Ritual abuse findings in survey of AFMA

[professorpan]

PW, I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was questioning your experiences, that's all. <br><br>I think that the acceptance of the reality of hysteria -- and its consequences -- can help us ferret out the real cases and discard the bogus. <p></p><i></i>

[biaothanatoi]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The acceptance of the hysteria idea serves as a prop for denial in general.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br><br>PW - agreed, and I also think your call for rigour here is important.<br><br>PP, you are making very complex truth claims that you can't support. All of your sources have a URL and you are regurgitating stock phrases and pseudo-logic from very questionable sources. This leads me to believe that you have not undertaken rigourous (eg offline as well as online, academic rather then free pop-BS) research.<br><br>Moreover, you are treating an abstract concept - "hysteria" - as if it has concrete or material existence - and it does not. "Mass hysteria" is a theory, not a "documented reality". That theory is highly contested and requires big leaps of faith.<br><br>We defend ourselves against trauma and horror in very primal ways. We erect all sorts of barriers against knowledge that endangers our worldview. When it comes to RA, the "mass hysteria" theory is a denial mechanism for people that can't handle the truth - people who have no real proximity to the crime, and so they can exercise the luxury of disbelief. <p></p><i></i>

[mother]

Hysteria= wandering womb <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

In all fairness, I will have to say that I do know of people, mainly in small-town law enforcement, who bought into the satanic frenzy in the late eighties, although not with regards to sex abuse. One city police chief automatically labled all kids who wore black as satanists, went around the area giving speeches, implying that these satanists were behind the nastier crime in the area. And there were kids around who engaged in some of the rituals, but more in response to this cop than anything else, I suspect. He also liked to wear "cop accessories", this little guy, was absolutely loaded with them, and it all clinked when he walked. I wouldn't call it "panic" or hysteria, though, but more like a fad. <p></p><i></i>

[biaothanatoi]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>In all fairness, I will have to say that I do know of people, mainly in small-town law enforcement, who bought into the satanic frenzy in the late eighties, although not with regards to sex abuse.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br><br>Sure - you certainly see a spike in concern about "Satanism" in the 80s in the States, and it took some weird forms (eg inquiries into rock lyrics, concern about role playing games, etc). <br><br>But PP wants us to believe in that there is "mass hysteria" about ritual abuse, and he tries to support this by pointing to two dozen books and a few annual conferences. In a country with almost 300 million citiziens, that just doesn't add up to "hysteria". <br><br>And the way that Americans bracket the debate on RA to America is concerning as well. I keep having to listen to the same endless truisms about how RA was "created" by Christian fundamentalists, Geraldo Rivera and Michelle Remembers ... when they have no traction in Australia or Europe, but we still have ritual abuse allegations. <br><br>American "skeptics" smirk endlessly about the collapse of McMartin, etc, whilst not only ignoring those RA cases that were successfully prosecuted in their own country (and the details of those are horrific) ... they are blithely unaware that the exposure (and attempted cover-up) of a national ritual abuse network almost took down the government of Belgium. <br><br>Or that the United Nations has identified ritual abuse as a research priority due to reports of the involvement of voodoo cults in the trafficking of children and women from Western Africa. <br><br>Once you start looking at this phenomenon globally, you see things like the non-Engish-speaking 12-year-old Nigerian prostitute in London who refuses to cooperate with authorities because she believes she is ritually bonded to a voodoun diety who will destroy her and her family if she does not obey her traffickers ... <br><br>... the Australian daycare centre shut down by the Department of Human Services in 1994 after their investigators concluded that the owners of the centre had been prostituting the children out during working hours, and the children corroborated one anothers disclosures of ritualistic abuse ... the police refused to press charges against the daycare operators although they were instructed to do so by the DPP ... and were forced to reopen the case in 2004 following a damning report by the Police Ombudsman ... <br><br>... or the former Belgium child prostitute who was able to lead investigators to the body of a murdered child prostitute who disappeared fifteen years ago ... who spoke of her coerced involvement in Satanic ceremonies designed to terrify the "new girls" ... <br><br>Somehow, Geraldo Rivera, Lauren Statford, and PP's "satanic panic" just don't seem to cover it, do they? <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

