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                         NONE DARE CALL IT REASON: 

                      Kids, Cults, and Common Sense 







       Robert Hicks/Law Enforcement Section Department of Criminal 

      Justice Services 805 E. Broad Street Richmond, Virginia 232l9 

                              804-786-8421 





      Talk prepared for the Virginia Department for Children's l2th 

     Annual Legislative Forum, Roanoke, Virginia, September 22, 1989 





     In an article on satanic cults in Family Violence Bulletin published 

by the University of Texas at Tyler,  Dr. Paula Lundberg-Love writes of a 

seminar she attended entitled "Ritualistic Child Abuse and Adolescent 

Indoctrination."  Quoting the seminar instructor, who is president of the 

Cult Awareness Council in Houston, Lundberg-Love writes that "some satanic 

cults are created for the expressed purposes of child prostitution or the 

production of child pornography" and that "'religion' has proved to be a 

good 'front' for organized child prostitution and pornography rings."  

Perhaps more damning as a reflection on our collective impotence, she 

points out that "in many states, ritualistic behavior is not against the 

law" (l989: 9).



     In recounting the amazing and startling facts she learned, Lundberg-

Love offers the following insight about how satanists ply their trade:



     There are also individuals within the cult to whom

     particular tasks are assigned.  Transporters are the

     people who take babies and ship them out-of-state.

     Spotters have the task of looking for recruits or 

     objects.  Breeders are, as their name implies, used

     for the purposes of breeding.  The production of

     'snuff' films (films in which an individual is

     actually killed) is associated with these persons.

     [The seminar instructor] suggested that juveniles

     may be being used to transport these films across

     the border.  (Ibid.)



     I can only admire Houston's Cult Awareness Council for their shrewd 

investigative work in uncovering the clandestine mechanics of a satanic 

international conspiracy so slick and sophisticated that its members remain 

faceless, having never been identified, and its murderous activities remain 

covert because the satanists leave no traces of their nefarious 

undertakings.  Yet the Cult Awareness Council has produced a model of the 

cult's activities that is specific and detailed.  But, of course, we have 

no evidence of satanic child prostitution, no evidence that women breed 

babies for sacrifice, no one has ever found a snuff film.  But Lundberg-

Love's article has credibility:  the article's author is the associate 

director of the Family Violence Research and Treatment Program at the 

University of Texas, Tyler.



     I suggest that Houston's Cult Awareness Council, intentionally or 

perhaps, worse, unwittingly, has become a conduit for a farrago of half-

truths, unsupported generalizations, vague musings, hysteria, and downright 

ignorance fostered in part by Fundamentalist Christian groups with the 

willing collusion of police and the so-called helping professions.  

Lundberg-Love, by reiterating satanic nonsense to other professionals, has 

shown irresponsibility stirred by an inability to think critically.  Or 

drop the "critically":  an inability to think underlies claims about women 

who breed babies for satanic sacrifices, about children forced to witness 

human sacrifice in daycare centers, about teenagers transformed into 

zombies by playing Dungeons and Dragons.



     More insidious from my point of view is her observation that satanic 

cults operate under the guise of religion and thus deserve First Amendment 

protection, therefore precluding legal retaliation against these evildoers. 

This observation begs the question of necessity.  In times of stress, 

people seek to proscribe or criminalize behavior that they imagine 

threatens the larger public good.  We must curtail civil liberties, for 

awhile, some say, because of an immediate necessity to do so.  Threats of 

immanent harm from our enemies necessitate an abrogation of certain rights.  

Illicit drug use has reached such epidemic proportions that we must of 

necessity unlock closed doors in the Fourth Amendment to allow police to 

conduct intrusive searches otherwise prohibited by the Constitution.  We 

must of necessity allow the government more power to protect us from 

outsiders.  Satanism presents such a threat to us that we necessarily  must 

ban certain forms of rock music to protect our children, remove books on 

witchcraft and the occult from school libraries, confiscate Dungeons and 

Dragons books on school property.



     I maintain that although satanic or occult symbols seem to be enjoying 

popularity today among teens, their presence does not betoken a lost kid, 

one in satan's thrall.  Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell has observed, 

"Rooted in adolescent resentment of authority, [kids use] the terms and 

symbols of the occult to express cultural rebellion rather than personal 

belief" (l986: 257).  If today you came to hear lurid tales of children 

participating in pornographic movies produced by satan's film unit or of 

demons nabbing teenagers while playing Dungeons and Dragons and forced to 

kill their families, I'm going to disappoint you.  Most of you not only 

work with children in the capacities of educators, therapists, law 

enforcers, but you also assume the role of advocates for children's 

welfare.  I ask you not to relinquish any of those roles but I do ask that 

you not relinquish your critical faculties, as Lundberg-Love has done, 

whenever you hear the words "ritualisic," "satanic," "occult," or "cult."



