Satanic Ritual Abuse: A Warning Against Mass Delusion.

Do you have vague childhood memories of drinking blood and eating human flesh? What about shadowy cloaked figures performing ritualistic sacrifices in abandoned woods and isolated cemetaries? Do you remember being forced to perform unspeakable sexual acts? If so, then you may be a victim of the most prominent 1980's anti-cult craze- the hype surrounding "Satanic Ritual Abuse".

In 1980, Michelle Remembers was unleashed on an excitable and insecure American citizenry. This book told the story of an adult woman who, through the assistance of a therapist, recovered a harrowing array of repressed memories from her childhood. Along with some of the experiences listed above, the patient recalled being forced to watch a masked man cut up a human cadaver and sew it back together into a monstrosity. The quality of her recollections were so ludicrous that it is amazing that her tale blossomed into a full-blown national panic.

Thousands of similar cases of repressed memories began to pop up across the nation. One notable case involved the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, CA. Teachers there were accused of sexually abusing hundreds of children over a period of years. These crimes were said to have taken place in ritualistic, often foreboding settings. Claims of abuse got more and more extreme and unlikely, as if in competition to trump one another. People were charged with crimes in many of the cases, even where little physical or corroborating evidence existed. Therapists, district attorneys, police investigators, social workers, and parents all got into the act, encouraging children to relate the horrible realities from their pasts. Of course the media picked up and disseminated these stories, conspiring to spread the hysteria until the phenomena reached the status of mass delusion.

Years after the accused were convicted based upon the testimony of these children and their therapists, "Satanic Ritual Abuse" was discovered to be a hoax. One study investigated 12,000 cases, and found not a single confirmation of abuse. The purported victims, now grown into adulthood, admitted to lying about their experiences. The practice of recovering "repressed memories" was discovered to be driven by suggestive and leading questions. Children had actually been subtly rewarded for agreeing to the fantasies of the therapists and prosecutors. The mental health practitioners involved were chastised, but this did nothing to mediate the sufferings of the wrongfully accused. Their lives had been needlessly affected by these falsehoods. They were the true victims of "Satanic Ritual Abuse".

Of course, this entire phenomenon was not entirely unprecedented. The Salem Witch Trials is the archetypal example of the depths of paranoia and ignorance Americans have been capable of. Yet the SRA debacle happened not in a time of Victorian or medieval superstition, but in the modern era. Even with advances in the study of human behavior and pathology, our citizenry and media are not so sophisticated as to be able to avoid engaging in false persecutions. Why is that?

Do conventional and mainstream religions preach the decline of our society to the extent that our reality can be artificially constructed? It appears so. Not only are alternative viewpoints discouraged, but they are twisted into monstrous distortions capable of destroying our entire culture, and our children. Fundamentalist ideology contributes to a climate of misunderstanding and intolerance. Sometimes these conditions spiral into circumstances that destroy the lives of the innocent. In retrospect, society learns that the dangers it feared were overblown and sometimes even nonexistent. The belief in the reality of these fears is often encouraged by groups seeking to promote a particular political or moral agenda. We should remain vigilant and incorporate a healthy skepticism when we hear stories of widespread deviance or talk of "evil".

When we entrench ourselves in a bunker mentality, whether through religion or politics, we risk the propagation of myths and misunderstanding. When we identify ouselves in some "us vs. them" dichotomy, we endanger everyone with self-fulfilling prophecy. This is when the greatest danger threatens us all- when we manufacture victims through our beliefs.



Additional Note: I have now finished Mystics and Messiahs- Philip Jenkin's excellent survey of the history of cults in the United States. If you are at all interested in this subject, then this is an appropriate place to begin your explorations. An account of the SRA craze is included in the book. His approach is even-handed and remarkably nonjudgemental. The wealth of historical data is astonishing, and his analysis of the cyclical trends of cult and anti-cult activity is enlightening.