Satanic Ritual Abuse

[PainRack]

Does anyone here remember the satanic ritual abuse movement that swept through the US in the 80s?

I got curious because I read this old book about how this nurse was "seeing" satanic rituals being performed in a US Southern hospital.... and realised that it wasn't marketed as fiction. I been reading up on the net over this , well, pyschosis, and would be interested to hear the board opinions on this craziness...

Also, opinions on why this appears to have been limited to the US, even though the pyschological movements behind it such as child abductions, fragmented societies and crime rates were duplicated in other countries such as Britain.

SRA

Hell, I come from a country where there WAS a case of ritual murder and abuse
Adrian Lim and a history where the vast child abductions and missing cases of the 70s and 80s were attributed to headhunters chopping off heads, murdering pregnant women for various shamanistic rituals and we STILL don't have anything remotely similar to this myth.
The SRA appears to be a highly interesting conflagation of conspiracy theorists and religious ideologies....

[VT-16]

We had our own extreme feminist professor, Eva Lundgren, who kept claiming there was systematic satanic rituals going on back in the 80s in Scandinavia, as well. Involving high-profile members of society, of course. No conspiracy theory is complete without that. She was discredited here so she moved to Sweden and started somewhat anew. Pure drivel, but the fact that she was exhonorated from claims of fraudulent conduct in her work as an investigator, doesn't help. There is no evidence for the claims, only that people she interviewed believe what they believe.

[Stuart]

Does anyone here remember the satanic ritual abuse movement that swept through the US in the 80s?

Oh yes; I can remember it very well. To put things in context, actual belief in SRA was restricted to a relatively small group of zealots who were in a position of authority and who didn't hesitate to abuse that authority. It was a very typical conspiracy theory set-up (looking back on it, thirty plus years later, the similarities between SRA proponents and Apollo hoaxers/9-11 truthers etc are startling). The basic presumption of SRA was that anybody who denied that it existed was part of the conspiracy to commit the abuse and then cover it up. I can remember watching a television interview (I think it was ITV) when the interviewer was challenging one of said proponents who responded with "I think it is about time we looked at your children". A standard mantra from the SRA believers in those years was "children don't lie", once a child made an accusation (usually after a prolonged third degree-style 'interview") it was taken as incontrovertible from that point on.

Also, opinions on why this appears to have been limited to the US, even though the pyschological movements behind it such as child abductions, fragmented societies and crime rates were duplicated in other countries such as Britain.

That's not true. SRA was a worldwide phenomenom. In the UK, there was a very bad case of it in the Orkneys and another in Nottingham. Other cases came from Australia and New Zealand (a particularly prolific source of accusations). I would even argue that the conspiracy theory didn't actually originate in the United States, I believe a more accurate statement would be that it originated within the psychiatric profession, the majority of whom practiced within the United States. All the leading proponents of SRA were psychiatrists/psychologists, one of the very interesting things about the hysteria being that mainstream religious communities were expressing doubts about the whole affair right from the start.

The Orkneys (South Ronaldsey) case was typical of how the system worked. The accusations were based on revealed memories as a result of highly coercive and leading questions appplied to children (as young as four and five) who had no real idea of what was happening. Based on that "evidence" the children were taken away from their parents (the youngest being told that their parents had been killed) and distributed to foster homes. it was six years before the family was reunited. The local priest spoke out against the way the family was being treated and the result was that he and his church were raided, he was arrested on the basis of "satanic implements" being found. On close investigation, these turned out to be a black robe thatw as actually his University gown and a "wooden cross" that turned out to be a wooden model of an aircraft. A "ritualist vidoetape" turned out to be an episode of Blackadder (nobody could make this stuff up) while a "satanic text" turned out to be a detective novel.

The real hero of the whole business was Sheriff David Kelbie who doggedly kept overturning demands by the SRA fanatics for detention orders and kept demanding that evidence be produced in court rather than just listed by the descriptions applied by Child Services (that's how the wooden aircraft, Blackadder episode and detective novel got properly identified). He was the subject of a crescendo of abuse by the SRA fanatics but stuck to his guns and was eventually vindicated by a Royal Enquiry that scathingly condemned the SRA theorists, everybody who had supported them and pretty much everything they believed in.