     Do not dissolve your gray matter and willingly adopt as immutable 

truths such ideas as:  children never lie about sexual abuse; teenagers who 

are Girl or Boy Scouts, members of a church, or good students cannot do 

nasty things, or if they do, someone or something made them do it.  Or that 

teens have so little free will that lurking satanists will deceive them 

into attending sex and drug parties and thereby swear them in as card-

carrying minions of The Evil One.  Or that teens have so little judgment 

where fantasy is concerned that we must absolutely control all that they 

read and hear.



     In particular, question glib assertions made at cult awareness 

seminars.  Analyze the cause-effect relationships foisted on you.  Question 

cult experts' credentials.  As for law enforcers, you will find that most 

police cult experts derive their expertise from attending other cult 

seminars.  I recently spoke opposite a State Police officer who gave a 

slide program on satanism but admitted that he had never investigated a 

putative cult crime; his work, rather, involved accounting.  You could have 

invited another speaker here today, one who purports that teens are in 

great danger of satanic or occult influence and that, in particular, 

Dungeons and Dragons damages kids' psyches.  Patricia A. Pulling, though, 

who heads Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons (BADD), has no clinical 

background, though parents frequently haul their misbehaving children 

before her for an analysis of their satanic proclivities.  She recently 

represented herself at a Virginia cult seminar as being "a private 

investigator with the state of Virginia" and noted that she had received 

"innumerable degrees and awards."  As far as I know, her innumerable 

degrees extend to an AA from J. Sargent Reynolds Community College, 

Richmond, but the private investigator business implies some association 

with state government.  In truth, she holds a state license to be a private 

investigator, a pursuit requiring one week of classroom training.  Period.

But beyond what she says, the publisher of her recent book, The 

Devil's Web, refers to her as "a police detective."  Such wishful 

thinking smacks of dishonesty.



     Yet popular speakers like Pat Pulling assert that 95 to l50 kids have 

committed suicide related to playing Dungeons and Dragons.  People at her 

seminars nod sagely and gasp in astonishment that our government allows 

such a game to exist.  What is her proof of this assertion?  In her 

booklet, Dungeons and Dragons, she offers a series of newspaper clippings 

to prove her point.  In one, with no source cited, an Arlington, Texas, boy 

killed himself with a shotgun in front of his drama class.  The first 

paragraph of the article notes that the boy "was a devotee of the fantasy 

game Dungeons and Dragons and had a lead role in this weekend's school 

play," an odd parallel comment, perhaps.  An observation occurs further on 

in the article that the boy enjoyed the game.  But where is the causal 

relationship?  The article quotes the boys' friends as commenting on his 

character, but no one quoted even links the game to the death.  Yet this 

article, for all its superficiality, counts as a statistical fatality (BADD 

n.d.).  And no one challenges this assertion at Pulling's seminars.



     In The Devil's Web, Pulling defines Dungeons and Dragons as a "fantasy 

role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, 

blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, 

prostitution, satanic type rituals, . . .and many other teachings.  There 

have been a number of deaths nationwide where [such games] were either the 

decisive factor in adolescent suicide and murder, or played a major factor. 

. .Since role-playing is used typically for behavior modification, it has 

become apparent nationwide . . .that there is a great need to investigate 

every aspect of a youngster's environment. . ."  (l989: 179).  Pulling 

further states that fantasy role-playing games  "are representative of the 

many subtle ways in which occult influences can prey upon the minds of 

children"  (Ibid.: l02).  But the game retails in images and symbols:  kids 

enact imaginary adventures through imaginary means, not by translating the 

action to their everyday environment.



     Pulling's main scare about D&D is that the game contains some bona 

fide occult material, whatever that is.  She seems to think that where game 

designers use demons and monsters from the writings of medieval and late 

l9th century English sources, that somehow the game takes on a pernicious 

magic of its own.  Pulling is alarmed at the nature of the demons and 

monsters invoked by the game, but the monsters, often drawn from the 

encyclopedia or from game designers' imaginations, bear no evil beyond what 

people impute to them.  If we bridle at D&D, then we must take offense at 

the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a multitude of plastic toys found at 

any shopping mall, comic books, Saturday morning TV, and the like.  Demons, 

monsters, creatures from space populate kids' imaginations and one easily 

sees why:  Star Trek, Star Wars, and like films ensure that space beings 

take on an omnipresent reality, coupled with "legitimate" science.   

