Gathering of the Tribes
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| Classification: |
V5 - 343.CA - 1 |
| Author: |
Kenneth V.
Lanning, Supervisory Special Agent
Behavioral Science Unit
National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime
Federal Bureau of Investigation
FBI Academy
Quantico, Virginia 22135 |
| Date: |
January, 19921 |
| HTML Revision: |
Oct 07, 1997 CE |
| Subject: |
Ritual Child Abuse |
| Reading List: |
Table of Contents
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Since 1981 I have been assigned to the Behavioral Science
Unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and have specialized in studying all
aspects of the sexual victimization of children. The FBI Behavioral Science Unit provides
assistance to criminal justice professionals in the United States and foreign countries.
It attempts to develop practical applications of the behavioral sciences to the criminal
justice system. As a result of training and research conducted by the Unit and its
successes in analyzing violent crime, many professionals contact the Behavioral Science
Unit for assistance and guidance in dealing with violent crime, especially those cases
considered different, unusual, or bizarre. This service is provided at no cost and is not
limited to crimes under the investigative jurisdiction of the FBI.
In 1983 and 1984, when I first began to hear stories of
what sounded like satanic or occult activity in connection with allegations of sexual
victimization of children (allegations that have come to be referred to most often as "ritual" child abuse), I tended to believe them. I had been
dealing with bizarre, deviant behavior for many years and had long since realized that
almost anything is possible. Just when you think that you have heard it all, along comes
another strange case. The idea that there are a few cunning, secretive individuals in
positions of power somewhere in this country regularly killing a few people as part of
some satanic ritual or ceremony and getting away with it is certainly within the realm of
possibility. But the number of alleged cases began to grow and grow. We now have hundreds
of victims alleging that thousands of offenders are abusing and even murdering tens of
thousands of people as part of organized satanic cults, and there is little or no
corroborative evidence. The very reason many "experts" cite for believing these
allegations (i.e. many victims, who never met each other, reporting the same events), is
the primary reason I began to question at least some aspects of these allegations.
I have devoted more than seven years part-time, and
eleven years full-time, of my professional life to researching, training, and consulting
in the area of the sexual victimization of children. The issues of child sexual abuse and
exploitation are a big part of my professional life's work. I have no reason to deny their
existence or nature. In fact I have done everything I can to make people more aware of the
problem Some have even blamed me for helping to create the hysteria that has led to these
bizarre allegations. I can accept no outside income and am paid the same salary by the FBI
whether or not children are abused and exploited -- and whether the number is one or one
million. As someone deeply concerned about and professionally committed to the issue, I
did not lightly question the allegations of hundreds of victims child sexual abuse and
exploitation.
In response to accusations by a few that I am a
"satanist" who has infiltrated the FBI to facilitate cover-up, how does anyone
(or should anyone have to) disprove such allegations? Although reluctant to dignify such
absurd accusations with a reply, all I can say to those who have made such allegations
that they are wrong and to those who heard such allegations is to carefully consider the
source.
The reason I have taken the position I have is not
because I support or believe in "satanism", but because I sincerely believe that
my approach is the proper and most effective investigative strategy. I believe that my
approach is in the best interest of victims of child sexual abuse. It would have been easy
to sit back, as many have, and say nothing publicly about this controversy. I have spoken
out and published on this issue because I am concerned about the credibility of the child
sexual abuse issue and outraged that, in some cases, individuals are getting away with
molesting children because we can't prove they are satanic devil worshippers who engage in
brainwashing, human sacrifice, and cannibalism as part of a large conspiracy.
There are many valid perspectives from which to assess
and evaluate victim allegations of sex abuse and exploitation. Parents may choose to
believe simply because their children make the claims. The level of proof necessary may be
minimal because the consequences of believing are within the family. One parent correctly
told me, "I believe what my child needs me to believe."
Therapists may choose to believe simply because their
professional assessment is that their patient believes the victimization and describes it
so vividly. The level of proof necessary may be no more than therapeutic evaluation
because the consequences are between therapist and patient. No independent corroboration
may be required.
A social worker must have more real, tangible evidence of
abuse in order to take protective action and initiate legal proceedings. The level of
proof necessary must be higher because the consequences (denial of visitation, foster
care) are greater.
The law enforcement officer deals with the criminal
justice system. The levels of proof necessary are reasonable suspicion, probable cause,
and beyond a reasonable doubt because the consequences (criminal investigation, search and
seizure, arrest, incarceration) are so great. This discussion will focus primarily on the
criminal justice system and the law enforcement perspective. The level of proof necessary
for taking action on allegations of criminal acts must be more than simply the victim
alleged it and it is possible. This in no way denies the validity and importance of the
parental, therapeutic, social welfare, or any other perspective of these allegations.
When, however, therapists and other professionals begin
to conduct training, publish articles, and communicate through the media, the consequences
become greater, and therefore the level of proof must be greater. The amount of
corroboration necessary to act upon allegations of abuse is dependent upon the
consequences of such action. We need to be concerned about the distribution and
publication of unsubstantiated allegations of bizarre sexual abuse. Information needs to
be disseminated to encourage communication and research about the phenomena. The risks,
however, of intervenor and victim "contagion" and public hysteria are potential
negative aspects of such dissemination. Because of the highly emotional and religious
nature of this topic, there is a greater possibility that the spreading of information
will result in a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.
If such extreme allegations are going to be disseminated
to the general public, they must be presented in the context of being assessed and
evaluated, at least, from the professional perspective of the disseminator and, at best,
also from the professional perspective of relevant others. This is what I will attempt to
do in this discussion. The assessment and evaluation of such allegations are areas where
law enforcement, mental health, and other professionals (anthropologists, folklorists,
sociologists, historians, engineers, surgeons, etc.) may be of some assistance to each
other in validating these cases individually and in general.
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In order to attempt to deal with extreme allegations of
what constitute child sex rings, it is important to have an historical perspective of
society's attitudes about child sexual abuse. I will provide a brief synopsis of recent
attitudes in the United States here, but those desiring more detailed information about
such societal attitudes, particularly in other cultures and in the more distant past,
should refer to Florence Rush's book The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children
(1980) and Sander J. Breiner's book Slaughter of the Innocents (1990).
Society's attitude about child sexual abuse and
exploitation can be summed up in one word: denial. Most people do not want to hear about
it and would prefer to pretend that child sexual victimization just does not occur. Today,
however, it is difficult to pretend that it does not happen. Stories and reports about
child sexual victimization are daily occurrences.
It is important for professionals dealing with child
sexual abuse to recognize and learn to manage this denial of a serious problem.
Professionals must overcome the denial and encourage society to deal with, report, and
prevent sexual victimization of children.
Some professionals, however, in their zeal to make
American society more aware of this victimization, tend to exaggerate the problem.
Presentations and literature with poorly documented or misleading claims about one in
three children being sexually molested, the $5 billion child pornography industry, child
slavery rings, and 50,000 stranger-abducted children are not uncommon. The problem is bad
enough; it is not necessary to exaggerate it. Professionals should cite reputable and
scientific studies and note the sources of information. If they do not, when the
exaggerations and distortions are discovered, their credibility and the credibility of the
issue are lost.
During the 1950s and 1960s the primary focus in the
literature and discussions on sexual abuse of children was on "stranger danger"
-- the dirty old man in the wrinkled raincoat. If one could not deny the existence of
child sexual abuse, one described victimization in simplistic terms of good and evil. The
"stranger danger" approach to preventing child sexual abuse is clear-cut. We
immediately know who the good guys and bad guys are and what they look like.
The FBI distributed a poster that epitomized this
attitude. It showed a man, with his hat pulled down, hiding behind a tree with a bag of
candy in his hands. He was waiting for a sweet little girl walking home from school alone.
At the top it read: "Boys and Girls, color the page, memorize the rules." At the
bottom it read: "For your protection, remember to turn down gifts from strangers, and
refuse rides offered by strangers." The poster clearly contrasts the evil of the
offender with the goodness of the child victim.
The myth of the child molester as the dirty old man in
the wrinkled raincoat is now being reevaluated, based on what we now know about the kinds
of people who victimize children. The fact is a child molester can look like anyone else
and even be someone we know and like.
There is another myth that is still with us and is far
less likely to be discussed. This is the myth of the child victim as a completely innocent
little girl walking down the street minding her own business. It may be more important to
dispel this myth than the myth of the evil offender, especially when talking about the
sexual exploitation of children and child sex rings. Child victims can be boys as well as
girls, and not all victims are little "angels."
Society seems to have a problem dealing with any sexual
abuse case in which the offender is not completely "bad" or the victim is not
completely "good." Child victims who, for example, simply behave like human
beings and respond to the attention and affection of offenders by voluntarily and
repeatedly returning to the offender's home are troubling. It confuses us to see the
victims in child pornography giggling or laughing. At professional conferences on child
sexual abuse, child prostitution is almost never discussed. It is the form of sexual
victimization of children most unlike the stereotype of the innocent girl victim. Child
prostitutes, by definition, participate in and often initiate their victimization.
Furthermore child prostitutes and the participants in child sex rings are frequently boys.
One therapist recently told me that a researcher's data on child molestation were
misleading because many of the child victims in question were child prostitutes. This
implies that child prostitutes are not "real" child victims. In a survey by the Los
Angeles Times, only 37 percent of those responding thought that child prostitution
constituted child sexual abuse (Timnik, 1985). Whether or not it seems fair, when adults
and children have sex, the child is always the victim.
During the 1970s, primarily as a result of the women's
movement, society began to learn more about the sexual victimization of children. We began
to realize that most children are sexually molested by someone they know who is usually a
relative -- a father, step-father, uncle, grandfather, older brother, or even a female
relative. Some mitigate the difficulty of accepting this by adopting the view that only
members of socio-economic groups other than theirs engage in such behavior.
It quickly became apparent that warnings about not taking
gifts from strangers were not good enough to prevent child sexual abuse. Consequently, we
began to develop prevention programs based on more complex concepts, such as good touching
and bad touching. the "yucky" feeling, and the child's right to say no. These
are not the kinds of things you can easily and effectively communicate in fifty minutes to
hundreds of kids packed into a school auditorium. These are very difficult issues, and
programs must he carefully developed and evaluated.
In the late 1970s child sexual abuse became almost
synonymous with incest, and incest meant father-daughter sexual relations. Therefore, the
focus of child sexual abuse intervention became father-daughter incest. Even today, the
vast majority of training materials, articles, and books on this topic refer to child
sexual abuse only in terms of intrafamilial father-daughter incest.
Incest is, in fact, sexual relations between individuals
of any age too closely related to marry. It need not necessarily involve an adult and a
child, and it goes beyond child sexual abuse. But more importantly child sexual abuse goes
beyond father-daughter incest. Intrafamilial incest between an adult and child may be the
most common form of child sexual abuse, but it is not the only form.
The progress of the 1970s in recognizing that child
sexual abuse was not simply a result of "stranger danger" was an important
breakthrough in dealing with society's denial. The battle, however, is not over. The
persistent voice of society luring us back to the more simple concept of "stranger
danger" may never go away. It is the voice of denial.
In the early 1980s the issue of missing children rose to
prominence and was focused primarily on the stranger abduction of little children.
Runaways, throwaways, noncustodial abductions, nonfamily abductions of teenagers -- all
major problems within the missing children's issue -- were almost forgotten. People no
longer wanted to hear about good touching and bad touching and the child's right to say
"no." They wanted to be told, in thirty minutes or less, how they could protect
their children from abduction by strangers. We were back to the horrible but simple and
clear-cut concept of "stranger danger."
In the emotional zeal over the problem of missing
children, isolated horror stories and distorted numbers were sometimes used. The American
public was led to believe that most of the missing children had been kidnapped by
pedophiles -- a new term for child molesters. The media, profiteers, and well-intentioned
zealots all played big roles in this hype and hysteria over missing children.
Only recently has society begun to deal openly with a
critical piece in the puzzle of child sexual abuse -- acquaintance molestation. This seems
to be the most difficult aspect of the problem for us to face. People seem more willing to
accept a father or stepfather, particularly one from another socio-economic group, as a
child molester than a parish priest, a next-door neighbor, a police officer, a
pediatrician, an FBI agent, or a Scout leader. The acquaintance molester, by definition,
is one of us. These kinds of molesters have always existed, but our society has not been
willing to accept that fact.
Sadly, one of the main reasons that the criminal justice
system and the public were forced to confront the problem of acquaintance molestation was
the preponderance of lawsuits arising from the negligence of many institutions.
One of the unfortunate outcomes of society's preference
for the "stranger danger" concept is what I call "say no, yell, and
tell" guilt. This is the result of prevention programs that tell potential child
victims to avoid sexual abuse by saying no, yelling, and telling. This might work with the
stranger hiding behind a tree. Adolescent boys seduced by a Scout leader or children who
actively participate in their victimization often feel guilty and blame themselves because
they did not do what they were "supposed" to do. They may feel a need to
describe their victimization in more socially acceptable but sometimes inaccurate ways
that relieve them of this guilt.
While American society has become increasingly more aware
of the problem of the acquaintance molester and related problems such as child
pornography, the voice calling us back to "stranger danger" still persists.
In today's version of "stranger danger", it is
the satanic devil worshipers who are snatching and victimizing the children. Many who
warned us in the early 1980s about pedophiles snatching fifty thousand kids a year now
contend they were wrong only about who was doing the kidnapping, not about the number
abducted. This is again the desire for the simple and clear-cut explanation for a complex
problem.
