Talk:Satanic panic/Archive 1

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irrelevant sentence?

Some conservative Christian groups in the United States have claimed that as many as 60,000 people a year are tortured and murdered by an organized network of Satanists. According to criminal justice statistics compiled by the National Institute of Justice, approximately 20,000 people a year are victims of homicide.

Unfortunately this sentence:

According to criminal justice statistics compiled by the National Institute of Justice, approximately 20,000 people a year are victims of homicide.

is a non-sequitor. I understand the point of it (to show how extreme the belief in SRA is by contrasting it with real data) but that needs to be made more explicit, perhaps a rewording tying the two ideas together. StoptheBus18 18:29, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I must disagree. I think the relevance is obvious to anyone who can count; we don't need to lead the reader by the hand and spell out the implications. Frankly, if there is a reader out there who can read those two sentences in succession and not see the connection (the connection, by the way, means it is not a non-sequitur) then I find myself wondering how such a reader could have ever successfully operated a web browser to get to Wikipedia in the first place. Antaeus Feldspar 18:54, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

StoptheBus18 removed the personal comments they had made about me here. Those who wish to see it should look for the version of this page dated 21:55, 28 Jul 2004, as that is the last revision before that they decided to replace it with the 'oh whatever' that occurs further down.

Thank you for the insulting sarcasm in lieu of an actual response. Do you somehow believe that it is acceptable to insult people as long as you do it by pretending to humble yourself? I must disagree. I do not think you have achieved anything of value, for instance, by pretending that I called you 'borderline retarded', which I did not even insinuate (you said yourself that you made the connection between the two sentences, which still leaves answered the question of whether anyone in Wikipedia's target audience would not). By reversal you've accused me of being hostile, quick to anger, unfriendly and unliked, unkind and unnice, and ended with a completely gratuitous assertion that my day consists of "watching Star Trek and crying". I don't know what you have achieved of value by all that -- well, unless you consider attempting to hurt someone who had the temerity to disagree with you to be of value. Given your behavior here and elsewhere I can't discount that theory.

I think anyone reading can easily determine who is actually the "hostile" and "quick to anger" one here. Antaeus Feldspar 21:55, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

oh whatever StoptheBus18 22:08, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Whisper Down the Lane After some searching for Al Carlisle's data, I have come to believe that they are not accurately portrayed. The only piece I found on the web that actually CITED its source claims the figure of 50,0000 from a 1989 article. Carlisle, who may have been a psychiatrist (not clear if he was a state worker or a contractor) at Utah State Prison, told the Salt Lake City Tribune that a prisoner told him there were 50,000 satanic ritual killings a year. Carlisle told the reporter that the figure was probably not that high, but speculated: >"I'd cut that number way down, But you look at all the missing kids we have. Not all have run away. Some are killed by sex offenders, but that still leaves a sizable number." (3, August 1986, p. B-15).<link It seems to me that people hungry for spectacular data on ritual murders siezed on the number but put it in a range to make it seem weightier (usually saying that Carlisle claimed 40,000 to 60,000 murders occurred annually). --Njsamizdat 07:42, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

In short, Njsamizdat demonstrates that this article contains a factual error - one that suits the agenda of the authors who wrote this piece of rhetorical polemic, and hence it stays in there. A perfect illustration of their ideological zealotry and intellectual bankrupcy. Biaothanatoi 05:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The sentence has now been altered, so I guess that makes you completely wrong. MaxMangel 01:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

It also appears that the primary vector by which the "Al Carlisle claims there are 40,000 to 60,000 ritual homicides annually" figure got out to the public is likely to have been evangelist Jerry Johnston's book The Edge of Evil: The Rise of Satanism in North America. If the book does in fact contain this figure, and attributes it to Carlisle without mentioning Carlisle's comments about the quality of the data, then Biaothanatoi's vituperative attacks here are completely without merit: The skeptics were not creating a straw man but accurately reporting what believers were claiming, and their "factual error" in this regard consisted only of not discovering for themselves how Johnston was misrepresenting Carlisle. -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, it appears that in the first issue of Larry Jones' infamous "File 18" newsletter [1] Jones not only attributes the 40,000-60,000 figure to Carlisle, but claims that Carlisle stated a completely different etiology for the estimate: "Dr. Carlisle based this estimate upon the number of satan worshippers believed to be at the level of 'worship', multiplied by the number of such occurrences common in a calendar year." -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, my thoughts also. It is hard to keep track of it all. One might even describe it as an "incestious circle." ;-) MaxMangel 04:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Clash?

As usual, this is not a clash with the similar article on h2g2 (A673454), since I own the copyright to the unedited version, and I used the unedited version as the basis for my edits here, etc, etc, Martin (U129960 on h2g2)

Page move

I do not think this page move was appropirate. If you think the article is not NPOV then alter it. Wikipedia does not create separate pages for each viewpoint, rather we present each side's arguments within one article. - SimonP 18:14, Aug 14, 2003 (UTC)

Bias

The article is biased and would need extensive changes. It represents the cover-up not the experiences of those of us who have been a part of it and know the facts.

I become incredibly skeptical when I see ANY attempt to provide such a one sided perspective on a phenomenon. Having studied discursive psychology I can only ask what exactly the authors aim to achieve through this article, it is highly unlikely - even absurd- to assume that people who believe in and align themselves to Satan/Dark Forces would not attempt to dabble in ritual sacrifice. In a way it is quite funny, this article ends up making me feel like the authors are personally involved in SRA. Like anything that requires concealment it should come as no great surprise when the phenomenon in question IS in fact concealed and not available to authorities. This seems to be a logical fallacy employed in the protection of the status quo and is pervasive throughout the wikipedia - what a pity. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.11.241.40 (talk) 16:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

It would be worth adding information about any bona fide instances of this, with references, if possible. Evercat 19:18, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I agree that the article is biased. It needs much more summaries of actual cases, the way this scam was set up, and who benefited from it. Right now it is much too favorable to the conspiracy theorists.—Eloquence 20:42, Aug 14, 2003 (UTC)

See a sampling of convictions at http://www.healingroads.org/ra_cases.html —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.17.234.48 (talk • contribs) . 24.17.234.18 also removed the comment directly above.

this article is biased. there are no quotes or statistics from those who do believe in ritual abuse, or a satanist network. I know ritual abuse is real, and I think this page stinks.

Coining of the term "satanism"

I killed a sentence saying that the term satanism was not coined in the 11th century - this is probably wrong. The author believes that LaVey coined it, which is definately wrong. Martin

Conspiracy theory

SRA is most definitely a conspiracy theory -- it alleges widespread conspiracies to murder and torture children which are covered up by the authorities. The (few remaining) SRA advocates may not like the connotations, but it is an indisputable fact and therefore NPOV.—Eloquence 22:49, Aug 14, 2003 (UTC)

I like your current wording. Martin 23:09, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

There are several levels of SRA. At a basic level it simply means "Ritual Abuse that occurs in the context of Satanic Rituals". Satanic rituals do occur, abuse occurs frequently, therefore is is not to great conceptual leap to consider that abuse might occur in a satanic ritual context. Many therapists have experience of helping those who have survived a purposeful type of abuse, known as Trauma Based Mind Control. One might wonder who originated this (nazi's ?) who might attempt this, and why. Then there is the intersection of these where TBMC may have occured in a Satanic Ritualistic context. Finally, and only after all of this is the question as to whether this is a conspiracy or not. -- Anon

The problem here is conflation. You are saying "Satanic rituals do occur", and that is true; occasionally aberrant nutjobs do get together, sometimes even in groups larger than two and three, and perform some ritual that they believe is, or pretend to believe is, Satanic ritual. You say "abuse occurs frequently", and this is also true: all too frequently, adults who have anger issues or sexual issues view their own kids as defenseless, safe (for the perpetrator) outlets. It is not a great conceptual leap to suppose that the extremely rare morons who go out and perform "Satanic rituals" that they got from a book they bought for $7.95 in Waldenbooks might include abuse in their activities, presuming that they have the imagination for it. But in that case, it would be as rare as Satanic rituals, not as common as abuse.

And yes, self-professed Satanism is rare. That's why your analysis, which puts questions of conspiracy last, is flawed. In order to believe that there is "Satanic ritual abuse" on a scale large enough to have a conspiracy around, you have to already assume the existence of a conspiracy in order to explain why you can't find any evidence that there's any significant amount of Satanic Ritual Abuse. Antaeus Feldspar 02:00, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Agreed that the problem is conflation - the association of Satanic ritual abuse with 'conspiracies' and 'large scale'. At a baseline, "Satanic ritual abuse" is "real" if underground paedophile networks utilise "Satanic" or occult iconography and ritualisms in the abuse of children, and there is ample evidence of such an intersection. It's interesting that these cases are written off by denialists as the work of sick 'individuals', almost as though individualising the crime 'quarantines' it as a psychopathology rather then a larger issue.

And to Feldspar - We didn't need a 'conspiracy' to cover up the prevalence of sexual assault, child abuse and domestic violence in our societies for centuries. We just needed ignorance.

If there is "ample evidence" of such an intersection, then produce it. Nothing less will do. We were told that there was "ample evidence" of the horrors supposedly perpetrated at McMartin, at Fells Acres, at Wenatchee, but there wasn't. People who supposedly ran gigantic worldwide child pornography rings were being convicted despite the fact that not one piece of their alleged product could be located. Don't bleat about how there's "ample evidence" and how anyone who exhibits any skepticism after the big overblown claims of worldwide Satanic conspiracies were shown to be the delusions of alcoholic schizophrenics, abetted by false testimony coerced out of young children by lying to them and threatening them and completely disregarding anything they said of their own free will, is a "denialist". Show it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:43, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

List of convictions - http://www.ra-info.org/resources/ra_cases.shtml.

You might be interested in the 1991 statement from Australian police that they had "proved a link between organised child sex abuse and devil worship, following the conviction on Monday of a young man on 22 charges of indecent assault and dealing and of evil intent." (Sydney Morning Herald, 12 March 1991)

Other recent convictions/arrests - Robert Basat in Oakland, the "Angels of Sodom" in Italy, the Hosanna Church case in Louisiana, the re-opening of the Ohio ritual murder case. Also relevant is Dutroux's links to the Satanic 'Order of Abrasax'. A letter was found in the house of an accomplice (whom Dutroux murdered) referring to the need to continue to supply 'presents', in the form of people, to the “High Priestess” of the Order.

Both paedophilia and Satanism are fundamentally about power. It’s not suprising that there would be some cross-over, particularly for the hardcore types. The true ‘conspiracy theory’ here seems to be your belief that there is a global horde of ‘hysterical’ social workers and therapists slavering to ‘induce’ false allegations against Ma and Pa and Grandmama – although their motivation for doing so, and the mechanisms by which they would achieve this nefarious goal, are entirely nebulous.

Oooh! The police claimed that they proved a link between organized child sex abuse and devil worship! Why, gosh, that is proof! Because God knows the police never lied before and said they'd "proved a link" when their "proof" was absolute crap! You said you had ample evidence, but what you're presenting instead is just more ample claims -- and you don't even seem to comprehend the difference, which shows that the lesson of the 1980s "global conspiracy of Satanists" theory is completely lost on you, even though you claim to understand all you need to about it. Their ample claims of a global conspiracy translated to vapor, not to ample evidence. As far as the mechanisms and motivations being "nebulous"... well, I hardly need point it out, but what you really mean is that it's nebulous to you. I highly recommend that you go read "Satan's Silence" to remedy these gaps in your understanding. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

It's clear that you did not bother to read the article, but your response is illuminating in itself. Kenneth Lanning stated that there is no such thing as SRA, and he's quoted ad nauseum by people such as yourself on the basis of his FBI credentials. Another police force claims there is a link between ritual abuse and devil worship - on the basis of the confession and conviction of an SRA perpetrator, no less - but when police expertise falls on the other side of your argument, it is suddenly a very partial thing.

And by the by, constructing an argument that you then attack is called 'making a straw man', and that is precisely what you are guilty of. You ignore my argument and attack one of your own construction - this 'international Satanic conspiracy'? If that's your beef, take it up with someone who believes in it. It's irrelevant to me.

The thrust of the evidence I presented (and which you refused to review) indicates that Satanic and occult iconography has been integrated into some paedophile networks in order to terrorise children. You do realise that this iconography has been found in child pornography? There are photos of the very crimes that you claim there is no proof of.

As for 'Satan's Silence' - When I need sources on complex criminological and psychological phenomena, I don't read books written by journalists for the mass market. It's not what I call an evidence-based approach.

SRA memories, claims, and POV

"These memories are vivid and "real" even though they often show signs of fantasy and have been flatly contradicted by physical evidence. Female virgins have "recovered" vivid memories of satanic rape."

I believe this statement is about as // POV as it gets, and talks about the subjective beliefs of SRA victims. Note the loaded semantic word choices. Therefore I have pulled this comment and placed it here.

FYI, I am a doctoral student in criminology and have read numerous books and articles on SRA. I think that isolated SRA incidents can and have occurred but that the conspiracy theory fails to have face validity. My current edit was intended to add a piece of NPOV. clarka 24 Aug 2003

I assume you mean it's POV - but it is a fact. I saw it on TV once. :-) The Discovery Channel I think - a woman accused her father of raping her after undergoing hypnosis; she was examined and proven a virgin. I've read elsewhere that hypnosis increases confidence in memories but doesn't increase their accuracy. Evercat 11:33, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If so, we should ditch vague stuff like "female virgins have..." and replace them with a description of the specific case or cases in question. Martin

Actually, thinking back on it, perhaps it wasn't supposed to be Satanic abuse... oh well, I'll see if I can find anything anyway. Evercat 12:21, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think the case I was thinking of was probably that of Beth Rutherford. Evercat 12:24, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Ooh, can give you an actual interview with her: http://www.thislife.org/ra/215.ram (Real Audio, skip to about 6:30) Evercat 12:43, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Fixed my error as // POV in my comments above. One case doesn't mean anything when talking about a complex sociological issue like SRA. One person can always be a loon. This is a standard recovered-memory therapist abuse case that has little to do with SRA.

In context the issue is recovered memory, hypnosis, false memories. I have tackled it from another angle in the latest edit and would appreciate feedback.

Remember that SRA is about several interrelated issues:

1) a loose network of therapists and self-appointed experts, plus some Christian ministers, who came forward to the public to announce an SRA conspiracy and crisis -- this is a sociological event of interest, the existence of which is proven in the same sense that UFOlogy exists even though UFOs don't (not that they're right, just that some people came forward and said some things)

2) the actual question of whether an SRA conspiracy exists in American society, which is a thorny criminological problem; a small one (under 200 members) could probably slip under the radar as a sub-group of white slavers (which definitely do exist), but a large one would have had its cover blown a long time ago -- the best NPOV answer is "probably not but a small one could be, and it's hard to prove a negative"

3) the actual existence of child sex abuse victims who were victimized along Satanic themes . . . but not as a part of a conspiracy, just by an isolated sadistic loon . . . who very well might have read the conspiracy theory and latched onto it as an effective abuse mechanism; what a great way to keep a victim from telling, let them think the whole world is in on it :((

4) the highly related and much more controversial issue of recovered memories, memory implantation, hypnosis, etc . . . having field experience with MPD sufferers and child sex abuse survivors, I think the jury is very much still out on this subject. It's easier on a victim's ego to think that their pain is part of a grand conspiracy plot than to realize that it's the product of one pathetic sadist's demented fantasy life. It's possible for a sufficiently unethical therapist to brainwash a patient given enough time and determination. The same techniques can be used by some abusers; the results resemble a butcher playing at surgeon with no attempt to sew the patient back up.

I figured that as someone who knows something about the subject and doesn't have an axe to grind either way, I could throw in some NPOV. I would greatly appreciate commentary.

clarka 24 August 2003

I like your changes. One thing I would ask - would it be possible to document one or more specific instances of child sexual abuse with Satanic overones? Or have seperate articles and link to them, of course. Martin 15:01, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I don't like all of your changes, Clarka. The majority of mainstream scientists outside the branches of psychology which specifically deal with recovered memory therapy or are directly linked to it now consider the whole idea that traumatic experiences are transferred to the unconsciousness and can then later be "recovered" by psychologists complete nonsense. Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters have compiled heaps of evidence that Recovered Memory Therapy is a pseudoscientific fraud in their book Making Monsters, for example. Furthermore, on the matter of multiple personality disorder, victims of such pseudoscientific therapists have actually filed lawsuits and reached settlements up to 10.6 million dollars because of the misconduct of their "therapists". As someone who has "field experience with MPD sufferers", you are definitely biased on the matter. If someone with MPD is suffering, it is almost certainly because a therapist induced it. To say that "some people" believe in false memories is a gross and inaccurate understatement.

Furthermore, your explicit disapproval of so-called "extremist" positions is in violation of our neutrality policy, and I am missing sources for the claims you have made about satanism occurring in reality. There were some cases of people convicted in the SRA scare which have not yet faced proper examination in light of the false memory phenomenon because the people in question lacked the funds and also, sometimes, the intelligence to get the necessary legal representation. Just because a person has been convicted during the SRA scares of anything does not mean that the person has actually practiced satanic ritual abuse. Moreover, we need to know whether there are cases where 1) children were involved 2) more than one person was involved 3) sexual abuse was involved. If you are only talking about general "satanic" violence, then its existence is certainly undisputed, but to use the term "satanic ritual abuse" in the context of these cases would be highly misleading.

I will revise the section about the issue of false memories to reflect the current state of scientific thought on that specific matter. The below paragraph has been moved here until further elaboration is given on the extent and type of the cases discussed, with references, as noted above.—Eloquence 19:47, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)

I knew I was going to regret getting involved in this article. Briefly, and without rancor: the human mind has a number of defense mechanisms. One mechanism is to suppress memories of traumatic events. So far as I know, this is fact. If you can provide specific cites stating that the human mind does not and/or is incapable of suppressing memories, I would greatly appreciate it.

The recovered memory hypothesis is that a psychologist can "recover" these memories through various techniques. However, the alleged "recovery" techniques are the same techniques which can be used to "implant" or "create" memories. Memory is clearly plastic. This is why the testimony of eyewitnesses takes a back seat to physical evidence in criminal forensics.

Some people do in fact believe in false memories. Note that this isn't the prevailing scientific opinion . . . nor need it be for this statement to be true. Note: I am not a specialist in psychology or in recovered memory.

Since you bring it up, I have spoken at length to several persons who self-identified as having MPD. One of them had never seen a therapist and had "self-diagnosed" based on articles they read on the Internet. Others were clearly long-term veterans/victims (take your pick according to your prejudices) of multiple therapists. Some of them exhibited sudden and bizarre changes in behavior and apparent personality that I am at a loss to explain or understand. Some of them were clearly engaging in deception or "pretending." Not all of them were "suffering" in the sense you imply, but most found it challenging to get along in the real world. I can't agree that MPD is a creation of the therapist community. Whether or not it really exists, there are people out there who believe it exists, and behave accordingly, and are treated accordingly by others. Sociological labeling theory at work.

At one point, you support your claims by citing the dollar amounts of damage awards in civil litigation. At another point, you refute the claims of others by stating that "beyond a reasonable doubt" in criminal court is insufficient proof. I consider scientific claims-making to be somewhere in between -- more rigorous than a typical civil case, but not as rigorous as a conviction before the criminal law. Scientists are often wrong. We know it. The difference between a scientist and an extremist is that a scientist will change their views to fit their data rather than vice-versa. clarka 23 Sept 03

Clarka - your statement "If you can provide specific cites stating that the human mind does not and/or is incapable of suppressing memories, I would greatly appreciate it" indicates lack of basic understanding of the scientific method - which is the only method available for determining matters of fact.

When someone makes a positive claim - e.g. "human mind suppresses painful memories" - it is up to that person to produce proof. It is, after all, impossible to prove a negative. Can you prove you are not an alien in disguise, sent here to spy on humans, in preparation for a massive alien invasion? No, you cannot - even though this is an obviously ridiculous claim. Michael 18 Dec 2003

The scientific method is one method of determining matters of fact. Another is a judicial system, for example. Neither are 100% effective. Martin 20:08, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"It is important to note that isolated cases of sadistic brainwashing and abuse of children using Satanic themes have occurred and have been documented by legal action and criminological research. The distinction between these isolated incidents and SRA involves the purported existence of a conspiracy. See also child sexual abuse and sexual abuse."

I suspect that Curio's archive (see external links) might provide useful leads in this area. Martin

Hardly. Curio is a staunch SRA advocate (IIRC she still believes that the tunnel network in which children were supposedly abused in the 1980s will be found) who heavily relies on news reports for her propaganda website. This is highly problematic, since news reports rely on information given by police, which is in turn influenced by therapists and social workers. I encourage you to read the paper "The Trade in Child Pornography" for a similar phenomenon concerning media reports about child porn -- typically found later to be gross exaggerations. Even in case of convictions, given the widespread nature of the hysteria, the "plea bargain" nature of the US justice system ("plead guilty and get 10 years less") and the inability of many defendants to get proper legal representation, such reports cannot be taken at face value. Each and every case needs to be thorougly researched and documented (or rather, the research and documentation needs to be cited) and where this is not possible, the case should not be included.—Eloquence 02:48, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)

Certainly Curio has a bias, news reports can be wrong, and courts can make miscarriages of justice. Nevertheless, Curio's archive might provide useful leads in this area. Martin

Fair enough, although it will be a lot of work to get from leads to anything useful.—Eloquence 11:03, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)

Let me see if I understand your point here, Eloquence. You're arguing that evidence of convictions should not be taken at face value, and should be held to a much higher standard than I've seen elsewhere in Wikipedia. I agree that many media reports surrounding issues such as child porn, Internet abduction, SRA, etc. are pretty much hogwash, but now you're talking about the standards of evidence used in the late 20th and early 21st century criminal courts.

I stand by the statement above. Looks like I need to do some research to support this statement. When I can spare some time from my dissertation, I'll dig out some books and articles and start citing specific cases.

I have seen actual case files with Satanic-themed child abuse as part of contract work in child abuse prevention -- I cannot cite them here due to contract and privacy concerns.

I must reiterate that I don't have an axe to grind on this issue. Ideally, the final article should draw fire and/or grudging acceptance from both SRA theory advocates and SRA theory opponents such as Eloquence. That's the goal -- NPOV. clarka 23 Sept 03

"I have seen actual case files with Satanic-themed child abuse..." Do you mean with allegations of Satanic-themed child abuse? Or do you mean that Satanic-themed child abuse was actually documented by the caseworker? Are you sure the caseworker got it right? Allegations of Satanism by overzealous caseworkers is not uncommon. One copy of Sybil Leek or even Aleister Crowley in someone's bookcase does not a Satanist make. --Bluejay Young 03:48, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

In the case of convictions, I feel it is sufficient to say "so and so was convicted by a Belgian court of Y and Z" to satisfy NPOV. I'll be interested to see clarka's citations. Martin 20:04, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would agree except that this is an issue that revolves in large part around the issue of whether the convictions were just and fair. One would not view the Sacco and Vanzetti trial as adequately discussed by merely stating that they were convicted in a court of law. Antaeus Feldspar 00:08, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Black Mass appropriateness/relevance

The "bizarre party gag" assertion is not supported or even mentioned in either the Black Mass or the Catherine de' Medici articles. It's a cute-sounding little anecdote but unless something can be produced to substantiate it in some manner I think it should be deleted.

I also don't think it's relevant to this article anyhow and wouldn't be missed; even if it can be substantiated, the story belongs in the Black Mass article, not here. The historical origins of SRA should not be a catalogue of the history of Satanism unless the history is particularly relevant. Yes, I understand SRA claims often center around alleged practices of alleged Black Masses, but that fact can be listed under a description of SRA claims/practices with a link to the Black Mass article and leave it at that. Unnecessary, repetitive of other wikipedia content, irrelevant, it seems to me. Bsktcase 20:56, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

I personally believe SRA is complete, mass-hysterical nonsense, and yet another example of an embarrassing period in US history in particular. Having said that, I think this article is severely POV, and that concerns me.

The fact that this page and its Talk page occasionally see counter-POV, and that the counter-POV is often vandalism, or otherwise lame or unsubstantiated (in other words, that there don't seem to have been quality pro-SRA contributions to date) doesn't make the anti-SRA POV acceptable.

NPOV:

The neutral point of view policy states that one should write articles without bias, representing all views fairly.