Looking back, I'd suggest that what lay behind the whole SRA phenomenom was a combination of ambitions psychiatrists who wanted to make a name for themselves, journalists who wanted sensational stories for their newspapers, credulous law enforcement agencies who believed what they were being told and politically-active prosecutors who saw the cases as a way up their career ladder. Throw in the availability of increasing amounts of government research money up for grabs and we have what amounts to a perfect storm.

[Elfdart]

I remember it quite well. It coincided with the hysteria over heavy metal and Dungeons & Dragons.

The main difference between SRA nutters and other crackpots (9/11 "truthers", Moon landing morons, et al) is that the authorities took this bullshit seriously and people ended up in jail and otherwise had their lives ruined. The reason is fairly simple: some witch seasons are politically useful.

Much of the grand peur over SRA revolved around non-church day care centers, which were expanding as more women (especially single women) relied on day care so they could do evil things like work and pay the rent. Keep in mind, this was only a few years after feminism had first gained ground, and the idea of women working outside the home was as frightening to the Jesus Christers as gay marriage is today. What better way to scare women back into the kitchen than to tell them their kids are being molested in day care centers by people who are head-over-heels in love with Satan and all his little wizards?

The fact that during this period, so many priests were busy molesting altar boys while protestant fundie ministers were knocking up underage girls in their compounds suggests that this was also projection with a capital "P".

[Solauren]

The fact that during this period, so many priests were busy molesting altar boys while protestant fundie ministers were knocking up underage girls in their compounds suggests that this was also projection with a capital "P".

It doesn't look like projection so much as bait and switch / deflectionism.

Give people another target to go after, so they'll leave you alone.

[Patrick Degan]

The local priest spoke out against the way the family was being treated and the result was that he and his church were raided, he was arrested on the basis of "satanic implements" being found. On close investigation, these turned out to be a black robe thatw as actually his University gown and a "wooden cross" that turned out to be a wooden model of an aircraft. A "ritualist vidoetape" turned out to be an episode of Blackadder (nobody could make this stuff up) while a "satanic text" turned out to be a detective novel.

I suppose the irony would enter into the picture if the aforementioned Blackadder episode was the one with Frank Finlay as the witch hunter.

Back in New Orleans, we had one television reporter, Bill Elder, who while otherwise a credible investigative journalist, was far too credulous where SRA was concerned and was periodically featuring stories on the late news (especially on Sunday nights) on WWL-TV Channel 4 about the alleged doings of alleged Satanic cults in the pine woods of St. Tammany Parish, on the north shore of Lake Pontchatrain —none of which ever actually resulted in arrests, court cases, or recovery of "victims". His night videos tracking the pathway through the woods to the Secret Ritual Sites™ anticipated The Blair Witch Project about 10-15 years before the actual movie.

[Stark]

I studied this a big in university. I have myself read those non-fiction books where earnest 70s and 80s 'youth preachers' try to tell us what horrible, massively-widespread but totally secret abuse is going on everywhere FOR SATAN. Stuart covered how overblown and destructive this was.

[CaiusWickersham]

The UK had the Orkneys; the US had the McMartins.

[Darth Wong]

And people in the psych profession wonder why people like me (especially given that I grew up in the 70s and 80s when they were really running wild) have so little respect for the profession.

[PainRack]

IIRC, there were also two famous cases in the states where a father was accused of sexually abusing his daughter via unearthed repressed memories.

If so, was the hysteria based entirely along the pyschologists and psychiatrists running wild, with repressed memories running the gamut from alien abduction to sexual abuse, and the hysteria was later caught by other groups and linked with their own ideologies?