For those who know anything about criminology, one of the
oldest theories of crime is demonology: The devil makes you do it. This makes it even
easier to deal with the child molester who is the "pillar of the community." It
is not his fault; it is not our fault. There is no way we could have known; the devil made
him do it. This explanation has tremendous appeal because, like "stranger
danger", it presents the clear-cut, black-and-white struggle between good and evil as
the explanation for child abduction, exploitation, and abuse.
In regard to satanic "ritual" abuse, today we
may not be where we were with incest in the 1960s, but where we were with missing children
in the early 1980s. The best data now available (the 1990 National Incidence Studies on
Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children in America) estimate the number of
stereotypical child abductions at between 200 and 300 a year, and the number of stranger
abduction homicides of children at between 43 and 147 a year. Approximately half of the
abducted children are teenagers. Today's facts are significantly different from
yesterday's perceptions, and those who exaggerated the problem, however well-intentioned,
have lost credibility and damaged the reality of the problem.
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The belief that there is a connection between satanism
and crime is certainly not new. As previously stated, one of the oldest theories
concerning the causes of crime is demonology. Fear of satanic or occult activity has
peaked from time to time throughout history. Concern in the late 1970s focused primarily
on "unexplained" deaths and mutilations of animals, and in recent years has
focused on child sexual abuse and the alleged human sacrifice of missing children. In 1999
it will probably focus on the impending "end of the world."
Today satanism and a wide variety of other terms are used
interchangeably in reference to certain crimes. This discussion will analyze the nature of
"satanic, occult, ritualistic" crime primarily as it pertains to the abuse of
children and focus on appropriate law enforcement responses to it.
Recently a flood of law enforcement seminars and
conferences have dealt with satanic and ritualistic crime. These training conferences have
various titles, such as "Occult in Crime", "Satanic Cults",
"Ritualistic Crime Seminar", "Satanic Influences in Homicide",
"Occult Crimes, Satanism and Teen Suicide", and "Ritualistic Abuse of
Children."
The typical conference runs from one to three days, and
many of them include the same presenters and instructors. A wide variety of topics are
usually discussed during this training either as individual presentations by different
instructors or grouped together by one or more instructors. Typical topics covered include
the following:
- Historical overview of satanism, witchcraft, and paganism
from ancient to modern times.
- Nature and influence of fantasy role-playing games, such
as "Dungeons and Dragons."
- Lyrics, symbolism, and influence of rock and roll, Heavy
Metal, and Black Metal music.
- Teenage "stoner" gangs, their symbols, and their
vandalism.
- Teenage suicide by adolescents dabbling in the occult.
- Crimes committed by self-styled satanic practitioners,
including grave and church desecrations and robberies, animal mutilations, and even
murders.
- Ritualistic abuse of children as part of bizarre
ceremonies and human sacrifices.
- Organized, Traditional, or Multigenerational satanic
groups involved in organized conspiracies, such as taking over day care centers,
infiltrating police departments, and trafficking in human sacrifice victims.
- The "Big Conspiracy" theory, which implies that
satanists are responsible for such things as Adolph Hitler, World War II, abortion,
illegal drugs, pornography, Watergate, and Irangate, and have infiltrated the Department
of Justice, the Pentagon, and the White House.
During the conferences, these nine areas are linked
together through the liberal use of the word "satanism" and some common
symbolism (pentagrams, 666, demons, etc.). The implication often is that all are part of a
continuum of behavior, a single problem or some common conspiracy. The distinctions among
the different areas are blurred even if occasionally a presenter tries to make them. The
information presented is a mixture of fact, theory, opinion, fantasy, and paranoia, and
because some of it can be proven or corroborated (symbols on rock albums, graffiti on
walls, desecration of cemeteries, vandalism, etc.), the implication is that it is all true
and documented. Material produced by religious organizations, photocopies and slides of
newspaper articles, and videotapes of tabloid television programs are used to supplement
the training and are presented as "evidence" of the existence and nature of the
problem.
All of this is complicated by the fact that almost any
discussion of satanism and the occult is interpreted in the light of the religious beliefs
of those in the audience. Faith, not logic and reason, governs the religious beliefs of
most people. As a result, some normally skeptical law enforcement officers accept the
information disseminated at these conferences without critically evaluating it or
questioning the sources. Officers who do not normally depend on church groups for law
enforcement criminal intelligence, who know that media accounts of their own cases are
notoriously inaccurate, and who scoff at and joke about tabloid television accounts of
bizarre behavior suddenly embrace such material when presented in the context of satanic
activity. Individuals not in law enforcement seem even more likely to do so. Other
disciplines, especially therapists, have also conducted training conferences on the
characteristics and identification of "ritual" child abuse. Nothing said at such
conferences will change the religious beliefs of those in attendance. Such conferences
illustrate the highly emotional nature of and the ambiguity and wide variety of terms
involved in this issue.
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The words "satanic", "occult", and
"ritual" are often used interchangeably. It is difficult to define
"satanism" precisely. No attempt will be made to do so here However, it is
important to realize that, for some people, any religious belief system other than their
own is "satanic." The Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein referred to the
United States as the "Great Satan." In the British Parliament a Protestant
leader called the Pope the Antichrist. In a book titled Prepare For War (1987),
Rebecca Brown, M.D. has a chapter entitled "Is Roman Catholicism Witchcraft?"
Dr. Brown also lists among the "doorways" to satanic power and/or demon
infestation the following: fortune tellers, horoscopes, fraternity oaths, vegetarianism,
yoga, self-hypnosis, relaxation tapes, acupuncture, biofeedback, fantasy role-playing
games, adultery, homosexuality, pornography, judo, karate, and rock music. Dr. Brown
states that rock music "was a carefully masterminded plan by none other than Satan
himself" (p. 84). The ideas expressed in this book may seem extreme and even
humorous. This book, however, has been recommended as a serious reference in law
enforcement training material on this topic.
In books, lectures, handout material, and conversations,
I have heard all of the following referred to as satanism:
- Church of Satan
- Ordo Templi Orientis
- Temple of Set
- Demonology
- Witchcraft
- Occult
- Paganism
- Santeria
- Voodoo
- Rosicrucians
- Freemasonry
- Knights Templar
- Stoner Gangs
- Heavy Metal Music
- Rock Music
- KKK
- Nazis
- Skinheads
- Scientology
- Unification Church
- The Way
- Hare Krishna
- Rajneesh
- Religious Cults
- New Age
- Astrology
- Channeling
- Transcendental Meditation
- Holistic Medicine
- Buddhism
- Hinduism
- Mormonism
- Islam
- Orthodox Church
- Roman Catholicism
At law enforcement training conferences, it is
witchcraft, santeria, paganism, and the occult that are most often referred to as forms of
satanism. It may be a matter of definition, but these things are not necessarily the same
as traditional satanism. The worship of lunar goddesses and nature and the practice of
fertility rituals are not satanism. Santeria is a combination of 17th century Roman
Catholicism and African paganism.
Occult means simply "hidden." All unreported or
unsolved crimes might be regarded as occult, but in this context the term refers to the
action or influence of supernatural powers, some secret knowledge of them, or an interest
in paranormal phenomena, and does not imply satanism, evil, wrongdoing, or crime. Indeed,
historically, the principal crimes deserving of consideration as "occult crimes"
are the frauds perpetrated by faith healers, fortune tellers and "psychics" who
for a fee claim cures, arrange visitations with dead loved ones, and commit other
financial crimes against the gullible.
Many individuals define satanism from a totally Christian
perspective, using this word to describe the power of evil in the world. With this
definition, any crimes, especially those which are particularly bizarre, repulsive, or
cruel, can be viewed as satanic in nature. Yet it is just as difficult to precisely define
satanism as it is to precisely define Christianity or any complex spiritual belief system.
The biggest confusion is over the word
"ritual." During training conferences on this topic, ritual almost always comes
to mean "satanic" or at least "spiritual." "Ritual" can
refer to a prescribed religious ceremony, but in its broader meaning refers to any
customarily-repeated act or series of acts. The need to repeat these acts can be cultural,
sexual, or psychological as well as spiritual.
Cultural rituals could include such things as what a
family eats on Thanksgiving Day, or when and how presents are opened at Christmas. The
initiation ceremonies of fraternities, sororities, gangs, and other social clubs are other
examples of cultural rituals.
Since 1972 I have lectured about sexual ritual, which is
nothing more than repeatedly engaging in an act or series of acts in a certain manner
because of a sexual need. In order to become aroused and/or gratified, a person must
engage in the act in a certain way. This sexual ritual can include such things as the
physical characteristics, age, or gender of the victim, the particular sequence of acts,
the bringing or taking of specific objects, and the use of certain words or phrases. This
is more than the concept of M.O. (Method of Operation) known to most police officers. M.O.
is something done by an offender because it works. Sexual ritual is something done by an
offender because of a need. Deviant acts, such as urinating on, defecating on, or even
eviscerating a victim, are far more likely to be the result of sexual ritual than
religious or "satanic" ritual.
From a criminal investigative perspective, two other
forms of ritualism must be recognized. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM-III-R) (APA, 1987) defines "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" as
"repetitive, purposeful, and intentional behaviors that are performed in response to
an obsession, or according to certain rules or in a stereotyped fashion" (p. 247).
Such compulsive behavior frequently involves rituals. Although such behavior usually
involves noncriminal activity such as excessive hand washing or checking that doors are
locked, occasionally compulsive ritualism can be part of criminal activity. Certain
gamblers or firesetters, for example, are thought by some authorities to be motivated in
part through such compulsions. Ritual can also stem from psychotic hallucinations and
delusions. A crime can be committed in a precise manner because a voice told the offender
to do it that way or because a divine mission required it.
To make this more confusing, cultural, religious, sexual,
and psychological ritual can overlap. Some psychotic people are preoccupied with religious
delusions and hear the voice of God or Satan telling them to do things of a religious
nature. Offenders who feel little, if any, guilt over their crimes may need little
justification for their antisocial behavior. As human beings, however, they may have
fears, concerns, and anxiety over getting away with their criminal acts. It is difficult
to pray to God for success in doing things that are against His Commandments. A negative
spiritual belief system may fulfill their human need for assistance from and belief in a
greater power or to deal with their superstitions. Compulsive ritualism (e.g., excessive
cleanliness or fear of disease) can be introduced into sexual behavior. Even many
"normal" people have a need for order and predictability and therefore may
engage in family or work rituals. Under stress or in times of change, this need for order
and ritual may increase.
Ritual crime may fulfill the cultural, spiritual, sexual,
and psychological needs of an offender. Crimes may be ritualistically motivated or may
have ritualistic elements. The ritual behavior may also fulfill basic criminal needs to
manipulate victims, get rid of rivals, send a message to enemies, and intimidate
co-conspirators. The leaders of a group may want to play upon the beliefs and
superstitions of those around them and try to convince accomplices and enemies that they,
the leaders, have special or "supernatural" powers.
The important point for the criminal investigator is to
realize that most ritualistic criminal behavior is not motivated simply by satanic or any
religious ceremonies. At some conferences, presenters have attempted to make an issue of
distinguishing between "ritual", "ritualized", and
"ritualistic" abuse of children. These subtle distinctions, however, seem to be
of no significant value to the criminal investigator.
I cannot define "ritual child abuse" precisely
and prefer not to use the term. I am frequently forced to use it (as throughout this
discussion) so that people will have some idea what I am discussing. Use of the term,
however, is confusing, misleading, and counterproductive. The newer term "satanic
ritual abuse" (abbreviated "SRA") is even worse. Certain observations,
however, are important for investigative understanding.
Most people today use the term to refer to abuse of
children that is part of some evil spiritual belief system, which almost by definition
must be satanic.
Dr. Lawrence Pazder, coauthor of Michelle Remembers,
defines "ritualized abuse of children" as "repeated physical, emotional,
mental, and spiritual assaults combined with a systematic use of symbols and secret
ceremonies designed to turn a child against itself, family, society, and God"
(presentation, Richmond, Va., May 7,1987). He also states that "the sexual assault
has ritualistic meaning and is not for sexual gratification."
This definition may have value for academics,
sociologists, and therapists, but it creates potential problems for law enforcement.
Certain acts engaged in with children (i.e. kissing, touching, appearing naked, etc.) may
be criminal if performed for sexual gratification. If the ritualistic acts were in fact
performed for spiritual indoctrination, potential prosecution can be jeopardized,
particularly if the acts can be defended as constitutionally protected religious
expression. The mutilation of a baby's genitals for sadistic sexual pleasure is a crime.
The circumcision of a baby's genitals for religious reasons is most likely not a crime.
The intent of the acts is important for criminal prosecution.
Not all spiritually motivated ritualistic activity is
satanic. Santeria, witchcraft, voodoo, and most religious cults are not satanism. In fact,
most spiritually-or religiously-based abuse of children has nothing to do with satanism.
Most child abuse that could be termed "ritualistic" by various definitions is
more likely to be physical and psychological rather than sexual in nature. If a
distinction needs to be made between satanic and nonsatanic child abuse, the indicators
for that distinction must be related to specific satanic symbols, artifacts, or doctrine
rather than the mere presence of any ritualistic element.
Not all such ritualistic activity with a child is a
crime. Almost all parents with religious beliefs indoctrinate their children into that
belief system. Is male circumcision for religious reasons child abuse? Is the religious
circumcision of females child abuse? Does having a child kneel on a hard floor reciting
the rosary constitute child abuse? Does having a child chant a satanic prayer or attend a
black mass constitute child abuse? Does a religious belief in corporal punishment
constitute child abuse? Does group care of children in a commune or cult constitute child
abuse? Does the fact that any acts in question were performed with parental permission
affect the nature of the crime? Many ritualistic acts, whether satanic or not, are simply
not crimes. To open the Pandora's box of labeling child abuse as "ritualistic"
simply because it involves a spiritual belief system means to apply the definition to all
acts by all spiritual belief systems. The day may come when many in the forefront of
concern about ritual abuse will regret they opened the box.