The neutral point of view policy is easily misunderstood. The policy doesn't assume that it's possible to write an article from just a single unbiased, "objective" point of view. The policy says that we should fairly represent all sides of a dispute, and not make an article state, imply, or insinuate that any one side is correct.

This article states, implies, insinuates, snarks, finger-points, mocks and laughs about one particular side being correct. It is patronizing, dismissive, and arrogant, IMO. The fact that there are solid anti-SRA citations, and the notable lack of pro-SRA facts and citations, does not make this superior attitude OK for wikipedia. We're here to describe what the issue is, not to win an argument.

I don't have time to NPOVify this article myself in one evening. I don't want to trash the good anti-SRA facts and citations already present, and I certainly don't have any pro-SRA information myself to add. But I'll work on trying to improve the overall neutrality of language and attitude a bit at a time and hope others will assist.

Well, if you want others to follow your lead, you'll have to be more specific about where you see all those things you mention. They're quite a varied lot, actually, and it worries me that you group them all together. Surely any "finger-point[ing], mock[ing] and laugh[ing]" can be removed, but when the facts themselves imply the conclusion, how can you both report the facts and not imply the conclusion? -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:14, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Attempts to improve the article

I've tried to eliminate some of the weasel words and passive verbs and say who claims what exactly. I did not try to get rid of the apparent presumption that SRA is false because I can't see any way to comprehensively cover this topic without a sceptical eye. Diderot 13:35, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I really like your edits. I don't have any objection to the facts pointing to the conclusion; my main concern was the tone of the article, which I think you've improved tremendously. Thanks! —Bsktcase 01:36, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The statement that Michelle Remembers is the first contemporary account of ritual abuse is false. It is preceeded by Freud's work with his patient Emile Eckstein, who claimed similar experiences, to the point that Freud wondered if she wasn't the victim of what he called a 'fertility cult'. There is also an intriguing article in Canada's Winnipeg Free Press on 26 November 1959 that discusses organised Satanism in the context of child abuse, and articles in California's Berkeley Barb (November 1969) and Wisconsin's Bugle-American (November 1975) referring to reports of Satanic orgies and sacrifices. The notion that one book was the source of a 'hysterical contagion' that spread around the world may be a tenet of the denialist position but it is historically false - not to mention bizarre.

Right, but whether or not Freud can be considered "contemporary" is a matter of opinion. It should be mentioned, though. Did the Barb article refer to children in the context of Satanic orgies, or was it a general article about what was (actually or rumored to be) going on in Southern California among consenting adults? The fact is that while these concepts were known and talked about previous to Michelle Remembers, that was the first contemporary account that the public at large paid attention to, mostly because of the huge amount of publicity it got on Christian television from the likes of Hal Lindsey and Johanna Michaelsen. Lindsey and Michaelsen were also dupes of Lauren Stratford and repeated her outlandish stories as if they were proved facts. There actually seem to have been two related Satan scares going on at the time; one, that young children were kidnapped and used; the other, that teenagers voluntarily devoted themselves to these practices. --Bluejay Young 16:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Freud's patient (Emma Eckstein) recalled being genitally mutilated by the cult and forced to eat the flesh they cut from her - these injuries were confirmed for Freud by a medical exam. This is not an easy case for the ritual abuse denialists to dismiss, so they simply ignore it.

I'm not American and and the contoversies over Stratford did not play out in Europe and Australia with the same scope that they received in America. In Australia, fundamentalist Christianity is not a significant force in the media or in politics, and 'explaining' Australian ritual abuse cases through Stratford stretches credibility.

The notion that Stratford's narrative is a cultural contagion that 'magically' spread overseas and 'magically' infected hundreds of therapists to 'magically' implant memories in their patients who then 'magically' developed symptoms of severe psychological distress is ridiculous. There is no evidence base for such an incredible causal chain.

Moreover, as someone who has been involved in assisting ritual abuse survivors, I've had my house broken into, blood and cow organs smeared through my bedroom, and occult symbols painted on my walls. I've been confronted by perpetrators and I've had death threats. I've seen what somebody looks like after they've been ritually abused and tortured - including occult sigils burnt into the torso with a red-hot poker.

It seems to me that the issue of SRA has gotten lost in the American culture wars. The survivor narratives suited the agenda of Christian fundamentalists, who hijacked the issue and used it to their own end. This has elicited an oppositional response from 'skeptics' who now can't see SRA in it's own light, outside these ideological debates.

And American isolationism does the debate no favours. The consensus on McMartin and other American day-care abuse cases might be different if you considered that, in England and Australia, paedophile rings have been exposed operating their own preschools and daycare centres, and the child victims involved spontaneously and consistently disclosed SRA material.

For the skeptics - you blame social workers and therapists for magically 'implanting' false memories of ritual abuse? Then consider this article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,1587726,00.html) where social workers are being blamed for *not* removing ritually abused children from their parents - precisely because the social workers were afraid they would be blamed for "inventing" the children's ritual abuse by people such as yourself.

It would be impossible to ‘improve’ this article without entirely rewriting it.

Existence: The statement regarding a professional ‘consensus’ is false. At best, we can say that the nature and prevalence of the crime is highly contested, but as to its existence: there are people in jail for the crime, some of whom confessed. There are academics and professionals all over the world who have attested, and continue to attest, to the reality of the crime in a variety of contexts. The assertion of a consensus is an ideological one and goes against Wikipedia’s policy of neutrality.

Prevalence: The article suddenly lurches into the realm of ritual murder – why? That is not the subject under discussion. It then moves back to SRA itself by quoting from the ‘Ontario Consultants’, a body of individuals who purport to being ‘objective’ on the basis of having no expertise or experience in the field they ‘consult’ on. Firstly, the article supports its assertion on ritual murder with a quote on ritual abuse (they are two separate issues) and, secondly, quotes from an online source with no professional qualifications at all. A snappy title does not an expert make.

History: This section is profoundly biased. It attempts to draw a relationship between belief in SRA and belief in ‘supernatural powers’, and there is no study to support such an assertion. It also ignores the historical evidence for SRA, which includes the Affair of the Poisons in the court of Louis XIV, the allegations against Gilles de Rais, the findings of the Roman Senate against the Bacchic cult, Freud’s own work with a ritually abused patient, Janet’s work with ‘hysterical’ women, and so on.

Modern times: The article looks at the rise of ritual abuse cases in the 80s without reference to the explosion in ALL child abuse allegations at that time. Ritual abuse was only one of many permutations of child abuse to receive dramatically increased attention during the 1980s, but the article attempts to treat SRA as a completely isolated phenomenon, using highly charged and biased phrases such as “Satanic panic” and “SRA industry”.

There is a direct contradiction in the article between the reference to SRA “self-appointed experts” and then the use of quotes from the “Ontario consultants” (self-appointed experts with no academic or professional qualifications) and the vague and unreferenced appeal to “Wiccan investigators” (Who? What are their qualifications?).

The author provides no evidence to support the assertion that a series of television programs – or a few books – could be responsible for hundreds of ritual abuse allegations, and there is evidence to the contrary. Stephen Kent’s articles on scriptural deviancy (Religion, 1993, vol. 23) found details of occult ritual, theology and cosmology in the disclosures of ritual abuse survivors that had correlates in occult literature that is not in available in popular culture. Kent concluded that the disclosures of SRA survivors cannot be pop culture fabrications for the simple reason that survivors know the specifics of occult doctrines that they have not been exposed to through the media.

Specific cases: Extraordinarily selective. It’s ironic that the links section contains reference to dozens of successful prosecutions for the crime whilst the article only highlights those that suit the POV of the author. I won’t go into the distortions regarding specific cases, which are appalling, and, at times, profoundly defamatory. The entire article is the result of ‘research-by-Google’ – if the ‘evidence’ isn’t available online, then it’s not in this article.

Questioning children: This section is entirely POV. There is no supporting evidence for the statements that children are more suggestible then adults, or that investigators work under the presumption that abuse has occurred, or that techniques in working with abused children are ‘highly problematic’. There is a substantial body of research and evidence base around the reliability of children’s testimony eg Devoe, Fuller, “The Characteristics of Disclosure Among Children Who May Have Been Sexually Abused”, Child Maltreatment, Vol 4, No 3, August 1999, pp 217 – 227.

The article then claims to summarise child interviewing techniques in SRA cases - again, with no references and with no supportive evidence. It seems unlikely to me that the author has access to transcripts of child abuse interviews from around the world over the last three decades, or that s/he took the time to thematically analyse them. As such, this paragraph is entirely POV and entirely unsupported.

The reference to Napolis in this section is bizarre – What does her mental illness have to do with child testimony?

Hypnosis and false memories: The author is ignorant of the fact that the phrase ‘recovered memory therapy’ was actually coined by Ofshe and Watters in ‘Making Monsters’. I’d point out that one author is a sociologist and the other a journalist, neither with any psychological training at all. It’s clear that ‘Making Monsters’ is the *only* book that the author has read on the subject of traumatic memory.

Meanwhile, the clinical literature on traumatic amnesia goes back to the late 19th century, and the unique nature of traumatic memory has been observed in countless experiments and studies.

Leavitt’s 1997 study “False attribution of suggestibility to explain recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse following extended amnesia” (Child Abuse and Neglect, Vol 21, No 3, pp 265 – 277) found that a group of patients who had recovered memories of child abuse scored *lower* on the suggestibility scale then the control group.

I’d also point you to this finding, which has been supported by a number of clinical experiments:

“Childhood abuse, particularly chronic abuse beginning at early ages, is related to the development of high levels of dissociative symptoms including amnesia for abuse memories. This study strongly suggests that psychotherapy usually is not associated with memory recovery and that independent corroboration of recovered memories of abuse is often present.” (James A. Chu, M.D., Lisa M. Frey, Psy.D., Barbara L. Ganzel, Ed.M., M.A., and Julia A. Matthews, Ph.D., M.D, “Memories of Childhood Abuse: Dissociation, Amnesia, and Corroboration”, American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 156, Issue 5, May 1999, pp 749 - 755)

and

“The charts of 34 dissociative identity disorder (DID) patients in treatment with the author were reviewed for instances of the confirmation or disconfirmation of recalled episodes of abuse occurring naturalistically in the course of their psychotherapies . Nineteen, or 56 % ,had instances of the confirmation of recalled abuses . Ten of the 19, or53 %, had always recalled the abuses that were ronfirrned . However,13 of the 19, or 68%, obtained documentation . of events that were recovered in the course of therapy, usually with the use of hypnosis .” (Dr Richard Kluft, “The Confirmation and Disconfirmation of Memories of Abuse in DID patients: A naturalistic study”, Dissociation, Vol VIII, No 4, 1995, pp 253 – 258)

Prevalence: The original author/s were clearly ignorant of the fact that a number of studies have been undertaken on the prevalence of Satanic ritual abuse. Instead, they wrote a section of the prevalence of ritual murder, which is not the subject under discussion, quoting an inflated figure from a random prison psychologist and then debunking it with quotes from anonymous online 'specialists'. I've included the largest and most respected studies on the subject and provided footnote details in the bibliography.

Right. This is messed up. I posted changes to this article sourced to peer-reviewed, academic journal articles and recieved a "last warning" from Zoe threatening to block me from doing any editing. The article itself has no footnotes, utilises no evidence, demonstrates a bizarre lack of research and veers randomly from the subject to ritual murder and quotes by vague unnamed 'experts'.

Even additions to the bibliography were deleted - sorry, Zoe, how is adding academic journal articles to a bibliography "slander"? Biaothanatoi 05:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not, Zoe just likes to get her own way and have her voice heard. --84.68.133.80 12:50, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I have to again question the 'Prevalence' section of this article. The article starts with a figure (40,000 to 60,000 a year) and then goes on to say that the figure is implausably high, given that there are fewer than 20,000 homocides reported each year. The 40,000 to 60,000 figure is so ludicrous and comes from such a biased, un-scientific source that the article looks ridiculous because of it.Njsamizdat 13:29, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

why the hysteria about the "hysteria"?

I am a ritual abuse survivor- or rather I am a survivor of abuse that seems to have many euphemisms attached to it. Until now, I have never heard or read about "an international conspiracy" of satanic cults. Many survivors I know have experienced their abuse within the context of a satanic cult involving some or all members of their family- but not necessarily connected to some giant network. Some have experienced the isolated situations someone technically referred to as "nutjobs." This is the case with me. My experiences did not take place within a large cult. My father was the only one in my family involved. It is similar to what someone referred to as trauma-based or to what people have experienced through war, holocausts or oppressive regimes. It does however, happen in large groups.

There are many common myths espoused about this form of abuse. One is that therapists are lining up to 'encourage, force or feed' weak, confused or disturbed individuals into believing something horrible happened when in actuality nothing had taken place. One psychologist said ritual abuse didn't occur, but we were such a sick society that we believed it did. I find that a ridiculous statement.

I spent many years asking therapists why I had certain images and memories I couldn't explain. Not one of them offered any explanation or even steered me towards any kind of solution. This is true of many survivors.

Another is that if this abuse happens, why don't we know about it and stop it. The Klan is a cult that is involved in many ritualistic abuses, particularly murder. Why are they still around ? Why don't we know more about their activities? Why does the government allow them to continue?

Also, the McMartin case is frequently quoted as being a "witchunt" that destroyed the careers and lives of the accused. They were not exactly found innocent. Several of the jurors said they believed the children had been abused, but they could not believe the extremely horrific claims made by the prosecutors. They felt they had to find them innocent of 'ritual' abuse. A few years later, after investigators went back to the pre-school, they found an under ground tunnel with animal remains and bones.

It is not hard for seemingly "rational,educated or enlightened" people to understand 'the horrors of war', torture or brainwashing in a geo-political context, but it seems impossible for these same people to translate that into the understanding that, if there are such people in this world that they don't contain their activities to armed conflict or the battlefield. You can believe that Vietnam prisoners of war were held in cages and had their lives threatened and that student protesters were abducted, raped and murdered in Chile or that female babies are put to death by their parents in China. But you can't believe my father locked me inside old freezer units or put scissors or knives inside my body or broke the necks of my pet rabbits to keep me too afraid to tell or hunted me like deer when he was drunk and just a bit bored.

The hysteria about SRA (and I mean the hysteria about the belief this kind of abuse never happens) is quite ironic. Someone close to me once said he didn't belive this happened to me. When I asked him why, he said, "Well look at you, you're a broken person, you can't even function in society." I said, "Exactly, it's like looking at someone bleeding to death and not believing they were in an accident."

I'm very sorry to hear about what you've suffered through. No one is denying the truth of your personal experience. However, regarding the editing of this encyclopedia, we can only use verfiable sources for our material, not original research. As for the McMartin preschool, I have not heard of the authorities finding any tunnels. If a reliable source for that can be found then it should certainly be added to that article. be well, and thanks for contributing to wikipedia. -Willmcw 00:44, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

No one is denying the truth of your personal experience. Well, speak for yourself. I can't outright claim it is false, but I deny that it can be stated as true. It has all too many hallmarks of sheer delusional fantasy. Many people have claimed to have been ritually abused and turned out to have been completely wrong, so I'm not about to accept that this alleged personal experience is true without some heavy duty evidence, much like encyclopedia article need real evidence, not just claims of anonymous people on the internet. DreamGuy 11:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The "Archaeological Investigations of the McMartin Preschool site , Manhattan Beach, California" by UCLA archeologist E. Gary Stickel, Ph.D, is available online.

Roland Summit discusses the implications of the findings in an article reprinted at: http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/mcmartin.htm.

Both extremely biased sources which have been debunked. DreamGuy 11:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you have links or references to the debunking? That might be very helpful in this context. Michael Voytinsky 14:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I could provide them for you, but if you Google McMartin tunnels (no quotes needed) they pop right up on a number of articles. That should give you a basic idea of how wellspread this knowledge is (and that I am not picking and choosing, it's just there). By my quick count, all but two of the articles on the first page of results at this time debunk the claims, while one of the two that try to advance it is the geocities page listed above. DreamGuy 15:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

If you knew anything about the field of SRA beyond the five minutes you've spent in front of Google, you'd know that the "IPT Journal" articles that you claim 'debunk' the McMartin Tunnel findings were written by Ralph Underwager.

Firstly, Underwager is a minister-turned-psychologist with no expertise in archeology, so I'm confused as to how he could 'debunk' an archeological finding.

Secondly, Underwager is pro-paedophile and had to step down from the False Memory Syndrome Foundation board after claiming, in a Dutch paedophile journal, that God blessed paedophiles and that they can "boldly and courageously affirm what they choose". http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/Underwager2.html

You might be interested in this transcript regarding Underwager's testimony in an Australian ritual abuse case. http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/MrBubbles.html

There are tunnels under the McMartin preschool and an online dismissal by a pro-paedophile activist whose credibility has been questioned by four judges in two countries (http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/Underwager4.html) doesn't change that.

Honestly, DreamGuy, why don't you sit down with a book or a journal article sometime? Research-by-Google has it's limitations. 129.94.6.28 23:22, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

"Sadistic Ritual Abuse"

Incorrect definition of SRA, SRA is not limited to ‘a network’ nor to ‘Satanists’.

The fact that late in the game, after the fiercely made "you have to believe us or you're part of the conspiracy" claims about a global Satanic conspiracy which had so thoroughly infiltrated all law enforcement agencies that no actual evidence ever surfaced were finally rejected as completely without foundation, those people who did not want to abandon their beliefs switched to a somewhat less ludicrous fantasia about ritual abuse and murder, does not mean that we cannot talk about the original witch hunt. The die-hard SRA believers may have changed their story to now pretend "oh, we never said that there were more murders being committed by an international network of Satanists than the FBI thinks takes place in the entire nation" but the fact is that they did say it; we are not obliged to change our story just because they changed theirs.

If we mention it at all, we should mention it as what it is: a too-late, primarily unsuccessful (just 731 hits for "sadistic ritual abuse", as opposed to 39,600 for "Satanic Ritual Abuse") attempt to back away from the aspects of their story that caused it to be exposed as delusion in the first place. After over ten years of screaming "This is the truth!! If you don't uncritically believe every single one of our claims no matter how clearly the evidence contradicts them, you must be part of that international network of Satanists!" we are not going to shove those ten years down the memory hole and let the claim on record be "oh, a network of Satanists? No, we never said anything like that..." -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:57, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

What you’re talking about is editorializing an article so that it can be used to prove a valid point of view. This against Wikipedia’s policy of neutrality. Also, it should be brought to your attention that the terms Satanic Ritual Abuse and Sadistic Ritual Abuse are both used in psychology and other fields interchangeably to refer to patients who believe themselves to have been the victims of Sadistic Ritual Abuse, not necessarily Satanic Ritual Abuse and not necessarily conducted by networks or cults. You will be interested to know that Sadistic Ritual Abuse has also been said to cover Christian Ritual Abuse (for which there is no current Wikipedia article).

I’m reverting the edit to mine as the previous version was incorrect. Whatever SRA has meant in the past is irrelevant to its current definition and current usage of the term. History is history.

Yes. History is history. Meaning you can't go back and revise it when it becomes inconvenient. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:24, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

I’m not talking about revising history, I’m talking about providing an accurate definition of a term that is used in places other than witch hunts!Jdbartlett 19:29, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Is that better? I included both definitions, stressing that the second is more recent and covers a wide range of abuse. I will now create a separate article for Sadistic Ritual Abuse and link to this one. Jdbartlett 19:47, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

“Antaeus Feldspar” fails to acknowledge that there has always been a continuum of belief amongst those who believe and support ritual abuse survivors. His contention that there is a monolithic and identifable body of 'SRA believers' who are engaging in collective backpedalling from 'satanic conspiracies' is wholly false. In the 80s, some RA ‘believers’ talked about ‘conspiracies’, and some still do. The stories they had to sell were sensationalist and the media lapped it up and then pilloried them. In the meantime, their stories of 'satanic conspiracies' were conflated with the narratives of all survivors. This has never been the case. The narratives of most RA survivors are mundane and concerned with the day-to-day experiences of abuse and shame. (See Sara Scott's "Beyond Disbeleif: The Politics and Experience of Ritual Abuse" or "Breaking Ritual Silence: An Anthology of Ritual Abuse Survivors' Stories" edited by Jeanne M. Lorena and Paula Levy)

Feldspar does not appear to cognisant of the crucial role that the media plays in shaping public perception of phenomenon such as ‘SRA’ truth claims. The vast majority of survivor advocates have always had a far more sophisticated understanding of the criminology of extreme deviance and the subcultures of organised paedophilia. We are just a lot quieter about it, and our discussions take place in academic journals and conferences. To the media, this is a lot more boring then the sensationalists and fundamentalists that use SRA to further their own agenda. To state that all survivors and advocates believe the same thing, and are collectively responsible for the claims of an extreme few, seems to me quite ridiculous.

I also find the utilisation of the sociological theory of ‘moral panics’ in this debate to be wholly ignorant of the nuance of the theory. ‘Moral panic’ theory is descriptive, not explanatory. There have been ‘moral panics’ about HIV, but the virus exists nonetheless. Moreover, ‘moral panic’ theory has been critiqued within sociology as being a fundamentally convenient, derogative and dismissive, rather then analytical and reflexive.

"The vast majority of survivor advocates have always had a far more sophisticated understanding of the criminology of extreme deviance and the subcultures of organised paedophilia." No, they just have more intricate delusions on the subject, which are more carefully crafted to survive contact with reality. It's still constructed on an absence of evidence. Are all purported "ritual abuse survivors" responsible for the claims of "an extreme few"? Wrong question to ask. The correct question is, "Since the hysterical pervasive myth of an international Satanic conspiracy of child murder/abuse/pornography rings turned out to be the delusions of mentally ill adults, bolstered by irresponsible investigators who trumpeted 'Believe the children!' but then refused to believe the children until they gave in to investigators' leading questions and generated fantasies which could be slotted in (with appropriate editing) into the theories based on the aforementioned delusions of adults, is there any reason to believe that the version which believes in all the same Satanic child porn rings except not in the conspiracy has any more foundation?" The answer is "no", of course. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:08, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Let me get this straight, Feldspar. A book (“Michelle Remembers”) became an infectious mental illness (SRA belief) that spread around the globe, solely targeting therapists.

Through this book-related infection (belief in SRA), the therapists gained the magical ability to create vivid memories in their patients of childhood torture and abuse.

There is now a worldwide network of infected therapists who hold thousands of patients in their evil thrall, sucking them dry of money and energy.

And, to top it off, anybody who tells you any different is really just a footsoldier of the televangelists that you saw on TV twenty years ago who believed in an international Satanic conspiracy.

You’ve got a little conspiracy theory of your own there. It’s just missing some vampires.

links

Curious about the bias in your your ‘links’ section:

Why the focus on Curio Jones and not, for instance, on the multiple courts across the globe that have found RA-debunker and False Memory Syndrome ex-board member Ralph Underwager to be an unfit expert? What about his interview in Paidiki in which he encourages paedophiles to ‘courageously affirm’ their choice to have sex with children? http://movingforward.org/v2n4-underwager.html

What about the currently-unfolding case at Hosanna Church, Louisiana, in which the pastor has spontaneously confessed to leading a ‘devil-worshipping’ (his own words) cult that raped animals and children? The police have found robes, knives, crossbows in possession of the other alleged members, as well as multiple refrigeration units buried on the church grounds? http://www.rickross.com/groups/hosanna.html

What about the list of ritual abuse convictions at http://www.healingroads.org/ra_cases.html? (Or are we to believe that all of these convictions are false? Wouldn’t such a belief constitute a ‘conspiracy theory’ in and of itself?)

I’d also suggest a link to James Quan’s “A consolidation of SRA and False Memory Data”, which is by far the most measured and object account of the debate currently available on the net. http://home.att.net/~mcra/consldra.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.94.6.28 (talk • contribs) 02:21, October 5, 2005 129.94.6.28

Please add new comments at the bottom, and sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). If you see improvement that are possible, please be bold and make them yourself. Thanks, -Willmcw 06:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

And to respond to the earlier comments: You can't be serious? You're so biased you're off the scale and you have the nerve to claim that the article is baised? Give me a break. DreamGuy 17:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

"DreamGuy", you are way out of your depth. I'm not a survivor but I've been in the field long enough to be threatened with death and worse by perpetrators. I've seen what victims look like after they have been tortured and raped by ritual abuse perpetrators - I've had to take them to hospital afterwards. These things don't make the papers, we don't take them to court, they aren't in the public domain but they are going on - whether you are comfortable with it or not.