Pulling also introduces a paradox and an insight:  she claims that the 

students most susceptible to falling within the spiraling path to hell are 

bright boys with varied interests who may lack social skills.  In other 

words, nerds.  The insight in all this focuses on the kids' interests.  A 

recent anthropological study of modern witches and magic in Britain 

observed that many male adherents of magic groups had computer backgrounds, 

an observation made by many people about D&D players (Luhrman l989: l06).  

Anthropologist T. M. Luhrmann observes that these folks also read science 

fiction in abundance.  She speculates on why these people gravitate to 

magic:



     [S]everal possible explanations present themselves.

     Perhaps the most important is that both magic and

     computer science involve creating a world defined by

     chosen rules, and playing within their limits.  Both

     in magic and in computer science words and symbols have

     a power which most secular, modern endeavours deny them.

     Those drawn to the symbol-rich rule-governed world of

     computer science may be attracted by magic. . .One

     reason that the fantasy games designed for the computer

     may be so appealing may be because of the complexity of

     the rules.  Another explanation is the sense of mastery

     and power when the machine obeys your dictates, which

     may feel like the mastery of magic. . .The wizard commands

     the material world, breaking the laws which seem to bind

     it.  (Ibid.: l07).



Massachusetts Institute of Technology sociologist S. Turkle has written at 

length about young men's involvement with computers and D&D.  I refer you 

to The Second Self:  Computers and the Human Spirit, by S. Turkle, l984, 

published by the MIT Press.



     So Pulling scares parents by isolating from context specific rules 

concerning particular demons, overlooking the game's intellectual 

challenge:  after all, since the game involves no board, players must rely 

on imagery and imagination.  If one removes the aura of a supernatural 

netherworld from the game, and if one questions the shoddy evidence for the 

game's links to teen murder and suicide, what is one left with?  Just a 

game.  I make no apologies for ruining anyone's scapegoat for the world's 

ills, if you do find the game scary.  Quite possibly some people find the 

game a mental accessory to a criminal propensity:  but question closely any 

convicted murderer who claims that D&D made him do it.  Sociopaths need no 

such justification, but when confined to prison cells contemplating a bleak 

future, why not blame one's behavior on a game?  



     But back to Pulling's model of the D&D player.  Those kids who are 

intelligent with poor social skills simply defines the process of growing 

up.  By imbuing games with some supernatural taint, we deny kids their own 

intelligence and ability to make choices.  When the Pasadena, Texas, school 

board decided to ban the l960's peace symbol from school property, they did 

so because a cult seminar advised teachers that the symbol is satanic:  

that interpretation derives from Christian publications that describe the 

upside-down cross as a mockery of Christianity.  How do the kids react?  

One twelve-year-old said, "If they ban peace symbols, they'll have to ban 

basic geometry because of all its lines and circles" (Time, July 3, l989).  

These kids ain't fools:  they usually separate faddish symbols from serious 

evildoing.  But if they know that the symbol offends some adults, what do 

you suppose they'll do?  A counselor at the Bon Air detention facility in 

Richmond told me that rooms for kids come equipped with a Bible.  One 

teenager took one look at the Bible and challenged the counselor:  he 

demanded The Satanic Bible, the one published by Anton LaVey, founder of 

the Church of Satan, in l969.  Now, the counselor has been challenged:  who 

might win this little power struggle? If the counselor leaps back, makes 

the sign of a cross, and in an hysterical voice cries out, "Get thee behind 

me, Satan," guess who wins?  In this case, the counselor blandly replied, 

"Sure.  I'll see what I can do.  Tell me where I can find a copy."  For 

those of you who are worried about that response, I can only attribute your 

worry to not having read The Satanic Bible.  Read it and you'll agree with 

religious scholar Gordon Melton who has referred to it as "assertiveness 

training with a twist." The book does not even praise a supernatural devil 

and instead relies on Satan's symbolic history in our culture.  Further, 

unlike parts of the Christian Bible, The Satanic Bible very explicitly 

warns readers not to physically harm children nor anyone else.