When a victim describes and investigation corroborates
what sounds like ritualistic activity. several possibilities must be considered. The
ritualistic activity may be part of the excessive religiosity of mentally disturbed, even
psychotic offenders. It may be a misunderstood part of sexual ritual. The ritualistic
activity may be incidental to any real abuse. The offender may be involved in ritualistic
activity with a child and also may be abusing a child, but one may have little or nothing
to do with the other.
The offender may be deliberately engaging in ritualistic
activity with a child as part of child abuse and exploitation. The motivation, however,
may be not to indoctrinate the child into a belief system, but to lower the inhibitions
of, control, manipulate, and/or confuse the child. In all the turmoil over this issue, it
would be very effective strategy for any child molester deliberately to introduce
ritualistic elements into his crime in order to confuse the child and therefore the
criminal justice system. This would, however, make the activity M.O. and not ritual.
The ritualistic activity and the child abuse may be
integral parts of some spiritual belief system. In that case the greatest risk is to the
children of the practitioners. But this is true of all cults and religions, not just
satanic cults. A high potential of abuse exists for any children raised in a group
isolated from the mainstream of society, especially if the group has a charismatic leader
whose orders are unquestioned and blindly obeyed by the members. Sex, money, and power are
often the main motivations of the leaders of such cults.
Some would answer that it is the offender's spiritual
beliefs or membership in a cult or church. If that is the criterion, why not label the
crimes committed by Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in the same way? Are the atrocities
of Jim Jones in Guyana Christian crimes?
Some would answer that it is the presence of certain
symbols in the possession or home of the perpetrator. What does it mean then to find a
crucifix, Bible, or rosary in the possession or home of a bank robber, embezzler, child
molester, or murderer? If different criminals possess the same symbols, are they
necessarily part of one big conspiracy?
Others would answer that it is the presence of certain
symbols such as pentagrams, inverted crosses, and 666 at the crime scene. What does it
mean then to find a cross spray painted on a wall or carved into the body of a victim?
What does it mean for a perpetrator, as in one recent case profiled by my Unit, to leave a
Bible tied to his murder victim? What about the possibility that an offender deliberately
left such symbols to make it look like a "satanic" crime?
Some would argue that it is the bizarreness or cruelness
of the crime: body mutilation, amputation, drinking of blood, eating of flesh, use of
urine or feces. Does this mean that all individuals involved in lust murder, sadism,
vampirism, cannibalism, urophilia, and coprophilia are satanists or occult practitioners?
What does this say about the bizarre crimes of psychotic killers such as Ed Gein or
Richard Trenton Chase, both of whom mutilated their victims as part of their psychotic
delusions? Can a crime that is not sexually deviant, bizarre, or exceptionally violent be
satanic? Can white collar crime be satanic?
A few might even answer that it is the fact that the
crime was committed on a date with satanic or occult significance (Halloween, May Eve,
etc.) or the fact that the perpetrator claims that Satan told him to commit the crime.
What does this mean for crimes committed on Thanksgiving or Christmas? What does this say
about crimes committed by perpetrators who claim that God or Jesus told them to do it? One
note of interest is the fact that in handout and reference material I have collected, the
number of dates with satanic or occult significance ranges from 8 to 110. This is
compounded by the fact that it is sometimes stated that satanists can celebrate these
holidays on several days on either side of the official date or that the birthdays of
practitioners can also be holidays. The exact names and exact dates of the holidays and
the meaning of symbols listed may also vary depending on who prepared the material The
handout material is often distributed without identifying the author or documenting the
original source of the information. It is then frequently photocopied by attendees and
passed on to other police officers with no one really knowing its validity or origin.
Most, however, would probably answer that what makes a
crime satanic, occult, or ritualistic is the motivation for the crime. It is a crime that
is spiritually motivated by a religious belief system. How then do we label the following
true crimes?
- Parents defy a court order and send their children to an
unlicensed Christian school.
- Parents refuse to send their children to any school
because they are waiting for the second coming of Christ.
- Parents beat their child to death because he or she will
not follow their Christian belief.
- Parents violate child labor laws because they believe the
Bible requires such work.
- Individuals bomb an abortion clinic or kidnap the doctor
because their religious belief system says abortion is murder.
- A child molester reads the Bible to his victims in order
to justify his sex acts with them.
- Parents refuse life-saving medical treatment for a child
because of their religious beliefs.
- Parents starve and beat their child to death because their
minister said the child was possessed by demonic spirits.
Some people would argue that the Christians who committed
the above crimes misunderstood and distorted their religion while satanists who commit
crimes are following theirs. But who decides what constitutes a misinterpretation of a
religious belief system? The individuals who committed the above-described crimes, however
misguided, believed that they were following their religion as they understood it.
Religion was and is used to justify such social behavior as the Crusades, the Inquisition,
Apartheid, segregation, and recent violence in Northern Ireland, India, Lebanon and
Nigeria.
Who decides exactly what "satanists" believe?
In this country, we cannot even agree on what Christians believe. At many law enforcement
conferences The Satanic Bible is used for this, and it is often contrasted or
compared with the Judeo-Christian Bible. The Satanic Bibleis, in essence, a short
paperback book written by one man, Anton LaVey, in 1969. To compare it to a book written
by multiple authors over a period of thousands of years is ridiculous, even ignoring the
possibility of Divine revelation in the Bible. What satanists believe certainly isn't
limited to other people's interpretation of a few books. More importantly it is subject to
some degree of interpretation by individual believers just as Christianity is. Many
admitted "satanists" claim they do not even believe in God, the devil, or any
supreme deity. The criminal behavior of one person claiming belief in a religion does not
necessarily imply guilt or blame to others sharing that belief. In addition, simply
claiming membership in a religion does not necessarily make you a member.
The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been
committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus, Mohammed, and other mainstream religion
than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people, including myself, don't
like that statement, but the truth of it is undeniable.
Although defining a crime as satanic, occult, or
ritualistic would probably involve a combination of the criteria set forth above, I have
been unable to clearly define such a crime. Each potential definition presents a different
set of problems when measured against an objective, rational, and constitutional
perspective. In a crime with multiple subjects, each offender may have a different
motivation for the same crime. Whose motivation determines the label for the crime? It is
difficult to count or track something you cannot even define.
I have discovered, however, that the facts of so-called
"satanic crimes" are often significantly different from what is described at
training conferences or in the media. The actual involvement of satanism or the occult in
these cases usually turns out to be secondary, insignificant, or nonexistent. Occult or
ritual crime surveys done by the states of Michigan (1990) and Virginia (1991) have only
confirmed this "discovery." Some law enforcement officers, unable to find
serious "satanic" crime in their communities, assume they are just lucky or
vigilant and the serious problems must be in other jurisdictions. The officers in the
other jurisdictions, also unable find it, assume the same.
Multidimensional Child Sex RingsSometime
in early 1983 I was first contacted by a law enforcement agency for guidance in what was
then thought to be an unusual case. The exact date of the contact is unknown because its
significance was not recognized at the time. In the months and years that followed, I
received more and more inquiries about "these kinds of cases." The requests for
assistance came (and continue to come) from all over the United States. Many of the
aspects of these cases varied, but there were also some commonalties. Early on, however,
one particularly difficult and potentially significant issue began to emerge.
These cases involved and continue to involve
unsubstantiated allegations of bizarre activity that are difficult either to prove or
disprove. Many of the unsubstantiated allegations, however, do not seem to have occurred
or even be possible. These cases seem to call into question the credibility of victims of
child sexual abuse and exploitation. These are the most polarizing, frustrating, and
baffling cases I have encountered in more than 18 years of studying the criminal aspects
of deviant sexual behavior. I privately sought answers, but said nothing publicly about
those cases until 1985.
In October 1984 the problems in investigating and
prosecuting one of these cases in Jordan, Minnesota became publicly known. In February
1985, at the FBI Academy, the FBI sponsored and I coordinated the first national seminar
held to study "these kinds of cases." Later in 1985, similar conferences
sponsored by other organizations were held in Washington, D.C.; Sacramento, California;
and Chicago, Illinois. These cases have also been discussed at many recent regional and
national conferences dealing with the sexual victimization of children and Multiple
Personality Disorder. Few answers have come from these conferences. I continue to be
contacted on these cases on a regular basis. Inquiries have been received from law
enforcement officers, prosecutors, therapists, victims, families of victims, and the media
from all over the United States and now foreign countries. I do not claim to understand
completely all the dynamics of these cases. I continue to keep an open mind and to search
for answers to the questions and solutions to the problems they pose. This discussion is
based on my analysis of the several hundred of "these kinds of cases" on which I
have consulted since 1983.
What are "these kinds of cases"? They were and
continue to be difficult to define. They all involve allegations of what sounds like child
sexual abuse, but with a combination of some atypical dynamics. These cases seem to have
the following four dynamics in common: (1) multiple young victims, (2) multiple offenders,
(3) fear as the controlling tactic, and (4) bizarre or ritualistic activity.
Multiple Young Victims: In almost all the cases the
sexual abuse was alleged to have taken place or at least begun when the victims were
between the ages of birth and six. This very young age may be an important key to
understanding these cases. In addition the victims all described multiple children being
abused. The numbers ranged from three or four to as many as several hundred victims.
Multiple Offenders: In almost all the cases the victims
reported numerous offenders. The numbers ranged from two or three all the way up to dozens
of offenders. In one recent case the victims alleged 400-500 offenders were involved.
Interestingly many of the offenders (perhaps as many as 40-50 percent) were reported to be
females. The multiple offenders were often family members and were described as being part
of a cult, occult, or satanic group.
Fear as Controlling Tactic: Child molesters in general
are able to maintain control and ensure the secrecy of their victims in a variety of ways.
These include attention and affection, coercion, blackmail, embarrassment, threats, and
violence. In almost all of these cases I have studied, the victims described being
frightened and reported threats against themselves, their families, their friends, and
even their pets. They reported witnessing acts of violence perpetrated to reinforce this
fear. It is my belief that this fear and the traumatic memory of the events may be another
key to understanding many of these cases.
Bizarre or Ritualistic Activity: This is the most
difficult dynamic of these cases to describe. "Bizarre" is a relative term. Is
the use of urine or feces in sexual activity bizarre, or is it a well-documented aspect of
sexual deviancy, or is it part of established satanic rituals? As previously discussed,
the ritualistic aspect is even more difficult to define. How do you distinguish acts
performed in a precise manner to enhance or allow sexual arousal from those acts that
fulfill spiritual needs or comply with "religious" ceremonies? Victims in these
cases report ceremonies, chanting, robes and costumes, drugs, use of urine and feces,
animal sacrifice, torture, abduction, mutilation, murder, and even cannibalism and
vampirism. All things considered, the word "bizarre" is probably preferable to
the word "ritual" to describe this activity.
When I was contacted on these cases, it was very common
for a prosecutor or investigator to say that the alleged victims have been evaluated by an
"expert" who will stake his or her professional reputation on the fact that the
victims are telling the "truth." When asked how many cases this expert had
previously evaluated involving these four dynamics, the answer was always the same: none!
The experts usually had only dealt with one-on-one intrafamilial sexual abuse cases.
Recently an even more disturbing trend has developed. More and more of the victims have
been identified or evaluated by experts who have been trained to identify and specialize
in satanic ritual abuse.
As previously stated, a major problem in communicating,
training, and researching in this area is the term used to define "these kinds of
cases." Many refer to them as "ritual, ritualistic, or ritualized abuse of
children cases" or "satanic ritual abuse (SRA) cases." Such words carry
specialized meanings for many people and might imply that all these cases are connected to
occult or satanic activity. If ritual abuse is not necessarily occult or satanic, but is
"merely" severe, repeated, prolonged abuse, why use a term that, in the minds of
so many, implies such specific motivation?
Others refer to these cases as
"multioffender/multivictim cases." The problem with this term is that most
multiple offender and victim cases do not involve the four dynamics discussed above.
For want of a better term, I have decided to refer to
"these kinds of cases" as multidimensional child sex rings. Right now I
seem to be the only one using this term. I am, however, not sure if this is truly a
distinct kind of child sex ring case or just a case not properly handled. Following are
the general characteristics of these multidimensional child sex ring cases as contrasted
with more common historical child sex ring cases [see my monograph Child Sex Rings: A
Behavioral Analysis] (1989) for a discussion of the characteristics of historical
child sex ring cases].
Female Offenders: As many as 40-50 percent of the
offenders in these cases are reported to be women. This is in marked contrast to
historical child sex rings in which almost all the offenders are men.
Situational Molesters: The offenders appear to be
sexually interacting with the child victims for reasons other than a true sexual
preference for children. The children are substitute victims, and the abusive activity may
have little to do with pedophilia [see my monograph Child Molesters: A Behavioral
Analysis (1987) for a further explanation about types of molesters].
Male and Female Victims: Both boys and girls appear to be
targeted, but with an apparent preference for girls. Almost all the adult survivors are
female, but day care cases frequently involve male as well as female victims. The most
striking characteristic of the victims, however, is their young age (generally birth to
six years old when the abuse began).
Multidimensional Motivation: Sexual gratification appears
to be only part of the motivation for the "sexual" activity. Many people today
argue that the motivation is "spiritual" -- possibly part of an occult ceremony.