What field is it that you have been in for a long time? Also, if you have been in a position to take victims of SRA to hospital, surely that would have also put you in the position to report the abuse to authorities? Did you do so? Is there a public record of any of this? To put this in other words, do you have any evidence other than anonymous statements in a Wikipedia talk page? Michael Voytinsky 14:22, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Your request for evidence is a joke. When I supply it it is deleted - that includes large surveys, samples and qualitative studies by sociologists, psychologists and child welfare workers published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at professional conferences. When I post about successful ritual abuse prosecutions and the dismantling of large-scale paedophile networks they are deleted as well. It appears that the denialist position is so entrenched here that nothing will break your groupthink. 129.94.6.28 01:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Of course. More reasons for why you cannot present any evidence in place of evidence. If your "evidence" has been deleted, please point me to the edit version that has that evidence. Unless the people running the Wikipedia website are in on the conspiracy, whatever you put in should still be there. Michael Voytinsky 02:51, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

And perhaps you don't realise this but there are countries outside America, with court cases and police investigations that don't make it to Fox. The fact that some American Christian fundamentalists got excited about SRA in the late 80s is irrelevant to the question of the existence of ritual abuse. Here is a news flash for you: media fads are phenomenon all of their own, they don't speak to the truth/existence/reality of anything. It's illogical to conflate the two.

I'm not biased. I'm experienced and informed. But don't let that get in the way of your armchair commentary on things you clearly have no concept of. However, you might want to ask yourself - Do you want to be the sort of person that provides covering fire (inadvertently or otherwise) for organised paedophilia?

Ah, yes. "If you disagree with me, you are helping pedophiles!" The witch-hunters have not changed that much since the Middle Ages. Surely you are familiar with similar accusations being made against anyone who thought that maybe there was no wide conspiracy of witches. Michael Voytinsky 14:22, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

*snort* Oh, the 'witch-hunts' metaphor. How original. So anyone who can attest to the truth of SRA is a rampaging Christian fundamentalist out to slander Satanists and people with alternative spiritualities - would that be right? Although I am not a Christian and was actually Wiccan when my friend first began disclosing to me?

Invoking a historical anecdote will not wash away ritual abuse and any other sadistic phenomenon that make you uncomfortable. Nor will the wholesale labelling and slander that is taking place on this page.129.94.6.28 01:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

"These things don't make the papers, we don't take them to court" -- well why don't you? If you have proof that these things are occurring, and you're not taking them to the media and to the courts to verify that they are real and happening and to keep them from happening again, you're immoral. If you aren't taking them to the papers and to the courts because you don't have proof, then don't come waltzing onto Wikipedia and expecting us to take your word for it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

It's clear that you've never met a survivor - it's clear that you know nothing about this subject beyond some late 80s talk shows that got you all riled up - but let me map it out for you.

Survivors find it hard to eat without vomiting, they don't sleep without hours of flashbacks, and the usual trappings of post-traumatic stress disorder (constant fear, anxiety, hypervigilance, intrusive memories) make it extremely difficult for them to get through the day. That's the lucky ones - the ones whose perpetrators have stopped making contact. There are many adults who continue to be victimised, raped and tortured.

Thanks to denialists such as yourself, there are no supportive or protective services for RA survivors and very few skilled professionals willing to commit to the long-term work of reconstructing the survivor's fragmented minds and lives. The damage to the survivor is global.

They aren't prime candidates for an adversarial court system. They aren't the sort of witnesses that withstand cross-examination. It takes years before they can talk to friends about what they have been through - demanding that they confront their perpetrators in court is akin to asking a Holocaust survivor to stare down Joseph Mengele.

Those of us on the frontline between the perpetrators and their victims have seen things that would make your hair stand up on end. It's not a matter of 'proof'. The perps have sent people in my care photos of their own paedophilic rape and torture simply to reinforce the fact that they have the blackmail material. They know that the victim will be too ashamed to hand this material to the authorities, particularly since they often show the victim being forced to participate in sexual crimes against others.

That's the nature of modern-day sexual slavery. It's horrifying and unendurable and it's happening in America, in Australia, in Europe and Africa and all around the world. Sometimes there are rituals, sometimes the iconography is Christian or Satanic or occult or Hindu - but always there is torture and rape and degradation and shame.

And always there are people like you who can't beleive these crimes exist - who blame the survivor for bringing them to light - who smear and diminish the professionals who fight for them. I don't care whether you "take my word for it" or not, Feldspar. It doesn't look to me like your word is worth very much at all.

And its clear you are trying to pass nonsense off as fact with all sorts of yet more nonsensical excuses. Does abuse exist? Yes. Does Satanic ritual abuse exist? There's no evidence to support it in the way you are claiming and lots of evidence against. If the things you claim were real, we would already have widespread evidence. This is an encyclopedia, not some blog for you to go around making stuff up. Go play your little conspiracy theory fantasy roleplaying witch hunt games somewhere else. DreamGuy 10:51, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

You know, wouldn't you look like a complete and total moron if I was a survivor? You know, the real kind, the kind that actually happens, rather than your paranoid coke-dream fantasies that never leave any sort of evidence, or whose evidence will always be, for one reason or another, someplace else where no one can verify that it even exists? "I don't care whether you "take my word for it" or not, Feldspar." Bullshit. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be trying to apply your carrot and stick. "Believe all the unsupported horror stories I babble out about and you can be a good person like me! Ask to see some evidence and you're an evil 'denialist' who's helping the abuse continue!" Well, guess what? Your "stick" is a piece of straw and your "carrot" is a wilted frond. I've had first-hand contact with the reality of sexual abuse. I know there are abusers out there. I know there are victims out there. I have nothing but contempt for morons like you who play hysteria-crazed games of "let's pretend" based on the delusions of the mentally ill and the shrill hysteria of TV movies. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Fascinating little pieces of vitriol by both of you. You claim there is no evidence but you simply haven't bothered to do your research. Women with ritual cervical scarification - adult SRA victims with no birth certificates - perpetrators who confess - child and adult witnesses with corroborating testimony - convictions, statements, ritual abuse pornography - all of these things are on the record if you bothered to look beyond Google for your sources.

Since you obviously know where to find all this evidence, why don't you provide the links, bibliography, etc.? Michael Voytinsky 23:26, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

And Feldspar, you don't have the right to silence other survivors because their experiences don't accord with yours. I've had first hand experience of sexual abuse as a child, and SRA as an adult - in both cases I was as a witness to (rather then a victim of) the assaults. One doesn't preclude the other.

And I've bothered to write here - not because I care what you think, Feldspar - but because too many people around the web have linked to this poorly written and unresearched article and I'm sick of it. There is a huge body of data out there on ritual abuse - including verification of the crime - but if it's not in the popular media, or available via Google, then it's not here. What a joke. 129.94.6.28 23:10, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

No, we know there is no evidence BECAUSE we've done the research and NOT just accepted the claims of the conspiracy theorists outright. DreamGuy 23:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

DreamGuy, I learned about RA from a woman recovering from RA, not from a 'conspiracy theorist'. The woman in question had no therapist, no hypnotherapy, no television, had never read 'Michelle Remembers', and neither of us knew the phrase "ritual abuse" until about four years after she began disclosing her experiences to me.

You could, at the very least, withhold judgement until you've actually met a survivor. But, no - you think that a few Googled webpages and some bad talk shows give you the right to insult them all.

As for your 'research'? Where is the evidence of that? Where are the journal articles, the books, the references to anything beyond what you can get for free? If that was the case, you would have read testimony from police officers and researchers who HAVE watched films of ritual abuse sacrifices and orgies. You'd know that pornography censors regularly come across images of the ritual torture of young children. You would have seen foresnic photos of ritually sacrificed children, photos of internal ritual scarification that cannot be reduced to self-mutilation.

It's all there if you bother to get off you ass and look for it. But why bother? So much easier to pretend to be an armchair expert and point to free journal articles by Ralph Underwager, although you have no idea of his history or the fact that he claimed that paedophilia was only the "pursuit of intimacy and love". This is the sort of man you have on your side. 129.94.6.28 23:35, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Tell me, Senator, do you happen to have, in your hand, a list of no less than three hundred known ritual-abusing pedophile murderers? Your so-called evidence is bullshit. "Pornography censors regularly come across images of the ritual torture of young children." Yeah, just like they regularly come across snuff films. Your argument is still based on absence of evidence -- your hysterical claims that it fills the world, that it's to be found in every corner of the world except just that particular corner where we happen to be looking, doesn't change the fact that the evidence is not there. And the evidence that does get presented is of atrocious quality -- how are we supposed to take a list of "ritual abuse convictions" seriously when it includes the conviction of the Amiraults, for God's sake?? -- Antaeus Feldspar 13:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Feldspar, you've effectively innoculated yourself against reality. Your logic goes something like "RA doesn't exist because there is no evidence or convictions. Any evidence of RA is not real because RA does not exist. Anyone convicted of RA is innocent because RA does not exist."

My summation of the evidence for ritual abuse (see below) is hardly an "absence of evidence". How do you account for the conviction of Gerald Robinson last week or the Catholic Church's admission of ritual abuse and murder in Australia this week? In both cases, Catholic priests were convicted of Satanic crimes that you claim don't exist - in fact, you claim these crimes are fabricated by Christian fundamentalists. Then why are they accusing their own? If you bothered to read the survey work done with ritual abuse survivors (eg Margaret Smith 1991) you'll find that victims have always implicated priests in the ritualistic sexual abuse of children. Kind of blows apart your "fundamentalist" theory, huh?

And, by the way, snuff films do exist. You keep forgetting - I'm not like you or your cheerleaders here. I know what I'm talking about.

In 2003, Interpol assistant director Hamish McCulloch stated: "There is no doubt that such films exist, many of which are available via the internet." (Snuff Movies: Fact or Fiction? 16 October 2003, SAPA). Let's take a look at reports on snuff movies around the world, shall we?

USA: “In America, the FBI went undercover to a meeting of people invited to watch a snuff movie with a view to buying a copy and the fee to attend the showing alone was 10,000 dollars." (British police probe "snuff movies" in child murder hunt, 27 July 1990, Reuters News).

Scotland: "Detectives who found Simon Harris hanged at his home on Sunday uncovered a stash of child porn. The hoard - hidden in his shed and the house - included computer images, photos and snuff movies." (Child porn stash found in murder suspect's house, Amy Devine, 30 August 2005, Scottish Daily Record).

South Africa: "In a gruesome case which has shocked South Africa, Ronnie Grimsley was jailed for life last week for his assault on 18-year-old Tanya Flowerday.

... police who investigated the case remain convinced Tanya was killed after featuring in a snuff movie where victims are filmed as they are raped and murdered. They believed the disturbing video evidence has since been sold overseas." (Fiend raped and killed teenager in grotesque snuff movie execution, Ruairi O'Kane, 2 August 2005, The Daily Express)

Britain: "... During a harrowing trial at Lewes crown court, the jury had heard that Coutts, who kept Ms Longhurst's body for almost a month and visited it frequently while it was in a storage unit, was an avid user of sites devoted to snuff movies and necrophilia." (Killer was obsessed by porn websites, Steven Morris, 5 February 2004, The Guardian)

"... Speaking in a trembling voice, she also told how she was forced to watch DVD snuff movies. She said one of her attackers had said: "We are killers, you know." (Court hears of schoolgirl's abuse by footballers gang, 19 November 2004, Daily Star)

Netherlands: "The undercover officer asked Spinks if he could get him a sado-masochistic video featuring boys as young as 10, and Spinks replied that he knew people in Amsterdam who could: `I know, well I knew, some people who were involved in making snuff movies and how they did it was, they only sold them in limited editions, made 10 copies or something, 10 very rich customers in America, who paid $5,000 each or something like that". " (When sex abuse can lead to murder, Nick Davies, 27 November 2000, The Guardian)

Ireland: "... A special police unit was able to infiltrate a paedophile network, intercepting packages of pornographic material arriving by mail and then having them delivered by undercover policemen, dressed as postmen and carrying hidden cameras. Thousands of tapes and digital disks, seized during raids on 600 homes, included scenes in which minors - possibly orphans or kidnap victims, some aged only two - were raped. One videotape, costing #4, appears to have been a "snuff movie", showing the killing of a child." (TV personality row eclipses paedophile pornography, By PADDY AGNEW, 4 October 2000, Irish Times)

Russia: "Last week Italian police seized 3,000 of Kuznetsov's videos on their way to clients in Italy, sparking an international hunt for paedophiles who have bought his products. The Italian investigators say the material includes footage of children dying during abuse. Prosecutors in Naples are considering charging those who have bought the videos with complicity in murder. They say some may have specifically requested films of killings. " (British link to 'snuff' videos, By Jason Burke, Amelia Gentleman, Philip Willan, 1 October 2000, The Observer)

"Absence of evidence?" Not exactly. Biaothanatoi 06:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

*sigh* Not sure if I really want to step into this, but both of your news links above are dead and Gerald Robinson was convicted of murder, not of "Satanic ritual abuse." Laying aside the fact that he was convicted on a very fragile chain of evidence during a time when people were looking for an opportunity to witchhunt Catholic priests, the only tie to SRA is that the prosecutors claimed that the pattern of stab wounds and a smudge on her forehead were indicative of a ritual and that an anonymous caller accused him of having been involved in satanic rituals some 20 years before. Unless you have information outside of what's been released in the news reports on the incident, I'd say you're buying into the hype here in hopes to bolster your point. -Fuzzy 22:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I didn't claim that Gerald Robinson was convicted to "satanic ritual abuse", merely that he was convicted. I'm buying into "the hype" about what? All those court cases that support my argument? Perhaps I should ignore the evidence that led me to hold the opinions I know do. It seems to have worked for many other commentators on this page. --Biaothanatoi 23:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Prevalence

I'll try this again - perhaps, this time, Zoe won't see fit to delete every addition to the article that doesn't fit her agenda.

The present entry under the prevalence of SRA has nothing to do with SRA - nor, for that matter, the prevalence of the crime. It refers solely to ritual murders, which is not the topic being discussed.

A number of studies into the prevalence of SRA have been undertaken and I'd like to see them quoted here. I think it is also important to make the point that it is extremely difficult to quantify ANY form of sexual abuse, even less controversial forms.

I'll leave in the current content and add to it, although I would argue that the present content is not only irrelevant but profoundly biased. I also question the reliance of the article on the "Ontario Consultants", who are not specialists in the field of theology or (for that matter) organised paedophilia. What they do have is an extensive website - and this article privileges online sources above all others, regardless of their credibility.

Is that OK, Zoe? Or would you like to threaten to ban me again? Biaothanatoi 22:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Adding profound bias to the article is not "fixing" it. Ritual murders most certainly IS the topic being discussed, or at least a major part of them. Your claims of th article being biased don;t mean much when your goals appear to be adding extremely biased info. So, yes, it's been deleted again. We're not going to turn this article into all the unsupported and highly illogical claims from the conspiracy theorists. DreamGuy 23:11, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The only conspiracy theorist here is people such as yourself, DreamGuy. I present a massive quantitative survey of the American Psychological Association by four sociologists - you see a conspiracy theory. I present a national survey of day care centre abuse by two sociologists - you see a conspiracy theory. I present the breakdown of a sample of child abuse survivors by a national child welfare body - you see a conspiracy thoery.

Apparently everyone that disagrees with you a conspiracy theorist - no matter that that they are academic professors with tenure or psychologists with decades of clinical experience! 129.94.6.28 23:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Just so that everyone has the right to read it - regardless of DreamGuy and Zoe's persecutory beliefs that anyone who knows that SRA exist must be part of a great big conspiracy - here are the changes I proposed to the article under prevalence:

---

Methodologically, it is extremely difficult to quantify the prevalence of any form of abuse and neglect. The most comprehensive survey on the subject of the ritual abuse was undertaken in 1993 by Bottoms, Shaver and Goodman. They found that, among 2,709 members of the American Psychological Association who responded to a poll, one third of psychologists had encountered at least one ritual abuse case, and over 90% believed their clients.

One national study undertaken by David Finkelhor and Linda M. Williams, published in 1988, found that, among 1,639 child victims of sexual abuse in day care, 13% of cases had ritualistic elements.

Some statistics can provide a general overview of the depth of need for specific ritual abuse services. 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. http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/denyra.htm

An inquiry by The National Center on Child Sexual Abuse in 1989 found that, of one group of 500 child abuse victims, 55 were victims of ritual sexual abuse. The report highlighted the varieties of crime that fall under the umbrella term ‘ritual abuse”, finding:

- 11 were victims of “pseudo-ritual” abuse, involving threats, group sex, drugs, and consumption of human waste. - 10 were “private” rituals in which the behavior was committed by one perpetrator and was ritualized for personal, sadistic reasons. - 3 were organized, group rituals. Out of these 32, four were intergenerational. Eight involved children taken into group ritual abuse situations by their parents, and 20 children were victims of extra-familial ritual abuse that occurred outside.

Whilst it is not possible to glean the actual prevalence of child ritual abuse from these studies, more telling is the extent body of data regarding the impact of ritual abuse on child victims. Dr Catherine Gould notes that “in every case in which the symptomatology of the ritually abused children was compared to the symptomatology of the sexually abused children, the ritually abused children showed considerably more symptoms of trauma.” http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/mindnet/mn148.htm

---

Read it now before it gets censored.

Ha ha. Deleting POV edits is not censorship. Now. Please explain where any of that text you inserted above mentions Satanism? You'll also notice that your reports are from 1988 and 1992, the APA has discounted those studies. I also find it difficult to take the words on a geocities page as documentation of psychological disorders or criminality. Also the link to mindcontrolforums.com doesn't work, and the very sentence itself is hogwash, since she is not explaining how she came up with her belief that any of the children she is talking about were, in fact, ritually abused. I can make up any claim I want if I just point to some random group of people and claim that they represent a class of people without documenting how I determined that they really do belong to that class of people. Zoe (216.234.130.130 23:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC))

"Ha ha" was the most substantive aspect of your response, Zoe. How is quoting from the findings of various academic and peer-reviewed studies "POV"? Where does the APA refute the survey of Bottoms et. Al.? Why is it that the freely available articles (one of which was peer-reviewed) of a psychologist with RA experience are not acceptible whilst those of the 'Ontario Consultants' (who have never published an academic article and have no clinical or academic experience in the area) are acceptible?

Any evidence that does not fit with your preconceptions is just deleted, regardless of where they comes from. In my edits yesterday, you actually deleted cases in Belgium and Britain in which ritual abuse, ritual murder and snuff movies were discovered, substantiated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Thus, the truism "There is no evidence for ritual abuse" becomes true, simply because you ignore the evidence and prevent others from reviewing it.

I used Gould's final statement to point to the body of data regarding the level of trauma displayed by ritually abused children, which is significantly higher then other sexually abused children. Those studies include:

Kelly, S. (1989). Stress responses of children to sexual abuse and ritualistic abuse in day care centers. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 4(4): 502-513.

Jonker, F., and Jonker-Bakker, I. (1997) Effects of Ritual Abuse: The Results of Three Surveys in the Netherlands, Child Abuse and Neglect, Vol 21 No 6, pp 541 - 556

King, G., and Yorker, B., (1996) Case studies of children presenting with a history of ritualistic abuse, Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, April-June, 9:2, p 18 - 27

There are also some related studies in adults, including:

Lawrence, K., Cozolino, L, Foy, D., (1995) Psychological Sequelae in Adult Females reporting Childhood Ritualistic Abuse, Child Abuse and Neglect, 19, 8, pp 975 - 984

Leavitt, F., Labott, S., (1998) Revision of the Word Association Test for Assessing Associations of Patients reporting Satanic Ritual Abuse in Childhood, Journal of Clinical Psychology, 54(7), pp 933 - 943

I'm sure that all of this information will not be reviewed by you, since it's not available online and accessing it would involve sitting down at a library and reading for a few hours. On such a serous matter as child torture and abuse, I think that it's worth reviewing all the evidence before drawing a conclusion. I certainly did, but it appears I am in the minority here. 129.94.6.28 00:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The American Medical Association stated in 1993, that recovered memories are "of uncertain authenticity which should be subject to external verification. The use of recovered memories is fraught with problems of potential misapplication."

The American Psychiatric Association stated in 1993 that it is impossible to distinguish accurately between true and false memories. 2 They stated "Memories also can be significantly influenced by a trusted person (e.g., therapist, parent involved in a custody dispute) who suggests abuse as an explanation for symptoms/problems, despite initial lack of memory of such abuse." In addition, they stated "While aspects of the alleged abuse situation, as well as the context in which the memories emerge, can contribute to the assessment, there is no completely accurate way of determining the validity of reports in the absence of corroborating information."

The American Psychiatric Association replaced its 1993 position statement on therapies focused on memories of childhood abuse. Some points raised in their 2000-MAR/MAY statement are: "Some therapeutic approaches attempt specially to elicit memories of childhood abuse...The validity of such therapies has been challenged. Some patients...have later recanted their claims of recovered memories of abuse and accused their therapists of leading or pressuring them into such ideas."

"No specific unique symptom profile has been identified that necessarily correlates with abuse experiences." 
"...psychiatrists should refrain from making public statements about the historical accuracy of individual patients' uncorroborated reports of new memories based on observations made in psychotherapy."  

http://www.fmsfonline.org/biblio.sra.html http://www.fmsfonline.org http://www.skeptictank.org/fbi1992.htm http://www.csj.org/infoserv_articles/karlin_robert_commentaryon_borawick.htm http://www.psych.org/pnews/00-06-16/alive.html http://www.psych.org/pnews/98-12-04/consent.html User:Zoe|^(talk) 04:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Biaothanatoi, you seem to have been a regular poster at ritualabuse.net (before its domain name lapsed). You have a vested interest in this subject, don't you? And this post is enlightening. User:Zoe|^(talk) 04:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

"Vested interest"? Yes, Zoe, I do. I don't like it when people get raped and tortured. You might call that a vested interest.

And as for your OT links about 'recovered memories' you'll find that the vast majority of ritual abuse allegations do not have recovered memories or traumatic amnesia as a feature. See my post below.

Which takes me back to my original point. What right do you have to delete links to published, academic journal articles that have been through the peer review process - and then respond with links to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation??? Talk about POV. --Biaothanatoi 04:32, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

More ritual abuse prevalence studies which will not be permitted to be posted in the article:

Ritual abuse occurs `in one in 40 child sex rings'. By David Brindle, Social Services Correspondent 19 October 1990 The Guardian

Little more than one in 40 cases of child sex abuse rings involves allegations of ritual abuse, a survey of police records says today.

Of 186 cases of network abuse where either multiple abusers or multiple abused children were known to each other only five involved claims of ritual or satanic abuse.

The survey helps put into context the recent publicity of cases of alleged ritual abuse. It shows that child sex rings are typically groups of paedophiles abusing one or more children in a highly-organised way.

Thirty-nine (75 per cent) of the 52 police forces responded to the survey, for tonight's edition of the BBC 2 current affairs programme Public Eye, and 21 said they had evidence of rings.

These forces reported 186 such cases over the past three years, involving 1,812 victims and 349 abusers.

The disparity between forces' reports casts doubt on the survey, but the crude numbers do paint a rare picture of the extent of paedophile rings.

Superintendent Michael Hames, head of Scotland Yard's obscene publications squad, says in the programme that evidence of network abuse is growing fast.

and

Ritual abuse claims upheld in four cases 26 September 1991 The Independent

Allegations of ritual abuse have been upheld in four wardship cases involving 24 children over the past two years, the Official Solicitor, David Venables. The majority are now in care.

These cases, though a tiny minority in terms of the 2,000 child abuse cases handled in the period, indicate that the courts are convinced that in certain instances ritual abuse has occurred ...

"Mr Venables said that allegations of ritual abuse had featured in 48 cases involving 130 children over the past two years. Some have yet to come to court.

He said: "In the majority of these 48 cases, ritual abuse was not found. In many cases there was no need to because the facts before the court showed that the children had been abused, so there was no need to press too hard down the ritual abuse road. A great many of the children in the 48 cases were abused, but whether it happened in a quiet domestic context or where men were dancing around in funny hats was not really material."

Biaothanatoi 05:47, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Warning!

