SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE (SRA)

An Introduction

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Topics in this essay:

Quotations:

Background:

Many in the social worker, therapist, conservative Christian and police communities experienced a "Satanic Panic," starting about 1980. They, and much of the  rest of the public, believed that a widespread, underground, secret network of Satanic cults were kidnapping, sexually and physically abusing infants and children, murdering them, and sometimes even eating them.  In the United States and Canada, the scare reached a peak in the early 1990's. It spread from the U.S. to other English speaking countries, particularly Canada, Britain, and Australia. The panic gradually declined because of the lack of hard evidence. Most mental health professionals, police officers, etc now believe that SRA was primarily based on:

"As Prof [essor Jean] La Fontaine points out, paedophilia is the most potent representation of evil in modern society; it is not surprising that it should become conflated with older folk devils, or that groups with a distrust of the Establishment - fundamentalists, feminists, social workers - should prove receptive to such a myth." ₁₅

By the year 2002, SRA lives on mainly in court cases, in an inverted form. Victims of experimental, suggestive counseling techniques are now suing their therapists for having induced false memories of SRA. Multi-million dollar settlements have been reached in some cases.

The concept of Multiple Personality Disorder (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder) has been associated with from Recovered Memory Therapy and SRA. It asserts that some people consist of a number of separate personalities who share the same body. Belief in MPD/DID is also in decline and should largely disappear by the year 2010. Most therapists now believe that MPD/DID is an iatrogenic disorder -- one that does not appear in nature and has to be artificially generated by the interaction of a therapist and patient. Normally, if the patient is separated from a MPD/DID therapist and support groups, the alters (alternative personalities) fade and finally disappear.

There remain many individuals and groups who still attempt to raise public awareness of SRA through seminars, Web pages, articles, books, etc. They often teach that many benign, gentle religious groups are abusing, mutilating, programming, and killing children and adults. SRA is thus a religious tolerance concern, because so much hatred and misinformation is directed by the SRA movement at small religious groups.

Often forgotten are the victims of this panic: 

Start of the SRA movement, early 1980's:

Belief in SRA had been present at a low level for decades in many Christian countries -- particularly among conservative Christians. The latter generally believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. Many passages in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) describe Satan as a living, all-evil quasi-deity. They attribute mental illness to indwelling demons. Conservative Christians thus generally believe in the existence of Satan, and demon possession. Since God founded the church to spread Christian belief, it appeared logical to some that Satan would have a corresponding organization of individuals dedicated to performing evil.

Belief in SRA burst into prominence in North American in 1980 with the first SRA survivor book, called Michelle Remembers. ₃ It described horrendous sexual and physical abuse allegedly suffered by the co-author, Michelle Smith, as a child over a 5 year interval. She described perpetrators as Satanists who felt that the pain inflicted upon their victims increased their black magical powers. The group also allegedly engaged in human sacrifice and cannibalism. "Michelle" was presented as a documentary -- a record of real events. It was followed by a number of copy-cat books. "...there has been no verification of these events, and it has been discovered that the alleged victim was attending school regularly, and was even photographed for the school yearbook, at a time when she was supposedly locked in a basement for months." ₄

There were no documented cases of SRA survivors prior to 1980. However, many such cases followed the publication of Michelle Remembers. Court cases in the early 1980s revealed abuse which were precisely like (or almost identical to) Michelle's. Investigations by the Wiccan Information Network revealed that the book is a hoax. ₅ This was confirmed by a separate investigation conducted by the authors of the book Satan's Silence. ₆ The rituals described by the co-author Dr. Lawrence Pazder (1936 - 2004)appeared to be linked to his earlier studies of African native religions. 

A number of other survivor books were later published by conservative Christian authors. The most influential were Satan's Underground ₇ and He Came to Set the Captives Free. ₈ These have since been analyzed by Evangelical groups and also found to be frauds.

