions
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Van Benschoten, Susan C. (1990). Multiple Personality Disorder and Satanic Ritual Abuse: the Issue Of Credibility Dissociation Vol. III, No. 1 "A large number of adult MPD patients in psychotherapy are reporting memories of explicitly satanic ritual abuse beginning in childhood. The authors of two limited surveys, conducted with a select group of MPD therapists, suggest the percentage of reported satanic ritual abuse in the MPD population to be 20% (Braun & Gray, 1986) and 28% (Braun & Gray, 1987). A survey by Kaye and Klein (1987) reveals that 20 of the 42 MPD patients in treatment with seven Ohio therapists describe a history of satanic ritual abuse. Ilopponen (1987) states that 38 of the more than 70 MPD patients she has treated report memories of "satanic-type ritualized abuse " (p. 11). Two inpatient facilities specializing in the treatment of MPD report that approximately 50% of their patients disclose memories of satanic ritual abuse (Braun, 1989a; Ganaway, 1989). Similar accounts of satanic ritual abuse are being reported by personally unrelated MPD patients from across the United States (Braun, 1989b; Braun & Sachs, 1988; Kahaner, 1988; Sachs & Braun, 1987). In addition, according to Braun (1989b), the reports of patients in this country are similar to data collected from adult survivors in England, Holland, Germany, France, Canada, and Mexico...Brown (1986), noting many similar allegations in child and adult satanic ritual abuse accounts, suggests that reports are not only comparable across geographical and personal boundaries, but across generations as well."
  16. ↑ Data from Brown, Scheflin and Hammond (1998).”Memory, Trauma Treatment, And the Law” (W. W. Norton) ISBN 0-393-70254-5 (p.62) Bottoms, B. Shaver, P. & Goodman, G. (1993) Profile of ritual abuse and religion related abuse allegations in the United States. Updated findings provided via personal communication from B. Bottoms. Cited in K.C. Faller (1994), Ritual Abuse; A Review of the research. The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children Advisor , 7, 1, 19-27
  17. ↑ Noblitt, J.R.; Perskin, P. (2000). Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America p. 269, Greenwood Publishing Group.
  18. ↑ Extreme Abuse Survey
  19. ↑ Understanding ritual trauma: A comparison of findings from three online surveys
  20. ↑ Johnson Davis, Anne Hell Minus One: My Story of Deliverance From Satanic Ritual Abuse and My Journey to Freedom Transcript Bulletin Publishing - ISBN 978-0-9788348-0-7 - 2008
  21. ↑ Hell Minus One - signed verified confessions of satanic ritual abuse
  22. ↑ Cozolino, L.J. (1990). “Ritual child abuse, psychopathology, and evil”. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 18(3):218-227 "Ritualistic abuse is an extreme form of psychological, physical, and sexual maltreatment of children in the context of "religious" ceremony. The clinical presentation of the victims of such abuse is complex and raises many issues related in the diagnosis and treatment of psychopathology as well as the importance of spiritual counseling"
  23. ↑ Cozolino, L.J.; Shaffer, R.E (Fall 1992) "Adults who report childhood ritualistic abuse." Special Issue: Satanic ritual abuse: The current state of knowledge. Journal of Psychology and Theology 20(3) "Skeptics question the legitimacy of these reports, but many factors point to the reality of the phenomenon of ritualistic abuse. First of all, the degree of consistency between reports of individuals from different parts of the country is very high. The fact that children as young as 2 and 3 report ritualistic abuse experiences that mirror those reported by adult victims is especially striking in light of the fact that young children do not have access to the kind of printed information that might conceivably allow an older person to fabricate such experiences (Gould, 1987). Second, experiences of ritualistic abuse reported by victims of all ages are virtually identical to written historical accounts of Satan worship and the like (Hill & Goodwin, 1989; Russell, 1972), findings that substantiate our present-day understanding of Satanism and ritualistic abuse as intragenerational phenomenon. Third, the symptoms from which individuals reporting histories of ritualistic abuse tend to suffer are consistent with our current understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder and the dissociative disorders. The progression in which ritualistic abuse survivors respond to psychotherapy places these victims squarely within the category of individual who have suffered real-not imagined-trauma."