     I noted the influence of Fundamentalist Christianity on not only the 

D&D ideology but on other aspects of the satanic cult bruhaha.  Much of 

what Pulling and cult cops and other self-proclaimed experts parley to 

audiences comes from Christian sources.  For example, the earliest 

denigration of D&D I could come up with, from l980, says this:



     Some endeavors offer a greater temptation for ego to

     manifest itself in us, however.  The next thing to 

     actual defeat of others and self-exaltation as rulers 

     over the vanquished is the voluntary, imaginary role-

     playing that is offered by such games as Dungeons and

     Dragons. . .It is not without knowledge that Dungeons

     and Dragons was devised.  But it is the knowledge of

     an evil that mingled the Babylonian mystery religions

     with a luke-warm 'Christianity.' (Dager l980)



     The same thoughts have been conveyed to cult awareness audiences again 

and again and again.  I asked you earlier to sift such information, 

question it, analyze it, and ask the credentials of these experts.  Among 

the books prominently displayed at cult seminars are two by Rebecca Brown, 

MD, He Came to Set the Captives Free and Prepare for War.  Ken Lanning, FBI 

special agent who specializes in child sexual abuse investigations, raises 

the issue of cult seminars not defining terms, using the "words satanic, 

occult, and ritualistic" interchangeably (l989:4).  Lanning particularly 

cites Brown's contributions to this confusion as her "doorways" to demonic 

infestation (to use Lanning's term) include horoscopes, vegetarianism, 

yoga, biofeedback, homosexuality, fraternity oaths, along with the standard 

fantasy role-playing games, Church of Satan, the Hare Krishna movement, and 

so on.  So who is Rebecca Brown and why does she wield authority?  Her 

title gets attention:  she has appeared at seminars and on television, no 

less.  What's her background?



     In l984, she was known as Ruth Bailey, MD, and she practiced medicine 

in Indiana.  That year, she lost her license.  Medical examiners concluded 

that she knowingly misdiagnosed such ailments as leukemia, various blood 

diseases, and even brain tumors in patients who were not in fact suffering 

from these problems.  Bailey said that she had been "chosen by God" as the 

only physician who could diagnose such maladies which were caused by 

demons.  And, further, other doctors could not diagnose these problems 

because the doctors themselves were demons.  As a result of these 

diagnoses, she prescribed her patients with massive doses of Demerol and 

the addicted patients had to undergo detoxification.  Besides administering 

drugs to patients, Bailey had another novel method up her sleeve:  she 

would "share" the patient's disease by injecting herself with "non-

therapeutic amounts" of Demerol, taking three cubic centimeters of the 

stuff hourly, injecting it in the back of her hands or inside her thighs.  

The psychiatrist who examined her said that she suffered from "acute 

personality disorders including demonic delusions and/or paranoid 

schizophrenia" (Medical Licensing Board of Indiana l984).  She later moved 

to California, changing her name to Rebecca Brown through a change-of-name 

petition entered into the Superior Court, County of San Bernardino, in 

l986.  There are a few lessons here.  Be careful not to accept facile 

explanations of misbehavior at face value.  Don't uncritically accept a 

source because it has a Christian message.



     By refusing to define "satanism," "occult," and "ritualistic," cult 

experts can unleash these words to fit any social dilemma, misbehavior, or 

human failing they wish.  And they do.  The lack of definition aids and 

abets the conspiracy theory fanned by Pulling and the cult cops.  These 

cult cops take as evidence of a conspiracy the presence of like symbols 

across the country.  They further surmise that the presence of a spray-

painted inverted pentagram underside a bridge in San Francisco not only 

means the same thing as one on a bridge in Norfolk but that some satanic 

supramind, the international conspiracy has organized people to wreak havoc 

on us all.  This conspiracy, of course, supposedly recruits children, teens 

especially.  Pulling and the cult cops would have us suspend heaps of 

disbelief to accept that the D&D player who peers into the occult through 

game playing gets yanked by some mind-control cult into an abrupt 

personality change characterized by violence and hate.  No one wants to 

consider other, more mundane explanations for personality changes and mood 

swings, apparently.  But in the face of a complete absence of evidence for 

a conspiracy, some cult cops can find only feeble argument.



     Take Idaho police officer Larry Jones, who authors the Cult Crime 

Impact Network newsletter, a Fundamentalist-biased periodical widely read 

by cult cops.  In defense of the lack of evidence, Jones tosses the 

question back: "'To people who say, prove to me these secret cults exist, I 

say, prove they don't'" (Springston l989).  To this inanity, I find the 

reply easy:  since my orientation to the cult scare concerns law 

enforcement, a perspective Jones should share, I say that police officers 

have no obligation to prove that the satanic mastercult doesn't exist.  