It is my opinion that the motivation may have more to do with anger, hostility, rage and
resentment carried out against weak and vulnerable victims. Much of the ritualistic abuse
of children may not be sexual in nature. Some of the activity may, in fact, be physical
abuse directed at sexually-significant body parts (penis, anus, nipples). This may also
partially explain the large percentage of female offenders. Physical abuse of children by
females is well-documented.
Pornography and Paraphernalia: Although many of the
victims of multidimensional child sex rings claim that pictures and videotapes of the
activity were made, no such visual record has been found by law enforcement. In recent
years, American law enforcement has seized large amounts of child pornography portraying
children in a wide variety of sexual activity and perversions. None of it, however,
portrays the kind of bizarre and/or ritualistic activity described by these victims.
Perhaps these offenders use and store their pornography and paraphernalia in ways
different from preferential child molesters (pedophiles). This is an area needing
additional research and investigation.
Control Through Fear: Control through fear may be the
overriding characteristic of these cases. Control is maintained by frightening the
children. A very young child might not be able to understand the significance of much of
the sexual activity but certainly understands fear. The stories that the victims tell may
be their perceived versions of severe traumatic memories. They may be the victims of a
severely traumatized childhood in which being sexually abused was just one of the many
negative events affecting their lives.
Multidimensional child sex rings typically emerge from
one of four scenarios: (1) adult survivors, (2) day care cases, (3) family/isolated
neighborhood cases, and (4) custody/visitation disputes.
In adult survivor cases, adults of almost any
age -- nearly always women -- are suffering the consequences of a variety of personal
problems and failures in their lives (e.g., promiscuity, eating disorders, drug and
alcohol abuse, failed relationships, self-mutilation, unemployment). As a result of some
precipitating stress or crisis, they often seek therapy. They are frequently hypnotized,
intentionally or unintentionally, as part of the therapy and are often diagnosed as
suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder. Gradually, during the therapy, the adults
reveal previously unrecalled memories of early childhood victimization that includes
multiple victims and offenders, fear as the controlling tactic, and bizarre or ritualistic
activity. Adult survivors may also claim that "cues" from certain events in
their recent life "triggered" the previously repressed memories.
The multiple offenders are often described as members of
a cult or satanic group. Parents, family members, clergy, civic leaders, police officers
(or individuals wearing police uniforms), and other prominent members of society are
frequently described as present at and participating in the exploitation. The alleged
bizarre activity often includes insertion of foreign objects, witnessing mutilations, and
sexual acts and murders being filmed or photographed. The offenders may allegedly still be
harassing or threatening the victims. They report being particularly frightened on certain
dates and by certain situations. In several of these cases, women (called
"breeders") claim to have had babies that were turned over for human sacrifice.
This type of case is probably best typified by books like Michelle Remembers (Smith
& Pazder, 1980), Satan's Underground (Stratford, 1988), and Satan's Children
(Mayer, 1991).
If and when therapists come to believe the patient or
decide the law requires it, the police or FBI are sometimes contacted to conduct an
investigation. The therapists may also fear for their safety because they now know the
"secret." The therapists will frequently tell law enforcement that they will
stake their professional reputation on the fact that their patient is telling the truth.
Some adult survivors go directly to law enforcement. They may also go from place to place
in an effort to find therapists or investigators who will listen to and believe them.
Their ability to provide verifiable details varies and many were raised in apparently
religious homes. A few adult survivors are now reporting participation in specific murders
or child abductions that are known to have taken place.
In day care cases children currently or formerly
attending a day care center gradually describe their victimization at the center and at
other locations to which they were taken by the day care staff. The cases include multiple
victims and offenders, fear, and bizarre or ritualistic activity, with a particularly high
number of female offenders. Descriptions of strange games, insertion of foreign objects,
killing of animals, photographing of activities, and wearing of costumes are common. The
accounts of the young children, however, do not seem to be quite as "bizarre" as
those of the adult survivors, with fewer accounts of human sacrifice.
In family/isolated neighborhood cases, children
describe their victimization within their family or extended family. The group is often
defined by geographic boundary, such as a cul-de-sac, apartment building, or isolated
rural setting. Such accounts are most common in rural or suburban communities with high
concentrations of religiously conservative people. The stories are similar to those told
of the day care setting, but with more male offenders. The basic dynamics remain the same,
but victims tend to be more than six years of age, and the scenario may also involve a
custody or visitation dispute.
In custody/visitation dispute cases, the
allegations emanate from a custody or visitation dispute over at least one child under the
age of seven. The four dynamics described above make these cases extremely difficult to
handle. When complicated by the strong emotions of this scenario, the cases can be
overwhelming. This is especially true if the disclosing child victims have been taken into
the "underground" by a parent during the custody or visitation dispute. Some of
these parents or relatives may even provide authorities with diaries or tapes of their
interviews with the children. An accurate evaluation and assessment of a young child held
in isolation in this underground while being "debriefed" by a parent or someone
else is almost impossible. However well-intentioned, these self-appointed investigators
severely damage any chance to validate these cases objectively.
Some of what the victims in these cases allege is
physically impossible (victim cut up and put back together, offender took the building
apart and then rebuilt it); some is possible but improbable (human sacrifice, cannibalism,
vampirism ); some is possible and probable (child pornography, clever manipulation of
victims); and some is corroborated (medical evidence of vaginal or anal trauma, offender
confessions).
The most significant crimes being alleged that do not
seem to be true are the human sacrifice and cannibalism by organized satanic cults. In
none of the multidimensional child sex ring cases of which I am aware have bodies of the
murder victims been found -- in spite of major excavations where the abuse victims claim
the bodies were located. The alleged explanations for this include: the offenders moved
the bodies after the children left, the bodies were burned in portable high-temperature
ovens, the bodies were put in double-decker graves under legitimately buried bodies, a
mortician member of the cult disposed of the bodies in a crematorium, the offenders ate
the bodies, the offenders used corpses and aborted fetuses, or the power of Satan caused
the bodies to disappear.
Not only are no bodies found, but also, more importantly,
there is no physical evidence that a murder took place. Many of those not in law
enforcement do not understand that, while it is possible to get rid of a body, it is even
more difficult to get rid of the physical evidence that a murder took place, especially a
human sacrifice involving sex, blood, and mutilation. Such activity would leave behind
trace evidence that could be found using modern crime scene processing techniques in spite
of extraordinary efforts to clean it up.
The victims of these human sacrifices and murders are
alleged to be abducted missing children, runaway and throwaway children, derelicts, and
the babies of breeder women. It is interesting to note that many of those espousing these
theories are using the long-since-discredited numbers and rhetoric of the missing children
hysteria in the early 1980s. Yet Stranger-Abduction Homicides of Children, a
January 1989 Juvenile Justice Bulletin, published by the Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention of the U.S. Department of Justice, reports that researchers now
estimate that the number of children kidnapped and murdered by nonfamily members is
between 52 and 158 a year and that adolescents 14 to 17 years old account for nearly
two-thirds of these victims. These figures are also consistent with the 1990 National
Incident Studies previously mentioned.
We live in a very violent society, and yet we have
"only" about 23,000 murders a year. Those who accept these stories of mass human
sacrifice would have us believe that the satanists and other occult practitioners are
murdering more than twice as many people every year in this country as all the other
murderers combined.
In addition, in none of the cases of which I am aware has
any evidence of a well-organized satanic cult been found. Many of those who accept the
stories of organized ritual abuse of children and human sacrifice will tell you that the
best evidence they now have is the consistency of stories from all over America. It sounds
like a powerful argument. It is interesting to note that, without having met each other,
the hundreds of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens from outer space also
tell stories and give descriptions of the aliens that are similar to each other. This is
not to imply that allegations of child abuse are in the same category as allegations of
abduction by aliens from outer space. It is intended only to illustrate that individuals
who never met each other can sometimes describe similar events without necessarily having
experienced them.
The large number of people telling the same story is, in
fact, the biggest reason to doubt these stories. It is simply too difficult for that many
people to commit so many horrendous crimes as part of an organized conspiracy. Two or
three people murder a couple of children in a few communities as part of a ritual, and
nobody finds out? Possible. Thousands of people do the same thing to tens of thousands of
victims over many years? Not likely. Hundreds of communities all over America are run by
mayors, police departments, and community leaders who are practicing satanists and who
regularly murder and eat people? Not likely. In addition, these community leaders and
high-ranking officials also supposedly commit these complex crimes leaving no evidence,
and at the same time function as leaders and managers while heavily involved in using
illegal drugs. Probably the closest documented example of this type of alleged activity in
American history is the Ku Klux Klan, which ironically used Christianity, not satanism, to
rationalize its activity but which, as might be expected, was eventually infiltrated by
informants and betrayed by its members.
As stated, initially I was inclined to believe the
allegations of the victims. But as the cases poured in and the months and years went by, I
became more concerned about the lack of physical evidence and corroboration for many of
the more serious allegations. With increasing frequency I began to ask the question:
"Why are victims alleging things that do not seem to be true?" Many possible
answers were considered.
The first possible answer is obvious: clever offenders.
The allegations may not seem to be true but they are true. The criminal justice system
lacks the knowledge, skill, and motivation to get to the bottom of this crime conspiracy.
The perpetrators of this crime conspiracy are clever, cunning individuals using
sophisticated mind control and brainwashing techniques to control their victims. Law
enforcement does not know how to investigate these cases.
It is technically possible that these allegations of an
organized conspiracy involving taking over day care centers, abduction, cannibalism,
murder, and human sacrifice might be true. But if they are true, they constitute one of
the greatest crime conspiracies in history.
Many people do not understand how difficult it is to
commit a conspiracy crime involving numerous co-conspirators. One clever and cunning
individual has a good chance of getting away with a well-planned interpersonal crime.
Bring one partner into the crime and the odds of getting away with it drop considerably.
The more people involved in the crime, the harder it is to get away with it. Why? Human
nature is the answer. People get angry and jealous. They come to resent the fact that
another conspirator is getting "more" than they. They get in trouble and want to
make a deal for themselves by informing on others.
If a group of individuals degenerate to the point of
engaging in human sacrifice, murder, and cannibalism, that would most likely be the
beginning of the end for such a group. The odds are that someone in the group would have a
problem with such acts and be unable to maintain the secret.
The appeal of the satanic conspiracy theory is twofold.
First, it is a simple explanation for a complex problem. Nothing is more simple than
"the devil made them do it." If we do not understand something, we make it the
work of some supernatural force. During the Middle Ages, serial killers were thought to be
vampires and werewolves, and child sexual abuse was the work of demons taking the form of
parents and clergy. Even today, especially for those raised to religiously believe so,
satanism offers an explanation as to why "good" people do bad things. It may
also help to "explain" unusual, bizarre, and compulsive sexual urges and
behavior.
Second, the conspiracy theory is a popular one. We find
it difficult to believe that one bizarre individual could commit a crime we find so
offensive. Conspiracy theories about soldiers missing in action (MlAs), abductions by
UFOs, Elvis Presley sightings, and the assassination of prominent public figures are the
focus of much attention in this country. These conspiracy theories and allegations of
ritual abuse have the following in common: (1) self-proclaimed experts, (2) tabloid media
interest, (3) belief the government is involved in a coverup, and (4) emotionally involved
direct and indirect victim/witnesses.
On a recent television program commemorating the one
hundredth anniversary of Jack the Ripper, almost fifty percent of the viewing audience who
called the polling telephone numbers indicated that they thought the murders were
committed as part of a conspiracy involving the British Royal Family. The five experts on
the program, however, unanimously agreed the crimes were the work of one disorganized but
lucky individual who was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. In many ways, the murders
of Jack the Ripper are similar to those allegedly committed by satanists today.
If your child's molestation was perpetrated by a
sophisticated satanic cult, there is nothing you could have done to prevent it and
therefore no reason to feel any guilt. I have been present when parents who believe their
children were ritually abused at day care centers have told others that the cults had
sensors in the road, lookouts in the air, and informers everywhere; therefore, the usually
recommended advice of unannounced visits to the day care center would be impossible.
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Even if only part of an allegation is not true, what then
is the answer to the question "Why are victims alleging things that do not seem to be
true?" After consulting with psychiatrists, psychologists, anthropologists,
therapists, social workers, child sexual abuse experts, and law enforcement investigators
for more than eight years, I can find no single, simple answer. The answer to the question
seems to be a complex set of dynamics that can be different in each case. In spite of the
fact that some skeptics keep looking for it, there does not appear to be one answer to the
question that fits every case. Each case is different, and each case may involve a
different combination of answers.
I have identified a series of possible alternative
answers to this question. The alternative answers also do not preclude the possibility
that clever offenders are sometimes involved. I will not attempt to explain completely
these alternative answers because I cannot. They are presented simply as areas for
consideration and evaluation by child sexual abuse intervenors, for further elaboration by
experts in these fields, and for research by objective social scientists. The first step,
however, in finding the answers to this question is to admit the possibility that some of
what the victims describe may not have happened. Some child advocates seem unwilling to do
this.
The first possible answer to why victims are alleging
things that do not seem to be true is pathological distortion. The allegations
may be errors in processing reality influenced by underlying mental disorders such as
dissociative disorders, borderline or histrionic personality disorders, or psychosis.
These distortions may be manifested in false accounts of victimization in order to gain
psychological benefits such as attention and sympathy (factitious disorder). When such
individuals repeatedly go from place to place or person to person making these false
reports of their own "victimization", it is called Munchausen Syndrome. When the
repealed false reports concern the "victimization" of their children or others
linked to them, it is called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. I am amazed when some
therapists state that they believe the allegations because they cannot think of a reason
why the "victim", whose failures are now explained and excused or who is now the
center of attention at a conference or on a national television program, would lie. If you
can be forgiven for mutilating and killing babies, you can be forgiven for anything.