The professor makes a pretty big jump from cases being later dismissed to assuming that the the dismissal has to prove that the facts underpinning the case were totally false. I keep saying this over and over again: all it proves is that the investigations were most likely of poor quality. Once investigations are screwed up, they can never be unscrewed, but NOTHING can ever be concluded from the dismissals, not one way or the other.<br><br>You also can't put too much weight on recantations. I think there is an assumption that all children who are sexually abused by family members must hate and despise their perpetrators. This is not true, at least not usually, in cases where the perpetrator is a family member. These children still love their parents and other family members, and the need to be with these people can overwhelm their survival instincts and memories, even into adulthood. Also,I've seen many cases where the mother was the reporter of the abuse, and also the recanter when she realizes that she has just lost the only income her family has ever known. Which is another reason why investigators must get the job done and done well at the very beginning and on videotape. Those videotaped records are incredible, hard to dispute. Of course, the interviewer and other involved professionals must not put words into the children's mouths, and the investigator must also assess whether they believe that anyone else has done so before the report has been made. Those are just good investigating skills. But the communication of information in these interviews is all so much more than just words and details, they also include body language to back up verbal language, information that provides the most innocuous-seeming details on which search warrents can be based, and information that the investigators/social workers are using to assess developmental age and cognitive skills, all in one interview, right as they interviewing, many times, to just name a few. <br><br>Sorry professor, but I believe you are making assumptions and drawing conclusions on too little information, employing leaps of faith, not rigorous reasoning. You might be right on some of them and wrong on some of them, but we will never know. <p></p><i></i>

[professorpan]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>But PP wants us to believe in that there is "mass hysteria" about ritual abuse, and he tries to support this by pointing to two dozen books and a few annual conferences. In a country with almost 300 million citiziens, that just doesn't add up to "hysteria<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>You apparently weren't paying attention in the 80s and 90s, amigo. Tales of ritual abuse were everywhere -- in lurid TV specials (Geraldo's was the most influential), books, magazines, talk shows, and in churches across the U.S. The hysteria was *very* apparent, even to someone like myself who didn't pay too much attention to the subject at the time. <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Somehow, Geraldo Rivera, Lauren Statford, and PP's "satanic panic" just don't seem to cover it, do they?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Of course not, nor did I ever say anything of the sort. But it's quite clear that the belief in widespread RA led to false prosecutions based on groundless accusations. Anyone who denies that is not operating in the reality-based world.<br><br>Similarly, those who deny the reality of RA are also blind to the facts. The Belgium/Dutroux case, in particular, was compelling and grounded in fact. The Hosanna Church case I've been following is another example that seems to be backed up by evidence (though we'll see what we learn during the trail -- I haven't come to any firm conclusions).<br><br>I can't understand why some people insist on either/or explanations. Either all RA is real, and there is no such thing as public hysteria, or none of it is real, and it can all be explained by hysteria. Both exemplify poor critical thinking.<br> <p></p><i></i>

[professorpan]

Chigger,<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The professor makes a pretty big jump from cases being later dismissed to assuming that the the dismissal has to prove that the facts underpinning the case were totally false. I keep saying this over and over again: all it proves is that the investigations were most likely of poor quality. Once investigations are screwed up, they can never be unscrewed, but NOTHING can ever be concluded from the dismissals, not one way or the other.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>If you take time to study the cases, and read transcripts, and so forth, it becomes quite clear that many of the big RA cases were groundless. I'm not making a big jump of any kind -- saying "the investigations were most likely of poor quality" is making a big jump. <br><br>Again, I encourage everyone to do the investigating for themselves. <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Sorry professor, but I believe you are making assumptions and drawing conclusions on too little information, employing leaps of faith, not rigorous reasoning. You might be right on some of them and wrong on some of them, but we will never know.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Bullshit. Too little information? How much of the primary material have you read? <br><br>And you're also falling into a trap by saying "we will never know." That's a poor excuse. We can analyze each case to the best of our ability and come to a conclusion. I'm not inclined to just give up. <p></p><i></i>

[Dreams End]

Two words: Cathy O'Brian.<br><br>One could add others, such as Springmeier. And maybe the lesser known Wernke (the preacher who "confessed" to his role as a Satanic high priest.)<br><br>I say this as one who just recently made sure my wife's therapist would NOT dismiss any RA material that came up. She assured me that she's seen plenty such cases. She found them very convincing but I know her well enough to know that she is extremely scrupulous about NOT introducing any leading questions, even about "ordinary" abuse.<br><br>We'll probably get more insight soon as Debbie is finally starting to let the memories comes. It's complicated as the first revelation so far had no specific content, just a message from Sara, the girl with no mouth, that the father was an abuser. But more will come.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[professorpan]

duplicate post deleted. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=professorpan>professorpan</A> at: 5/5/06 4:33 pm<br></i>

[professorpan]