Police officers operate under well-founded reasonable suspicion to look 

into suspected wrongdoing, and they make arrests based on probable cause.  

Both reasonable suspicion and probable cause  have fairly precise 

definitions supported by reams of case law.  I can't prove that UFO's 

exist, but just prove to me that they don't.  I can't prove that termites 

built the Great Pyramid, but just prove to me that they didn't.  When 

Richmond Bureau of Police Lieutenant Lawrence Haake was asked whether he 

had any evidence of satanic sacrifices of people, he admitted he didn't but 

added, "'No evidence can be evidence'" (Ibid.)  Sure, perhaps, but no 

evidence can also mean that none exists. Many cult cops have indeed 

asserted that the lack of any evidence testifies to the satanic cult's 

success at covering their tracks. Well, if you're backed into a corner, try 

tossing skepticism back into the lap of the skeptic.  Pulling maintains 

that many unsolved homicides might be sacrificial victims and says, "'They 

certainly have found a number of unsolved murders with no motive, haven't 

they?'" (Ibid.) Some have gone unsolved, yes, but one cannot logically 

conclude that satanists did them.  But I almost forgot:  these shifty 

satanists, says Pulling, include the intelligentsia and power brokers of 

our society, so we might as well cave in than resist (Briggs l988).  Better 

devil red than dead.



     Which brings us back to definitions for a moment.  A satanic 

ritualistic killing, to the cult cops, ought to be defined as a killing 

performed in propitiation of satan.  We certainly have plenty of killers 

around who claim a satanic motivation, but killers simply adopt an ideology 

that justifies or explains what they would do in any case.  The argument 

that a true satanic killing would therefore implicate those mild, middle-

class, suburban engineers and doctors and lawyers simply vanishes upon 

scrutiny:  such folks haven't yet been arrested for these sacrifices.  So 

much for satanic crime.  On to "occult."  As Lanning points out, "Occult 

means simply 'hidden,'" a term unconnected with crime, but used by cult 

cops to refer "to the action or influence of supernatural powers. . .or an 

interest in paranormal phenomena" (l989:5).  But Lanning rails against the 

use of "ritualistic," since folks who point fingers and yell "ritualistic!" 

forget that ritual governs our lives in benign fashion.  Again, Lanning:  

"During law enforcement training conferences on this topic, ritualistic 

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" 

(Ibid.: 7).  He concludes:  "The most important point for the criminal 

investigator is to realize that most ritualistic criminal behavior is not 

motivated simply by satanic or religious ceremonies" (Ibid. 9).  I refer 

you to Lanning for an extended discussion of the word.



     We've attached some meaning to "ritual," "occult," and "satanic 

crime," so we're left with "cult."  Definitions of the word depend on the 

scholarly purposes they serve.  But I have not been so concerned with the 

academic treatment of the word, but rather its current connotation in cult 

awareness seminars.  I agree with Gordon Melton that "[t]he term 'cult' is 

a pejorative label used to describe certain religious groups outside of the 

mainstream of Western religion" (l986:3)  The pejorative quality of the 

label is borne out by the attributes heaped on cults by cult experts:  that 

cult members must swear obedience to the all-powerful leader, that cults 

pursue ends that justify the means, that cults retain members through mind 

control methods.  This language has been pretty consistently applied to 

nonconformists for a few centuries now.  Rather, I agree with Melton that 

"Cults represent a force of religious innovation within a culture" (Ibid.), 

but Melton's social science approach to categorizing and studying cults 

doesn't mesh with the cult seminar use of the term. In a very broad sense, 

cults don't even have to be religious.  Cult cops assume that two or more 

kids who hang out together and wear upside down crosses, pentagrams, and 

Ozzy Osborne buttons might be cult members.  This kind of cult in former 

days we called a clique.  Now, we are to assume that such kids have gotten 

sucked into a black hole of mind control, manipulation by satanic 

recruiters, all unwarranted assumptions.  But some cults we know to promote 

violence.  Let me name a few:  The Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord; 

The Christian Conservative Church of America;  The Church of Christ of 

Christian Aryan Nations (all described in Melton l986).  Sorry, though:  I 

couldn't come up with any satanic groups which promote the militarism of 

these Christian organizations.   