Many "victims" may develop pseudomemories of
their victimization and eventually come to believe the events actually occurred. Noted
forensic psychiatrist Park E. Dietz (personal communication, Nov. 1991) states:
Pseudomemories have been acquired through dreams
(particularly if one is encouraged to keep a journal or dream diary and to regard dream
content as 'clues' about the past or as snippets of history), substance-induced altered
states of consciousness (alcohol or other drugs), group influence (particularly hearing
vivid accounts of events occurring to others with whom one identifies emotionally such as
occurs in incest survivor groups), reading vivid accounts of events occurring to others
with whom one identifies emotionally, watching such accounts in films or on television,
and hypnosis. The most efficient means of inducing pseudomemories is hypnosis.
It is characteristic of pseudomemories that the
recollections of complex events (as opposed to a simple unit of information, such as a tag
number) are incomplete and without chronological sequence. Often the person reports some
uncertainty because the pseudomemories are experienced in a manner they describe as
'hazy', 'fuzzy', or 'vague'. They are often perplexed that they recall some details
vividly but others dimly.
Pseudomemories are not delusions. When first telling
others of pseudomemories, these individuals do not have the unshakable but irrational
conviction that deluded subjects have, but with social support they often come to defend
vigorously the truthfulness of the pseudomemories.
Pseudomemories are not fantasies, but may incorporate
elements from fantasies experienced in the past. Even where the events described are
implausible, listeners may believe them because they are reported with such intense affect
(i.e. with so much emotion attached to the story) that the listener concludes that the
events must have happened because no one could 'fake' the emotional aspects of the
retelling. It also occurs, however, that persons report pseudomemories in such a
matter-of-fact and emotionless manner that mental health professionals conclude that the
person has 'dissociated' intellectual knowledge of the events from emotional appreciation
of their impact.
The second possible answer is traumatic memory.
Fear and severe trauma can cause victims to distort reality and confuse events. This is a
well-documented fact in cases involving individuals taken hostage or in life-and-death
situations. The distortions may be part of an elaborate defense mechanism of the mind
called "splitting" -- The victims create a clear-cut good-and-evil manifestation
of their complex victimization that is then psychologically more manageable.
Through the defense mechanism of dissociation, the victim
may escape the horrors of reality by inaccurately processing that reality. In a
dissociative state a young child who ordinarily would know the difference might
misinterpret a film or video as reality.
Another defense mechanism may tell the victim that it
could have been worse, and so his or her victimization was not so bad. They are not alone
in their victimization -- other children were also abused. Their father who abused them is
no different from other prominent people in the community they claim also abused them.
Satanism may help to explain why their outwardly good and religious parents did such
terrible things to them in the privacy of their home. Their religious training may
convince them that such unspeakable acts by supposedly "good" people must be the
work of the devil. The described human sacrifice may be symbolic of the "death"
of their childhood.
It may be that we should anticipate that individuals
severely abused as very young children by multiple offenders with fear as the primary
controlling tactic will distort and embellish their victimization. Perhaps a horror-filled
yet inaccurate account of victimization is not only not a counterindication of abuse, but
is in fact a corroborative indicator of extreme physical, psychological, and/or sexual
abuse. I do not believe it is a coincidence nor the result of deliberate planning by
satanists that in almost all the cases of ritual abuse that have come to my attention, the
abuse is alleged to have begun prior to the age of seven and perpetrated by multiple
offenders. It may well be that such abuse, at young age by multiple offenders, is the most
difficult to accurately recall with the specific and precise detail needed by the criminal
justice system, and the most likely to be distorted and exaggerated when it is recalled.
In her book Too Scared to Cry (1990), child psychiatrist Lenore Terr, a leading
expert on psychic trauma in childhood, states "that a series of early childhood
shocks might not be fully and accurately 'reconstructed' from the dreams and behaviors of
the adult" (p. 5).
The third possible answer may be normal childhood
fears and fantasy. Most young children are afraid of ghosts and monsters. Even as
adults, many people feel uncomfortable, for example, about dangling their arms over the
side of their bed. They still remember the "monster" under the bed from
childhood. While young children may rarely invent stories about sexual activity, they
might describe their victimization in terms of evil as they understand it. In church or at
home, children may be told of satanic activity as the source of evil. The children may be
"dumping" all their fears and worries unto an attentive and encouraging
listener.
Children do fantasize. Perhaps whatever causes a child to
allege something impossible (such as being cut up and put back together) is similar to
what causes a child to allege something possible but improbable (such as witnessing
another child being chopped up and eaten).
Misperception, confusion, and trickery may be a fourth
answer. Expecting young children to give accurate accounts of sexual activity for which
they have little frame of reference is unreasonable. The Broadway play Madame Butterfly
is the true story of a man who had a 15-year affair, including the "birth" of a
baby, with a "woman" who turns out to have been a man all along. If a grown man
does not know when he has had vaginal intercourse with a woman, how can we expect young
children not to be confused? Furthermore some clever offenders may deliberately introduce
elements of satanism and the occult into the sexual exploitation simply to confuse or
intimidate the victims. Simple magic and other techniques may be used to trick the
children. Drugs may also be deliberately used to confuse the victims and distort their
perceptions. Such acts would then be M.O., not ritual. As previously stated, the
perceptions of young victims may also be influenced by any trauma being experienced. This
is the most popular alternative explanation, and even the more zealous believers of ritual
abuse allegations use it, but only to explain obviously impossible events.
Overzealous intervenors, causing intervenor
contagion, may be a fifth answer. These intervenors can include parents, family members,
foster parents, doctors, therapists, social workers, law enforcement officers,
prosecutors, and any combination thereof. Victims have been subtly as well as overtly
rewarded and bribed by usually well-meaning intervenors for furnishing further details. In
addition, some of what appears not to have happened may have originated as a result of
intervenors making assumptions about or misinterpreting what the victims are saying. The
intervenors then repeat, and possibly embellish, these assumptions and misinterpretations,
and eventually the victims are "forced" to agree with or come to accept this
"official" version of what happened.
The judgment of intervenors may be affected by their zeal
to uncover child sexual abuse, satanic activity, or conspiracies. However
"well-intentioned", these overzealous intervenors must accept varying degrees of
responsibility for the unsuccessful prosecution of those cases where criminal abuse did
occur. This is the most controversial and least popular of the alternative explanations.
Allegations of and knowledge about ritualistic or satanic
abuse may also be spread through urban legends. In The Vanishing Hitchhiker
(1981), the first of his four books on the topic, Dr. Jan Harold Brunvand defines urban
legends as "realistic stories concerning recent events (or alleged events) with an
ironic or supernatural twist" (p. xi). Dr. Brunvand's books convincingly explain that
just because individuals throughout the country who never met each other tell the same
story does not mean that it is true. Absurd urban legends about the corporate logos of
Proctor and Gamble and Liz Claiborne being satanic symbols persist in spite of all efforts
to refute them with reality. Some urban legends about child kidnappings and other threats
to citizens have even been disseminated unknowingly by law enforcement agencies. Such
legends have always existed, but today the mass media aggressively participate in their
rapid and more efficient dissemination. Many Americans mistakenly believe that tabloid
television shows check out and verify the details of their stories before pulling them on
the air. Mass hysteria may partially account for large numbers of victims describing the
same symptoms or experiences.
Training conferences for all the disciplines involved in
child sexual abuse may also play a role in the spread of this contagion. At one child
abuse conference I attended, an exhibitor was selling more than 50 different books dealing
with satanism and the occult. By the end of the conference, he had sold nearly all of
them. At another national child sexual abuse conference, I witnessed more than 100
attendees copying down the widely disseminated 29 "Symptoms Characterizing Satanic
Ritual Abuse" in preschool-aged children. Is a four-year-old child's
"preoccupation with urine and feces" an indication of satanic ritual abuse or
part of normal development?
Combination
Most multidimensional child sex ring cases probably
involve a combination of the answers previously set forth, as well as other
possible explanations unknown to me at this time. Obviously, cases with adult survivors
are more likely to involve some of these answers than those with young children. Each case
of sexual victimization must be individually evaluated on its own merits without any
preconceived explanations. All the possibilities must be explored if for no other reason
than the fact that the defense attorneys for any accused subjects will almost certainly do
so.
Most people would agree that just because a victim tells
you one detail that turns out to be true, this does not mean that every detail is true.
But many people seem to believe that if you can disprove one part of a victim's story,
then the entire story is false. As previously stated, one of my main concerns in these
cases is that people are getting away with sexually abusing children or committing other
crimes because we cannot prove that they are members of organized cults that murder and
eat people.
I have discovered that the subject of multidimensional
child sex rings is a very emotional and polarizing issue. Everyone seems to demand that
one choose a side. On one side of the issue are those who say that nothing really happened
and it is all a big witch hunt led by overzealous fanatics and incompetent
"experts." The other side says, in essence, that everything happened; victims
never lie about child sexual abuse, and so it must be true.
There is a middle ground. It is the job of the
professional investigator to listen to all the victims and conduct appropriate
investigation in an effort to find out what happened, considering all possibilities. Not
all childhood trauma is abuse. Not all child abuse is a crime. The great frustration of
these cases is the fact that you are often convinced that something traumatic happened to
the victim, but do not know with any degree of certainty exactly what happened, when it
happened, or who did it.
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The crucial central issue in the evaluation of a response
to cases of multidimensional child sex rings is the statement "Children never lie
about sexual abuse or exploitation. If they have details, it must have happened."
This statement, oversimplified by many, is the basic premise upon which some believe the
child sexual abuse and exploitation movement is based. It is almost never questioned or
debated at training conferences. In fact, during the 1970s, there was a successful crusade
to eliminate laws requiring corroboration of child victim statements in child sexual abuse
cases. The best way to convict child molesters is to have the child victims testify in
court. If we believe them, the jury will believe them. Any challenge to this basic premise
was viewed as a threat to the movement and a denial that the problem existed.
I believe that children rarely lie about sexual abuse or
exploitation, if a lie is defined as a statement deliberately and maliciously intended to
deceive. The problem is the oversimplification of the statement. Just because a child is
not lying does not necessarily mean the child is telling the truth. I believe that in the
majority of these cases, the victims are not lying. They are telling you what they have
come to believe has happened to them. Furthermore the assumption that children rarely lie
about sexual abuse does not necessarily apply to everything a child says during a sexual
abuse investigation. Stories of mutilation, murder, and cannibalism are not really about
sexual abuse.
Children rarely lie about sexual abuse or exploitation.
but they do fantasize, furnish false information, furnish misleading information,
misperceive events, try to please adults, respond to leading questions, and respond to
rewards. Children are not adults in little bodies and do go through developmental stages
that must be evaluated and understood. In many ways, however, children are no better and
no worse than other victims or witnesses of a crime. They should not be automatically
believed, nor should they be automatically disbelieved.
The second part of the statement -- if children can
supply details, the crime must have happened -- must also be carefully evaluated. The
details in question in most of the cases of multidimensional child sex rings have little
to do with sexual activity. Law enforcement and social workers must do more than attempt
to determine how a child could have known about the sex acts. These cases involve
determining how a victim could have known about a wide variety of bizarre and ritualistic
activity. Young children may know little about specific sex acts, but they may know a lot
about monsters, torture, kidnapping, and murder.
Victims may supply details of sexual and other acts using
information from sources other than their own direct victimization. Such sources must be
evaluated carefully by the investigator of multidimensional child sex rings.
Personal Knowledge: The victim may have personal
knowledge of the sexual or ritual acts, but not as a result of the alleged victimization.
The knowledge could have come from viewing pornography, sex education, or occult material;
witnessing sexual or ritual activity in the home; or witnessing the sexual abuse of
others. It could also have come from having been sexually or physically abused, but by
other than the alleged offenders and in ways other than the alleged offense.
Other Children or Victims: Young children today are
socially interacting more often and at a younger age than ever before. Many parents are
unable to provide possibly simple explanations for their children's stories because they
were not with the children when the events occurred. They do not even know what videotapes
their children may have seen, what games they may have played, or what stories they may
have been told or overheard. Children are being placed in day care centers for eight, ten,
or twelve hours a day starting as young as six weeks of age. The children share
experiences by playing house, school, or doctor. Bodily functions such as urination and
defecation are a focus of attention for these young children. To a certain extent, each
child shares the experiences of all the other children.
The odds are fairly high that in any typical day care
center there might be some children who are victims of incest; victims of physical abuse;
victims of psychological abuse; children of cult members (even satanists); children of
sexually open parents; children of sexually indiscriminate parents; children of parents
obsessed with victimization; children of parents obsessed with the evils of satanism;
children without conscience; children with a teenage brother or pregnant mother; children
with heavy metal music and literature in the home; children with bizarre toys, games,
comics, and magazines; children with a VCR and slasher films in their home; children with
access to dial-a-porn, party lines, or pornography; or children victimized by a day care
center staff member. The possible effects of the interaction of such children prior to the
disclosure of the alleged abuse must be evaluated, Adult survivors may obtain details from
group therapy sessions, support networks, church groups, or self-help groups. The
willingness and ability of siblings to corroborate adult survivor accounts of ritual abuse
varies. Some will support and partially corroborate the victim's allegations. Others will
vehemently deny them and support their accused parents or relatives.