Sorry, I missed this post from biao earlier:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>PP, you are making very complex truth claims that you can't support. All of your sources have a URL and you are regurgitating stock phrases and pseudo-logic from very questionable sources. This leads me to believe that you have not undertaken rigourous (eg offline as well as online, academic rather then free pop-BS) research.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Bullshit. I quoted primary material. What are you offering, other than your opinions? I've done plenty of research, thank you very much, not just "free pop-BS." I can easily support my claims, and I have, with examples. Yet you refuse to believe people who have recanted their claims of abuse (they're all still mind-controlled, I suppose), refuse to accept that any RA cases are products of out-of-control fear (there's no such thing as mobs of people getting caught up in fallacies), and refuse to acknowledge the body of research that shows children can be led to confabulate by poor interviewing techniques (alll the research is suspect and worthless). <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Moreover, you are treating an abstract concept - "hysteria" - as if it has concrete or material existence - and it does not. "Mass hysteria" is a theory, not a "documented reality". That theory is highly contested and requires big leaps of faith.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Give me a break. Large groups of people believe in crazy ideas and act on them all the time. From the classic example of the Salem Witch trials to freaked out honkies burning Beatles records to the razor-blades-in-Halloween-candy scare to the Red Scare of the 50s the "let's kill Saddam for 9/11" mentality that overtook the U.S. public -- it's a very real phenomenon -- certainly not "highly contested."<br><br>Like mother, I don't like the word "hysteria" because of its misogynistic history. But it is the term that has stuck. Moral panic is a better, less loaded term.<br><br>You continue to accuse me of lax research and regurgitating stock phrases -- but you ignore the evidence I present (or just dismiss it) and offer your own stock phrases and anecdotal evidence. Show me, if you can, the evidence that the exonerated and those who have recanted their testimony are liars. I don't think you can. Your argument rests on belief and not on evidence.<br><br>Once more (sigh) I feel the need to assert that I am not denying the existence of RA, just that specific cases (including many of the most famous) were modern witchhunts. <br><br>I have one question I'd like you to answer, biao:<br><br>Are you willing to consider the possibility that someone, somewhere, as been wrongly convicted of RA? Or are you convinced that is an absolute impossibility? <p></p><i></i>

[blanc]

with apologies for chipping in late.<br>I have a real problem with your phrase 'conferences for believers' PP<br>what is a believer (in the context of sra or ra) and what conferences, specifically, were 'for' believers?<br>the idea implicit in this remark is that thinking sra exists is a matter of belief, like thinking God exists.<br><br>It would be a foolish person who was prepared to maintain categorically that any possible human behaviour variant, or profitable criminal activity does not exist. using the terminology of 'belief' is a deliberate strategy to block investigation, and this runs counter to your stated aims of examining rigorously the evidence.<br><br><br>I was at a conf which was attended by people of different experiences and opinions, presentations being given by people with experience of dealing with the crimes lumped under the ra heading and the aftermath of those crimes, ie police, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, sociologists. I distinctly heard a member of the audience, from the civil service, making debunking derisory remarks in response to one part of one presentation. he would probably have felt as insulted as i do at the implication that he was there because he was a 'believer'.<br><br>The cases which you cite, and the experiences you refer to as hysteria in the USA, I am not very familiar with (apart from one.) But I concur with Chitterb. that poor initial police investigation is an extremely good way of fudging evidence, and destroying a legal case, but not necessarily successful in destroying the case from the point of view of other investigators.<br><br>Direct experience of interviewing survivors whose police complaints have been smothered is necessary if one wants to know what is and does go on. I would further think that where possible, those interviews should have follow up investigations. <br><br>There may be wrongly convicted innocents, I can't express an opinion on that because I haven't examined cases where that has appeared to have happened. But the number of cases you cite is a very very small sample of all allegations of sra/ra, and most of these allegations are smothered, at least in the UK. <p></p><i></i>

[mother]

people are unfortunatly wrongly convicted of all sorts of crimes. This does not mean that it is hysterical to persue justice. The problem that many people have an issue with the satanic ritual aspect, and continue to conjure up Salem, Mass over and over. Especially good milage in the US for Salem. People set others up and try to make innocent parties pay for their crimes all day, every day. That's basic to the criminal mind. Sadly, innocent people pay the price for other people's murders, and people lie. The term "satanic Panic" is a media construct, a neurolinguistic jab to ridicule serious study of these organised crimes. It gives comfort to those who believe that there is no such thing as satanism. Nobody sitting at a computer can prove that a) Satan exists b) that some groups of people feed off the energy of destroying innocence. And there's the dismissal of a certain intellectual type to stereotype those who are educated in theology with Jerry Fallwell stump preacher hillbilly snakehandlers. The elite criminals use every advantage, flattering the sense of intellectual superiority many smart people secretly nourish. Also, I mixed up Paul Shandly with Goegen who got what he deserved in prison. <p></p><i></i>