Sadly, this article has not improved from the NPOV perspective for over two years. It is still badly broken. The last time I edited it, I felt that it had a slight POV bias towards the majority view (that SRA is a moral panic without credible evidence in fact). I now find that it has an enormous POV bias to the point where SRA advocates are complaining that it is being edited and cited against them elsewhere, and that efforts at presenting their perspective are resulting in strategic edits.

Therefore I have restored the NPOV warning and will continue to restore it as needed until the consensus on this talk page indicates otherwise. I encourage others to do the same. clarka (Note:Actually by anon IP User: 70.198.211.161) 12.27.2005 Note: actually by Andrew Clark.

I removed the tag. NPOV is about presenting an accurate representation of how the topic is viewed by the mainstream experts, while still giving info on important minority views without trying to advance their side. As such, what you are really talking about here is that it accurately represents the majority view the majority of the time... That's not POV, that's exactly what the NPOV policy tells us we should do. It's certainly not at all NPOV to try to advance the minority view as if it were a majority view, or, worse yet, campaign that the minority view is actually correct, which is what the long string of anon IP editors have been constantly trying to do here. The fact the outsiders keep trying to come here to change that article to be more sympathetic to their view is exactly why the article has to stay NPOV by showing the maoprity view as the majority view. A handful of anon IP accounts clearly coming in from outside in an effort to try to advance their agenda absoltuely cannot impose their views on several long time contributors here who know the policies and follow it. The consensus on the talk page already is that the article is NPOV... at least from real editors and not anonymous IP addresses who could all be the same person and would not be counted in any official vote here (like AFD, etc.). DreamGuy 18:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC) Note: by an anonymous person.

I restored the tag. The minority view is not presented accurately, let alone with NPOV.

From [[2]] "Articles without bias describe debates fairly instead of advocating any side of the debate."

"Those who believe that there is organized Satanic ritual abuse going on in the United States claim that large numbers of people there are ritually murdered annually. According to one widely cited figure from Utah State Prison psychologist Al Carlisle, between 40,000 and 60,000 people are victims of ritual murder annually." This is an overbroad claim. Satanic ritual abuse need not involve homicide, nor an isolated citation attributed incorrectly.

"Specific cases" Efforts to cite specific cases where SRA was proven have been consistently edited out, as cited in this talk page.

"Beyond the Satanic ritual abuse scares which were directly based on questioning children, a large number of adults came forward in the 1980s and 1990s and claimed to have recovered memories of severe, often Satanic ritual abuse in their childhood. Later investigators diagnosed many of these adults as mentally ill." Persons who suffer severe abuse are very likely to become mentally ill. This statement is dismissive of the existence of a minority view, shown clearly by repeated attempted contributions to this article and talk page, who themselves claim to have suffered ritual abuse and present evidence (however dubious) of a more widespread problem.

So that my perspective is obvious, I am of the opinion that SRA does not exist, but that there have been isolated criminal cases in which a perpetrator misled his victims into believing that they were victims of SRA. This alone is enough to justify an accurate presentation of the minority view, which has been continuously censored. I am now beginning to wonder if there is fire under the smoke which you and another contributor are blowing.

Your comments on the removal of the NPOV tag: " m (removed NPOV tag -- anon editor who put it there claimed the "bias" was toward the majority view of experts... that's not bias, that's accurate depiction of how articles should be worded, see NPOV)"

From [[3]] "Articles without bias describe debates fairly instead of advocating any side of the debate."

This article's discussion of SRA is clearly unfair and laded with advocacy.

I am not an anonymous editor, nor have I recently attempted to contribute to this article. When I did, I originally removed the NPOV warning based on my edits, to find my edits reverted and the NPOV warning still missing. Neat trick, that.

I believe that signposting the article as NPOV is the most accurate and fair way to represent the continuing clashes. I simply do not have the time to waste to keep editing and removing vandalism by people with an obvious axe to grind on the subject.

I can, however, keep labeling the article as NPOV and will continue to do so as necessary or until appropriate edits are made. If you feel you can justify locking the article based on its obvious NPOV qualities and/or its sterling quality, I suggest you go and make that case to Wikipedia's admins, as we are clearly not going to reach a consensus on this issue. As you have been invited to be an admin, clearly have expertise in Wikipedia editing and policy debates (having been the focus of several based on information your own talk page) . . . take this to the next level, if you feel sufficiently certain of your ground.

Please read [[4]] and you will find:

"Neutrality here at Wikipedia is all about presenting competing versions of what the facts are. It doesn't matter at all how convinced we are that our facts are the facts. If a significant number of other interested parties really do disagree with us, no matter how wrong we think they are, the neutrality policy dictates that the discussion be recast as a fair presentation of the dispute between the parties."

If you wish to discuss this rationally, meet me in my talk page. If not, I suppose I'll be learning a lot about the Wikipedia dispute process with you as my expert tutor.

clarka 12.27.05 1500

I note in particular that Antaneus Feldspar has reverted the NPOV warning without even reading the Talk page. I think the point has been made. This article is broken and anyone who attempts to rely on it does so at their peril. clarka 12.27.05 1520

But you HAVEN'T proven that SBA occurs. All of your evidence has been refuted by other researchers or by people here in Talk. You just keep regurgitating the same unproven stuff. And please log on, or stop using another User's ID. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:28, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

It is neither necessary nor desirable to PROVE that SBA exists. It is both desirable and necessary to point out gross errors in NPOV, in the presentation of minority views. Given that the first time I looked at this article in several months was yesterday, please retract your accusations of 'regurgitation.' I see nothing in Wiki's rules that requires me to log on to make reasoned, rational contributions. I appreciate it if you, given the advantage of logging in, refrain from unjustified personal attacks, as required by Wikipedia policy. clarka 12.27.05 1530

Further, quoting from Fairness and sympathetic tone

"If we're going to characterize disputes fairly, we should present competing views with a consistently positive, sympathetic tone. Many articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting both points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization — for instance, refuting opposing views as one goes along makes them look a lot worse than collecting them in an opinions-of-opponents section."

It is my specific contention that this article grossly and blatantly violates the "Fairness and sympathetic tone" requirement of NPOV. Out of time now: back to real life. clarka 12.27.05 15:35

You can claim that people believe that SBA exists, but you can't claim that it does exist if the information keeps getting disproven. And I said regurgitation because your argument was "Efforts to cite specific cases where SRA was proven have been consistently edited out, as cited in this talk page.". That's regurgitation. And my comment was that some people may believe that you are not who you claim to be if you continue to use a logged-in ID but don't log in. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:39, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

This article is heavily biased, arguments on this talk page are full of logical fallacies (strawman arguments, non sequiturs) and every evidence to the contrary is edited out or neglected. There have been charges, some have been dropped as is heavily cited in the article, some lead to convictions of which some still remain valid, i.e. there *are* cases where people have been found guilty of SRA - where it *has* been proven to exist. None of that appears in this article.

If people tell from first hand experience what they witnessed, it is presented here as unbelievable, because "it can not be what must not be true" - that is so incredibly far ftom NPOV that a POV warning is necessary. Mightily.

If a small group of Wiccans (friends of mine are Wiccans too, that doesn't change anything) put up a website calling it "Religioustolerance.org" some here seem to think, that it deserves a separate link for each page it has. I think one link with a POV warning should be just enough and would be reasonable for a NPOV encyclopedic article.

To make this clear: I am not one who thinks that everyone who ever read Crowley or Le Vey is damned and has tortured cats and little kids, or that everyone who ever met a demon in a game of Dungeons&Dragons has lost his soul. Neither do I think that every therapist who ever treated victims of SRA just wanted to 'find' an interesting case and planted the questions and the answers, as Satanist apologetics (Antaeus, DreamGuy) here claim.

For the time being, with those people editing here on this page - and perhaps permanently - I'm vonvinced that it is NOT possible to present this topic in a NPOV way here. Thus a NPOV warning is and will stay necessary. Gwyndon 10:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

there *are* cases where people have been found guilty of SRA - where it *has* been proven to exist. Your argument blows itself up right there. Could any sane person fully conversant with the history of the Satanic ritual abuse scare ever refer to verdicts of "guilty" in SRA cases as if those verdicts were actual proof of guilt? A person who had no familiarity whatsoever with the subject might make such a mistake, but no one conversant with the subject and in their right minds could say such a thing with a straight face. It would be like saying "You think phrenology is a discredited science -- but I'll show you a case where a phrenologist read the bumps on a person's head and came to the conclusion that the person was a habitual criminal! The fact that phrenology came out with a particular result is proof that the phrenologic analysis was correct!"

By the way, your accusation that DreamGuy and I are "Satanist apologetics" is also wildly off-base, and shows either a concern with attack above accuracy or simply an ignorance of the terms you use. I'm not just referring to the fact that "apologetics" is actually the field of study, and those engaged in the practice are instead "apologists". A "Satanist apologist" would be one who engages in defense of the Satanist position and the activities of Satanists; someone who doesn't believe they even exist, at least not as portrayed in the paranoid fantasies of SRA advocates, is clearly not defending their position. I realize you probably can't grasp this; I realize that in your mind, there are only two positions, Yours-Which-Is-The-Right-Position, and Everyone-Else. I realize that you are probably incapable of grasping the difference between "the history of Satanic ritual abuse prosecutions is littered with witnesses suffering severe mental illness, crying child witnesses who are subjected to investigative techniques known to induce false testimony from adults, and physical evidence that absolutely exculpates defendants being surpressed by prosecutors or ignored by juries; there has simply been no evidence that remains credible when examined carefully" and "Nyar-har-har! I think I'll deny me a few Satanists today! I feel glee at the thought of how many murders and tortures will happen because I, some guy on Wikipedia, do not fall to my knees and sob 'Yes, yes, add all the debunked 'evidence' you want to the article!' I wield such mighty power!" But y'know, the difference is still there, whether you grasp it or not. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Just for the records: I did and do not claim that you and DreamGuy are part of a worldwide (or wikiwide?) conspiracy of Satanists and Wiccans who try to fight any evidence on SRA. You may or may not be pro-Wicca or pro-Satanism, that is as much beside the point as whether there is or isn't a worldwide conspiracy of SRA practitioners, who've took their Alistair Crowley a bit to much as a personal guideline. I am not claiming that there is a SRA conspiracy. That is your strawman, and you put it up to beat it down. With a "witch-hunt" argument, if nothing else helps.

What I am saying, however, is that there is considerable evidence (and that includes a higher number of single witnesseses than groups like the pro-Wicca Religioustolerance.org -whom Dreamguy finds worthy of not one but two single page links without mentioning their bias- have members) that SRA exists and happens, perhaps in isolated cases and small groups only. I have agreed that scepticism has its place and should have it's place here. But if one lawsuit (Amirault) is enough to disprove all lawsuits worldwide for you, and if one unsubstantiated claim of disbelief against a published 'survivor' is evidence, while the unsubstantiated claim of experience by a 'survivor' is not, this becomes biased. And clearly you and Dreamguy are biased as "true disbelievers".

I'm quite sure that my own personal experience, contacts to Wiccans, OTO members and survivors, visiting places where supposedly actions have taken place and local actions by Satanists (they burned a guy less than 3miles from where I'm typing this, and yes, the authorities investigated but found just factual evidence, not people with a smoking gun, which wasn't used here anyway), talks with therapists and leading academic scientists on the topic would add nothing to my credibility from your partisan POV.

I understand that you are worried about wild fantasies roaming the net and Wikipedia and have read into discussions and talk pages on other topics where you and especially DreamGuy have participated. What I'd wish for is that (a) the same strong view on links as he uses on psionics-links (as advocated on his userpage) to be applied here. Encyclopedic value, presented in a neutral way, and not several links by or to the same tiny partisan group. And (b) the article should reflect that there is good reason to view all reports on SRA with scepticism, based on the previous hysteria in the US - BUT that lots of isolated cases have been reported and that this leads many writers, therapists and indeed editors here to the conclusion, that this is indeed something happening in the real world, even though others doubt that.

Don't you think that an article -with links- that reflects these two points is possible as a consensus between reasonable editors here at least? (I can be reasonable, if the tone of the conversation is either friendly or factual. :-)) To lighten the amount of text here you two (and Zoe?) could, if you wanted, continue the discussion with me on my user page. Not trying to convince each other, but trying to find a terminology and a form of this entry acceptable to both sides. Gwyndon 23:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

"I did and do not claim that you and DreamGuy are part of a worldwide (or wikiwide?) conspiracy of Satanists and Wiccans who try to fight any evidence on SRA." No, you just tried to label us as "Satanist apologetics", just as you later try to label us 'clearly ... biased as "true disbelievers'."

"What I am saying, however, is that there is considerable evidence" -- then give us the evidence. Not the assertion that there is evidence, the evidence.

"I'm quite sure that my own personal experience" -- yes, quite, please read Wikipedia:No original research.

"But if one lawsuit (Amirault) is enough to disprove all lawsuits worldwide" -- first of all, not "one lawsuit". We're talking about the Amiraults in Massachusetts; we're talking about Kern County and McMartin in California; we're talking about Little Rascals in North Carolina. We're talking about Orkney in Great Britain and Ayrshire in Scotland. We are talking about a great many lawsuits, not "one". And we are not talking about "disproving all lawsuits" -- we are talking about disproving the notion, which you stated outright in your post, that obtaining a conviction in an SRA case is equivalent to proving that SRA actually does exist. You claim that the notion that there is an SRA conspiracy is "my straw man". I say get your head out of the ground and wake up. The same evidence you're pointing to as "proof" of the existence of SRA is the same evidence that was pointed to by others (not me! thank you for keeping up!) as proof of the existence of the SRA conspiracy that was responsible, among other things, for the FBI not being able to find any evidence for such a conspiracy. If you believe that no such conspiracy exists then the logical conclusion is that the methods of investigation which were claimed to prove such a conspiracy produce some pretty freakin' big false positives. A person who employs a testing method without asking how often it produces false positives or false negatives is merely insufficiently cautious. A person who employs a testing method known to create such enormous false positives and yet fails to acknowledge the possibility of false positives in his results is a fool. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Summation and history of current POV dispute

I'm pretty sure that the history of just this section is more than sufficient to demonstrate a clear pattern, but the entire record is still below.

I'm fairly familiar with arguements and actors on both sides of this bit of history and I'd like a chance to create a serious, NPOV overview. Not only is this article a failure in those terms, it also fails to address some of the more important consequences and tragedies of the period - and also some interesting evolutions in understandings, particularly centering around the understanding of memory formation and storage.

For now, I'm reverting the revert on my last edit, for the reasons given the first time and expanded below. It's effect is out of proportion to it's consequence in this context, and also has the effect of making what is an inherently facinating factoid into just another rock to hit people with.

I'm also re-establishing the POV tag - there's no fair-minded observer that could read this discussion page and conclude that the issues have been resolved, save to the satisfaction of those doing the reverting, removing and (allegedly) threatening.

Ya know, guys, if you don't want people to beleve in 'conspiracies', satanic or otherwise, against those you disagree with - try not to act as if you were members, jr. grade, in search of the Majick Decoder Ring of Asmodeus-Cuthulu. Not only does this shoot your credibility on this topic, it's certainly enough to provoke truly skeptical review of anything else you've written about.

--Firewheel 00:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Alien Abduction??

Parallels to reports of alien abduction

California-based therapist Gwen Dean noted forty-four parallels between alleged alien abductions and satanic ritual abuse. Both emerged as widespread phenomena in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and both often use hypnosis to recover lost or suppressed memories.

Furthermore, the scenarios and narratives offered by abductees and SRA victims feature many similar elements: both are typically said to begin when the experience is in their youth; both are said to involve entire families and to occur generationally; the alien examination table that is reported is similar to the satanic altar in those accounts; both phenomena feature a strong a focus on genitals, rape, sexuality and breeding; witnesses often report that the events happen when they are in altered states of consciousness; both phenomena feature episodes of "missing time" when the events are said to occur, but of which the victim has no conscious memory. (Bryan, 138-139)

While the parallel between reported SRA and reports of Alien Abduction are indeed fascinating and certainly worth exploring in an appropriate context the inclusion here has the effect of suggesting that people who believe in SRA are "obviously" crazy, just like alien abductees.

The effect is stridently POV, and this is only one such flaw in this entire article. I've accordingly added a POV warning

I lived through this whole period, and while I am deeply skeptical of the idea that there is a widespread satanic conspiracy, it's quite beyond argument that people quite frequently do bad things to those they have or can achieve power over, and one very good means of doing that is convincing someone you are abusing or exploiting that there is such a conspiracy that will get them if they try to resist.

It might even be true in a technical sense. A "consipiracy" is two or more persons, "widespread" may be different cities.

However, there is a concerted, widespread and pretty darned vicious effort to discredit anyone who brings up this issue, or various related issues (incest, recovered memories, child abuse within white middle-class prodestant families, etc.) even when there is ample evidence to suggest that something very questionable is going on. I consider the vast majority of this article to consist of Junk Skepticism

The fact is that Stuff Happened. We are unable to be sure what the stuff was in any particular case. But no phenomona this broad is without some fire to make the smoke. In stating this I don't suggest that there actually /was/ more stuff. I just think that for a number of reasons, people suddenly noticed that abuse existed, that certain sorts of people tended to do it and the hystera proceeded from there... as if the reality itself was not horrifying enough.

But cycles of panic are endemic to US society; with the effect of blaming some social evil upon some OTHER group, thus paradoxicly reassuring those panicing that they are not, in fact, themselves part of the problem. That in itself is IMHO worthy of an article - but not one I could write as an NPOV essay. But the trick is to seperate the flap from the phenomonon. --Firewheel 17:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

"the inclusion here has the effect of suggesting that people who believe in SRA are "obviously" crazy, just like alien abductees." -- um, no... We don't say alien abductees are obviously crazy, we don't say that SRA claims are obviously crazy... you reading yor bias into it (those guys are crazy but your side isn't) doesn't mean that the article is biased.

As far as the thrust of the article talking about how the SRA claims are not factual, that's the thrust of all expert opinion. NPOV does not mean presenting "both sides equally" seeWikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Giving_.22equal_validity.22.

Well, I see in the revisions and discussions plenty of varient, qualified and presumably equally expert opinions have been presented. (Not that credientials are any insulation from stupidity, as the entire episode shows well enough.)

Please be clear on one thing: the Wikipedia neutrality policy certainly does not state, or imply, that we must "give equal validity" to minority views. It does state that we must not take a stand on them as encyclopedia writers; but that does not stop us from describing the majority views as such; from fairly explaining the strong arguments against the pseudoscientific theory; from describing the strong moral repugnance that many people feel toward some morally repugnant views; and so forth.

First, I see nothing to suggest that there is a "majority view." This is a niche issue and there are a limited number of people on and off the Internet that have opinions they are actually qualified to have. What "most people believe" is quite irrelevant. "Most people" in the united states belive that Saddam Hussain was directly connected to 9/11. This belief is the result of propaganda efforts no better than this.

NPOV means not using the article to come out and take a stand... which it doesn't... it just give the views of reliable and verifiable experts. There is a lot of junk paranoia out there presenting things that simply are not true. No encyclopedia can print things proven to be false (like several of the supporting statements SRA true believers always present) and claim to be an encyclopedia.

Carefully selected ones that all more or less agree. All others are dismissed as "junk paranoia." (Of which there is more than sufficent, and on both sides.)

If your goal here is to try to put info in the article supporting the claims of the SRA believers under the guise of NPOV, please not above that this has been discussed throroughly already.

My intent is an accurate discussion of an issue and a time that deserves an accurate record. By definition, that requires at least some attention to both sides, and without the sneers, namecalling and innuendo. --Firewheel 00:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

If some editor comes along and sees this and wants to remove the POV tag, I will fully support it. DreamGuy 02:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah. I see. You are being a complete dick. A fair-minded reading of the above, my single edit AND explaination AND your reacition to it should sufficiantly establish your bias. I'll let your reversion stand for the moment, subject to external reality checks, a bit of research, and the strongest possible POV warning.

I'm neither a true believer nor a junk skeptic. I belive in looking for evidence and evaluating it; and fair presentation. Your behavior is to attack, dismiss and discredit. There is plenty of perfectly factual material that should be included in this article. This goes towards establishing two things: an intentional pattern of misinformation and ... little skill at creating a believable piece of ::propaganda. Which is all that it is, and as such has no utility to this resource. --Firewheel 06:33, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but having the article follow Wikipedia's NPOV, per the link I gave you explaining what it's really all about, is not "bias," "propaganda," "misinformation" or any other highly emotional claims you can make. When you go reread the WP:NPOV policy, you might also want to read the WP:AGF and {{WP:NPA]] policies, as calling someone "a complete dick" for pointing you to the appropriate policy explaining why you are wrong is completely bizarre and uncalled for. Furthermore, how is anyone supposed to believe that you are looking for fair presentation when you launch into such attacks for no reason? If you think you have a real complaint, spell it out, don't just start make blanket personal attacks and somehow try to justify your hatred for a viewpoint as meaning you are in the right. DreamGuy 07:25, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't use words emotionally, sir. Especially not in such a context. I use them precicely, :according to their accurate meaning, and I repeat that this article is just what I said, and that furthermore, your immediate attacks on anyone who tries to revert to a NPOV stand is evidence enough that that is your intent. The section I deleted - with extensive commentary as being utterly tangental to the discussion at hand, but with the clear effect of discreding the main issue is a clear example of this.

I love this. All I have to do is do what I will do, and you will revert it back, and I will do what I do, and you will revert it back, no doubt while your outrage at me for my temerity and my "delusions" lead you to acts - well, beyond the discourtious, as we've gone straightforardly into "being a dick." I cite that as a wikimedia term, not as a direct insult. I believe that you are in fact "being a dick."

I'm way too old and beleathered to be bothered dicksizing with you, but I will say this: Propaganda, rhretoric and advertising are all things I'm professionally skilled in. Now, that doen't make me correct in the stands on this issue I have yet to actually take. I've merely observed that this is not just POV, it's deliberate. And not up to my standards, either. Speaking in a professional sense, it's a tad obvious that this is a junk entry written by partisans, the artcle history confirms it.

The main thing to remember is documentation. Firewheel, you say that there's plenty of perfectly factual material that should be included in this article. If that's the case, put it in, being careful to cite sources. Anecdotal evidence is probably insufficient for a highly debatable issue like this. It is possible that the article needs to be divided into "Believers say X, while nonbelievers say Y" similar to what was done to the Dissociative Identity Disorder article. -- Bluejay Young 10:26, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm looking. Of course, there are the documented cases of recovered memory, and I have the cite for the site. But then I had to ask myself, what about this angers me, and gives me such a case of nausious deja-vu?

But one may argue (and with some validity) that all such things prove are the suggestiblity of witnesses and juries. And we have argued that. Ad nausum. And there will be some proportion of those cases where there is contradictory, unreliable, or conflicting evidence. And it has been so argued Arguendo - the absence of such conflicts is generally taken as prima-facia evidence of a story that is rehersed and most likely fabricated. And again.

I had to ask, WHY is this still being argued, instead of being put into a context of current understanding? It's like opening a textbook on physics and finding a Newtonian model of the atom.

The reason that I find Feldspar's and DreamGuy's objections tiresome is not that are invalid. They are pefectly valid questions and objections - circa 1995. This is now 2006 and some of us have moved past reflexive skepticism.

Are there people who abuse others, and justify it to themselves and to others by means of religion? Yes. Are there a lot of them? It depends on how you define your terms. What is Religious, what is Ritual, what is Satanic, what is, dear lord, "abuse." ALL of this is subjective, to the point where it's entirely possible to be abused by someone who feels quite sincerely that they are not doing so, and indeed would NOT be abusing most others. Nonethless, the effects are identical to those done deliberately in the name of Cthulu Incarnate.

While this particular conflict would be both inevitable and necessary ten years ago, there's a lot to suggest that the fundimental premises of boths sides are flawed enough to moot this, and reduce this to what it is in my mind; a conflict based around misunderstanding or ignorance of phenomena not known or understood at the time. And of course it can be seen as a lovely example of academic trench warfare. But as it stands, this is a document that is both POV and and a merely historicaly curious POV at that. But far more than being made POV, it needs to be put into context, and the underlying assumptions made by both sides at the time defined. Once that is done, and documented, then we can go on to point toward the current state of speculation. 11 years is a long time to be stuck on center, though.