A industry developed to promote SRA awareness. Many Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christians joined the seminar/lecture/book circuit to promote the "Satanic Panic". The most influential among these was Mike Warnke, who was also exposed as a fraud by his fellow Evangelicals. Warnke "maintained that satanists carried out 2 million human sacrifices a year in the US alone. After telling the tragic story of a little boy named Jeffy, Warnke would hand out envelopes to collect money "for all the children like Jeffy", which brought in around Dollars 800,000 in 1991. ₁₃ These authors and speakers often define the term Satanism to include many benign religious faiths, such as Goddess Worship, New Age Spirituality, Santeria, Wicca (Witchcraft), etc. Each seminar leader can spread religious suspicion, misinformation and intolerance in each city that he/she visits. It can last for years.

Joining the SRA movement during the early 1980's were many police officers, who were concerned that Satanists were literally getting away with murder. It soon became obvious to them that no hard evidence had ever been found which pointed to a Satanic conspiracy. There were "no bodies, no bones, no bloodstains, nothing" ₉ The police reasoned that if survivors' testimony was true, then certain hard evidence would have been readily detectable. It wasn't. The most famous example are the non-existent tunnels under the McMartin Preschool center in California. 

There is plenty of soft evidence of SRA in the memories of hundreds of child survivors and tens of thousands of adult survivors. Many experts believe that these are false memories; children's memories having been created by improper interview methods, and adult's memories generated by a variety of suggestive therapeutic techniques. Everyone is in agreement that the survivors very rarely lie; they are telling the truth as they remember it to be. However, there is a growing belief that those memories are not of real events. Most police officers are now highly skeptical about the existence of SRA. More than two decades have now passed since Michelle was published. In spite hundreds of rigorous police investigations, hard evidence of SRA has not been found.

Also joining the SRA movement in the early 1980's were many psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, counselors -- particularly feminists. Leaders were:

The 1980's were a time when fundamental knowledge was lacking in the field of human memory, childhood interviewing techniques, physical signs of child sexual abuse, the reliability of STD bacteria testing, and the frequency of child ritual abuse and sexual abuse. A new social problem was "discovered" -- multiple victim, multiple offender (MVMO) sexual abuse. This took the form of many abusive pedophiles abusing dozens of children in a single day-care center or preschool. It frequently involved a large percentage of female perpetrators -- an almost unheard of factor in previous studies. Hard data was absent. Beliefs, unverified techniques and impressions by popular speakers and writers became gospel truth. As research findings became available, the SRA movement began to collapse. 

TV shows including Geraldo, 20-20, Sally etc. gave an immense boost to the SRA movement. Many fraudulent authors and seminar leaders were guests on these programs. SRA books, seminars and TV programs combined to develop a low level of public hysteria which continues to this day. A simple rumor of SRA often triggered a full-fledged "Satanic Panic". 62 such panics were documented by one author in North America from 1982 to 1992. ₁₀

Spread of the SRA Movement:

A number of Americans played a major role in spreading concern about Satanic Ritual Abuse among English-speaking countries:

These appearances in England, Australia and New Zealand led to the formation of national ritual child abuse groups which promoted the SRA movement in their countries. Many were government funded.

Decline of the SRA movement:

Governments became alarmed at the level of public fear about SRA. During 1991, the State of Virginia investigated SRA and found none. During 1994, the Federal Governments of Great Britain and of the Netherlands conducted extensive inquiries and also found none. Most recently, a US government study obtained input from over 10,000 therapists, social workers, police offices, DA offices and social service agencies. They uncovered one possible case of SRA. Although it allegedly was abusive, and did involve rituals and was perpetrated by Satanists, it had few points of similarity to classic SRA stories.

21 years have passed since the panic began. Many lurid headlines have been published; many disturbing books have been written; many seminars have been held. But no hard evidence has been discovered that shows that a Satanic conspiracy exists. In the meantime, researchers into the processes of human memory have determined how false memories can be created in adults during therapy when it employs unreliable methods for memory recovery, including hypnosis. Also, researchers found that by asking young children direct questions repeatedly, they would disclose abuse that never happened.