  24. ↑ Gould, C., & Cozolino, L. (1992) “Ritual abuse, multiplicity, and mind-control.” Special Issue: Satanic ritual abuse: The current state of knowledge. Journal of Psychology and Theology 20(3):194-6 "As a result of the psychologically intolerable nature of their early childhood experiences, victims of ritual abuse frequently develop multiple personality disorder (MPD)....Ritual abuse is conducted on behalf of a cult whose purpose is to establish mind control over the victims. Thus, these perpetrators have a conscious motive for the abuse beyond compulsively repeating their own childhood abuse in an effort to gain mastery over the original trauma. Most victims state that they were ritually abused as part of satanic worship, for the purpose of indoctrinating them into satanic beliefs (Los Angeles County Commission for Women, 1989). Mind control is originally established when the victim is a child under 6 years old."
  25. ↑ Lawrence, K.J.; Cozolino, L.; Foy, D.W. (1995). Psychological sequelae in adult females reporting childhood ritualistic abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect 19 (8): 975-984. doi:10.1016/0145-2134(95)00059-H. "Women reporting ritualistic features scored significantly higher on measures of childhood sexual and physical abuse. Neither PTSD diagnostic status nor severity for PTSD nor dissociative experiences were significantly different between the groups."
  26. ↑ Gould, C. (1995). Denying ritual abuse of children. Journal of Psychohistory, 22(3), 329-339. "The evidence is rapidly accumulating that the problem of ritual abuse is considerable in scope and extremely grave in its consequences Among 2,709 members of the American Psychological Association who responded to a poll, 2,292 cases of ritual abuse were reported (Bottoms, Shaver, & Goodman, 1993). In 1992 alone, Childhelp USA logged 1,741 calls pertaining to ritual abuse, Monarch Resources of Los Angeles logged approximately 5,000, Real Active Survivors tallied nearly 3,600, Justus Unlimited of Colorado received almost 7,000, and Looking Up of Maine handled around 6,000. Even allowing for some of these calls to have been made by people who assist survivors but arc not themselves survivors, and for some survivors to have called more that one helpline or made multiple calls to the same helpline, these numbers suggest that at a minimum there must be tens of thousands of survivors of ritual abuse in the United States. Evidence also continues to accumulate that the ritual abuse of children constitutes a child abuse problem of significant scope. In 1988, Finkelhor, Williams and Burns published the results of a nationwide study of substantiated reports of sexual abuse in day care involving 1,639 young child victims. Thirteen percent of these cases were found to involve ritual abuse. Other studies of ritually abused children have been relatively small. Kelly (1988; 1989; 1992a; 1992b; 1993) reported on 35 day care victims of ritual abuse, Waterman et al. (1993) reported on 82 children complaining of ritual abuse in preschool, Faller (1988; 1990) studied 18 children who had disclosed ritual abuse in their preschool, and Bybee and Mowbray (1993) from the Michigan State Department of Mental Health identified 62 children alleging ritual abuse in their preschool and 53 children who reported seeing others be ritually abused. Snow and Sorenson (1990) studied 39 children reporting ritual abuse in five neighborhoods in Utah, and Jonker and Jonker-Bakker (1991) reported on a total group of 98 children, at least 48 of whom were believed to be victims of ritual abuse. The latter case is the only one cited here which was conducted outside of the United States."
  27. ↑ Paley, K. (June 1992). Dream wars: a case study of a woman with multiple personality disorder(PDF). Dissociation 5 (2): 111-116. "Apologists believe that reports of satanic cult abuse either must or could be true. There is some evidence to support the apologists. In 1986, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Commonwealth v. Drew (397 Mass. 65) upheld the conviction of Carl H. Drew for the murder of Karen Marsden. There was evidence that Drew conducted satanic ritual meetings and that he had killed Marsden "because she wanted to leave the cult " (Commonworth v. Drew, 1986, p. 66). Marsden had gone to the police and reported a human sacrifice. Scott Waterhouse was convicted of the murder of a twelve year-old girl, and the conviction was upheld in the State of Maine v. Scott Waterhouse (513 A. 2d 862, Me. 1986). It was ruled that the trial court's introduction of the defendant's satanic beliefs was relevant in establishing motive and intent. In a study of hundreds of day care centers, Finkelhor and Williams found that "... [c] lear-cut corroboration of ritualistic practices was available in a few cases, such as Country Walk [in Miami], where ritual objects were found by police and where the female perpetrators did admit to some of the sadistic practices alleged in the children's stories" (1988, pp. 59-60). Greaves (1992) describes a video made by the Chicago Police Department of two sites allegedly used for satanic ceremonies. He was struck by the similarity of the material to descriptions he had heard from many of his clients.