[TithonusSyndrome]

We had our own extreme feminist professor, Eva Lundgren, who kept claiming there was systematic satanic rituals going on back in the 80s in Scandinavia, as well. Involving high-profile members of society, of course. No conspiracy theory is complete without that. She was discredited here so she moved to Sweden and started somewhat anew. Pure drivel, but the fact that she was exhonorated from claims of fraudulent conduct in her work as an investigator, doesn't help. There is no evidence for the claims, only that people she interviewed believe what they believe.

Except... Norway did and still does have a somewhat relatively noteworthy Satanic movement that is responsible for numerous church-burnings, abductions and what have you. Maybe her error is in trying to extend it to more high-profile members of society, but there's no point in denying that it wasn't all hysteria in Norway in that era.

[VT-16]

Except... Norway did and still does have a somewhat relatively noteworthy Satanic movement that is responsible for numerous church-burnings, abductions and what have you. Maybe her error is in trying to extend it to more high-profile members of society, but there's no point in denying that it wasn't all hysteria in Norway in that era.

Except most cases of "Satanic" crimes was the result of certain members of the Black Metal genre that popped up in the early 90s, towards the end of this hysteria period (given this time frame, it's not farfetched to conclude they were influenced by the trend in the first place and wanted to get famous). Apart from church burnings, most of their crimes were similar to the gangsta wars in American hip-hop. Then black metal became mainstream and most bands are pretty toned down overall today.

[weemadando]

1992 FBI Report into "Satanic Ritual Abuse" which found that there was no organised or mass abuse, but merely a lot of messed up folks.

*edit* I know that site may be suspect, but the same report is available in a lot of places - just search for the author.

[Broomstick]

Does anyone here remember the satanic ritual abuse movement that swept through the US in the 80s?

Oh yes; I can remember it very well. To put things in context, actual belief in SRA was restricted to a relatively small group of zealots who were in a position of authority and who didn't hesitate to abuse that authority. It was a very typical conspiracy theory set-up (looking back on it, thirty plus years later, the similarities between SRA proponents and Apollo hoaxers/9-11 truthers etc are startling). The basic presumption of SRA was that anybody who denied that it existed was part of the conspiracy to commit the abuse and then cover it up. I can remember watching a television interview (I think it was ITV) when the interviewer was challenging one of said proponents who responded with "I think it is about time we looked at your children". A standard mantra from the SRA believers in those years was "children don't lie", once a child made an accusation (usually after a prolonged third degree-style 'interview") it was taken as incontrovertible from that point on.

A better comparison is the Salem Witch Trials (which, by the way, resulted in something like 29 people dead by the time it was over) right down to those who deny the conspiracy exists must be guilty and testimony by children.

[Stuart]

A better comparison is the Salem Witch Trials (which, by the way, resulted in something like 29 people dead by the time it was over) right down to those who deny the conspiracy exists must be guilty and testimony by children.

That's true, a very good point indeed. The Salem Witch Trials and the SRA scandal do have stunning similarities that haven't (as far as I know) been fully investigated yet; you know, there's a good PhD thesis there for somebody. (By the way, Patrick's suggestion that the Blackadder episode in question was the Witchfinder Persuivant one is, I think, spot-on. To the zealots who were actively promoting the whole SRA business, a show that was lampooning them and their "evidence" collection practices would indeed be satanic. They probably took that episode very personally.)

All in all, SRA is a pretty good example of mass hysteria at work. The fact that there was never any real evidence of the alleged conspiracy (as distinct from isolated instances that appeared mainly driven by sadism rather than satanism) faded into insignificance compared with the bandwagon that developed. We had a few psychiatrist/psychologist zealots who were intent on advancing their careers at the core and justified their actions by a self-validating circular quotation ring, an middle ring of people who were busily making money off the storm (mostly journalists in an early example of the depravity to which journalism has sunk) and an outer ring of the gullible who looked at the innter rings and more or less thought "where there's smoke, there's fire". Outside that, there was the real world who looked on in appalled fascination.

It's far enough in the past now for anybody who is doing a Social Studies PhD thesis to do a detailed study of this phenomenom, putting it into a historical context. Be one of the few PhD thesis that really would be a "valuable and original contribution to human knowledge".