Right now, I'm going to ignore the latest petty controlfreakism - reverting the current discussion to the bottom where it is less easily noticed - and over the next few days or weeks examining what fresh materials there may be, and putting them into understandable and current context. I'm BORED with Freyd v. Loftus! BORED! I get it, I undrstand it, I've achieved a synthasis and I'm intensely impatient with those who (on both sides) have been attacking messengers instead of considering the implications of the message. Yeah, so Loftus's methodology was quesitonable, as were her ethics. So were Kinsey's. Nonetheless, her results are both replicable and have been verified at a deeper and more disturbing level in some surprising ways.

And on the other side, Freyd's work is equally valid, and is borne out by many case studies - and in the case of mind, memory and perception, that's as good as it will ever get. Not only that, the whole current discussion about memory, perception and reality has gone into quantum reality, which leads us to a fundimental UNcertainty about percepton or memory. We are now into the exploration of the possibilty that the brain is a quantum computing mechanism that exists to collapse a quantum-potential field into what is at least a locally verifiable reality. Or in other words, given that both fundimental assumptions defined in this arguement are equally plausible - I'll choose my own and that will be real to me.

Or in other words, this argeument is not about what is objectively real - objective reality has been debunked! Tiller, et. al| Water Chrystals both cite experiments that can be replicated and do violence to concepts fundimental to that which we so fondly refer to as "reality."

gak. eep. sputter. choke. Yeah, I'd prefer to revert back to 1995 too, some days. But unlike Wiki - that's only personally possible. So in sum, I'd like to bring this up to date, put it in historical context and set pointers to what we have collectively learned. That's my entire agenda.

--Firewheel 20:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The fact is that Stuff Happened. We are unable to be sure what the stuff was in any particular case. But no phenomona this broad is without some fire to make the smoke. I see... so clearly, in October 1938, some American townships must actually have been invaded by Martians.... -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:23, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

No, dear antaenaus, it proved that gullible people presented with false data can be misled, :manipulated and decieved. Thank you for illustrating my point, sir. That is why intentionally deceptive articles, or even simply one-sided ones have no place in an encyclopaedia.

But your presumptions about my intents and the intelligence of those who may review this document are noted and preserved.

timeline

The article says Reports of SRA began occurring as early as the 1960s and also The first case of alleged SRA occurred in Kern County, California in 1982. Should it say the first prosecution? —Tamfang 22:56, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Merging with Day care sex abuse hysteria

Removed the tag indicating that, the merging tag on Day care sex abuse hysteria was removed ages ago, and it wasn't discussed here. Hence I pressume it is fine for it to be removed.

The evidence for ritual abuse

Ritual abuse is a crime has been uncovered and prosecuted dozens of times over the last thirty years. There is no question that it exists. However, this page is dominated by trial-by-media and research-by-google, which tells the armchair skeptics exactly what they want to hear. You've cobbled together a pack of lies that is linked to ad nauseum around the web and it is causing damage to people who are already damaged enough.

Take the time to read this post and peruse the bibliography. This is just an overview - there is much, much more evidence then I could possibly post here. It was prepared for an Australian NGO, hence the Australian slant. If you'd like to read further about successful prosecutions for ritual abuse overseas, I suggest Boyd 1991, Blood 1994, Tate 1994 and Scott 2001. --Biaothanatoi 04:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Recognition by the United Nations: The “misuse of ritual practice” is recognised by the United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery as a key element in the sexual trafficking of women and children (Commission on Human Rights 2002).

Australian refugee decision: In 1998, the Australian Refugee Tribunal accepted a German ritual abuse survivor as a refugee (see Becker and Coleman 1999). She was fleeing a life of servitude to a violent group in Berlin that had raped and tortured her since she was a child. The tribunal stated:

‘… we accept that these groups exist … and that the German government has been ineffective in stopping their illegal activities.’

Court prosecutions: In 1991, Perth police stated that they had proven a link between ‘organised child sex abuse and devil worship’ following the conviction on 22 counts of indecent assault of a perpetrator recruited into a ritually abusive group as a teenager (Humphries 1991).

In 1998, the Supreme Court found that self-described ‘traditionalist witch’ Robert Angus Fletcher had sexually and physically abused two minors, forced one of them into prostitution and then attempted to have both murdered to stop them giving evidence against him. He told the girls that their rape and torture was part of their initiation into a group called the ‘dark coven’ (Towers 1998).

In 2004, former primary school teacher and National Party official, Garry Robin Ford, was jailed for eight years for ‘sexually abusing teenage boys during pagan rituals to initiate them into a group dubbed the White Brotherhood.’ (Oberhardt and Keim 2004)

Multiple convictions for ritually abusive crimes have been secured in Europe and America. Newton (1997) accumulated data on the sentencing of 145 American defendants for crimes in which the ritual abuse of children was alleged, and found that 45% of the defendants pleaded guilty or non contest.

Consistency and prevalence: A survey of 98 social workers, psychologists and counselors based in Melbourne identified 153 cases of ritual abuse in the decade from 1985 to 1995 (Schmuttermaier and Veno 1999).

Professionals report ritually abused clients from all around the world, including Canada, England, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, Finland, Netherlands, Russia, Australia and New Zealand (The Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women 1993; Rockwell 1994; Jonker-Bakker and Jonker 1998; Pravda 2005; Helsingin Sanomat 2005).

Increased attention is now being paid to ritual abuse in Nigeria, India, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Zambia and its role in the trafficking of women into Europe (International Organisation for Migration 2001; Commission on Human Rights 2002).

Forensic evidence: Ritual abuse pornography has been cited by police officers, judges and lawyers (Ross 1986; Beverly 1991; Jonker-Bakker and Jonker 1993; Blood 1994; Tamarkin 1994; Weir and Wheatcroft 1995).

Purpose-built ritual abuse infrastructure has been uncovered in ritual abuse cases in the United States, England and Switzerland (Jonker-Bakker and Jonker 1993; Summit 1994; Tate 1994).

Ritual sites with human remains, children’s clothes, animal skeletons, knives, blood-stained daggers, candles contaminated with faecal matter, robes, jars of blood, masks and other ritual paraphernalia has been found in connection to ritual abuse cases in the United States, England and Europe (Maharidge 1985; Norris and Potter 1986; Ross 1986; Kahaner 1988; Summit 1994; Tate 1994; Miller 1995; Weir and Wheatcroft 1995; Newton 1996; Kelly 1998; Janczewski 2003; Perlmutter 2003; Lemoine 2005).

Medical evidence: In nine day-care centre cases where ritual abuse was reported during the 1980s, medical examiners found evidence during examination consistent with sexual abuse (Hudson 1991).

Medical evidence at other ritual abuse cases described clients with vaginal injuries, rectal tears, sexually transmitted infections, injection scars, and ritual scarification and tattoos (Hudson 1991; Young, Sachs et al. 1991; Tate 1994; Weir and Wheatcroft 1995; Newton 1996; Jonker-Bakker and Jonker 1998; Noblitt and Perskin 2000).

Clinical evidence: The majority of clinicians working with ritually abused clients believe their clients experiences to be true (Bottoms, Shaver et al. 1991; Andrews, Morton et al. 1995). A 1999 survey of social workers, counsellors and psychologists in Melbourne found that 85% believed ritual abuse to be an indication of genuine trauma (Schmuttermaier and Veno 1999).

Psychologists Randal Noblitt and Pamela Perskin suggest that this is a result of the profound traumatisation demonstrated by their clients being congruent with their reported histories (Noblitt and Perskin 2000: 58).

Threats and violence against professionals: In one study, 30% of professionals working in the field of ritual abuse reported various forms of intimidation and threats, including abusive phone calls (Youngson 1994). This is consistent with the harassment and threats experienced by police officers when investigating organised child exploitation (Ferraro, Casey et al. 2005).

In 1994, the majority of clinicians responding to an editorial call for papers on ritual abuse stated that they were too frightened to speak in print about their ritually abused clients. Some referred to threats of violence against themselves and their families, the appearance of dead cats on doorsteps and burning crosses on their lawns (deMause 1994: 507).

Sustained stalking and threats against one New Zealand therapist dealing with ritually abused clients culminated in an attack that left her with severe brain damage (S.H. 1998).

Ritual abuse is not significantly associated with recovered memories: An analysis of 490 ritual abuse cases found that only 43 involved any element of repressed or recovered memory, and that vast majority were cases in which victims reported continuous memory of their abuse (Goodman, Qin et al. 1994). In Britain, Sinason (2002) notes that “recovered memories” have not been a significant factor in the disclosures of ritually abused clients at two clinics specialising in dissociative disorders.

Bibliography

Andrews, B., J. Morton, D. A. Bekerian, C. R. Brewin, G. M. Davis and P. Mollon (1995). "The recovery of memories in clinical practice: Experiences and beliefs of British Psychological Society Practitioners." The Psychologist: Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 8(5): 209 - 214

Becker, T. and J. Coleman (1999). Ritual Abuse: An European Cross-Country Perspective. Paper presented at the ISSD Spring Conference ‘The Spectrum of Dissociation’, Manchester, UK, 9 May.

Beverly, F. (1991) "Cape Parents want porn case reopened", The Boston Herald, March 18

Blood, L. (1994). The New Satanists. New York, Warner Books.

Bottoms, B., P. Shaver and G. Goodman (1991). Profile of ritualistic and religion-related abuse allegations in the United States. Paper presented at the Ninety-Ninth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, August.

Boyd, A., Blasphemous Rumours: Is Satanic Ritual Abuse Fact or Fantasy? An investigation, Fount, Great Britain, 1991.

Committee on Human Rights (2002). Report of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. Paper presented at the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Fifty-Fourth Session, Item 6 (b) of the provisional agenda, 17 June, http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/wgcfs99.htm.

deMause, L. (1994). "Why Cults Terrorize and Kill Children." The Journal of Psychohistory 21(4): 505 - 518.

Ferraro, M., E. Casey and M. McGrath (2005). Investigating Child Exploitation and Pornography: The Internet, the Law and Forensic Science. London, Elsevier Academic Press.

Goodman, G., J. Qin, B. Bottoms and P. Shaver (1994). "Characteristics and sources of allegations of ritualistic child abuse: Final report to the National Centre on Child Abuse and Neglect (unpublished manuscript)."

Helsingin Sanomat (2005) "Police investigate reports of large-scale child abuse in southern community", September 20, last accessed 7 April 2006 at http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Police investigate reports of large-scale child abuse in southern community/1101981000371.

Hudson, P. (1991). "Ritual Abuse: Discovery, Diagnosis and Treatment". Saratoga, CA, R&E Publishers: 26 - 28.

Humphries, D. (1991) "Child Sex Abuse Linked with Satanism: Police", Sydney Morning Herald, 13 March 1991.

International Organisation for Migration (2001). Trafficking in Unaccompanied Minors for Sexual Exploitation in the European Union. Belgium, May 2001, last accessed 7 April 2006 at http://www.iom.int/DOCUMENTS/PUBLICATION/EN/Trafficking_minors_partI.pdf

Janczewski, P. (2003) "Girl details years of molestation", The Flint Journal First Edition, November 26

Jonker-Bakker, P. and F. Jonker (1993). "Actuality in the Netherlands." European Network For Backlash Research Newsletter(2).

Jonker-Bakker, P. and F. Jonker (1998). "Report from the Netherlands" in J. a. P. L. Lorena. Breaking Ritual Silence: An Anthology of Ritual Abuse Survivor Stories. Gardenville, NY, Trout and Sons Inc: 238 - 242.

Kahaner, L. (1988). Cults That Kill. New York, Warner Books.

Kelly, L. (1998). "Confronting an Atrocity: The Dutroux Case." Trouble and Strife(36): 16 - 22.

Lemoine, D. (2005) "Ninth sex cult suspect due in LA", The Advocate, 05/26/2005

Maharidge, D. (1985) "Many cases charging satanic ritual and mass child abuse filed, but few survive", The Los Angeles Daily Herald, October 31

Miller, J. (1995) "Walls come a'tumbling", Winnipeg Free Press, April 3

Newton, M. (1996). Guilty as Charged. Paper presented at the International Council on Cultism and Ritual Trauma Conference, Dallas, Texas.

Noblitt, J. R. and P. S. Perskin (2000). Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America. Westport, CT, Praeger Publishers.

Norris, J. and J. A. Potter (1986). The devil made me do it. Penthouse Magazine: 48-52, 174 - 180.

Oberhardt, M. and T. Keim (2004) "Ritualistic Abuser Gets Eight Years", The Courier-Mail, 14 August 2004

Perlmutter, D. (2003). Investigating Religious Terrorism and Ritualistic Crimes, CRC.

Pravda (2005) "Satanists brutally torture and crucify 12-year-old boy", Pravda, 08/02/2005, last accessed 7 April 2006 at http://english.pravda.ru/accidents/21/96/383/15903_boy.html.

Ross, A. S. (1986) "“Cases from the bay area and the west,” “Going to trial despite a questionable probe,” “Satanism or mass hysteria?” “Sensational cases across the country,” “‘Warped’ child, twisted justice.” ", San Francisco Examiner, September 28

Rockwell, R. (1994). "One Psychiatrist's View of Satanic Ritual Abuse." Journal of Psychohistory 21(4): 443 - 459.

Schmuttermaier, J. and A. Veno (1999). "Counselors' beliefs about ritual abuse: An Australian Study." Journal of Child Sexual Abuse 8(3): 45 - 63.

S.H. (1998). "Report from New Zealand" in J. a. P. L. Lorena. Breaking Ritual Silence: An Anthology of Ritual Abuse Survivor Stories. Gardenville, NY, Trout and Sons Inc: 236 - 237.

Sinason, V., Ed. (2002). Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity: Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder. London, Brunner-Routledge.

Summit, R. C. (1994). "The Dark Tunnels of McMartin." Journal of Psychohistory 21(4): 397 - 416.

Tamarkin, C. (1994). "Investigative Issues In Ritual Abuse Cases, Part II." Treating Abuse Today 4(5): 5 - 9.

Tate, T. (1994). "Press, politics and paedophilia: A practitioner's guide to the media" in V. Sinason (ed.) Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. London and New York, Routledge: 183 - 194.

Towers, K. (1998) "Witch Spells Out Pagan Sex Abuse", The Australian, 24 February 1998

Weir, I. K. and M. S. Wheatcroft (1995). "Allegations of Children's Involved in Ritual Sexual Abuse: Clinical Experience of 20 Cases." Child Abuse and Neglect 19(4): 491 - 505.

Young, W. C., R. G. Sachs, B. G. Braun and R. T. Watkins (1991). "Patients Reporting Ritual Abuse in Childhood: A Clinical Syndrome. Report of 37 Cases." Child Abuse and Neglect 15: 181 - 189.

Youngson, S. (1994). "Ritual Abuse: The personal and professional costs for workers" in V. Sinason (ed.) Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. London and New York, Routledge: 292 - 302.

Hmm, you have levelled serious allegations against this article. To avoid an edit war, why don't you list here five or so of the lies in the article that you have mentioned, as well as direct evidence that they are lies, and we can try to get to the bottom of this. May I take this opportunity to point out that even by proving Satanic Ritual Abuse exists, like you appear to be doing above, that does not necessarily make it a common occurrence, or that false identifications haven't been done over the years, or that the examples used in this article are non-representative. At any rate, I look forward to the your list here. MaxMangel 10:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

The article is full of misdirection and red herrings, and I've been through it point by point on this page. I have not been permitted to make any changes to this article whatsoever, and my additions of peer-reviewed journal articles and academic studies has been labelled "slander". Make of that what you will. Biaothanatoi 00:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

You have again attacked the article, but again provided no specifics(kindof the opposite to what I was looking for), seeming to claim that it is pointless to try. Look, if you think it is hopeless, then stop posting here. If you do think it is worth trying to improve the article, then instead of making these emotive attack statements(that justs gets certain people off side), how about providing a very logical point by point lie identification, with proof, and there will be no choice but to fix them - regardless of the personal opinions of the editors who oppose you. MaxMangel 01:13, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Point one) If you believe that there are people out there who practice backwards-Christianity and actually worship a dark mirror to Jehovah called Satan, and do it by being text-book 'evil,' then you are already incredibly delusional to begin with. Point two) The fact that you have quoted a variety of useless sources and misquoted the very few that are not completely useless shows how irrelevant your mish-mash of bad links is. I mean, Pravda? Come on. If you're going to play the part of an rampaging ideologue, please take the time to make your sources APPEAR legitimate.

This is what is called an "ad hominem" attack. When you don't have the acuity to engage in a real debate or discussion on the points to hand, you attack the person who is making the points instead.

Unlike the "sources" that dominate this article - free websites that reference one another in an endlessly incestuous circle of faux-logic and pseudo-science - the sources I have provided come from peer-reviewed journal articles, published studies and primary research by clinicians and academics in the field. I don't have to make my sources "appear" legitimate. They are. Biaothanatoi 00:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of Argumentum ad Hominem have you heard of poisoning the well? I wouldn't take too high a ground on the argument logic going on here. By referring to the current sources as an 'incestuous circle' this is undoubtably a poisoning the well example, where the statement is simply abusive, rather than factual. Whether or not the sources are actually good, you weaken the level of logic in your argument by doing such things. MaxMangel 01:20, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm offering a perfectly reasonable assessment of the quality of references in the article as it stands, versus the peer-reviewed journal articles and studies that "editors" here have refused to permit. And I have demonstrated on this page where they are inaccurate and how. That's not "ad hominem". That's called debate. Biaothanatoi 05:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

So you think statements like 'incestuous circle,' 'intellectual bankruptcy,' 'armchair skeptics,' 'ideological zealotry,' 'rhetorical polemic,' etc are just the normal logical phrases of an intellectual debate? Wrong. They are unnecessary slander phrases that weakens your position, because it makes you sound biased and illogical. Remember the wikipedia rule assume good faith? You are completely not doing that here, and I think if you did, you'd have a lot more of your edits in the article because you'd be working with the others here instead of against them. You need to get concensus to get your points across, so if you'd just stop this slander talk I think you'd have a chance of getting somewhere. You've refused to follow my suggestions in the past on how to improve this article, so I guess I shouldn't expect you to follow them now. However, if, for example, you picked out a citation or two and showed how they are pseudo-scientific with faux-logic(etc, as you described) then they could be removed. They obviously can't all be exactly like that, so please show which ones you were referring to. What I'm saying is, back up the statements you make, rather than just making vague insults. MaxMangel 01:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

This discussion is not and has never been ruled by the etiquette of "intellectual debate", Max, as is obvious to anyone reading this page or the article itself. Wikipedia may ask me to assume good faith, but this page is replete with evidence of bad faith and a resistance to change so complete as to be inexplicable. As I've said to you before, I have already demonstrated in previous postings which points are wrong and where. You are a latecomer to this discussion but you have somehow appointed yourself as it's arbiter. --Biaothanatoi 01:17, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

A small sample of recent court prosecutions for ritual abuse from around the globe Biaothanatoi 06:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

South Africa: Tattooed satanist gets life in jail for raping girl

"Acting Judge Lettie Malope sentenced Robbie Classen ... to life imprisonment for raping the young girl ... He was also sentenced to 60 years imprisonment on nine charges of abduction, indecent assault and assault relating to a series of incidents in 2000 when the girl and her brothers, aged 9 and 11, were abducted and taken to various places in Pretoria.

All three children testified that Classen had repeatedly threatened to kill them and their mother if they said anything about the rituals and molestation. He was eventually arrested after the children told a school psychologist and their mother about their horror ordeal ...

Medical evidence corroborated the children’s claims that they had been raped and sodomised."

America: Women credited for events leading to Gerald Robinson Trial

"Since she came forward, at least two other women have also recounted similar tales of ritual sexual abuse at the hands of priests during the 1960's. And while investigators were not immediately able to substantiate Bold textthe woman's allegations, they did recognize the name of one of the priests the woman claimed had abused her — Robinson."

"The now retired priest had been considered the prime suspect in the slaying some 23 years earlier of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, a 71-year-old nun who had been found strangled and stabbed to death on Good Saturday morning on the floor of the chapel at Mercy Hospital where Robinson had been chaplain. Authorities had never been able to develop enough evidence to arrest the cleric and the case had gone cold."

"But after two decades in limbo, Jane Doe's story had rekindled their interest in both the case and in Robinson. In early 2004, Robinson was arrested and charged with Pahl's murder."

Trinidad: Trinidad couple charged in "child sacrifice" kills 6 December 1997 Reuters News

"Police unearthed the remains of three children in shallow graves this week after a couple had been charged with the murder of an 18-year old female relative as part of an apparent religious ritual.

Kenrick Lunden, 35, and his wife, Chandroutie, 22, were arrested last week on a charge of strangling Chandroutie's sister, Meena Sookdeo, who had been missing for a week.

Police say the couple had kidnapped Meena near her home in Esperanza, California, Central Trinidad, and took her to a nearby cane field, where her body was later found covered with cigarette burns. She had been tortured and then strangled.

Further intensive interrogation of the couple revealed that more killings had taken place.

The couple led the police to the graves at the back of their small wooden hut in Central Trinidad where the bodies of three of their four children, ranging in age from three years to three months were discovered. The fourth child is still unaccounted for.

None of the children had been registered at birth and there was no evidence they had ever existed."

New Zealand: Abused Offered Compo Stu Oldham 17 March 2003 The Southland Times

"SIX Southlanders among more than 70 men allegedly subjected to ritualistic abuse as boys at a Christchurch Catholic residential school may be offered a share of compensation payments totalling $4 million."

"Mr Clearwater, who supported 37 of the complainants in their dealings with the order, said most claimed to have been abused in satanic-style rituals or forced to perform sexual acts on threat of losing touch with their parents."

I dispute pretty much all of the sources Biaothanatoi has brought.

My relevant bibliography, if you please:

• Showalter, E. (1997) Hystories: Hysterical epidemics and modern media New York: Columbia University Press. Chapter 12: Satanic Ritual Abuse. (pp. 171-188).
• Spanos, N.P., Burgess, C.A., & Burgess, M.F. (1994) Past life identities, UFO abductions, and satanic ritual abuse International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 42(4) 433-446
• DeYoung, M. (1996). A Painted Devil: Constructing the Satanic Ritual Problem: Aggression and Violent Behavior 1(3), 235-298
• LaFontaine, 3.5. (1994). The extent and nature of organised and ritual abuse. London, England: HMSO.
• Lanning, K. (1992). Investigator’s guide to allegations of "ritual" child abuse. Quantico, VA: FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.
• Lilienfeld et al. (1996) DID and the Sociocognitive Model

That people have been charged with SRA is not being disputed, but rather, that this is in and of itself any evidence to support it is. Same holds true for legislation against SRA. That does not support it's existance.

Richard Ofshe's details of the Paul Ingram trial are particularly pertinent to this case. Not the mention 'Michelle Remembers' one of the books which brought the subject of SRA to the public eye, and the ridiculous (if horrific) account of abuse detailed therein, without a shred of evidence. Michelle was later "saved" from the horrible abuse, if I recall correctly, by Jesus christ and the Virgin Mary themselves. Can't get better proof than that, can ya? --Telecart 22:27, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Try again. A list of half-a-dozen books is not an argument. People haven't just been charged with ritual abuse - they have confessed to it, been convicted of it, and evidence of their crimes (including photos of ritual abuse) have been presented in a court of law.

Richard Ofshe's take on the Paul Ingram case was rejected by the presiding judge on the basis that his techniques were "odd" and that he was not qualified to give an opinion on the matter. In short, he was not accepted as an expert witness by the court. Of course, that doesn't stop him promulgating his bizarre denialist theories in books readily available to armchair commentators such as yourself. Karen A. Olio & William F. Cornell give an excellent analysis at http://kspope.com/memory/facade.php of Ofshe's "argument". --Biaothanatoi 00:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Nope, still bollocks, sorry. People can confess to things that didn't happen, that proves absolutely nothing (again, as in the case of Paul Ingram). Ofshe's techniques were no more 'odd' than hypnosis and other coercive false memory suggestions. Since the late 90's and 00's onward, the pendulum has fully swung to the side which rejects SRA (and more particularly, Freudian repressed memory and the ability to restore it through hypnosis and other techniques) as a factual phenomenon. This is not only due to the issues of SRA or Alien Abductions and the lack of evidence, but because of the growing widespread acceptance of the memory-models suggested by contemporary cognitive psychology, which are based on massive amounts of research data. History is a construct, and the accepted narrative in scentific circles nowadays is not the one you're telling I'm afraid. Paradigm shift, gestalt switch, call it what you will, but today, no serious psychologist believes in Freudian repression of trauma (and the ability to restore that memory) any more than a serious biologist adheres to creationism. If to the best of our understanding, and with all the professional scientific integrity and rigor therin, this is not how the human memory works, than the discussion should simply end there. --Telecart 03:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Your belief that a confession does not constitute evidence puts you at odds with the entire Western criminal justice system, as well as the continued insistence of Ingram's own son that his father is guilty. Chad Ingram testified at his father's appeal in 1996 and stated that he wanted his father to stay in jail.