  28. ↑ Report of Utah State Task Force on Ritual Abuse Utah Governor’s Commission for Women and Families (1992)
  29. ↑ Secret Weapons - Two Sisters’ Terrifying True Story of Sex, Spies and Sabotage by Cheryl and Lynn Hersha with Dale Griffis, Ph D. and Ted Schwartz. New Horizon Press, P O Box 669 Far Hills, NJ 07931 - ISBN0-88282-196-2 "“By the time Cheryl Hersha came to the facility, knowledge of multiple personality was so complete that doctors understood how the mind separated into distinct ego states,each unaware of the other. First, the person traumatized had to be both extremely intelligent and under the age of seven, two conditions not yet understood though remaining consistent as factors. The trauma was almost always of a sexual nature…” p. 52 “The government researchers,aware of the information in the professional journals, decided to reverse the process (of healing from hysteric dissociation). They decided to use selective trauma on healthy children to create personalities capable of committing acts desired for national security and defense.” p. 53 - 54
  30. ↑ Rutz, Carol (2001). A Nation Betrayed. Grass Lake, MI: Fidelity Publishing. ISBN 0-9710102-0-X.
  31. ↑ Sexual Abuse in Day Care: A National Study - Executive Summary - March 1988 - Finklehor, Williams, Burns, Kalinowski http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1c/82/61.pdf "“The study identified 270 “cases” of sexual abuse in day care meaning 270 facilities where substantiated abuse had occurred involving a total of 1639 victimized children….This yielded an estimate of 500 to 550 reported and substantiated cases and 2500 victims for the three-year period. Although this is a large number, it must be put in the context of 229,000 day care facilities nationwide service seven million children…allegations of ritual abuse (”the invocation of religious, magical or supernatural symbols of activities”) occurred in 13% of the cases.”
  32. ↑ Day Care and Child Abuse Cases Information on the McMartin Preschool Case, Michelle Remembers, the Fells Acres - Amirault Case, the Wenatchee, Washington Case, the Dale Akiki Case, the Glendale Montessori - Toward case, the Little Rascals Day Care Center case, Fran’s Day Care case, the Baran case and the Halsey case
  33. ↑ McMartin Preschool Case - What Really Happened and the Coverup
  34. ↑ Archaeological Investigations of the McMartin Preschool Site
  35. ↑ deMause, Lloyd, Why Cults Terrorize and Kill Children The Journal of Psychohistory 21 (4) 1994 [4]"
  36. ↑ Summit, R.C. (1994). The Dark Tunnels of McMartin Journal of Psychohistory 21 (4): 397-416.
  37. ↑ Tamarkin, C. (1994a). Investigative Issues in Ritual Abuse Cases, Part I. Treating Abuse Today, 4 (4): 14-23. Tamarkin, C. (1994b). Investigative Issues in Ritual Abuse Cases, Part II. Treating Abuse Today, 4 (5): 5-9.
  38. ↑ Jonker, F.; Jonker-bakker, P. (1991). “Experiences with ritualistic child sexual abuse: a case study from the Netherlands”. Child Abuse and Neglect 15: 191-196. doi:10.1016/0145-2134(91)90064-K. PMID 2043971 "The case of apparent ritual sexual abuse of children in a community in the Netherlands is described in terms of the children's stories, behaviors, and physical symptoms and the community's reaction to reactions of police and other professionals."