     More directly, when we allow cult seminar presenters to rant away 

without defining their terms or by being explicit about what they know and 

don't know, we play a dangerous game.  Gordon Melton observes that when 

people speak of "them" as satanic, or as an enemy, or as a criminal cult, 

we thereby "express [our] contempt of others and . . .assign them a status 

outside the realm of God's chosen, and hence of lesser worth, [which] is 

the religious equivalent of secular terms such as 'nigger,' 'kike,' or 

'wop'" (Ibid. 259).  When the Matamoros murders hit the headlines, the 

newspapers dubbed them "satanic," a term that disappeared within a week as 

it became obvious to investigators that the murders had nothing to do with 

satanic cults.  But the labels that stuck involved foreign experiences such 

as Palo Mayombe and Santeria, words most Americans heard for the first 

time.  But to dub the killings as Santeria or Palo Mayombe, drawn as 

perverse cults by the press, amounts to impure and simple racism.  What I 

cannot understand is the Fundamentalist Christian diatribe against 

nonChristian beliefs that have been tagged as cultic.  As I have pointed 

out, cult cops freely label groups as cults and therefore imply a threat to 

one's free will.  But as the historian Jeffrey Burton Russell has pointed 

out, such people "claim that a belief in the Devil erodes human 

responsibility, but Christianity has always insisted that the Devil has no 

power to coerce or compel the human will" (l986: 300).



     I hope I have forced your attention to the importance of developing 

solid definitions for social problems.  Precise definition provides the 

best map through which to explore the phenomena of children's behavior.  

But, of course, you know this.  Simply don't forget it when cults enter the 

fray.  Imprecision and casual name-calling by cult awareness seminars has 

led to severe consequences for both children and adult child advocates.  I 

would like to cite one example, one, unfortunately, which I stress is not 

unique.  But my example illustrates how the helping professions may ignore 

suggestions of actual physical or mental abuse and instead pursue claims of 

satanic goings on in daycare centers and in the process the counselors, 

therapists, and police end up abusing children.



     Since l983, the country witnessed the first of many cases of purported 

satanic abuse of children in daycare centers, beginning with the McMartin 

case in California, followed quickly by the Jordan, Minnesota case, and 

they continue to happen.  The best and most critical examination of such 

cases appeared in a series of investigative reports published in a Memphis 

newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, last year.  Journalists Tom Charlier and 

Shirley Downing found that these cases were "not really about ritual child 

abuse at all.  [They] are about the dangers of popular justice, a less-

than-skeptical press and the presumption of guilt" (l988).  Over a hundred 

cities have witnessed the same pattern:  a single incident of alleged abuse 

by a single child mushroomed into mass accusations of parents, daycare 

center workers, and even prosecutors and police.  The children's stories 

which launched the cases were usually uncorroborated by physical evidence 

or even adult testimony.  Further, the nature of the prosecutory system 

itself fanned the flames of accusation.  By the time such cases entered 

court, the news media greedily reported children's stories of devil 

worship, nude dancing with daycare staff, varieties of sexual assault, 

human and animal sacrifice, nude photography, bondage, drowning, cooking 

and eating babies' limbs, and so on.  And the investigators, who pursued 

evidence of crime, acted as advocates by removing kids from their homes 

before their parents had even been investigated, much less charged with 

crimes.



     Unfortunately, these stories reveal that prosecutors, allied with 

parents, adopted as an unqualified truth the assertion that children don't 

lie about abuse.  Yet investigators asked children leading questions, 

interviewed them as many as 50 times in some cases, refused to accept kids' 

denials that satanic abuse took place, offered rewards or exerted pressure 

to obtain correct testimony from them.  One case, in Bakersfield, 

California a few years ago, produced prison terms totalling 26l9 years for 

seven defendants, which set a record (Mathews l989).



     The Bakersfield case began in l984 when a girl reported to her mother 

that two men had "touched" her in a peculiar way.  Within a year's time, 

the one allegation evolved into a sex abuse ring, satanic rituals, and 

infanticide (what follows derives from a report of the Office of the 

Attorney General, California, l986). Twenty-one children had been placed in 

protective custody away from their homes.  How did this happen?