[Tiriol]

A better comparison is the Salem Witch Trials (which, by the way, resulted in something like 29 people dead by the time it was over) right down to those who deny the conspiracy exists must be guilty and testimony by children.

That's true, a very good point indeed. The Salem Witch Trials and the SRA scandal do have stunning similarities that haven't (as far as I know) been fully investigated yet; you know, there's a good PhD thesis there for somebody. (By the way, Patrick's suggestion that the Blackadder episode in question was the Witchfinder Persuivant one is, I think, spot-on. To the zealots who were actively promoting the whole SRA business, a show that was lampooning them and their "evidence" collection practices would indeed be satanic. They probably took that episode very personally.)

All in all, SRA is a pretty good example of mass hysteria at work. The fact that there was never any real evidence of the alleged conspiracy (as distinct from isolated instances that appeared mainly driven by sadism rather than satanism) faded into insignificance compared with the bandwagon that developed. We had a few psychiatrist/psychologist zealots who were intent on advancing their careers at the core and justified their actions by a self-validating circular quotation ring, an middle ring of people who were busily making money off the storm (mostly journalists in an early example of the depravity to which journalism has sunk) and an outer ring of the gullible who looked at the innter rings and more or less thought "where there's smoke, there's fire". Outside that, there was the real world who looked on in appalled fascination.

It's far enough in the past now for anybody who is doing a Social Studies PhD thesis to do a detailed study of this phenomenom, putting it into a historical context. Be one of the few PhD thesis that really would be a "valuable and original contribution to human knowledge".

At least one Finnish historian did a study of the witch trials of the New Age (after the Middle Ages; during those times, witch trials were exceedingly rare) and I think that he did compare the "Satanist movement" of 70s and 80s to the "historical witch hunts". I'm not sure, though, and while I have the books (Noitavainot Euroopassa, meaning Witch Hunts in Europe) at hand, they require dedicated reading. But the case of mass hysteria did come up and also some need to crack down on socially deviants and people not like us (or even of different opinions).

[PainRack]

BTW, any links for the norway & Orkney cases?

[VT-16]

The Norwegian sceptical society's site has an English-language translation of an article dealing with the media-hysteria in the early 90s here.

[Stuart]

BTW, any links for the norway & Orkney cases?

THIS is a good starting page and, although its Wikipedia, it gives a lot of links to mroe detailed accounts and other sites. The article in Wikipedia on SRA is screwed up quite badly but it does give a good list of onward references.

By the way, another very good parallel with the SRA hysteria is the McCarthy hearings during the 1950s.

[kinnison]

I'm somewhat surprised by the fact that nobody has yet mentioned the (partially) religiously inspired ritual mutilation that is still going on in the UK (or at least carried out on people ordinarily resident in the UK), and condoned by the authorities because it would be un-PC to object. I refer of course to female "circumcision".

[Rye]

I'm somewhat surprised by the fact that nobody has yet mentioned the (partially) religiously inspired ritual mutilation that is still going on in the UK (or at least carried out on people ordinarily resident in the UK), and condoned by the authorities because it would be un-PC to object. I refer of course to female "circumcision".

Oh fuck off you worthless fucking cunt. You have it precisely backward. Female circumcision isn't condoned by the authorities because it's un-PC, male circumcision is. Female circumcision is fucking illegal, while disfiguring males is A-OK.

[kinnison]

I'm somewhat surprised by the fact that nobody has yet mentioned the (partially) religiously inspired ritual mutilation that is still going on in the UK (or at least carried out on people ordinarily resident in the UK), and condoned by the authorities because it would be un-PC to object. I refer of course to female "circumcision".

Oh fuck off you worthless fucking cunt. You have it precisely backward. Female circumcision isn't condoned by the authorities because it's un-PC, male circumcision is. Female circumcision is fucking illegal, while disfiguring males is A-OK.

Very good, Rye. I wonder how many prosecutions have been brought? I just looked it up. 500 recorded cases in the UK, and God only knows how many others, since sending girls abroad for it was banned, and how many prosecutions? Zero. After all, we must celebrate diversity mustn't we? And it's their culture innit?