A scan of the Medline and PsycINfo data bases for articles (both credulous and skeptical) on SRA yielded the following total number of articles by year:

It would appear that at least professional interest in SRA peaked about 1992 and that interest has since dropped of considerably.

Many advocates of SRA realized that there simply are not enough Satanists in North America to account for all of the abuse that they believe is happening. They started to blame ritual abuse on secret cults, criminal gangs, self-help groups, mutual support groups, Christian, Jewish and Pagan religious groups, secret Government agencies, the CIA, etc. The fear and harm generated by promoters towards innocent, helping groups cannot be calculated. Meanwhile, some governments became involved in the promotion of public hysteria and intolerance. The Ontario Government, for example, funded many SRA seminars during the mid-1990s. Some professional organizations gave credits to their members for attending the seminars.

Belief in SRA by professionals is currently in decline everywhere in English speaking countries -- rapidly in the U.S. and Canada, and less so elsewhere. By 2010 it will probably only be common within conservative Christian circles.

References:

1. "Breaking Free: SRA Survivor's Group: Mission Statement," at: http://www.geocities.com/Breakingfree2000/ 
2. "By Satan possessed: The search for the Devil," a HBO movie by Antony Thomas. It was aired on 1993-SEP-7. The movie describes in detail the 1991 abuse by the police and child protection officers of the Wallis family in Escondido CA. Their children were taken into care for 68 days. The only hard evidence against the parents was that the father had named his sailboat "Witch Way." A movie review by the San Diego Union-Tribune is at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/utarchives/cgi/idoc.cgi?
3. Michelle Smith & Lawrence Pazder, "Michelle Remembers," (Reissued 1989), Pocket Books. This is the novel that started the Satanic panic; three independent investigations have shown it to be a work of fiction. Review/order this book
4. Various authors, "Journal of Psychohistory", vol. 24, #4, (1994-Spring). The journal has one skeptical article followed by a series of articles by believers in SRA.
5. Wiccan Information Network, WIN INTELLIGENCE REPORT, SAMHAIN 1993 Wiccan Information Network, PO Box 2422, Main Post Office, Vancouver BC, V6B 3W7 Canada.
6. Debbie Nathan & Michael Snedeker, "Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt," Basic Books, (1995). This book is out of print.
7. Lauren Stratford & Johanna Michaelson, "Satan's Underground: The extraordinary story of one woman's escape," Pelical Publ. (Reissued 1991)  Review/order this book
8. Rebecca Brown: "He came to set the captives free," Whitaker House, (1993). This is an immensely popular book promoted as a documentary, but which is really a work of fiction. It is In the top 7,500 of all books sold by Amazon.com Read 78 reviews/order this book
9. J.M Feldman, et al., "Stranger Than Fiction: When Our Minds Betray Us," American Psychiatric Press, Washington DC, (1998). Review/order this book Discusses false memories.
10. Jeffrey Victor, "Satanic Panic: The creation of a contemporary legend," Open Court, Chicago, 1993 (examination of the satanic cult hysteria; how rumors become publicly accepted fact; documents dozens of Satanic panics) Review/order this book
11. G. Geis & I. Bunn, "And a child shall mislead them: Notes on witchcraft and child abuse accusations."  In R. J. Kelly & D. E. J. MacNamara (Eds). "Perspectives on deviance: Domination, degradation and denigration." Anderson Publishing,  (1991).
12. Robert M. Bowman, Jr., "Satanism and Satanic Ritual Abuse," at: http://www.atlantaapologist.org/SATANISM.html This is an account of Satanism and SRA by a conservative Christian.
13. Phil Baker, "A walk on the dark side: Think satanism isn't serious?
    Phil Baker finds out the awful truth," The Guardian (London), 2001-OCT-6, Saturday pages, P. 10
14. Gareth J. Medway, "Lure of the Sinister: The Unnatural History of Satanism," New York University Press, (2001) Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store.
15. Damian Thomson, "The people who believe that Satanists might eat your baby," The Daily Telegraph, London, UK, 2002-MAR-22, Page 28.

Copyright © 1995 to 2005 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2005-FEB-28
Author: B.A. Robinson