     Once removed from their homes, the children endured repeated 

questioning by police, therapists, and welfare workers.  Further, the 

sheriff's department interviewed children in isolation while in protective 

custody.  Parents were arbitrarily arrested and released with no charges 

filed.  The deputies, most of whom had virtually no training in child abuse 

matters (and had not even attended mandatory California inservice training 

in the subject, although they found time to attend a satanic cult seminar), 

simply deferred their questioning of children to a child protective 

services worker, described as zealous for her unqualified belief that the 

children maintained the truth under questioning.  Yet the questioning 

occurred repeatedly, even after the sheriff's deputies discussed the case 

before church groups and evolved their own beliefs about what was 

occurring.  The deputies received virtually no supervision and no one 

coordinated the efforts of the three agencies trying to investigate the 

case.  In all, l9 victims were interviewed l34 times.  Searches yielded no 

evidence of sexual abuse or satanic crime, yet the deputies did not follow 

cues which required physical evidence gathering.  For example, many kids 

claimed to have been drugged during cult rituals, yet no one tested them 

for drugs.  Efforts to obtain any corroborative physical evidence were 

feeble or nonexistent.  Further, deputies did not even furnish verbatim 

interviews with the children, instead simply paraphrasing the interviews 

and offering in the transcripts unsupported conclusions.



     Once in custody, kids mingled and had many opportunities to "cross 

germinate" their stories.  Very significantly, the child witnesses first 

denied that their parents were involved in the satanic molestations, but 

after repeated questioning under the direction of the zealous therapist, 

children not only implicated their parents but also many investigators in 

the case.  The sheriff's deputies and the social worker conducted their 

inquisition based on the premise that "children do not lie."  This meant 

that investigators took children's statements at face value and neglected 

to do further corroborative work.  The following interview took place 

between a suspected parent-abuser and the social worker:



Social worker:  Okay, ah. . .you know when children, when 

children tell law enforcement or Child Protective Services. . .

Suspect:  Uh huh.

SW:  About somebody we believe children, okay.

S:  Uh huh.

SW:  Especially little, ah, would involve children but these are 

just, you know, four, four, five and six-year olds. . .

S:  Uh huh.

SW:  Okay, and they don't have, they shouldn't have knowledge of 

this stuff, they have a lot of knowledge, a lot of explicit 

details, knowledge, they say cream was being used. . .lotion.

S:  Have you seen, you know, TV nowadays though, the parents let 

their kids watch.

SW:  Okay, people often do accuse TV, but still children don't 

fantasize about sexual abuse and they don't implicate their own 

father.

S:  Uh huh.

SW:  Okay?

S:  Uh huh.

Deputy:  Let alone themselves.

SW:  Yeah, let alone themselves, especially when they're, when 

they are feeling so badly about and they know it's wrong.

S:  Uh huh.

SW:  Okay, it's just they, some you know, if they aren't gonna, 

if they're mad at their dad and that's when they may say physical 

abuse.

S:  Uh huh.

SW:  But, ah, they're not gonna say sexual.

S:  Uh huh.

SW:  It just doesn't happen.

S:  Uh huh.

SW:  So we, we do believe the children.

S:  Uh huh.

SW:  Okay, that you are involved.

S:  Then no matter what I, what I say doesn't even matter then?

SW:  Well, yeah of course it matters, but, but our stand is that 

we believe the children.

S:  Uh huh.

SW:  At all cost, cause that's our job and that's, that's what 

our belief is.



     Quoting further from the California Attorney General's report of the 

matter, "This dependence upon and deferment to staff of Child Protective 

Services--who perform functions quite different from police officers in a 

child abuse investigation--focused the interviews primarily on protecting 

the child at the expense of investigating and determining the facts in the 

case.  While protecting the child was certainly critical, once that had 

been assured the criminal investigation should have been the Sheriff's 

deputies' primary concern."



     Let's talk about the interviews with children for a moment.  The 

California Attorney general found that deputies departed from standard 

interview practice and virtually ignored the complexities that obtain when 

the person interviewed is a child.  "Deputies generally did not question 

the children's statements, and they responded positively or said something 

to reinforce their previous allegations. . . They applied pressure on the 

children to name additional suspects and victims, and questioned them with 

inappropriate suggestions that produced the answers they were looking for."  

Interviewers, both police and social workers, used leading and suggestive 

questions, gave quite overt positive reinforcement when they received 

answers they sought, rather than giving neutral responses.  In some cases, 

interviewers demanded answers; sometimes they threatened the children; in 

other cases they confused them.  A sample:



Interviewer:  Okay, you said that they touched the privates before they 

stabbed the baby?  Did they take the clothes off the baby before they 

stabbed the baby?  Did they take the clothes off the baby when they touched 

the privates?  And then they had you go up and stab the baby?  So, did the 

baby--was the baby's clothes still off after they'd taken them off and you 

had to stab the baby?