Media: The amount of sexually explicit, occult,
anti-occult, or violence-oriented material available to adults and even children in the
modern world is overwhelming. This includes movies, videotapes, television, music, toys,
and books. There are also documentaries on satanism, witchcraft, and the occult that are
available on videotape. Most of the televangelists have videotapes on the topics that they
are selling on their programs.
The National Coalition on Television Violence News (1988)
estimates that 12% of the movies produced in the United States can be classified as
satanic horror films. Cable television and the home VCR make all this material readily
available even to young children. Religious broadcasters and almost all the television
tabloid and magazine programs have done shows on satanism and the occult. Heavy metal and
black metal music, which often has a satanic theme, is readily available and popular. In
addition to the much-debated fantasy role-playing games, there are numerous popular toys
on the market with an occult-oriented, bizarre, or violent theme.
Books on satanism and the occult, both fiction and
nonfiction, are readily available in most bookstores, especially Christian bookstores.
Several recent books specifically discuss the issue of ritual abuse of children.
Obviously, very young children do not read this material, but their parents, relatives,
and therapists might and then discuss it in front of or with them. Much of the material
intended to fight the problem actually fuels the problem and damages effective
prosecution.
Suggestions and Leading Questions: This problem is
particularly important in cases stemming from custody/visitation disputes involving at
least one child under the age of seven. It is my opinion that most suggestive, leading
questioning of children by intervenors is inadvertently done as part of a good-faith
effort to learn the truth. Not all intervenors are in equal positions to potentially
influence victim allegations. Parents and relatives especially are in a position to subtly
influence their young children to describe their victimization in a certain way. Children
may also overhear their parents discussing the details of the case. Children often tell
their parents what they believe their parents want or need to hear. Some children may be
instinctively attempting to provide "therapy" for their parents by telling them
what seems to satisfy them and somehow makes them feel better. In one case a father gave
the police a tape recording to "prove" that his child's statements were
spontaneous disclosures and not the result of leading, suggestive questions. The tape
recording indicated just the opposite. Why then did the father voluntarily give it to the
police? Probably because he truly believed that he was not influencing his child's
statements -- but he was.
Therapists are probably in the best position to influence
the allegations of adult survivors. The accuracy and reliability of the accounts of adult
survivors who have been hypnotized during therapy is certainly open to question. One
nationally-known therapist personally told me that the reason police cannot find out about
satanic or ritualistic activity from child victims is that they do not know how to ask
leading questions. Highly suggestive books and pictures portraying "satanic"
activity have been developed and marketed to therapists for use during evaluation and
treatment. Types and styles of verbal interaction useful in therapy may create significant
problems in a criminal investigation. It should be noted, however, that when a therapist
does a poor investigative interview as part of a criminal investigation, that is the fault
of the criminal justice system that allowed it and not the therapist who did it.
The extremely sensitive, emotional, and religious nature
of these cases makes problems with leading questions more likely than in other kinds of
cases. Intervenors motivated by religious fervor and/or exaggerated concerns about sexual
abuse of children are more likely to lose their objectivity.
Misperception and Confusion: In one case, a child's
description of the apparently impossible act of walking through a wall turned out to be
the very possible act of walking between the studs of an unfinished wall in a room under
construction. In another case, pennies in the anus turned out to be copper-foil-covered
suppositories. The children may describe what they believe happened. It is not a lie, but
neither is it an accurate account of what happened.
Education and Awareness Programs: Some well-intentioned
awareness programs designed to prevent child set abuse, alert professionals, or fight
satanism may in fact be unrealistically increasing the fears of professionals, children,
and parents and creating self-fulfilling prophesies. Some of what children and their
parents are telling intervenors may have been learned in or fueled by such programs.
Religious programs, books, and pamphlets that emphasize the power and evil force of Satan
may be adding to the problem. In fact most of the day care centers in which ritualistic
abuse is alleged to hate taken place are church-affiliated centers, and many of the adult
survivors alleging it come from apparently religious families.
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The perspective with which one looks at satanic, occult,
or ritualistic crime is extremely important. As stated, sociologists, therapists,
religious leaders, parents, and just plain citizens each have their own valid concerns and
views about this issue. This discussion, however, deals primarily with the law enforcement
or criminal justice perspective.
When you combine an emotional issue such as the sexual
abuse of children with an even more emotional issue such as people's religious beliefs, it
is difficult to maintain objectivity and remember the law enforcement perspective. Some
police officers may even feel that all crime is caused by evil, all evil is caused by
Satan, and therefore, all crime is satanic crime. This may be a valid religious
perspective, but it is of no relevance to the investigation of crime for purposes of
prosecution.
Many of the police officers who lecture on satanic or
occult crime do not even investigate such cases. Their presentations are more a reflection
of their personal religious beliefs than documented investigative information. They are
absolutely entitled to their beliefs, but introducing themselves as current or former
police officers and then speaking as religious advocates causes confusion. As difficult as
it might be, police officers must separate the religious and law enforcement perspectives
when they are lecturing or investigating in their official capacities as law enforcement
officers. Many law enforcement officers begin their presentations by stating that they are
not addressing or judging anyone's religious beliefs, and then proceed to do exactly that.
Some police officers have resigned rather than curtail or
limit their involvement in this issue as ordered by their departments. Perhaps such
officers deserve credit for recognizing that they could no longer keep the perspectives
separate.
Law enforcement officers and all professionals in this
field should avoid the "paranoia" that has crept into this issue and into some
of the training conferences. Paranoid type belief systems are characterized by the gradual
development of intricate, complex, and elaborate systems of thinking based on and often
proceeding logically from misinterpretation of actual events. Paranoia typically involves
hypervigilance over the perceived threat, the belief that danger is around every corner,
and the willingness to take up the challenge and do something about it. Another very
important aspect of this paranoia is the belief that those who do not recognize the threat
are evil and corrupt. In this extreme view, you are either with them or against them. You
are either part of the solution or part of the problem.
Overzealousness and exaggeration motivated by the true
religious fervor of those involved is more acceptable than that motivated by ego or
profit. There are those who are deliberately distorting and hyping this issue for personal
notoriety and profit. Satanic and occult crime and ritual abuse of children has become a
growth industry. Speaking fees, books, video and audio tapes, prevention material,
television and radio appearances all bring egoistic and financial rewards.
Bizarre crime and evil can occur without organized
satanic activity. The professional perspective requires that we distinguish between what
we know and what we're not sure of.
The facts are:
1. Some individuals believe in and are involved in
something commonly called satanism and the occult.
2. Some of these individuals commit crime.
3. Some groups of individuals share these beliefs and
involvement in this satanism and the occult.
4. Some members of these groups commit crime together.
The unanswered questions are:
1. What is the connection between the belief system and
the crimes committed?
2. Is there an organized conspiracy of satanic and occult
believers responsible for interrelated serious crime (e.g., molestation, murder)?
After all the hype and hysteria are put aside, the
realization sets in that most satanic/occult activity involves the commission of no
crimes, and that which does usually involves the commission of relatively minor crimes
such as trespassing, vandalism, cruelty to animals, or petty thievery.
The law enforcement problems most often linked to satanic
or occult activity are:
a. Vandalism
b. Desecration of churches and cemeteries
c. Thefts from churches and cemeteries
d. Teenage gangs
e. Animal mutilations
f. Teenage suicide
g. Child abuse
h. Kidnapping
i. Murder and human sacrifice
Valid evidence shows some "connection" between
satanism and the occult and the first six problems (#a-f) set forth above. The
"connection" to the last three problems (#g-i) is far more uncertain.
Even where there seems to be a "connection",
the nature of the connection needs to be explored. It is easy to blame involvement in
satanism and the occult for behaviors that have complex motivations. A teenager's
excessive involvement in satanism and the occult is usually a symptom of a problem and not
the cause of a problem. Blaming satanism for a teenager's vandalism, theft, suicide, or
even act of murder is like blaming a criminal's offenses on his tattoos: Both are often
signs of the same rebelliousness and lack of self-esteem that contribute to the commission
of crimes.
The rock band Judas Priest was recently sued for
allegedly inciting two teenagers to suicide through subliminal messages in their
recordings. In 1991 Anthony Pratkanis of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who
served as an expert witness for the defense, stated the boys in question "lived
troubled lives, lives of drug and alcohol abuse, run-ins with the law ... family violence,
and chronic unemployment. What issues did the trial and the subsequent mass media coverage
emphasize? Certainly not the need for drug treatment centers; there was no evaluation of
the pros and cons of America's juvenile justice system, no investigation of the schools,
no inquiry into how to prevent family violence, no discussion of the effects of
unemployment on a family. Instead our attention was mesmerized by an attempt to count the
number of subliminal demons that can dance on the end of a record needle" (p. 1).
The law enforcement investigator must objectively
evaluate the legal significance of any criminal's spiritual beliefs. In most cases,
including those involving satanists, it will have little or no legal significance. If a
crime is committed as part of a spiritual belief system, it should make no difference
which belief system it is. The crime is the same whether a child is abused or murdered as
part of a Christian, Hare Krishna, Moslem, or any other belief system. We generally don't
label crimes with the name of the perpetrator's religion. Why then are the crimes of child
molesters, rapists, sadists, and murderers who happen to be involved in satanism and the
occult labeled as satanic or occult crimes? If criminals use a spiritual belief system to
rationalize and justify or to facilitate and enhance their criminal activity, should the
focus of law enforcement be on the belief system or on the criminal activity?
Several documented murders have been committed by
individuals involved in one way or another in satanism or the occult. In some of these
murders the perpetrator has even introduced elements of the occult (e.g. satanic symbols
at crime scene). Does that automatically make these satanic murders? It is my opinion that
the answer is no. Ritualistic murders committed by serial killers or sexual sadists are
not necessarily satanic or occult murders. Ritualistic murders committed by psychotic
killers who hear the voice of Satan are no more satanic murders than murders committed by
psychotic killers who hear the voice of Jesus are Christian murders.
Rather a satanic murder should be defined as one
committed by two or more individuals who rationally plan the crime and whose
PRIMARY motivation is to fulfill a prescribed satanic ritual calling for the murder. By
this definition I have been unable to identify even one documented satanic murder in the
United States. Although such murders may have and can occur, they appear to be few in
number. In addition the commission of such killings would probably be the beginning of the
end for such a group. It is highly unlikely that they could continue to kill several
people, every year, year after year, and not be discovered.
A brief typology of satanic and occult practitioners is
helpful in evaluating what relationship, if any, such practices have to crimes under
investigation. The following typology is adapted from the investigative experience of
Officer Sandi Gallant of the San Francisco Police Department, who began to study the
criminal aspects of occult activity long before it became popular. No typology is perfect,
but I use this typology because it is simple and offers investigative insights. Most
practitioners fall into one of three categories, any of which can be practiced alone or in
groups:
- YOUTH SUBCULTURE -- Most teenagers involved in fantasy
role-playing games, heavy metal music, or satanism and the occult are going through a
stage of adolescent development and commit no significant crimes. The teenagers who have
more serious problems are usually those from dysfunctional families or those who have poor
communication within their families. These troubled teenagers turn to satanism and the
occult to overcome a sense of alienation, to rebel, to obtain power, or to justify their
antisocial behavior. For these teenagers it is the symbolism, not the spirituality, that
is more important. It is either the psychopathic or the oddball, loner teenager who is
most likely to get into serious trouble. Extreme involvement in the occult is a symptom of
a problem, not the cause. This is not to deny, however, that satanism and the occult can
be negative influences for a troubled teenager. But to hysterically warn teenagers to
avoid this "mysterious, powerful and dangerous" thing called satanism will drive
more teenagers right to it. Some rebellious teenagers will do whatever will most shock and
outrage society in order to flaunt their rejection of adult norms.
- DABBLERS (SELF-STYLED) -- "For these practitioners
there is little or no spiritual motivation. They may mix satanism, witchcraft, paganism,
and any aspects of the occult to suit their purposes. Symbols mean whatever they want them
or believe them to mean. Molesters, rapists, drug dealers, and murderers may dabble in the
occult and may even commit their crimes in a ceremonial or ritualistic way. This category
has the potential to be the most dangerous, and most of the "satanic" killers
fall into this category. Their involvement in satanism and the occult is a symptom of a
problem, and a rationalization and justification of antisocial behavior. Satanic/occult
practices (as well as those of other spiritual belief systems) can also be used as a
mechanism to facilitate criminal objectives.
- TRADITIONAL (ORTHODOX) -- These are the so-called true
believers. They are often wary of outsiders. Because of this and constitutional issues,
such groups are difficult for law enforcement to penetrate. Although there may be much we
don't know about these groups, as of now there is little or no hard evidence that as a
group they are involved in serious, organized criminal activity. In addition, instead of
being self-perpetuating master crime conspirators, "true believers" probably
have a similar problem with their teenagers rebelling against their belief system. To some
extent even these Traditional satanists are self-stylized. They practice what they have
come to believe is "satanism." There is little or no evidence of the
much-discussed multigenerational satanists whose beliefs and practices have supposedly
been passed down through the centuries. Many admitted adult satanists were in fact raised
in conservative Christian homes.