Have a look at this link.

I think the Times is reasonably authoritative, and it's quite recent. In case you didn't already know this: LAWS ARE POINTLESS UNLESS ENFORCED.

As for female "circumcision" compared to male circumcision; well, the comparison is closer between the female version and having your dick cut off.

[Rye]

Very good, Rye. I wonder how many prosecutions have been brought? I just looked it up. 500 recorded cases in the UK, and God only knows how many others, since sending girls abroad for it was banned, and how many prosecutions? Zero. After all, we must celebrate diversity mustn't we? And it's their culture innit?

No. There's nothing at any level that implies that is why prosecution is difficult you fucking dittohead.

Have a look at this link.

I think the Times is reasonably authoritative, and it's quite recent. In case you didn't already know this: LAWS ARE POINTLESS UNLESS ENFORCED.

The same Times that gives an entirely plausible explanation for the lack of convictions that doesn't require fuckwit "durrr PC gone mad" bullshit, too: "She said that a code of silence in Britain’s African communities had allowed circumcisions to continue and prevented arrests. The unqualified female elders, known as “house doctors” because they act in secret in a family home, are flown into the country.

“What the communities do is they gather together and collect money to pay for the ticket for a ‘doctor’ to come from Somalia, Sudan, or whatever,” she told The Times. “And when she arrives here, she goes to a house and has the girls brought to her.”

As for female "circumcision" compared to male circumcision; well, the comparison is closer between the female version and having your dick cut off.

Which does happen. Arm amputation is worse than finger amputation, this doesn't change the fact they are the same sick nonsense. But the jooz circumcise, so to try and stop that would be antisemitic, no doubt. That's PC bullshit. Not something that's outlawed with a conspiracy of silence amongst the cultures involved.

[NecronLord]

Hey, hold up folks; genital mutilation has been covered many times on this forum, it doesn't need to be gone over again.

Kinnison your claim that Political Correctness prevents proscecution of FGM among the african diaspora in the UK is for you to prove - you put up the claim, provide evidence.

More to the point, why are you surprised no one has mentioned that? Conspiracy theories about human sacrifice and similar are nothing to do with the mutilation of either gender's sex organs. Are you also surprised that no one has mentioned the Stazi? They're bad too - hell, at least they're vaguely thematically similar (unjust persecution on trumped up charges) to SRA.

This is a completely random thread-jack. This thread is about SRA, not FGM (or MGM), Kinnison. If you want to talk about that topic, start a new thread.

The local priest spoke out against the way the family was being treated and the result was that he and his church were raided, he was arrested on the basis of "satanic implements" being found. On close investigation, these turned out to be a black robe thatw as actually his University gown and a "wooden cross"

Let's just hold up a minute... Wouldn't a priest be more likely to be a satanist if he did not possess a crucifix?

[kinnison]

Yes, Rye, the whole point is that FGM is carried out amidst a fog of secrecy. A second point is that there are very few attempts to penetrate the fog. Of course, I can't prove that the fog is generated by the ethnicity of the perpetrators of this particular sort of atrocity; but try, for a minute or two, to imagine that some other group (for example Baptists, who in Britain are mostly white Caucasians) was suspected of carrying out mutilating surgery, in completely uncontrolled conditions and using unqualified practitioners, on its members. The authorities would be all over them like a rash, right?

"The unqualified female elders, known as “house doctors” because they act in secret in a family home, are flown into the country."

OK, fine. Presumably, if this is known, there is at least a strong suspicion of who these people are. Why are they allowed in, in the first place? And the answer to this question has absolutely nothing to do with whether the surgeons are medically qualified or not. And it shouldn't have anything to do with their race, either.

As to the question of whether my post was a threadjack; well, IMHO the practise of FGM is ritual abuse, and it is rather easy to argue that it is satanically inspired. Ergo, satanic ritual abuse. And it's a hell of a lot more common than the (presumably) original subject. Not at all irrelevant.