  39. ↑ Sinason, V (1994). Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10543-9. Major publications by Valerie Sinason
  40. ↑ Kent, Stephen. (1993). “Deviant Scripturalism and Ritual Satanic Abuse Part One: Possible Judeo-Christian Influences”. Religion 23(23):229-241.
  41. ↑ Kent, Stephen. (1993). “Deviant Scripturalism and Ritual Satanic Abuse. II: Possible Masonic, Mormon, Magick, and Pagan influences”. Religion 23(4):355-367

Bibliography

  • Brown, Scheflin and Hammond (1998).”Memory, Trauma Treatment, And the Law” (W. W. Norton) ISBN 0-393-70254-5
  • Cook, C. (1991). Understanding ritual abuse: A study of thirty-three ritual abuse survivors. Treating Abuse Today, 1(4), 14-19.
  • Cozolino, L.J. (1989). “The ritual abuse of children: Implications for clinical practice and research.” Journal of Sex Research 26(1), 131-138.
  • Craighead, W. E.; Corsini, R.J.; Nemeroff, C. B. (2002) The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science Published by John Wiley and Sons ISBN 0471270830 - Sadistic Ritual Abuse (p. 1435 - 1438)
  • Gould, C. (1992) “Ritual abuse, multiplicity, and mind-control.” Special Issue: Satanic ritual abuse: The current state of knowledge. Journal of Psychology and Theology 20(3):194-6
  • Hersha, C.; Hersha, L.; Griffis, D.; Schwarz, T (2001). Secret Weapons. Far Hills, NJ: New Horizon Press. ISBN 0-88282-196-2.
  • Johnston, Jerry (1989). The Edge of Evil - The Rise of Satanism in North America. Dallas: Word Publishing. ISBN 0-8499-0668-7.
  • Jonker, F and Jonker-Bakker, I. (1997). “Effects of Ritual Abuse: The results of three surveys in the Netherlands.” Child Abuse & Neglect 21(6):541-556
  • Kent, S. (1994). “Diabolic Debates: A Reply to David Frankfurter and J. S. La Fontaine,” Religion 24: 135-188.
  • Kent, S. (1993). “Deviant Scripturalism and Ritual Satanic Abuse Part One: Possible Judeo-Christian Influences”. Religion 23(23):229-241.
  • Kent, S. (1993). “Deviant Scripturalism and Ritual Satanic Abuse. II: Possible Masonic, Mormon, Magick, and Pagan influences”. Religion 23(4):355-367
  • Leavitt, F. Measuring the impact of media exposure and hospital treatment on patients alleging satanic ritual abuse. Treating Abuse Today 8(4) 1998 pp. 7-13 "This study provides evidence that clients who report SRA exhibit a set of associations to SRA-related words that cannot be explained by exposure to the popular media or from inpatient treatment."
  • Neswald, D., Gould, C., & Graham-Costain, V. (1991). Common programs observed in survivors of Satanic ritual abuse. The California Therapist, 3 (5), 47 50.
  • Noblitt, J.R.; Perskin, P. (2000). Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America p. 269, Greenwood Publishing Group.
  • Noblitt, R.; Perskin, P. (2008). Ritual abuse in the 21st century p. 552, Bandon, OR: Reed Publishers.
  • Sachs, A. & Galton, G. (Eds) (2008). Forensic Aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder London: Karnac. Chapters include discussions on ritual abuse, dissociative identity disorder, mind control, extreme abuse, survivor accounts and criminal convictions [1]
  • Scott, S. (2001). The politics and experience of ritual abuse: beyond disbelief. Open University Press. ISBN 0335204198.
  • Smith, Margaret. (1993). Ritual Abuse: What it Is, why it Happens, and how to Help by Margaret - HarperCollins
  • Waterman, Jill; Kelly, Robert J.;Oliveri, M. K.;and McCord, Jane (1993). Behind the Playground Walls - Sexual Abuse in Preschools. New York, London: The Guilford Press, 284-8. ISBN 0-89862-523-8.
  • Young, Walter C., Sachs, Roberta G., Braun, Bennett G., and Watkins, R. T. (1993) “Patients reporting ritual abuse in childhood: A clinical syndrome. Report of 37 cases.” Child Abuse and Neglect 15(3):181-9

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