Washington Post editor Walt Harrington reported in
a 1986 story on Anton LaVey and his Church of Satan that "sociologists who have
studied LaVey's church say that its members often had serious childhood problems like
alcoholic parents or broken homes, or that they were traumatized by guilt-ridden
fundamentalist upbringings, turning to Satanism as a dramatic way to purge their
debilitating guilt" (p. 14). Some have claimed that the accounts of ritual abuse
victims coincide with historical records of what traditional or multigenerational
satanists are known to have practiced down through the ages. Jeffrey Burton Russell,
Professor of History at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the author of
numerous scholarly books on the devil and satanism, believes that the universal consensus
of modern historians on satanism is (personal communication, Nov. 1991):
(1) incidents of orgy, infanticide, cannibalism, and
other such conduct have occurred from the ancient world down to the present; (2) such
incidents were isolated and limited to local antisocial groups; (3) during the period of
Christian dominance in European culture, such groups were associated with the Devil in the
minds of the authorities; (4) in some cases the sectaries believed that they were
worshiping Satan; (5) no organized cult of Satanists existed in the Christian period
beyond localities, and on no account was there ever any widespread Satanist organization
or conspiracy; (6) no reliable historical sources indicate that such organizations
existed; (7) the black mass appears only once in the sources before the late nineteenth
century.
Many police officers ask what to look for during the
search of the scene of suspected satanic activity. The answer is simple: Look for evidence
of a crime. A pentagram is no more criminally significant than a crucifix unless it
corroborates a crime or a criminal conspiracy. If a victim's description of the location
or the instruments of the crime includes a pentagram, then the pentagram would be
evidence. But the same would be true if the description included a crucifix. In many cases
of alleged satanic ritual abuse, investigation can find evidence that the claimed
offenders are members only of mainstream churches and are often described as very
religious.
There is no way any one law enforcement officer can
become knowledgeable about all the symbols and rituals of every spiritual belief system
that might become part of a criminal investigation. The officer needs only to be trained
to recognize the possible investigative significance of such signs, symbols, and rituals.
Knowledgeable religious scholars, academics, and other true experts in the community can
be consulted if a more detailed analysis is necessary.
Any analysis, however, may have only limited application,
especially to cases involving teenagers, dabblers, and other self-styled practitioners.
The fact is signs, symbols, and rituals can mean anything that practitioners want them to
mean and/or anything that observers interpret them to mean.
The meaning of symbols can also change over time, place,
and circumstance. Is a swastika spray-painted on a wall an ancient symbol of prosperity
and good fortune, a recent symbol of Nazism and anti-Semitism, or a current symbol of
hate, paranoia, and adolescent defiance? The peace sign which in the 1960s was a familiar
antiwar symbol is now supposed to be a satanic symbol. Some symbols and holidays become
"satanic" only because the antisatanists say they are. Then those who want to be
"satanists" adopt them, and now you have "proof" they are satanic.
In spite of what is sometimes said or suggested at law
enforcement training conferences, police have no authority to seize any satanic or occult
paraphernalia they might see during a search. A legally-valid reason must exist for doing
so. It is not the job of law enforcement to prevent satanists from engaging in noncriminal
teaching, rituals, or other activities.
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Multidimensional child sex rings can be among the most
difficult, frustrating, and complex cases that any law enforcement officer will ever
investigate. The investigation of allegations of recent activity from multiple young
children under the age of seven presents one set of problems and must begin quickly, with
interviews of all potential victims being completed as soon as possible. The investigation
of allegations of activity ten or more years earlier from adult survivors presents other
problems and should proceed, unless victims are at immediate risk, more deliberately, with
gradually-increasing resources as corroborated facts warrant.
In spite of any skepticism, allegations of ritual abuse
should be aggressively and thoroughly investigated, This investigation should attempt to
corroborate the allegations of ritual abuse. but should simultaneously also attempt to
identify alternative explanations. The only debate is over how much investigation is
enough. Any law enforcement agency must be prepared to defend and justify its actions when
scrutinized by the public, the media, elected officials, or the courts. This does not
mean, however, that a law enforcement agency has an obligation to prove that the alleged
crimes did not occur. This is almost always impossible to do and investigators should be
alert for and avoid this trap.
One major problem in the investigation of
multidimensional child sex rings is the dilemma of recognizing soon enough that you have
one. Investigators must be alert for cases with the potential for the four basic dynamics:
(a) multiple young victims, (b) multiple offenders, (c) fear as the controlling tactic,
and (d) bizarre or ritualistic activity. The following techniques apply primarily to the
investigation of such multidimensional child sex rings:
Minimize Satanic/occult Aspect -- There are those who
claim that one of the major reasons more of these cases have not been successfully
prosecuted is that the satanic/occult aspect has not been aggressively pursued. One state
has even introduced legislation creating added penalties when certain crimes are committed
as part of a ritual or ceremony. A few states have passed special ritual crime laws. I
strongly disagree with such an approach. It makes no difference what spiritual belief
system was used to enhance and facilitate or rationalize and justify criminal behavior. It
serves no purpose to "prove" someone is a satanist. As a matter of fact, if it
is alleged that the subject committed certain criminal acts under the influence of or in
order to conjure up supernatural spirits or forces, this may very well be the basis for an
insanity or diminished capacity defense, or may damage the intent aspect of a sexually
motivated crime. The defense may very well be more interested in all the "evidence of
satanic activity." Some of the satanic crime "experts" who train law
enforcement wind up working or testifying for the defense in these cases.
It is best to focus on the crime and all the evidence to
corroborate its commission. Information about local satanic or occult activity is only of
value if it is based on specific law enforcement intelligence and not on some vague,
unsubstantiated generalities from religious groups. Cases are not solved by decoding
signs, symbols, and dates using undocumented satanic crime "manuals." In one
case a law enforcement agency executing a search warrant seized only the satanic
paraphernalia and left behind the other evidence that would have corroborated victim
statements. Cases are solved by people- and behavior-oriented investigation. Evidence of
satanic or occult activity may help explain certain aspects of the case, but even
offenders who commit crimes in a spiritual context are usually motivated by power, sex,
and money.
Keep Investigation and Religious Beliefs Separate -- I
believe that one of the biggest mistakes any investigator of these cases can make is to
attribute supernatural powers to the offenders. During an investigation a good
investigator may sometimes be able to use the beliefs and superstitions of the offenders
to his or her advantage. The reverse happens if the investigator believes that the
offenders possess supernatural powers. Satanic/occult practitioners have no more power
than any other human beings. Law enforcement officers who believe that the investigation
of these cases puts them in conflict with the supernatural forces of evil should probably
not be assigned to them. The religious beliefs of officers should provide spiritual
strength and support for them but should not affect the objectivity and professionalism of
the investigation.
It is easy to get caught up in these cases and begin to
see "satanism" everywhere. Oversensitization to this perceived threat may cause
an investigator to "see" satanism in a crime when it really is not there
(quasi-satanism). Often the eye sees what the mind perceives. It may also cause an
investigator not to recognize a staged crime scene deliberately seeded with "satanic
clues" in order to mislead the police (pseudo-satanism). On rare occasions an
overzealous investigator or intervenor may even be tempted to plant "evidence of
satanism" in order to corroborate such allegations and beliefs. Supervisors need to
be alert for and monitor these reactions in their investigators.
Listen to the Victims -- It is not the investigator's
duty to believe the victims; it is his or her job to listen and be an objective fact
finder. Interviews of young children should be done by investigators trained and
experienced in such interviews. Investigators must have direct access to the alleged
victims for interview purposes. Therapists for an adult survivor sometimes want to act as
intermediaries in their patient's interview. This should be avoided if at all possible.
Adult survivor interviews are often confusing difficult and extremely time-consuming. The
investigator must remember however that almost anything is possible. Most important the
investigator must remember that there is much middle ground. Just because one event did
happen does not mean that all reported events happened, and just because one event did not
happen does not mean that all other events did not happen. Do not become such a zealot
that you believe it all nor such a cynic that you believe nothing. Varying amounts and
parts of the allegation may be factual. Attempting to find evidence of what did happen is
the great challenge of these cases. All investigative interaction with victims must be
carefully and thoroughly documented.
Assess and Evaluate Victim Statements -- This is the part
of the investigative process in child sexual victimization cases that seems to have been
lost. Is the victim describing events and activities that are consistent with law
enforcement documented criminal behavior, or that are consistent with distorted media
accounts and erroneous public perceptions of criminal behavior? Investigators should apply
the "template of probability." Accounts of child sexual victimization that are
more like books, television, and movies (e.g. big conspiracies, child sex slaves,
organized pornography rings) and less like documented cases should be viewed with
skepticism but thoroughly investigated. Consider and investigate all possible explanations
of events. It is the investigator's job, and the information learned will be invaluable in
counteracting the defense attorneys when they raise the alternative explanations.
For example, an adult survivor's account of ritual
victimization might be explained by any one of at least four possibilities: First, the
allegations may be a fairly accurate account what actually happened. Second, they may be
deliberate lies (malingering), told for the usual reasons people lie (e.g. money, revenge,
jealousy). Third, they may be deliberate lies (factitious disorder) told for atypical
reasons (e.g. attention, forgiveness). Lies so motivated are less likely to be recognized
by the investigator and more likely to be rigidly maintained by the liar unless and until
confronted with irrefutable evidence to the contrary. Fourth, the allegations may be a
highly inaccurate account of what actually happened, but the victim truly believes it
(pseudomemory) and therefore is not lying. A polygraph examination of such a victim would
be of limited value. Other explanations or combinations of these explanations are also
possible. Only thorough investigation will point to the correct or most likely
explanation.
Investigators cannot rely on therapists or satanic crime
experts as a shortcut to the explanation. In one case, the "experts" confirmed
and validated the account of a female who claimed to be a 15-year-old deaf-mute kidnapped
and held for three years by a satanic cult and forced to participate in bizarre rituals
before recently escaping. Active investigation, however, determined she was a 27-year-old
woman who could hear and speak, who had not been kidnapped by anyone, and who had a
lengthy history of mental problems and at least three other similar reports of false
victimization. Her "accurate" accounts of what the "real satanists" do
were simply the result of having read, while in mental hospitals, the same books that the
"experts" had. A therapist may have important insights about whether an
individual was traumatized, but knowing the exact cause of that trauma is another matter.
There have been cases where investigation has discovered that individuals diagnosed by
therapists as suffering from Post-Vietnam Syndrome were never in Vietnam or saw no combat.
Conversely, in another case, a law enforcement
"expert" on satanic crime told a therapist that a patient's accounts of satanic
murders in a rural Pacific Northwest town were probably true because the community was a
hotbed of such satanic activity. When the therapist explained that there was almost no
violent crime reported in the community, the officer explained that that is how you know
it is the satanists. If you knew about the murders or found the bodies, it would not be
satanists. How do you argue with that kind of logic?
The first step in the assessment and evaluation of victim
statements is to determine the disclosure sequence, including how much time has elapsed
since disclosure was first made and the incident was reported to the police or social
services. The longer the delay, the bigger the potential for problems. The next step is to
determine the number and purpose of all priorinterviews of the victim concerning
the allegations. The more interviews conducted before the investigative interview, the
larger the potential for problems. Although there is nothing wrong with admitting
shortcomings and seeking help, law enforcement should never abdicate its control over the
investigative interview. When an investigative interview is conducted by or with a social
worker or therapist using a team approach, law enforcement must direct the process.
Problems can also be created by interviews conducted by various intervenors AFTERthe
investigative interview(s).
The investigator must closely and carefully evaluate
events in the victim's life before, during, and after the alleged abuse. Events to be
evaluated before the alleged abuse include:
- Background of victim.
- Abuse of drugs in home.
- Pornography in home.
- Play, television, and VCR habits.
- Attitudes about sexuality in home.
- Extent of sex education in home.
- Activities of siblings.
- Need or craving for attention.
- Religious beliefs and training.
- Childhood fears.
- Custody/visitation disputes.
- Victimization of or by family members.
- Interaction between victims.
Events to be evaluated during the alleged abuse include:
- Use of fear or scare tactics.
- Degree of trauma.
- Use of magic deception or trickery.
- Use of rituals.
- Use of drugs.
- Use of pornography. Events to be evaluated after the
alleged abuse include:
- Disclosure sequence.
- Background of prior interviewers.
- Background of parents.
- Co-mingling of victims.
- Type of therapy received.
Evaluate Contagion. Consistent statements obtained from
different multiple victims are powerful pieces of corroborative evidence -- that is as
long as those statements were not "contaminated." Investigation must carefully
evaluate both pre- and post-disclosure contagion, and both victim and intervenor
contagion. Are the different victim statements consistent because they describe common
experiences or events, or because they reflect contamination or urban legends?
The sources of potential contagion are widespread.
Victims can communicate with each other both prior to and after their disclosures.
Intervenors can communicate with each other and with victims. The team or cell concepts of
investigation are attempts to deal with potential investigator contagion. All the victims
are not interviewed by the same individuals, and interviewers do not necessarily share
information directly with each other. Teams report to a leader or supervisor who evaluates
the information and decides what other investigators need to know.
Documenting existing contagion and eliminating additional
contagion are crucial to the successful investigation and prosecution of these cases.
There is no way, however, to erase or undo contagion. The best you can hope for is to
identify and evaluate it and attempt to explain it. Mental health professionals requested
to evaluate suspected victims must be carefully selected. Having a victim evaluated by one
of the self-proclaimed experts on satanic ritual abuse or by some other overzealous
intervenor may result in the credibility of that victim's testimony being severely
damaged.
In order to evaluate the contagion element, investigators
must meticulously and aggressively investigate these cases. The precise disclosure
sequence of the victim must be carefully identified and documented. Investigators must
verify through active investigation the exact nature and content of each disclosure outcry
or statement made by the victim. Second-hand information about disclosure is not good
enough.
Whenever possible, personal visits should be made to all
locations of alleged abuse and the victim's homes. Events prior to the alleged abuse must
be carefully evaluated. Investigators may have to view television programs, films, and
videotapes seen by the victims. It may be necessary to conduct a background investigation
and evaluation of everyone, both professional and nonprofessional, who interviewed the
victims about the allegations prior to and after the investigative interview(s).
