Ritual abuse, Satanic ritual abuse (SRA), multiple personality
disorder (MPD), recovered memory therapy (RMT), etc.

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News items (1996 to now)

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Quotation:

"...the Satan-chasers' incredible claims are distinguished by an utter lack of evidence, except for the rantings elicited from 'victims' by dubious psychotherapists and church counselors." Mark Sauer, movie review of "By Satan Possessed."

Overview:

There is a near consensus among mental health professionals that memories of past existence of: 

	Ritual Abuse (RA), and
	Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA),

are mainly derived from false memories which, in turn, are generally generated by suggestive Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT) techniques, whether administered by a therapist, a mutual support group, or by oneself. They are unrelated to real events from the past. 

Further, there is a near consensus that

	Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), and
	Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

do not occur naturally, but are iatrogenic -- created by an interaction of client and therapist -- without either being aware of the process,

This website was started up in 1995, at a time when beliefs in RA, SRA, MPD and DID had just started to decline after having captured the public's attention and acceptance since the early 1980s. There were two main reasons for their decline:

	The complete absence of hard evidence for their existence, and
	Increasing knowledge about the nature of human memory as a result of research.

These four belief systems included:

	Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA): a psychological, sexual, spiritual, and/or physical assault forced on an unwilling victim and committed by one or more Satanists according to a prescribed ritual, the primary aim of which is to fulfill the need to worship the devil, a.k.a. Satan, a person with magical powers who is found in Christianity and Islam. Starting in the mid 1990s, belief in SRA went into a rapid decline, largely because of the complete lack of hard evidence that SRA has ever existed.
	Ritual Abuse (RA): This is similar to SRA, except that the perpetrators are not motivated by Satanic belief; they are following another belief system. Although there is hard evidence of Christian Ritual Abuse (CRA) in the form of exorcisms involving physical assault and the occasional homicide, other forms of ritual abuse appear to be very rare or non-existent.
	Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) (now generally called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) ) is a belief that a single person can be the host of two or more discrete alters or individual personalities. There is a near concensus among therapists and researchers that MPD and DID are iatrogenic disorders -- caused by the physician or therapist in conjunction with the client even as neither patient nor client is aware of the process of alter creation. It does not seem to exist in nature.
	Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT): a form of counseling that rapidly declined across North American in the 1990s and is very rare today. It involves suggestive forms of therapy including hypnotism, guided imagery, dream analysis, etc. It appears to be an effective method of transferring the beliefs of the therapist to the client without either being aware of the process. The client often develops false memories of events that never happened and are unrelated to real events in the past. If the therapist is a enthusiastic supporter of SRA, then the client may well also recover memories of SRA. If the therapist believes that MPD/DID is widespread in society, then her/his clients may also develop MPD/DID. Similar belief systems involve as abuse in former lifetimes, abuse onboard UFOs, ritual abuse within Masonic and similar men's organizations, etc.

Current status of belief in SRA, RA, RMT, and MPD/DID:

Today, SRA, RA, RMT, and MPD/DID are generally recognized to have been a cruel hoaxes that:

	Harmed tens of thousands of adult clients who were victimized by recovered memory therapy
	Harmed hundreds of thousands of individuals in these client's family of origin.
	Hurting many thousands of children who were subjected to incompetent interview techniques about MVMO (multi-victim, multi-offender) abuse in day cares, Sunday schools, etc., and
	Triggering hundreds or perhaps thousands of suicides which otherwise would not have happened.

However, belief in the existence of these forms of abuse still exists. A search on 2018-AUG-31 for "satanic ritual abuse" in the books section of amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/ found 121 books on this topic still in print, including some published during 2017 and 2018. Many of these books seem to assume the existence of SRA.

It is important to study these past tragedies in order to prevent the public from experiencing similar tragedies in the future.

News in the media from:

	Years 1996 to 2000 inclusive
	2001
	2002
	2003
	2004
	2005
	2006
	2007
	2008
	2009 JAN to OCT
	2009 NOV to now

Related essays on this web site:

	Menus: Satanic ritual abuse (SRA)] Recovered memory therapy (RMT) Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder
	Essays: Psychological and other hoaxes] Ritual abuse

Copyright © 1995 to 2012 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2012-APR-15
Author: B.A. Robinson

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