Should we abandon the principle that a confession is pretty good evidence that someone committed a crime, as well as the statements of Ingram's three children, wife, court-appointed psychologist, and Ingram himself ... all because a sociologist wrote a book about a theory that was thrown out of court on the basis that it made no sense whatsoever?

I can't quite unpick how the convoluted and highly speculative logic of “coerced-internalized false confessions” proves that successful prosecutions of organised and ritualistic child sexual abuse are only further evidence that such allegations are fabrications. Seems like you have quite a little cognitive distortion of your own there. --Biaothanatoi 04:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Serious questions regarding the intent and utility of this article

I have reason to wish a better, more balanced and above all current article on this topic. I have need, occasionally, to refer to this episode in history as a reference in the context of discussions about ethics and authoritarian approaches to complex social issues.

While the history of the article itself may be ironically cited as an illustration of the authoritarian personality in practice, with particular emphasis on the preservation of a shared base of assumptions. However arguably valid my observation may be, it's also arguably true that there are many, many better illustrations of such behavior.

The problem with this article is that it is not an article about anything, it is rather an excuse for a continuation of very old and tiresome arguments that have long been resolved in the minds of reasonable people. I note little if any new insight into the phenomena, save when that insight may serve to suggest there is no phenomenon.

What I want to see is pretty simple:

• The history of the controversy in context.
• Discussion of what led to the phenomenon - including all perspectives. NPOV doesn't apply here, as it's the very points of view that are the data points. It seems to me the the phenomena itself could be described - on all sides - as "leaping at a premise and sprawling to a conclusion."
• The evolution of understanding - in other words, what have we learned about abuse, about memory, about motives and suchlike since this came to our cultural notice? Many such references exist within the article, but cited as factoids in support one position or another.
• Some attempt at synthesis and summation.

I'd be willing to contribute to such an article, given a general respect for persons and what I understand to be the guiding principles of Wikipedia. I don't mean to seem rude - but there it is. 68.190.189.207 22:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC) AKA Bob King 22:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Bob. Please do contribute. MaxMangel 01:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Seriously...

"Two widely publicized cases of similar mass hysteria occurred in the north of Netherlands, one in Oude Pekela in which a clown was the alleged main perpetrator "

This sentence has had me in stitches all day. --Steerpike 11:34, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Funny? The situation was sparked by a 4-year-old boy whose persistent anal bleeding was noted by his general practitioner (Jonker, F. and Jonker-Bakker, P, "Experiences with Ritualistic Child Sexual Abuse: A case study from the Netherlands", Child Abuse and Neglect, Vol. 15, pp 191 - 196, 1991). The boy disclosed a history of sexual abuse by a large group of people, and he stated that some of his friends were also being abused. In the police investigation that followed, 87 children were interviewed, and 48 children gave clear and corroborating statements of sexual abuse, although they did not know one another, lived in the different areas and attended different schools.

Seven years after the alleged abuse took place, 7% of those 87 children had developed severe trauma-related behavioural disorders (Jonker and Jonker-Bakker, "Effects of ritual abuse: The results of three surveys in The Netherlands", Child Abuse and Neglect, Vol 21, No 6, pp 541 - 556, 1991). Is this funny to you? --Biaothanatoi 01:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

No, but that sentence is. --Steerpike 09:17, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

You laugh "all day" at sadistic child abuse and internal bleeding ... huh ... --Biaothanatoi 23:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

steerpike, good job. you're a skeptic. "You sir are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts."

Fascinating discussion. I really enjoyed DreamGuy's comments - further proof that Wikipedia should consider administering mandatory IQ tests before allowing individuals to edit posts. I am completing my honours degree in Psychology and have a few of my own observations to make. Firstly, as Biaothanatoi has gone to such pains to point out - SRA victims do not rely solely on repressed memories to qualify their experiences of abuse. The so called 'skeptics' on this discussion seem to focus entirely on this aspect of the SRA debate. If you consider photographic evidence, court testimonies, peer reviewed articles, NGO research, successful prosecutions and the anecdotes of therapists to constitute poor evidence, then I am most curious to learn what would constitute good evidence. What amazes me is that the opinions of psychologists, sociologists and law enforcement is ignored - apparently the only people qualified to discuss this phenomenon are Feldspar, DreamGuy and Zoe - based on non-existent credentials and apparent google powered reflexive armchair skepticism??! This is on a scale of holocaust denial!

Secondly - from a psychological perspective, ritualised behaviour is a typical indication of several clinical disorders and personality disorders. This is frequently indicated in its most disturbing form in the behaviour of those suffering from antisocial personality disorder - aka psychopaths. It seems eminently plausible that the organisational structure of the 'left hand path' would appeal to these types of individuals, and that exposure to organised groups would lead them to be channeled into a deeper stratum of the organisational struture which would facilitate an 'acting out' of psychopathic behaviours. Whilst this does not imply emprical proof of SRA (which I feel Biaothanatoi has provided), it does demonstrate the logical plausibility of this phenomenon.

I am most curious to know what motivates the extraordinary levels of denial demonstrated on this page. Those who advocate SRA denial using the case of Michelle Remembers could summarise their argument using the following metaphor:

'A boy walking down a road at night stopped in his tracks when he saw a thing black shape lying in the road before him. He knew there were many snakes in the area, and quickly decided to run back to his village to inform the villagers that there was a snake lying in wait in the darkness should they venture abroad at night. The boy ran back to the village and informed the villagers that a snake lay on the road. When the villagers followed the boy down the road with machetes and torches, they discovered that the 'snake' was in fact a rope. The chief then made the statement that any dark snakelike form encountered on the road in future could reliably be ignored as it would be a rope.'

Surely at the very least this article should present the facts in an unbiased manner, giving fair attention to both viewpoints. Unfortunately for denialists, a single case of SRA validates the phenomenon, you just can't make a categorical denial of it. What you can do is question the prevalence and level of organisation. You may not realise that whether or not you put an NPOV banner on the page any intelligent person will immediately pick up on the bias. Ultimately this type of page is doing the wikipedia no favours as virtually any contentious entry ends up as a shout-down, which invalidates objectivity and worth as a reliable resource. You only get into the nitty gritty in the discussion pages - silly. Finally DreamGuy's argument about majority views is absolutely absurd: for the majority of Western history, the majority believed the earth was flat, that the sun revolved around it, that it was made in seven days, ect etc. How can one possibly put forward a majority viewpoint as an indicator of accuracy or reliability?

Feldspar, I have followed up several of your posts on the wikipedia - you are hilarious, thanks for the entertainment. --- The River Man Blues

As I have noted on your talk page, personal attacks such as those you make above are not allowed and if continued may lead to blocks for disruption. As for the rest, it's really not relevant to the writing of the article; it's merely more assertions that huge mounds of utterly convincing evidence are out there somewhere, and more insistence that "the opinions of psychologists, sociologists and law enforcement is [sic] ignored" (which is of course ignoring the opinions of those psychologists, sociologists and law enforcement who don't find the 'evidence' presented for the existence of SRA very convincing.) -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Feldspar, you don't follow the guidelines you set forth on your own page. If there is a dispute over this issue, and by my count Biaothanatoi has provided several dozen concrete references, this should be reflected in the main page. It is quite clear that only one side of the debate is presented in the main article - if this is what you consider to be objective then the concept of objectivity has been brought into disrepute. As somebody with a sociology major I challenge you to find a single issue in sociology in which consensus has been reached. The issue is not that there is, or even should be consensus on this issue, it's that this lack of consensus should be mirrored on the main article. What is so difficult to understand about this? Perhaps the answer lies in the old saying 'none are so blind as those who will not see.'

Incidentally, I looked up repressed memories in my final year abnormal psychology textbook and it presented a far more balanced discussion on this phenomenon as well as the allegations of SRA. Whilst the constructive nature of memory is recognised, as well as the possibility of manipulating memories, the matter is not considered a closed case at present. This issue ties into several other controversial issues in psychology including dissociative personality disorder, and the research is ongoing. There is little doubt that Michelle Remembers and the bout of genuine hysteria that gripped the States may have led to cases in which individuals constructed false memories, however this (as I pointed out in the metaphor above) does not invalidate the phenomenon. You talk in length about critical thinking on your page, why don't you attempt to make use of it?

As a matter of interest, in my country of residence, South Africa, there are numerous cases every year of ritual human sacrifice by 'witches' in rural and semi-rural areas of the country. The purpose of these sacrifices appears to be the acquisition of 'muti' used in witchcraft and traditional medicines. Human penises and genital labia are favourite parts of the body, though there also appears to be a market for human eyes and hands, as the victims are typically discovered with all the parts missing. Although the belief system that motivates this behaviour is based on indigenous African religious systems rather than the so called 'left hand' paths, it nevertheless demonstrates that a precedent for this type of behaviour exists and is within the human behavioural repertoire, and thus the fact that human beings under the influence of certain religious systems are capable of extreme cruelty and committing acts far more heinous than simple abuse.

As for the huge mounds of convincing evidence that are out there 'somewhere'. I believe the 'somewhere' referred to is a library:

library

• noun (pl. libraries) 1 a building or room containing a collection of books and periodicals for use by the public or the members of an institution. 2 a private collection of books. 3 a collection of films, recorded music, etc., organized systematically and kept for research or borrowing: a record library. 4 (also software library) Computing a collection of programs and software packages made generally available.

— ORIGIN Latin libraria ‘bookshop’, from liber ‘book’.

Note: the term 'googled' does not form part of this definition.

At the end of the day if you wish to align yourself with, and sanction, a biased, mediocre article, then so be it. Let one of your coven of digitally imprisoned wikipedia editors give you a meaningless little online award for it. The only people who will be suckered are those who labour under the delusion that the Wikipedia is in any way a reliable reference resource on controversial issues.

---River Man Blues

"Let one of your coven of digitally imprisoned wikipedia editors give you a meaningless little online award for it." It's good to see that you're getting the hang of this "no personal attacks" thing. The fact that you can make your point without having to resort to such attacks enhances your credibility greatly. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Feldspar, I am happily in a situation where it is not necessary for me to derive credibility from my contributions to the Internet. 'Digitally imprisoned' is a reference to an inability to search for information outside of the world wide web. Although things may change in future the WWW is primarily a news resource, and opinion piece resource. Most universities don't freely publish journals online, and the only books I have found online in PDF format are those that are for sale or are no longer under copyright. I am sorry if you find this offensive, but it does cast doubt on the validity of the Internet as a valid reference source. I am sure that many people hope that projects like the Wikipedia will eventually change this situation, but if articles like this one continue to feed off web based resources you do indeed have a circular kind of information feed of the type so prevalent amongst conspiracy theory circles. 'Coven' was a tongue in cheek reference to the topic of discussion, whilst its up to you to deduce whether or not an online award means terribly much. I've spent the last few weeks checking up on controversial issues on the Wikipedia and ran into your posts on the Shree Rajneesh page, where you unleashed your inner polemicist and demonstrated significantly less sensitivity towards the feelings of those contributing to the discussion. The point remains that this article remains biased. Using a Hegelian synthesis of approaches, it is not inconceivable that you, Biaothanatoi and I could collaborate to create something a little more impressive and useful on the page in question. The ball is in your court.

Feldspar, your line about "no personal attacks" is such a breathtaking act of hypocrisy. Why don't we all take a little wander down memory lane, to remind ourselves of your apparently faultless deployment of online etiquette:

I have nothing but contempt for morons like you who play hysteria-crazed games of "let's pretend" based on the delusions of the mentally ill and the shrill hysteria of TV movies. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Your so-called evidence is bullshit. Antaeus Feldspar 13:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Don't give up your day job, Feldspar. I'm not sure your attempts to play Little Miss Manners is going to work out. --Biaothanatoi 06:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Statements from the Commission on Human Rights and international NGOs

This article is solely framed by a set of public controversies that emerged in the American media in the late 80s. This article is profoundly American-centric and it demonstrates an ideological bias regarding "false memories", "recovered memories" and so on. Ritual abuse is not being considered here as an issue in it's own right, but intead as a straw man to be shot down in order to further other political agendas. There are a small number of people with a strangehold over this article who will not permit new evidence to be added.

The article is about "satanic ritual abuse," not just "ritual abuse" which may or may not have any more validity. You obviously know that, so why rant so much about it? Also, accusing your opponents of being political operatives is a sure-fire way to not get yourself taken seriously. Deleuze 15:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

At no point did I identify "opponents" nor claim they were "political operatives - I merely pointed to how the broader political context has shaped this debate. I personally think that "satanic ritual abuse" is a problematic way of framing "ritualistic abuse", but the bent of this entire article is to discredit claims of "ritualistic abuse" and as such deserves critique. The reality of the crime is far, far more complex then this article suggests. --129.94.6.30 23:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess that's a fair argument, but SRA has been a major way framing the issue in the US and Europe. This page should reflect that, not attempt to change it. I think you would be better served by creating another page for ritualistic abuse or including a note here to the effect that some people find the SRA nomenclature problematic. Also, it would be better to assume good faith from other editors - a lot of people just think the evidence does not support SRA proponents' claims. It is not necessarily a sign of trying to further other political agendas. Your relations with others here will be calmer and easier going if you try not to become paranoid or take things personally. Deleuze 23:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If you read the history of this page, you might find why my sense of "good faith" was extinguished some time ago. This article fails to differentiate between the media construct that is "SRA" and the actual phenomenon of ritual sexual crimes against children, and editors here have consistently rejected peer-reviewed and academic research findings that contradict the view that SRA is a "moral panic" generated by Christians and feminists.

The page emphasises contested or ambiguous cases of ritual abuse, whilst ignoring cases in which confessions and forensic evidence have resulted in unproblematic convictions (see David Brindle "Ritual Abuse Occurs 'in one in 40 child sex rings'" The Guardian, 19 October 1990, "Ritual Abuse Claims Upheld in Four Cases", The Independant, 26 September 1991, David Humphries, "Child Sex Abuse Linked With Satanism: Police", Sydney Morning Herald, 13 March 1991, Adrian Shaw, "Children of Three Were Abused in Satan Rituals", The Evening Standard, 7 June 1993, Nick Davies, "Lives That Were Beyond Belief", The Guardian, 1 August 1998, Sapa, "Tattooed Satanist Gets Life In Jail For Raping Girl", The Herald, 14 January 2004, Gary Hughes, "Priest Was A Killer: Victim", The Australian, May 26 2006).

I agree that, on this page, there is a surfeit of evidence to support the notion that children are ritually abused. That's because such evidence has been consistently removed and rejected by other editors. --Biaothanatoi 23:49, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Over the last ten years, the International Organisation of Migration and other non-govt organisations have reported on the ritualistic abuse of women and children in developing nations prior to their trafficking into Europe for sexual exploitation. This has been reported in:

- Kenya (identified by Child Welfare Society of Kenya) - Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Malawi (identified by Operation Paladin Child) - Uganda, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Zambia, Congo, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Zambia, Angola and Somalia (identified by End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes)

Much of this research has been summarised in in the IOM's 2001 report "TRAFFICKING IN UNACCOMPANIED MINORS FOR SEXUAL EXPLOITATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION" at http://www.ecpat.no/dokumenter/Trafficking in minors part total.doc.

I don't know if you read this, but this really has nothing to do with SRA. It talks about how some West African traffickers might exploit ritualistic symbols to better control people, but that's it. Deleuze 15:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it has a hell of a lot to do with SRA. Beyond shedding light on the role of ritualistic activity in organised child trafficking, there is evidence that the networks dealing with ritually abused African children has some crossover with ritually abused European children. Page 108 - 109 refers to a counselling centre in Germany that deals with both trafficked African children, and children abused in Europe:

"The paedophiles' disregard for children knows no bounds. The counselling centre Zartbitter in Cologne has for years frequently learned about the exploitation of minors in the framework of satanic rituals and the production of so-called “snuff-movies”. “Children who have participated in cults report to us that primarily dark-skinned babies have been abused”, says an employee. Minors have also spoken of incidences of murder during the production of pornographic films. For the law enforcement authorities, such statements cannot be proven since the witnesses have often been drugged and give contradictory accounts of their experiences. In one such case, a child mentioned underground rooms in a location under suspicion that were never found. Nevertheless, the counsellor in question considers that these statements are credible. She suspects that the child traffickers and paedophiles use subtle means, such as manipulating the appearances of rooms with slide projections, to create effects that the fearful children mistake for reality."

"If children have been murdered, then one might well wonder what has happened to their bodies. Zartbitter refers to a case on record at the Zurich Prosecution Office: a Swiss producer of pornographic films bought Romanian children, killed them sadistically as a part of his productions,and destroyed the remains of the victims in drums filled with hydrochloric acid, thus leaving no traces." --Biaothanatoi 23:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I read that. I found it not that exceptional, however. If a skeptic finds the testimony of other purported survivors problematic in other instances, this would not be any different. The discussion of the Swiss pornographer is also not very enlightening, as it is so vague. There is no way of finding the details. Deleuze 23:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not a matter of "testimony". A reputable international NGO has engaged in a research project to trace child trafficking flows from Africa into Europe, and one of their findings is that African women and children are ritually abused in their home countries prior to their trafficking into the sex trade in Europe, and that African infants may be being ritually abused by European perpetrators. The IMO, and other NGOs, are suggesting that ritual abuse is a global phenomenon. They have collated and summarised the opinion of professionals working in both third world and first world countries. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, that should be admissable information. --Biaothanatoi 23:49, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The stories of these ritually abused, trafficked Africa women and children are very similar to those told by children and adults in the West who disclose ritual abuse. That is - they were forced to endure traumatic ritual ordeals prior to their coerced entry into pornography and prostitution. Even the ritual structure is similar, including marriage to a malevolent deity, bloodletting and ritualistic rape and torture.

On the basis of these reports, the United Nations Committee on Human Rights reported in 2001 that the misuse of ritual practice in the sexual exploitation of women and children should be a research priority.

Isn't it about time that this article moved beyond it's 1980s American bias and started considering ritual abuse within a broader, international, human rights framework?--Biaothanatoi 00:50, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe some helpful ideas here

Ritual Abuse - Blind Spot/Omission? 88.72.0.96 17:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Proof?

Am I the only one who found this article completely biased with no proof or good sources? 69.123.142.53 20:27, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

River Man Blues wrote above:

• "Biaothanatoi has provided several dozen concrete references"

• "As a matter of interest, in my country of residence, South Africa, there are numerous cases every year of ritual human sacrifice by 'witches' in rural and semi-rural areas of the country."

The wiki article I read a year ago (I hope it’s unchanged) is not biased. Ritual abuse is not the same as SRA. SRA is more like the UFO abduction craze that allegedly involves multiple victims, multiple perps in Western countries. For real ritual abuse take a look at Human sacrifice in Aztec culture, or, presently, the sati (practice) ritual in India.

Re Biaothanatoi’s posts, dozens of scholarly references prove nothing. Let me explain this with a very personal confession.

In the past I was a parapsychologist.

Not anymore! One of the things that now, as a skeptic, strike me the most are the NY libraries I visited, such as the American Society for Psychical Research. Thousands upon thousands of journals and books purporting to demonstrate the existence of psi. But after more than a century parapsychologists have not proven its existence. They are most probably deceiving themselves.

Scholarship in these areas, psi or SRA, proves nothing. There is simply no thread of evidence of any “multiple victims, multiple perps” of Satanic abuse in Western countries. It's a pity that there are only very few apostates of fringe beliefs. The article must remain skeptical of these lunatic claims.

—Cesar Tort 21:52, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

It is illogical to suggest that your personal history as a "parapsychologist" undermines the credibility of "dozens of scholarly references", and the parallel between telepathy and ritual child sexual abuse eludes me. Perhaps you should direct your contributions to subjects you have some expertise in, such as how to waste years of your life trying to bend a spoon with your thoughts. --Biaothanatoi 05:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Knock off the personal attack, and stop claiming nonsense about dozens of scholarly references. You need to read and understand and follow WP:NPOV policy, pronto, because your agenda here is pretty clear and unacceptable. DreamGuy 20:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Biaothanatoi: Just take a look at my user page. All of my mature life is devoted to child abuse as a subject. —Cesar Tort 20:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

This article is stuck in the 1980s: Let's move on

SRA was once the primary ideological battleground for the conflicts over child abuse, memory and the law. This debate has moved on, but this article remains firmly entrenched within the old fights over "false memories", "recovered memories" and so on. In a world in which a number of people are presently in jail for ritualistic child sexual abuse, it is profoundly unethical for this article to assert that there is no evidence that ritualistic child sexual abuse occurs. This claim is just as false as those who believe that there is an international Satanic conspiracy.

Research over the last ten years has demonstrated, in both Western and developing nations, a close association between ritualistic sexual abuse, child pornography, child prostitution and organised forms of sexual abuse. Most survivors of organised and ritualistic child abuse report that their primary sexual abuser was a parent or family member who procured them for exploitation by a larger network of perpetrators. Policy-makers and reseachers in child abuse are increasingly concerned by evidence of a black economy in illegal pornography and trafficked women and children which pivots around sadistically abusive family networks.

Let's take a look at this article and consider making some movement on it, shall we?

The prevalence section

The text on 'prevalence' focuses on allegations of ritualistic murder. Why does the entire section emphasise on a small substratum of truth-claims about ritualistic abuse rather then address the issue as a whole? There are large-scale and peer-reviewed prevalence studies on ritualistic abuse and I listed them on this talk page last year. They were undertaken by respected community-based organisations and researchers. Why aren't they allowed to be quoted here?

Those who believe that there is organized Satanic ritual abuse going on in the United States claim that large numbers of people there are ritually murdered annually.

This statement is presented without evidence and the ensuing text about what a single prison psychologist may or may not have said twenty years ago, and how this may or may not be contradicted by FBI figures, adds little to the discussion.

There is no generally accepted evidence of any murders due to SRA.

This statement is untrue. The Dublic Country Coroner recently ruled that the murdered baby found dumped in an alleyway over thirty years ago is the daughter of Cynthia Owen, who is the survivor of a paedophile ring that practiced satanic rituals. You can read more at:

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=210433184&p=zyx43389x

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/ireland/article2276232.ece

Despite widespread claims, no firm evidence of any organized network of Satanic ritual abuse has been presented in court.

This statement is false. A young man was convicted in Australia of ritual and sexual abuse in 1991 (See David Humphries, Child Sex Abuse Linked With Satanism: Police, 13 March 1991, Sydney Morning Herald). He pleaded guilty to all charges and claimed "he had been a victim of sex abuse as an eight year-old and had been recruited as a teenager into a satanic cult where adults practised bizarre sex with each other, their own children and teenage recruits"

In 1993, three men and a woman from London were imprisoned for between 18 months and life for the sexual abuse of seven chidlren over eleven years.

“The court was told that on one Hallowe’en a girl was tied naked to a chair in St Mary’s church at Northolt, west London, threatened with knives and sexually abused by adults in black hoods and cloaks. The girl, who said she was driven there by her father, uncle and grandfather, described it as the ‘devil church’.”

(The Times, 8 June, 1993)

In 1998, nine people were jailed for a total of 100 years in Plymouth Crown Court for sexual offences against their children and grandchildren.

“The story has echoes of the discredited cases of alleged ritual abuse in the 1980s. Those cases colapsedin procedural chaos and cries of incredulity; the accused were cleared; the accusers and their allegatoins were all rejected.

To this day, the official line within which police and social worekrs are expected to work is that there is no such thing as ritual abuse; they say they are discouraged from purusing cases of intergenerational family sadism because it is presumed that juries will instinctively reject them. There is, however, one stunning difference within this account: it could be proved.” (The Guardian, 1 August, 1998)

In a case still to go to trial, the priest of Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, walked into the local police station a few years ago and confessed to the satanic ritual sexual abuse of a number of children, and he implicated several other parishioners at the church. You can read more at:

http://www.rickross.com/groups/hosanna.html

The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance concludes: "In the early 1990s, we analyzed reports on SRA from both believers and skeptics."