Investigators must be familiar with the information about ritual abuse of children being
disseminated in magazines, books, television programs, videotapes, and conferences. Every
possible way that a victim could have learned about the details of the abuse must be
explored if for no other reason than to eliminate them and counter the defense's
arguments. There may, however, be validity to these contagion factors. They may
explain some of the "unbelievable" aspects of the case and result in the
successful prosecution of the substance of the case. Consistency of statements
becomes more significant if contagion is identified or disproved by independent
investigation. The easier cases are the ones where there is a single, identifiable source
of contagion. Most cases, however, seem to involve multiple contagion factors.
Munchausen Syndrome and Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy are
complex and controversial issues in these cases. No attempt will be made to discuss them
in detail, but they are documented facts (Rosenberg, 1987). Most of the literature about
them focuses on their manifestation in the medical setting as false or self-inflicted
illness or injury. They are also manifested in the criminal justice setting as false or
self-inflicted crime victimization. If parents would poison their children to prove an
illness, they might sexually abuse their children to prove a crime. "Victims"
have been known to destroy property, manufacture evidence, and mutilate themselves in
order to convince others of their victimization. The motivation is psychological gain
(i.e. attention, forgiveness, etc.) and not necessarily money, jealousy, or revenge. These
are the unpopular, but documented, realities of the world. Recognizing their existence
does not mean that child sexual abuse and sexual assault are not real and serious
problems.
Establish Communication with Parents. The importance and
difficulty of this technique in extrafamilial cases involving young children cannot be
overemphasized. An investigator must maintain ongoing communication with the parents of
victims in these abuse cases. Not all parents react the same way to the alleged abuse of
their children. Some are very supportive and cooperative. Others overreact and some even
deny the victimization. Sometimes there is animosity and mistrust among parents with
different reactions. Once the parents lose faith in the police or prosecutor and begin to
interrogate their own children and conduct their own investigation, the case may be lost
forever. Parents from one case communicate the results of their "investigation"
with each other, and some have even contacted the parents in other cases. Such parental
activity is an obvious source of potential contamination.
Parents must be made to understand that their children's
credibility will be jeopardized when and if the information obtained turns out to be
unsubstantiated or false. To minimize this problem, within the limits of the law and
without jeopardizing investigative techniques, parents must be told on a regular basis how
the case is progressing. Parents can also be assigned constructive things to do (e.g.
lobbying for new legislation, working on awareness and prevention programs) in order to
channel their energy, concern, and "guilt."
Develop a Contingency Plan. If a department waits until
actually confronted with a case before a response is developed, it may be too late. In
cases involving ongoing abuse of children, departments must respond quickly, and this
requires advanced planning. There are added problems for small- to medium-sized
departments with limited personnel and resources. Effective investigation of these cases
requires planning, identification of resources, and, in many cases, mutual aid agreements
between agencies. The U.S. Department of Defense has conducted specialized training and
has developed such a plan for child sex ring cases involving military facilities and
personnel.
Once a case is contaminated and out of control, I have
little advice on how to salvage what may once have been a prosecutable criminal violation.
A few of these cases have even been lost on appeal after a conviction because of
contamination problems.
Multidisciplinary Task Forces. Sergeant Beth Dickinson,
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, was the chairperson of the Multi-Victim,
Multi-Suspect Child Sexual Abuse Subcommittee. Sergeant Dickinson states (personal
communication, Nov. 1989):
One of the biggest obstacles for investigators to
overcome is the reluctance of law enforcement administrators to commit sufficient
resources early on to an investigation that has the potential to be a multidimensional
child sex ring. It is important to get in and get on top of the investigation in a timely
manner -- to get it investigated in a timely manner in order to assess the risk to
children and to avoid hysteria, media sensationalism, and cross-contamination of
information. The team approach reduces stress on individual investigators, allowing for
peer support and minimizing feelings of being overwhelmed.
The team approach and working together does not mean,
however, that each discipline forgets its role and starts doing the other's job.
Summary. The investigation of child sex rings can be
difficult and time consuming. The likelihood, however, of a great deal of corroborative
evidence in a multivictim/multioffender case increases the chances of a successful
prosecution if the crime occurred. Because there is still so much we do not know or
understand about the dynamics of multidimensional child sex rings, investigative
techniques are less certain. Each new case must be carefully evaluated in order to improve
investigative procedures.
Because mental health professionals seem to be unable to
determine, with any degree of certainty, the accuracy of victim statements in these cases,
law enforcement must proceed using the corroboration process. If some of what the victim
describes is accurate, some misperceived, some distorted, and some contaminated, what is
the jury supposed to believe? Until mental health professionals can come up with better
answers, the jury should be asked to believe what the investigation can corroborate. Even
if only a portion of what these victims allege is factual, that may still constitute
significant criminal activity.
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There are many possible alternative answers to the
question of why victims are alleging things that don't seem to be true. The first step in
finding those answers is to admit the possibility that some of what the victims describe
may not have happened. Some experts seem unwilling to even consider this. Most of these
victims are also probably not lying and have come to believe that which they are alleging
actually happened. There are alternative explanations for why people who never met each
other can tell the same story.
I believe that there is a middle ground -- a continuum of
possible activity. Some of what the victims allege may be true and accurate, some may be
misperceived or distorted, some may be screened or symbolic, and some may be
"contaminated" or false. The problem and challenge, especially for law
enforcement, is to determine which is which. This can only be done through active
investigation. I believe that the majority of victims alleging "ritual" abuse
are in fact victims of some form of abuse or trauma. That abuse or trauma may or may not
be criminal in nature. After a lengthy discussion about various alternative explanations
and the continuum of possible activity, one mother told me that for the first time since
the victimization of her young son she felt a little better. She had thought her only
choices were that either her son was a pathological liar or, on the other hand, she lived
in a community controlled by satanists.
Law enforcement has the obvious problem of attempting to
determine what actually happened for criminal justice purposes. Therapists, however, might
also be interested in what really happened in order to properly evaluate and treat their
patients. How and when to confront patients with skepticism is a difficult and sensitive
problem for therapists.
Any professional evaluating victims' allegations of
"ritual" abuse cannot ignore or routinely dismiss the lack of physical evidence
(no bodies or physical evidence left by violent murders); the difficulty in successfully
committing a large-scale conspiracy crime (the more people involved in any crime
conspiracy, the harder it is to get away with it); and human nature (intragroup conflicts
resulting in individual self-serving disclosures are likely to occur in any group involved
in organized kidnapping, baby breeding, and human sacrifice). If and when members of a
destructive cult commit murders, they are bound to make mistakes, leave evidence, and
eventually make admissions in order to brag about their crimes or to reduce their legal
liability. The discovery of the murders in Matamoros, Mexico in 1989 and the results of
the subsequent investigation are good examples of these dynamics.
Overzealous intervenors must accept the fact that some of
their well-intentioned activity is contaminating and damaging the prosecutive potential of
the cases where criminal acts did occur. We must all (i.e., the media, churches,
therapists, victim advocates, law enforcement, and the general public) ask ourselves if we
have created an environment where victims are rewarded, listened to, comforted, and
forgiven in direct proportion to the severity of their abuse. Are we encouraging needy or
traumatized individuals to tell more and more outrageous tales of their victimization? Are
we making up for centuries of denial by now blindly accepting any allegation of child
abuse no matter how absurd or unlikely? Are we increasing the likelihood that rebellious,
antisocial, or attention-seeking individuals will gravitate toward "satanism" by
publicizing it and overreacting to it? The overreaction to the problem can be worse than
the problem.
The amount of "ritual" child abuse going on in
this country depends on how you define the term. One documented example of what I might
call "ritual" child abuse was the horror chronicled in the book A Death in
White Bear Lake (Siegal, 1990). The abuse in this case, however, had little to do with
anyone's spiritual belief system. There are many children in the United States who,
starting early in their lives, are severely psychologically, physically, and sexually
traumatized by angry, sadistic parents or other adults. Such abuse, however, is not
perpetrated only or primarily by satanists. The statistical odds are that such abusers are
members of mainstream religions. If 99.9% of satanists and 0.1% of Christians abuse
children as part of their spiritual belief system, that still means that the vast majority
of children so abused were abused by Christians.
Until hard evidence is obtained and corroborated, the
public should not be frightened into believing that babies are being bred and eaten, that
50,000 missing children are being murdered in human sacrifices, or that satanists are
taking over America's day care centers or institutions. No one can prove with absolute
certainty that such activity has not occurred. The burden of proof, however, as it would
be in a criminal prosecution, is on those who claim that it has occurred. The explanation
that the satanists are too organized and law enforcement is too incompetent only goes so
far in explaining the lack of evidence. For at least eight years American law enforcement
has been aggressively investigating the allegations of victims of ritual abuse. There is
little or no evidence for the portion of their allegations that deals with large-scale
baby breeding, human sacrifice, and organized satanic conspiracies. Now it is up to mental
health professionals, not law enforcement, to explain why victims are alleging things that
don't seem to have happened. Professionals in this field must accept the fact that there
is still much we do not know about the sexual victimization of children, and that this
area desperately needs study and research by rational, objective social scientists.
If the guilty are to be successfully prosecuted, if the
innocent are to be exonerated, and if the victims are to be protected and treated, better
methods to evaluate and explain allegations of "ritual" child abuse must be
developed or identified. Until this is done, the controversy will continue to cast a
shadow over and fuel the backlash against the validity and reality of child sexual abuse.
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- American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd Ed., Rev.). Washington, DC: 1987.
- Breiner, S.J., Slaughter of the Innocents: Child Abuse
Through the Ages and Today. New York: Plenum Press, 1990.
- Brown, R., Prepare for War. Chino, CA: Chick
Publications, 1987.
- Brunvand, J.H., The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York:
Norton, 1981.
- Harrington, Walt, The Devil in Anton LaVey.
Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Magazine, February 23, 1986, pages #6-17.
- Lanning, K.V., Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis
(2nd Ed.). Washington, D.C.: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1987.
- Lanning, K.V. (1989). Child sex rings: A behavioral
analysis. Washington, DC: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
- LaVey, Anton, The Satanic Bible. New York: Avon
Books, 1969.
- Mayer, R.S., Satan's Children. New York: Putnam,
1991.
- Michigan Department of State Police, Occult Survey.
East Lansing, Michigan, 1990.
- National Coalition on Television Violence (NCTV) News,
June-October 1988, page #3.
- National Incidence Studies on Missing, Abducted,
Runaway, and Thrownaway Children in America. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of
Justice, 1990.
- Prattanis, A., Hidden messages, Wellness
Letter. Berkeley, California: University of California, January 1991, pages #1-2.
- Rosenberg, D.A., Web of Deceit: A Literature Review of
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, Child Abuse and Neglect #2, 1987, pages
#547-563.
- Rush, E., The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of
Children. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
- Smith, M., & Pazder, L., Michelle Remembers.
New York: Congdon and Lattis, 1980.
- Siegal, B., A Death in White Bear Lake. New York:
Bantam, 1990.
- Stranger-Abduction Homicides of Children, Juvenile
Justice Bulletin. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Department of Justice, 1989.
- Stratford. L., Satan's Underground. Eugene, Oregon:
Harvest House, 1988.
- Terr, L., Too Scared to Cry. New York: Harper &
Row, 1990.
- Timnik, L., "The Times Poll", Los Angeles
Times, August 25-26, 1985.
- Virginia Crime Commission Task Force, Final Report of
the Task Force Studying Ritual Crime. Richmond, Virginia.
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1) Cooper, John Charles, The Black Mask: Satanism in
America Today. Old Tappen, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1990.
Probably the best of the large number of books available
primarily in Christian bookstores and written from the Christian perspective. This one,
however, is written without the hysteria and sensationalism of most. Recommended for
investigators who want information from this perspective.
2) Hicks, Robert D., In Pursuit of Satan: The Police
and the Occult. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991.
Undoubtedly the best book written to date on the topic of
satanism and the occult from the law enforcement perspective. Robert D. Hicks is a former
police officer who is currently employed as a criminal justice analyst for the state of
Virginia. Must reading for any criminal justice professional involved in this issue.
Unfortunately, in the chapter on "Satanic Abuse of Children", the author appears
to have been overly influenced by extreme skeptics with minimal or questionable
credentials in this area. The book is easy to read, logical, and highly recommended.
3) Richardson, James T.; Best, Joel; & Bromley, David
G.; Eds, The Satanism Scare. NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991.
The best book now available on the current controversy
over satanism written from the academic perspective, The editors and many of the chapter
authors are college professors and have written an objective, well-researched book. One of
the great strengths of this book is the fact that the editors address a variety of the
controversial issues from a variety of disciplines (i.e., sociology, history, folklore,
anthropology, criminal justice). Because of its academic perspective it is sometimes
harder to read but is well worth the effort. The chapter on "Law Enforcement and the
Satanic Crime Connection" contains the results of a survey of "Cult Cops"
and is must reading for law enforcement officers. The chapter on "Satanism and Child
Molestation: Constructing the Ritual Abuse Scare" was written, however, by a
free-lance journalist who seems to take the position that these cases involve little or no
real child abuse.
4) Terr, Lenore, Too Scared to Cry: Psychic Trauma in
Childhood. New York: Harper and Row, 1990.
An excellent book written by a psychiatrist that provides
important insights into the nature and recallability of early psychic trauma. For me, Dr.
Terr's research and findings in the infamous Chowchilla kidnapping case shed considerable
light on the "ritual" abuse controversy.
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IMPORTANT - READ BELOW