The Ontario Consultants have no training in the matters that they comment on and no publications to their name. What they do have is an extensive and free website, which seems to carry more weight to the authors of this Wiki article then professional or academic credibility. The "Consultants" fail to tell us what their analytical methodology was or the logic by which they came to their conclusions, and it's also worth noting that "the early 1990s" was fifteen years ago, and maybe the evidence base for ritualistic abuse has changed a little in that time.

The history section

In further evidence of the bias of this article, the section on history does not address the history of ritualistic child sexual abuse itself, but rather, the history of claims about ritualistic child sexual abuse. Psychohistorian Lloyd de Mause has written extensively on historical antecedents to the ritualistic sexual abuse of children. His 1994 articles are available at:

http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/whycult.htm

Likewise, clinicians Goodwin and Hill also addressed the historical evidence for the ritualistic sexual abuse of children in their 1989 article "Satanism: Similarities between patient accounts and pre-inquisition historical sources", as do psychologists Noblitt and Perskin (2000) in "Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America".

The earliest claims that organized groups systematically and repeatedly torture and kill others in the context of devil worship can be found in the European witch-panics.

The first parallels drawn between "witch hunts" and allegations of SRA occured when the accused perpetrators in the McMartin case, and their defence lawyers, purchased advertising space in the lead-up to their 1985 trial in an attempt to influence the jury pool. The strategy of comparing allegations of organised abuse to "witch hunts" was also adopted by the Vatican as evidence of widespread sexual abuse by clergy in the mid-1990s. I question the willingness of Wiki authors to reproduce the rhetorical strategies of accused perpetrators of sexual abuse in this discussion.

Modern times

This article falls into a post hoc fallacy by attempting to claim that, because a few (three?) autobiographies on RA appeared before the first legal cases on RA, therefore, the legal allegations were caused by the autobiographies.

The late 1970s saw the first medical publications on child sexual abuse, the first autobiographies about sexual abuse, the first prevalence studies on sexual abuse, and the widespread implementation of mandatory reporting laws. This was a period of intense concern about all forms of sexual abuse, not only ritualistic abuse. In eliding these important historical facts and presenting SRA as a solitary and isolated "panic", this article is engaging in an obviously perjorative rhetorical project.

According to the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, an "SRA industry" sprang up in this period, with self-appointed experts taking money to educate law enforcement and private citizens on the alleged threat.

Hmmm ... the irony of consultants criticising others for taking money to educate law enforcement and the community.

Following this series of programs, outbreaks of SRA-based hysteria occurred in towns and cities across the United States, particularly concerning allegations of Satanic practices by teenagers, and accusations of Satanic practices at nursery schools. Rivera's programs were very important in expanding popular belief in SRA.

The entire article focuses on the dynamics of the debate in one country: North America. I'm at a loss to understand how Geraldo is responsible for claim of ritualistic sexual abuse, for instance, in non-English speaking countries.

Specific cases

The adversarial court system is widely acknowledged as a poor instrument in establishing the truth claims of vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, and particularly children. The collapse of some ritual abuse cases in the 1980s (others, of course, were successful, and I've listed many on this page) is construed here as prima faci evidence of the falsity of those allegations. They could just as equally be presented as evidence of the manner in which entrenched legal practices and procudres discriminate against children and compromise their human rights. The integrity of this section is fundamentally undermined by the desire of it's authors to present failed or stalled legal cases as unambiguous "exonerations" of the accused, when a cursory examination of the facts reveals these cases to be fraught and complex.

Contested or failed prosecutions are selectively presented whilst successful cases are ignored, as though they do not exist. It is strange that the Marc Dutroux case in Belgium has not made this page, since the role of Satanic ritual in his trafficking ring was widely reported.

Beginning in 1983, a series of abuse claims were made in the small town of Jordan, Minnesota. Twenty-four adults were charged, but ultimately exonerated.

This is a farcically inaccurate summary of the Minnesota case.

Only three adults went to trial, two were acquitted, and one was convicted. In his review of the case, the Attorney General noted that the initial investigation by the local police and county attorney was so poor that it had destroyed the opportunity to fully investigate the children’s allegations. A special commission later reviewed the conduct of the county attorney in dismissing charges against the remaining defendants, noting that it was likely that other charges would have been successfully prosecuted. A number of accused parents confessed to sexually abusing their children, received immunity, and underwent treatment for sexual abuse, whilst parental rights for six other children in the case were terminated.

See: Hechler, D. (1988). The Battle and the Backlash: The Child Sexual Abuse War. Lexington, Massachusetts; Toronto, Lexington Books, Faller, K. C. (2004). "Sexual Abuse of Children: Contested Issues and Competing Interests." Criminal Justice Review 29(2): 358-76.

Similarly, the McMartin case resulted in two hung juries, and the sole reason that a third trial did not go ahead was because parents refused to let their young children take the stand to undergo a third round of hostile cross-examination. In the first trial, a ten-year-old boy was on the stand for three weeks. Forty-one current and former pupils accused the McMartin operators of ritual sexual abuse, and their disclosures also implicated other preschools in the area, seven of which were investigated, the allegations substantiated, and the preschools shut down. It is now well known that tunnels were found under the preschool in exact accordance with the children's disclosures.

In the Cleveland ritual abuse case in Britain, not cited here, children were returned to their parents on the basis that "ritual abuse" does not exist ... only to be removed from their parents quietly a few months later after further notifications of physical and sexual abuse. In accordance with the children's disclosures, tunnels were found in the local area with evidence of recent use and ritualistic activity, including satanic graffiti and candles. In the Isle of Lewis ritual abuse case, social workers have been recently criticised by a government report for returning children to their parents after disclosures of ritualistic and satanic forms of sexual abuse. The report has found that the children were exposed to years of brutal, sadistic, organised sexual abuse because social workers and police believed that the children's claims of ritualistic abuse was false.

Some perpetrators of the SRA panic were themselves mentally ill.

Calling people who believe that children are ritualistically abused "perpetrators" is a vivid illustration of the bias of this article. Napolis has never published a book, written a journal article, or engaged in any public advocacy of note, and the inference here that she is representative of people who work with ritually abused children and adults is false.

I'm at a loss to understand why Napolis' activities are of note here, beyond the fact that she attracted the ire of Michael Aquino in the late 1990s, who has an established penchant for self-autobiography on Wikipedia as well as rapturous legions of online followers.

Hypnosis and false memories

Critics of recovered memory therapy, like Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters (Making Monsters. False Memories, Psychotherapy, And Sexual Hysteria), view this practice as fraudulent and dangerous.

What a complex game of straw men: Ofhse invented the term 'recovered memory therapy' and then proceeded to attack it. There is no such term in the psychotherapeutic community. Ofshe is a sociologist with no training in psychology, as was established by the judge who rejected Ofshe's capacity to act as an expert witness in the Paul Ingram case.

Parallels to reports of alien abduction

Dean's "parallels" can by applied to all forms of child sexual abuse. The sheer ridiculousness of this section should be seen as an overall inditement of the article as a whole.

- "Both emerged as widespread phenomena in the late 1970s and early 1980s": So did child sexual abuse. Therefore, all forms of child sexual abuse are similar to UFO abduction.

- "Both are typically said to begin when the experiencer is in his/her youth": Therefore, all forms of child sexual abuse are similar to UFO abduction.

- "Both are said to involve entire families and to occur generationally" - Therefore, all forms of child sexual abuse are similar to UFO abduction.

- "The alien examination table that is reported as similar to the Satanic altar in those accounts": It is similar to a bed, as well. Therefore, all forms of sexual abuse in a bedroom are similar to UFO abduction.

- "Both phenomena feature a strong focus on genitals, rape, sexuality and breeding" - Therefore, all forms of sexual abuse are similar to UFO abduction.

- "Witnesses often report that the events happen when they are in altered states of consciousness" - Sexually abused children often dissociate. Therefore, all forms of sexual abuse in a bedroom is a similar issue to UFO abduction.

- "Both phenomena feature episodes of "missing time" when the events are said to occur, but of which the victim has no conscious memory" - Sexually abused children often dissociate. Therefore, all forms of sexual abuse in a bedroom is a similar issue to UFO abduction.

Meanwhile, Dean's claim that "Both often use hypnosis to recover lost or suppressed memories" is false. In a study of 52 clients alleging ritual abuse at a dissociative clinic in London, the majority reported continuous memory of their abuse from childhood. Similar findings were found in a large-scale American study by Bottoms, Shaver et al.

--Biaothanatoi 04:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but we're not going to play this game. The quote you lead off with "In a world in which a number of people are presently in jail for ritualistic child sexual abuse" is just nonsense, and it just gets worse from there. It is clear that you are just here to attack people and try to push your agenda onto the article. DreamGuy 12:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm accountable for what I've said here - I've listed the convictions. I've cited the studies. I've linked to the newspaper reports. I've made it clear why I believe what I do. You haven't. So what's your agenda? --Biaothanatoi 04:06, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The article does not state that ritualistic child sex abuse has not or does not occur. It states that no widespread organized network of Satanic abusers exists. It's not possible for me to respond to your entire critique in detail, except to note that some unfounded assumptions are being made about the content (for example, the article says that SRA and UFO reports bear similarities, and you seem to think that this observation implies that child sex abuse never happens).

I think that well sourced and documented additions of cases where child abuse with ritual/Satanic overtones exist would be a very welcome addition to this article. If anything, it would strengthen the case being made here, since invariably these cases are related to "lone nuts", or lone groups of nuts, and not any wider criminal conspiracy.

Eleland 15:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, what User:Biaothanatoi and other people pushing the idea of a Satanic conspiracy consider "well sourced and documented" doesn't meet with what Wikipedia has to say on reliable sources. Judging from his comments he's not going to talk about lone nuts and point out the sources showing that irresponsible people have hyped into being part of some conspiracy, he's going to try to present horribly wild claims from the most paranoid witch hunters as if they were true. You can see that from all the things he's already posted. DreamGuy 06:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

That’s exactly my point above: the fact that there are parapsychology journals (I used to publish in a scholarly parapsychology journal which was founded in 1882!) doesn’t mean that wikipedians have to trust them as reliable sources. They’re not. Thousands of journal articles don’t demonstrate the existence of extra-sensory perception or psychokinesis just as the SRA literature doesn’t prove that, and I quote now from the below book review, satanists were sexually abusing children "in day-care centers, impregnating girls for infant sacrifice, brainwashing adults, and even controlling the highest levels of government". —Cesar Tort 13:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Category issue & archived

An editor has categorized the article as "Crimes involving the Satanism or the occult". I don't know what to say about it since those people accused of SRA in the 1980s, like those of the McMartin preschool trial, were innocent. —Cesar Tort 13:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

This talk page was already more than 200 kilobytes long. I have archived it. —Cesar Tort 19:50, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Uh? You archived the whole thing? But there were active discussions on there. Maybe you should have archived only the old stuff...? This is only going to cause the SRA fruitcakes to claim they're being censored by a Wiki-conspiracy. Eleland 22:17, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I hope not. At any event there were some rather long posts by an user that were no longer needed. If any SRA advocate posts something here that has already been discussed, I will place the latter posts back :) —Cesar Tort 23:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

No longer needed? So the guy is banned, hopefully? So he doesn;t just come back and start it all up again? DreamGuy 21:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

At least User:Biaothanatoi was willing to discuss —unlike 128.187.0.164, as you can see below. —Cesar Tort 22:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

NPOV tag discussion revived

This article is still very POV. There are statements like this throughout the whole article:

Claims of SRA have included many different elements, but most often include shocking and disgusting behavior, inappropriate and violent sexuality, and the suggestion of imaginative cruelty:

I've added the tag. --Emery D. 18:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Erm... can you explain what's POV about this kind of statement? Eleland 18:46, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

This article doesn't need a NPOV tag just as the skeptical articles on UFOs or 9/11 conspiracy theories don't need a tag. —Cesar Tort 19:20, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

One of the problems I continually run into with Wikipedia is that when I am not very interested in a subject (like this one) I sometimes don't bother to argue for an edit that I made even if I believe reverting it hurt the article. Jason Scott described this to make his point that Wikipedia "hates experts" (not that I'm an expert on satanism). I don't agree with his conclusion (that Wikipedia is a failure), but I think this is a problem that doesn't really have a solid solution (yet?). People with personal interests in a topic tend to win by default or through sheer exhaustion of their opponents, and since the people with interest are more likely to have some kind of bias, article quality is lost to those editors. This is probably not one of those situations--I can't see too many wikipedians caring much about the public opinion of satanic rituals. The articles on global warming are a better example. So much POV, even use of the infamous hockey stick graph that was exposed as fraudulent long ago. Lots of people complain on the talk page but quickly give up because the POVers just exhaust them with circular arguments. Even the articles themselves are exhaustingly lengthy making you have to dig through a haystack of irrelevant truth to get to the bullshit needles.

Back on topic: "can you explain what's POV about this kind of statement": shocking, disgusting, and inappropriate are all very subjective words. If this sentence was meant to attribute those claims to some anonymous critic, then the critic should be identified and those words should appear in quotes to make it clear that they are the critic's opinion, and not Wikipedia's.

"This article doesn't need a NPOV tag just as the skeptical articles on UFOs or 9/11 conspiracy theories don't need a tag.": The similarity being that they are all almost certainly mythical? It would not be OK to say that "UFO sightings have included many different elements, but most often include wierd yet impressive air vehicles." You could say some people have described UFO's as "wierd" and "impressive", but not that the UFOs people described were wierd and impressive. The difference is in describing a held opinion or stating your personal opinion. Whether or not what you are describing is fictitious of not doesn't matter. Another example might be that you wouldn't put in the Spider-man article that "Spider man is cool", despite Spider-man being a fictitious comic book character who is often perceived as being "cool", because coolness is a matter of opinion. For the record, I think this article needs an entire rewrite.

--Emery D. 05:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

In this context, I understood shocking and disgusting to mean "which would be personally considered shocking / disgusting by virtually anyone". It's a very marginal problem. Just change the language, if you like. You really shouldn't insert NPOV tags for these kinds of minor problems. Eleland 12:28, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

As I pointed out in the archived discussions:

The fact that there are parapsychology journals (I used to publish in a scholarly parapsychology journal which was founded in 1882!) doesn’t mean that wikipedians have to trust them as reliable sources. They’re not. Thousands of journal articles don’t demonstrate the existence of extra-sensory perception or psychokinesis just as the SRA literature doesn’t prove that, and I quote now from the below book review, satanists were sexually abusing children "in day-care centers, impregnating girls for infant sacrifice, brainwashing adults, and even controlling the highest levels of government". —Cesar Tort 13:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe User:Eleland was right and I archived more discussions than what was needed. I put this thread back:

Prof. David Frankfurter's work

The brief mention of David Frankfurter's Evil Incarnate needs some explanation. His scholarly work gives the big picture about the SRA craze.

Book Description from Amazon Books: [5]

“ In the 1980s, America was gripped by widespread panics about Satanic cults. Conspiracy theories abounded about groups who were allegedly abusing children in day-care centers, impregnating girls for infant sacrifice, brainwashing adults, and even controlling the highest levels of government. As historian of religions David Frankfurter listened to these sinister theories, it occurred to him how strikingly similar they were to those that swept parts of the early Christian world, early modern Europe, and postcolonial Africa. He began to investigate the social and psychological patterns that give rise to these myths. Thus was born Evil Incarnate, a riveting analysis of the mythology of evil conspiracy. [...].Thus, he maintains, panics over modern-day infant sacrifice are really not so different from rumors about early Christians engaging in infant feasts during the second and third centuries in Rome. ”

—Cesar Tort 23:56, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I've read the book but couldn't find in Frankfurter's work all references for the citations needed in the tagged section. I hope other editors will fill the gaps. BTW, has anyone of you read Satan's Silence? I haven't but they say it's a good skeptical book :) —Cesar Tort 06:42, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

128.187.0.164's massive copyedits

On July 8 I reverted User:128.187.0.164's massive copyedits. Today, he did it again without any discussion in talk page.

I reverted them again.

128.187.0.164: please discuss your proposals here before changing the article radically.

Thank you.

—Cesar Tort 22:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Note on scope and definition

According to [6]:

It is important to realize that the above definition [of satanic ritual abuse] is relatively restrictive. It excludes a number of behaviors which are known to exist:

• Abuse by non-Satanic, abusive pedophiles 3 who pretend to be Satanists in order to gain better control of their victims through fear.
• Mass murderers by a person who claims to be a Satanist and who tries to use the "Devil made me do it" defense when arrested. They are generally found to have little or no knowledge of Satanism.
• Abuse and murder by psychotic individuals and psychopaths who are primarily motivated by their mental illness, not by any religious belief system.
• Abuse by non-Satanists who engage in behaviors like SRA but are motivated by Christian or other beliefs.

This kind of information could be useful, since many people seem to be confused by our conclusion that SRA is a myth, on the basis that this or that individual abused a child while mumbling about Satan. The point is that no organized conspiratorial network exists, not that nobody's ever been abused by someone claiming to be a Satanist.Eleland 22:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Great point, Eleland. Thanks. I hope the new editors will take notice. —Cesar Tort 23:05, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Deliberate Denial and Obscurantism

The page is heavily biased and pretends that claims of SRA are only the product of pathological minds or stereotyped "backwards Christians"; but psychological studies and historical reality say otherwise. The citation of Erich Neumann on the reality of ancient ritual murder and a recent empirically-established case of SRA in Italy have been dishonestly removed for no good reason. In whose interests is it to deny this category of crimes if and when they occur?? Is it because it makes modern rationalist-optimistic superficial people uneasy? Staying silent about the massacre of Jews in Nazi Europe was also the "easy path", but we must prize ethics and reality above all else.

Italy rocked by satanic-drug-induced sexual abuse in kindergarten —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.10.1 (talk • contribs)

Sorry, but your extreme bias here is clear. Please see our WP:NPOV policy on why your personal opinions cannot be elevated to fact and presented in the article. DreamGuy 13:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

"DreamGuy", you are guilty of lying through your teeth, dishonorably at that. I presented the facts about ancient pagan ritual murder and a present case of SRA in Italy (where is the personal opinion in this police-confirmed case??), and you can only use ad hominem and evasive tactics in response. There is absolutely no interest in objectivity in this matter, and the power-hungry editors are ideological partisans with pre-determined viewpoints not interested in empirical confirmation or disconfirmation. I should expect nothing less from Wikipedia and its crowd, which believes that pedophilia-activism is just an expression of "democratic pluralism". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.10.1 (talk • contribs)

The information on Italy is sourced and on the page. If it turns out to be bogus and cited by a reliable source, it will be noted as such. Wikipedia reports verifiable information, not truth. Please remember WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. Better than rhetoric is finding sources that support either one of your points of view. WLU 23:19, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to ask an obscurantist, denialist question, but since pagans are by definition not believers in Christian theology, how can they be Satanists? Eleland 02:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, all we know about this Rome story is that some people were arrested (here's a better source which notes that "the Mayor of Rignano Flaminio, said that the town of 8,000 people was enveloped in “a poisonous climate of hatred and vendetta”, and Father Erri Rocchi, the parish priest, said he still believed the teachers were the victims of “malicious tongues” ... a former teacher at the school, also said she could swear on the innocence of the teachers and the caretaker. “I simply do not believe they could have done this,” she said." This page contains extensive examples of panics, arrests, and trials which turned out to be totally spurious. What makes us think this should be any different? Eleland 02:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

One of the issues rarely addressed by any party in the debate on 'Satanic Ritual Abuse' is that the ritualistic or cultic aspects of a sexual abuse case rarely result in additional charges against the accused, unless there is specific 'ritual abuse' legislation on the books (which is the case in seven states in America). It is not illegal to worship the devil, and the law usually does not impose harsher sanctions on a person or group of people who abuse a child in a ritual context. Evidence of ritual sexual activity is usually not adduced at trial because it is not relevant to a fact in issue (the charges). In addition, it may be barred because it constitutes character or tendency evidence (which courts usually do not allow), and it's probative value is deemed to be outweighed by it's prejudicial nature.

This usually results in a lot of speculation about the ritual aspects of the case (such as in the McMartin trial) without those aspects ever being tested at trial. It is likely that this will occur in the Italian case if it ever goes to trial, and we are certainly seeing the same tendency in the Hosanna Church case in the States at the moment.

What this means is that, in "Satanic Ritual Abuse" as in most things, the legal system is not a shortcut to the truth, and we have to consider the facts from many different perspectives. Biaothanatoi 07:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Allegations from Sweden in 1670

There are three fascinating articles about a witch hunt for satanic ritual abuse.

The Outbreak of Mass Allegations of Satanist Child Abuse in the Parish of Rättvik, Sweden, 1670–71: Two Texts by Gustav J. Elvius Rickard L. SjöBerg History of Psychiatry 2004; 15; 477 DOI: 10.1177/0957154X04048755

A Short and Simple Account of the Tribulations and Abductions of Children by the Evil Witches of Rättvik Gustav J. Elvius History of Psychiatry 2004; 15; 483 DOI: 10.1177/0957154X0401500409

Letter to the Bishop of the Diocese of Västerås 31 January 1671 Gustav J. Elvius History of Psychiatry 2004; 15; 486 DOI: 10.1177/0957154X0401500410

The final reference has this gem:

"Many children say that they had no idea that they had been abducted until other children testified against them and the threats, bribes and persistency of their parents eventually created a situation in which the children started to believe in the abductions and memories began to grow."

Remember it was written in 1670. Happy hunting! --CloudSurfer 01:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

My mistake, the quote is from the first reference. --CloudSurfer 05:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

new urls for page

Would like to add these three urls to the page. They are well researched.

1. Conviction List: Ritual Child Abuse
2. Satanism and Ritual Abuse Archive The cases describe legal proceedings held in Juvenile, Family, Civil and Criminal Courts around the world where there have been allegations of Satanism or the use of Ritual to abuse others.
3. Frequently Asked Questions about Ritual Abuse and Mind Control

Abuse truth 00:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

(numbered for easier reference)

The first link doesn't contain information beyond listing cases. I don't see it as particularly encyclopedic. It could be used as a source for adding information to the page, but I don't see it as an EL. It looks very POV-pushy; some of the references to 'satanic' abuse are extreme stretches in my mind, and since most of the sources are to news media, who are invested in sensationalistic stories but not following-up, I don't see the page as spectacularly useful.

The second link is apparently compiled by Diana Napolis, who is not a particularly reliable source in my mind, and makes the page too close to a blog as far as I'm concerned. Also, I've the same arguments as in point one - histrionic, shallow coverage, and a stretch to call some of them satanic ritual abuse in any serious manner.

3 is a mirror of the FAQ in 2, and cites no references. It's not particularly skeptical, reliable, and also a POV-push. I don't see it adding much to the page itself. Other's thoughts?

WLU 02:55, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

IMO, the important thing about the links is that they provide balance to the article and do contain factual information. Abuse truth 13:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

WLU, you are posing a differentially high standard for evidence suggestive of organised and ritualistic abuse then is being applied to evidence which suggests otherwise.

For instance, the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance have never published a book or an article offline or been subject to peer-review, nor do they state their methodology or the manner by which they have come to their conclusions on ritual abuse, however they are quoted throughout the article to debunk claims of SRA. In contrast, Napolis (regardless of her reputation) has provided a list of convictions drawn from Lexis Nexis, which can be double-checked by any undergrad with library access.

It seems that there is little interest amongst editors on this page to consider the evidence for and against SRA on its own merits. Instead, a very particular agenda is being advanced here, in which any and all 'skeptical' commentary is accepted as objective (regardless of the source) whilst legal and research evidence suggestive of organised and ritualistic abuse is ridiculed and rejected.

Biaothanatoi 12:15, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I have added the first two urls above to the page under external links

• Conviction List: Ritual Child Abuse
• Satanism and Ritual Abuse Archive The cases describe legal proceedings held in Juvenile, Family, Civil and Criminal Courts around the world where there have been allegations of Satanism or the use of Ritual to abuse others.

These are well researched sources that will add balance to the page. Abuse truth 15:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The new reference to tunnels

I find it strange that this section has been added. I propose that it be deleted. Please consider the following information and let me know why you believe that this section should remain.

There are two ritual abuse cases in which evidence of tunnels were found in concordance with the children's disclosures. The first, and most famous, are the tunnels found under the McMartin preschool, as excavated by UCLA archeologist Gary Sickel (http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/mcmartin.htm).

(It is worth noting that the McMartin case did not 'collapse', but rather, resulted in two hung juries, and that a third trial did not take plce since parents felt it would be too harmful to the complainant children.)

Previously, editors of this page have claimed that Sickel's excavation was 'debunked' by pointing to articles 'published' by the 'Institute of Psychological Therapy' (IPT). These editors failed to note:

(a) that the IPT was founded by Dr Ralph Underwager, who stepped down from the board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation after advocating for the decriminalisation of paedophilia in 1993,

(b) that the IPT 'journal' is not peer-reviewed nor published offline, making it simply an extension of the IPT website,

(c) the question as to whether a psychologist possesses the expertise to 'debunk' the work of an archeologist.

In 1990, Beatrix Campbell took documentary makers to the tunnel in Nottingham where children in the case stated they had been ritually abused. In the tunnel, there was satanic graffiti and candles set into the walls. Nottingham is built on sandstone and there are many large caves in the area.

Whether you take the information above as corroboration of the children's accounts or not should be, for the purposes of this article, irrelevant. The article is factually incorrect in stating that there is no other explanation for the children's accounts of tunnels other then a 'psychological' one. This is a clearly biased and POV statement intended to direct the reader to dismiss accounts of ritual abuse on the basis that there are elements contained within (such as tunnels) that cannot be physically corroborated. In fact, such corroboration did occur in at these two high-profile cases.

If no strong argument for this new section is forthcoming, then I propose it be deleted on the basis that it has no basis in fact and is POV.

Biaothanatoi 12:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of any arguments otherwise, I have deleted this section on the basis that it is factually incorrect. Let me know if you think it should be restored and why. Biaothanatoi 11:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

hello, its me. actually I am pro-tunnel. I wrote that with a "disparaging" eye originally. Thinking it was BS that there are only "psychological" explanations for the tunnels, but thats the best modern pyschology can do, right? lol. Like I think that it is very "fishy" that tunnels keep turning up in kids accounts, but i figured if I said that it would get deleted. So I wrote something just to get the issue out there. anyways I know its pov, etc, but I would love some sort of reference to the tunnel aspect of SRA in of itself. I have various reasons for finding these stories plausible and while I agree we need to be neutral, I also think it definitely is important that tunnels show up in abuse accounts and doctors say "its just kids making stuff up" over and over, but there is no further investigation. maybe there is some good explanation for it, i don't know. I am glad you are working so hard on the page, because people need to understand what is going on. Basically I mean that the cops and pyschologists have only theories to explain all the tunnel talk, they can't point to a well-know reason why kids are obsessed with tunnels normally, or something else that would make more sense. All we have are repeated examples of a supposedly random phenomenon. so again I'm not claiming to know the truth but I will add something back in.66.220.110.83 06:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The Minnesota ritual abuse case

The previous section on the Minnesota case was removed by editors, although their reasoning was not discussed here. I believe that removal was justified on the basis that the information contained in that section was false and misleading, claiming as it did that all people involved in the case had been 'exonerated', when, in fact, one of the accused had been convicted, a number of parents confessed to sexually abusing their children and underwent treatment, and parental rights for six other children were terminated.

I am about to include a new section on the Minnesota ritual abuse case, including extensive footnotes. If you disagree with any information contained in this section, please discuss your concerns here. Biaothanatoi 11:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The reference to Diana Napolis

I propose to delete the reference to Diana Napolis' psychological problems for the following reasons:

(a) Napolis has never written a book, journal article, newspaper article or conference paper about ritual abuse, and she is not a significant figure in ritual abuse literature or research. The details of her life history contained here do not contribute to the article, and appear instead scurrilous and libelous.

(b) There are published authors referred to in this article who have a checkered history, however, that history is not mentioned, although it does call into question their objectivity and the value of their work. For instance, Paul and Shirley Eberle are referenced in the McMartin section, although they are professional pornography manufacturers and distributers who came to the attention of the LAPD vice squad in the 1970s after distributing paedophilic material. Why is their work relied upon and their history ignored, whilst Napolis is singled out, although she has not contributed to the public debate on ritual abuse?

In light of the above, it is reasonable to conclude that Napolis' problems have been given special attention in an attempt to construe all people who argue that ritual abuse occurs as psychologically ill. This is a prejudicial piece of information which attempts to misinform the reader. Large-scale studies have been undertaken in America, Australia and Britain which have found that between a quarter and a third of health professionals will encounter a client with a history of ritual abuse in their career, and the majority of these professionals believe that this history is indicative of genuine trauma.

If a strong argument for keeping Napolis' history in the article is not forthcoming, I will delete it on the basis that it is irrelevant and prejudicial to the reader. Biaothanatoi 11:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the reference to Diana Napolis. If an editor feels that it adds important informatin to the article, please discuss it here. Biaothanatoi 00:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Reverses to McMartin

I think we should stick to the canonical chronology used in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times and not use an unorthodox chronology from a seminar in Australia. Reliable sources trump blogs, seminars, and things written on the back of cocktail napkins after a few drinks. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 08:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The "unorthodox chronology" was provided by Professor Roland Summit, who is a world-renowned expert on child abuse and a consultant psychologist to the psychological clinic that assessed the McMartin children. In contrast, there is nothing "canonical" about a timeline written by a random journalist or friendly obituarist. The seminar provided by Summitt was paid for by the New South Wales Government and resulted in a published report from which this information is drawn.

Given that there is an entire section on "Parallels to Alien Abductions" in the current article drawn from a conference presentation by an unknown psychologist who never published her 'findings' in a peer-reviewed journal article, it is inconsistent of you to object to the inclusion of Summitt's information - particularly given his academic credentials, his reputation, and his direct involvement in the case.

You have yet to establish that the information provided by Summitt is either false or misleading. I am reverting your changes. Biaothanatoi 00:48, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Talbot quote

I'm not sure how that Talbot quote fits in. It doesn't mention the McMartin case at all, so there's no reason for it to be in that section at all. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 20:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Its from Peggy McMartin's obituary published in the NYT, its a reference I found that talks about the satanic aspects of the case, as opposed to just the abuse. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 20:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the (relatively) extensive placement of quotations in the references at all - is there a reason this page has three, when most have none? The sections they are attached to are not particularly controversial, so there does not seem to be a need for a piece of verbatim from the respective articles. WLU 20:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The quote field is in all inline citations. Its there so people can check the context of the information provided. As you know most links to articles online don't last very long. In each case its the lede paragraph, or the material that provided the actual quote, or both. The actual text, as opposed to what written in the article also allows you do a search in Google to find the article, if the link no longer works. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 20:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

If that's the sole reason, given this information, how would you feel about removing them? I know the templates all have quote fields (which I've never understood), but it's such a jarring contrast with other articles and they just don't seem to fit. The quote doesn't seem to add to the context or information, it just adds an enormous block of text in the footnotes section. WLU 20:46, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

An obituary of one of the accused is not an objective source of information on the McMartin case by an standard. Obituaries are usually written by someone known to, or at least well disposed towards, the deceased. In contrast, I've provided extensive references to journalists and psychologists who were present in court at the time and followed the trial in it's entirety, and these changes accurately document the complexities and ambiguities of the case.

• Yes you are giving WP:Undue weight to the prosecution's discredited case by only showing the prosecution's witnesses. The same could be done for any court case to show a distorted and non-neutral point of view. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 06:21, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Most of the information that I provided was not adduced at trial, and Summit was not a witness for the prosecution. If anything, I presented the defence's argument - that the children's allegations were too bizarre to be true, and that the interveiwing techniques were unreliable. If you would like to dispute the changes to the article, please show me which information is inaccurate and/or why it should be withheld from the reader. Biaothanatoi 07:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

If Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) would like to add further verifiable information about the case, then he is free to do so, but he is currently advocating that such information be subsumed to biased commentary from a friend of one of the defendants. I don't beleive that this is in the best interests of either the article or the readers. Biaothanatoi 00:57, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Who is the friend of the defendant? I am not following your logic. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 07:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

As I said earlier, obituaries are often written by someone friendly with the deceased, or someone well disposed to the deceased. Biaothanatoi 07:39, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The fact that an obituary was published in the NYT does not mean that the information within it is accurate. Neither the writer of the obituary, nor the writer of the newspaper article you quoted, has the expertise to retroactively diagnose someone they haven't met with schizophrenia. Johnson was never diagnosed with schizophrenia before, during or after the trial, and she had no history of mental illness prior to the trial. Suggesting otherwise is biased and POV unless you have an informed and reliable source to the contrary that could contradict the information provided by a psychologist who assessed Johnson prior to trial.

Once again, you are incorrect, she was diagnosed with "paranoid schizophrenia" in 1985 and she died of "alcoholism" in 1986. The trial ran from 1987 to 1990. She died before there was a trial. Both "paranoid schizophrenia" and "alcoholism" are long term, chronic problems. Both would impair judgment before a formal diagnoses is made. Her odd behavior in 1983 is recorded in her police interview notes. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 08:46, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• CHILD-ABUSE CASE ENDS IN 2 ACQUITTALS PRESCHOOL TRIAL LASTED 32...

$2.95 - Miami Herald - NewsBank - Jan 19, 1990 The story began IN summer 1983 when a Southern California woman, Judy Johnson, ... Johnson, who was later diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia, ... All 98 related - Related web pages

• A SEARCH FOR VICTIMS QUEST SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH IN CALIFORNIA CHILD...

$2.95 - Miami Herald - NewsBank - Nov 13, 1989 Judy Johnson, who started THE whole thing, never testified against Buckey. IN 1985, she was diagnosed as suffering acute paranoid schizophrenia. ...

A grand jury was convened in 1984 - it was much more then just a 'pretrial investigation'. And, by your own admission, her psychotic break occured in 1985 and therefore it is purely speculative that any pre-existing mental illness contributed to her son's disclosures two years earlier. Such speculation is directly contradicted by her psychologist at the time.

As information that you have removed from the article suggested, several children from McMartin were in counselling for suspected sexual abuse prior to the trial, including Johnson's child. It is therefore a reasonable hypothesis that Johnson's complaint to the police was motivated by concern for her son, and other children at the preschool, rather then by paranoid schizophrenia - as you would clearly like to infer.

I would like to believe that you are engaging in this discussion in good faith, but you seem intent on withholding verifiable information from the reader, and repeating unfounded speculation, in order to prejudice the article against the probity of the trial. --Biaothanatoi 05:00, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This was a very complex and ambiguous case, and the reader deserves accurate information in order to make up their own minds. Deleting expert opinion that you don't like, and replacing it with journalistic speculation that you do, does not add to the value of this article in any way. Biaothanatoi 07:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why a compromise can't be reached on this point of whether or not to include the Talbot article quote. I can see why the quote could be relevant and included, but at the same time perhaps it's too lengthy and rambling for it to be included in its current form. Perhaps the entire quote could be included as a footnote, or the contents of the quote could be summarized and paraphrased briefly as the views of a "commentator" on the trial. In any case, I see it as a valuable addition because it does directly address the "satanic" aspect of the accusations, which the rest of the section avoids completely. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 06:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The quote has been shifted somewhere else in the article now, where it is simply irrelevant and rambling.

It is a curious strategy to claim that, since the children's disclosures in the McMartin case included sadistic and ritualistic activity, therefore the children's disclosures were fabricated. Their accounts of ritual activity are identical to allegations made in other cases where such ritual activity was substantiated and convictions attained - as other cases in this article make clear.

It was the argument of the defense in the McMartin trial that the children's disclosures were fabricated because they recounted ritual abuse and such abuse is improbable. Some editors here are attempting to present the argument of the defense as fact. In an overview of a legal trial, could anything be more POV then to implicitly support the argument of one side and ignore the argument of the other? --Biaothanatoi 09:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that was the intent nor the effect of including the quote. I prefer to assume good faith that the editors are trying to maintain NPOV. Whether the defence strategy is "curious" or not is POV, and I would prefer to leave the commentary to the commentators. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 09:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The prevalence section

I am making significant additions to the prevalence section, which currently focuses on satanic murder rather then satanic ritual abuse. Whilst murder is a common feature of many allegations of ritual abuse, it is not a defining characteristic of those allegations, and many allegations of ritual abuse do not involve murder.

The discussion on murder is not only irrelevant to a 'prevalence' section, but it seems designed to construe all allegations of ritual abuse as improbable. The statement that "those who believe that there is organized Satanic ritual abuse going on in the United States claim that large numbers of people are ritually murdered annually" is pejorative in that it attributes an extreme belief to all people who believe in SRA, without providing a verifiable source for such an assertion. As such, it is biased and POV. There are dozens of published accounts of clinical encounters with children and adults disclosing ritual abuse, and these accounts demonstrate that, whilst many clinicians believe that their clients have been sadistically abused, they often doubt the veracity of their more extreme disclosures.

I am providing extensive references to peer-reviewed and large-scale prevalence studies on abuse and ritual abuse. If you object to the relevance or accuracy of these studies, please discuss your concerns here. Biaothanatoi 01:21, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

RFC

McMartin section is becoming a POV fork from the McMartin article, and is using an alternate timeline and alternate conclusion based on a seminar given in Australia that contradicts the timeline and conclusions of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Believe it or not, publications outside America are sometimes accurate. In this case, I referred to a report drawn from a seminar given by Prof. Roland Summit, a consultant psych on the McMartin trial and a world renowned expert on child abuse.

It's illogical to dismiss the information provided by Summitt because he did so (gasp!) outside America and (gasp!) in a seminar. He was involved in the case, and he's got the expertise to make an assessment of the parents and children involved in the case. In contrast, your "canonical" timeline was written by a random journalist and a friend of one of the defendants. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Biaothanatoi (talk • contribs) 07:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• The seminar is Australia is not peer reviewed, and the author is not well known, and doesn't have an article here in Wikipedia to judge their value. The timeline I used came from the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Crime Library. All are peer reviewed, and available on the Internet to challenge. Your using Eberle as a straw man. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Peer review is a process by which academic peers review the research and analysis of other academics. Newspapers and websites like the Crime Library are not peer reviewed, and nor should they be. They are not academic publications.

• : The New York Times has editorial control and is reviewed by the readers and retractions and corrections are printed. That cant be said for a seminar in Australia, especially when it is making extraordinary claims that go against consensus and established timelines used by the New York Times and the LA Times.

Whilst the report that I quoted was not peer-reviewed, the information that I was quoting was not the findings of research, but rather the direct experience of the author in question - Prof. Roland Summit, who personally counselled Judy Johnson and her child prior to trial, whilst acting as a consultant psych for the counselling centre in question. It is perfectly adequate for us to take Summit's word that he did provide this service, unless you are proposing that he is lying to us, and you have proof.

I'm a little startled at the idea that an academic is not "well known" unless he has an article on Wikipedia. Perhaps you should run Summit's name through scholar.google.com and see how many references you come up with. His contribution to child abuse research was recently celebrated in an edited book by Jon Conte, "Critical Issues in Child Sexual Abuse", which reflects on Summit's 25-year history in the field. --Biaothanatoi 14:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

If you want to claim that Judy Johnson had a mental illness prior to the McMartin trial, then please provide your source for her diagnosis. My understanding of the case is that Johnson had no such diagnosis prior to trial, and her consultant psychologist found no evidence of mental instability prior to trial. I've provided a peer-reviewed source in which he attributed her psychotic break and alcohol dependancy to the stress of the case, which is certainly a reasonable hypothesis given that another witness committed suicide rather then testify.

• You are confusing "truth" with "verifiability". I don't have to prove she really was ill. I just have to find a vetted, mainstream, reliable source that calls her ill. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, says she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and the references are used in the article. If stress makes people schizophrenic in a cause and effect relationship, then wouldn't all of the parents then become schizophrenic? Who committed suicide? please use names and provide references. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Again your using the straw man attack. Attacking the person who wrote the obituary rather than arguing the facts contained within them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 02:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You are attempting to claim that your obituarist has more knowledge about Johnson's mental health then her psychologist. That stretches credibility to the point where I'm unsure that you are engaging in this discussion in good faith. --Biaothanatoi 14:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

You have also sought to withhold from the reader the fact that several McMartin children were in treatment for sexual abuse prior to Johnson's complaint. On the basis of this fact, and in the absence of a pre-existing diagnosis, it is reasonable to assume that Johnson's decision to go to the police was motivated by concern for her son, and for other children at the preschool, rather then by a mental illness for which you have yet to present any evidence for.

• Provide names of the children and mainstream sources. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I did provide the source - you deleted the information and the reference. It came from the report by Summit, who provided the service himself. And your request for the names of the children is very strange. Such information would, of course, be confidential, and it would not be available outside the centre that provided the service. --Biaothanatoi 14:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

My additions have been garnered from several sources, including the consultant psych and a number of court reporters. Your desire to delete this accurate and verifiable information with block quotations from an obituary suggests a profound bias of your own. Biaothanatoi 06:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, a bias toward accuracy. My quote talked about the Satanic aspects of the case. Your info is a POV fork from the main article to try and show that abuse did take place, and doesn't discuss Satan, or Satanic aspects at all. All my links can be checked for accuracy, and aren't just obscure journal references. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The children's disclosures regarding Satanism did not form the basis of any of the charges made against the defendants at trial, and so positioning those disclosures as central to the McMartin case is misleading. None of the information that I provided points to the defendants guilt, only to the ambiguity of the case itself.

All of my links can be verified for accuracy - but you'd need to use your library card instead of Google. --Biaothanatoi 14:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

STD's

---

I have heard many times that some of the McMartin kids got STDs before puberty. Does anyone know anything more about this? Or are there other cases from other parts of the world? 66.220.110.83 06:47, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It was well acknowledged by the defence at the time that over a 1000 former students approached the prosecution to state that they had been sexually abused at McMartin. Of these, 41 children were selected by the defence, and physicians at trial testified that the majority of them showed physical evidence of sexual abuse. This may have involved STD's, however, I haven't read any sources which specified what kind of physical harm the children had sustained. Biaothanatoi 07:03, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Differential burdens of proof

---

I would like to remake the point that the previous section on McMartin was sourced in it's entirety from a book written by Paul and Shirly Eberle, whose published work advocates for 'benign paedophilia' and who published and distributed the kiddie porn magazine 'Finger' throughout the 1970s.

• UNTRUE, it was sourced from the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. and Crime Library. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

None of those sources were referenced in the previous section to which I am referring. --Biaothanatoi 14:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I find it disturbing that the veracity and relevance of information from a report by Prof. Roland Summit is challenged as "POV" whilst the the Eberle's work was quoted here for some years without the objection of Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) or any other editor.

• Your source is a seminar in Australia, that was not under editorial scrutiny, and cant be examined by Wikipedia readers. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

This is the third time that you have made an issue of the geographical location of the seminar. Do you believe that information published in Australia is somehow less trustworthy then it would be if it was published in North America?

Your criticisms are facetious. The report was the fourth report in a child protection series published by the NSW Government, and it certainly had an editor.

It could be examined by Wikipedia readers if they had a library card and went to the library. --Biaothanatoi 14:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

For years, the "Satanic Ritual Abuse" article has been based on quotes from anonymous "Wiccan investigators" and "Ontario Consultants" who disparage SRA and survivors. Editors here are clearly not holding such dubious sources to the same standard that they have set for researchers and academics whose research findings and clinical experience suggest that allegations of SRA are more then simply fantasy or fabrication. It seems that evidence for SRA is assessed according to a 'floating standard' which is raised whenever it is met. I suggest that editors here assess their own bias and consider the manner in which they are prejudging claims of SRA and those who make them. Biaothanatoi 08:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Huh? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

On the subject of sources, a quick Google search finds that our citation #5, "Nursery Crimes: Sexual Abuse in Day Care" was torn to pieces[7] by one Lee Coleman, M.D., who concluded that "...this irresponsible book will be used in this way. It will become a mainstay in what is clearly unfolding as a long term, desperate effort to deny the reality of our nation's wave of false sexual abuse allegations." That was in 1989. Smart guy. < eleland // talkedits > 21:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The quote you have provided was published by the "Institute of Psychological Therapies", an organisation founded and run by pro-paedophile advocate Dr Ralph Underwager. Underwager founded IPT in the late 1980s, and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in 1992, only to step down a year later after giving an interview in which he characterised sex with young boys as intimate and loving, and claimed that paedophilia was a lifestyle choice "blessed by God".

• Huh? Again your using slander and libel, without citing sources. You used the same strategy to slander and libel the Eberles. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The Eberles are quite open about their pro-incest stance, if you actually read their books. The LAPD provided the information on their kiddie porn track record to Ms Magazine in the late 1980s, and I've already quoted that article here. You can verify Underwager's history with a simple google search - the interview in which he advocates for the decriminalisation of paedophilia is available online, through the Journal of Paedophilia (Paidika) where the interview was published. --Biaothanatoi 14:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The primary author of Nursery Crimes is David Finkelhor, who is one of the most well-known and respected quantitative researchers in child abuse of the last thirty years. The book contains a full chapter on the methodology of the study and the manner in which he conducted his analysis. If you beleive that this methodology is flawed, or his findings inaccurate, please tell us why.

As it stands, your "smart guy" is a random medico aligned with a pro-paedophile organisation. --Biaothanatoi 22:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a fine job of well-poisoning, although I myself prefer the version which links FMSF to CIA mind control and MKULTRA. The substantive objection made by that piece is that the authors 'simply telephoned some of those involved in each case studied, and asked what happened. But not just anyone involved; they called only those who insisted that abuse had taken place, ignoring those who disagreed...Even if the case fell apart, was rejected by the police or prosecutors, or failed to bring a single conviction, the case was nonetheless a "substantiated" case as long as anyone still believed. 'If at least one of the local investigating agencies had decided that abuse had occurred ... then we considered the case substantiated. '" Not having access to the book in question, not even to the "full chapter on the methodology", I have no way to check this. So tell me: what were the authors' criteria for substantiated "ritualistic elements"? And what on earth does it have to do with claims of a widespread, organized network of Satanic child abusers?

If you are concerned about the accuracy of Finkelhor's research, then you should read it. As it stands, you are trying to dismiss a book you've never read on the basis of a quote from a doctor you've never heard of before who provided a quote for an article published by a pro-paedophile organisation. --Biaothanatoi 14:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we all know that awful, sadistic child abuse does occur far too frequently, But this article isn't about child abuse. It isn't even about child abuse with ritualistic overtones. Hell, it isn't even about that one-in-a-million case of bona fide child sex abuse by Satanists. It's about an alleged massive organized conspiracy of Satanic paedophiles which doesn't exist. The fact is that a bizzare moral panic occured during the late 1980s which suggested that a virtual army of Satanists was busily slaughtering hundreds of babies a week. I think you should take a lot of your edits over to a new Sadistic ritual abuse article which can deal factually with the sober academic sources. This article is about the crap "exposés" on Geraldo and the reason I used to hush my voice when talking about Dungeons & Dragons in public. While I appreciate your advocacy on behalf of victims of child abuse, it is kind of missing the point. < eleland // talkedits > 02:19, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Your definition of SRA as a "massive organized conspiracy of Satanic paedophiles" is one amongst many. Many people have used the phrase SRA to mean something quite different - specifically, organised and ritualistic abuse. This article should reflect the diversity of opinions and respones to SRA. Anything less is POV.

It is not sufficient to point to the social context around a phenomenon and ignore the phenomenon itself, or pretend that the context is the phenomenon - which the 'moral panic' position tries to do by suggesting that there is nothing else to SRA except moral panic. We've had "moral panics" around AIDS, but that doesn't mean there is no virus. A moral panic around SRA does not mean that SRA is not based on actual events. --Biaothanatoi 14:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Differential burdens of proof II

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I would like to repeat my concern regarding the differential burden of proof imposed on sources which support allegations of SRA as opposed to those that attempt to discredit them.

The work of both Prof. Roland Summit and Prof. David Finkelhor, two of the best-known names in child abuse research of the last thirty years, has been called into question by two editors here on the most speculative grounds - for example, that information sourced to Summit is unverifiable because it was published in Australia.

Both of these editors have defended the work and reputation of Dr Ralph Underwager and Paul and Shirley Eberle. These three people are notorious pro-incest advocates whose written work has been discredited for over fifteen years.

It seems to me that to apply such facetious tests to the work of respected experts like Summit and Finkelhor, whilst accepting carte blanche the words of child pornographers and paedophile activists, is suggestive of profound bias.

What are the opinions of other Wikipedia editors? How can we resolve a conflict like this?

--Biaothanatoi 03:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)