Answer:  No.



And in a flagrant abuse of investigative technique, a deputy had wanted to 

use an anatomically-detailed doll in an interview, but although deputies 

had them on hand, they had no training in their use.  So one deputy told a 

child, "I forgot my dolly then you could point.  You want to point on me?"



     Let me point out that deputies did pursue the satanic claims, but 

found alleged homicide victims alive; they searched lakes where bodies 

supposedly were deposited and found none; in fact, they uncovered no 

evidence to prove any satanic assertions.  The satanic connection, by the 

way, didn't even emerge in the case until after nine months of interviews 

with the kids.  One psychiatrist in another daycare center case observed of 

the repeated interviews, "If [the investigator] get[s] a child to the point 

where they believe they've helped kill a baby or eaten flesh, I want to 

know whether you're a child abuser" (Charlier and Downing l988).



     As two Pennsylvania State University criminal justice professors have 

pointed out, "If children denied victimization, then it was assumed they 

were concealing the truth, which must be drawn out by some inducement or 

reinforcement.  The therapeutic process thus became an infallible 

generating mechanism for criminal charges," a remark made about the 

McMartin case that applies to Bakersfield also. (Jenkins and Katkin l988: 

30). Psychiatrist Lee Coleman, who with journalist Debbie Nathan is writing 

a book about the daycare cases, adds that



     The interviewers assume, before talking with the child,

     that molestation has taken place.  The accused persons

     are assumed to be guilty, and the thinly disguised purpose      

     of the interview is to get something out of the child to

     confirm these suspicions.  It is all too easy, with

     repeated and leading and suggestive questions, to get a

     young child so confused that he or she can't tell the

     difference between fact and fantasy. (l986: 8).



     There are three great tragedies in all this:  one, that real physical 

or sexual abuse of a child will pass uninvestigated; two, that children are 

abused by the criminal justice process, children who are victims of nothing 

except not telling stories that investigators want to hear; third, that 

innocent adults will have their lives ruined.  One young imprisoned mother 

in the Bakersfield case, whose children have been placed in foster care, 

looks forward to freedom one day, but she does not want to be united with 

her kids.  She says, "'I'm scared of kids.  I'm scared to death of kids. . .

I'm glad I can't have any more" (Mathews l989).



     One might place the burden of blame for a shoddy investigation on the 

sheriffs' deputies, since the law enforcers were charged with detecting 

lawbreaking and arresting offenders.  And, of course, seven women still 

languish in prison.  But what of therapists, psychiatrists, and 

psychologists?  Although the satanic nature of the daycare allegaions has 

only recently begun to appear in professional literature, purportedly 

scholarly studies have taken the satanic abuse claims quite uncritically.  

The uncritical treatment of the subject is bound to influence other 

professionals more prone to be convinced by tables of data with chi-square 

tests than to question the data in the tables.



     For example, Susan J. Kelly, R.N., Ph.D, Boston School of Nursing, 

even elaborated a typology of ritual abuse (building on the work of family 

violence expert David Finkelhor, of whom more in a moment) and discussed 

satanic philosophy by noting its "fundamental tenet that followers have a 

right to abundant and guilt-free sex of every description.  Moreover, 

because Christianity believes that children are special to God, satanism, 

which negates Christianity, considers the desecration of children to be a 

way of gaining victory over God" (l988: 229).  This description of satanic 

ideology amounts to pure dogma, perpetuated and elaborated by the cult 

awareness seminars and the press.  Like other therapists, Kelly imputes the 

the cult presence surrounding child abuse to the usual mind control methods 

employed against members and so on.  No one, apparently, wants to consider 

the proposition that some child abusers, who may go to elaborate and 

imaginative lengths to intimidate children into not revealing the abuse, 

may employ satanic trappings to do just that.  Therapists such as Kelly 

have also ignored the inquisitorial process that produces arrests and 

convictions, as in the Bakersfield case, preferring not to confront the 

issue of leading children to contrive satanic scenarios to please eager 

investigators.



     I find that David Finkelhor's latest book, Nursery Crimes:  Sexual 

Abuse in Daycare, not only perpetuates the satanic dogma but using 

mathematical analyses of bad data, it emerges with a new class of offender. 

The study examined cases in 270 daycare centers, but the cases had to be 

"substantiated" before inclusion in the data.  In order to be 

substantiated, the study team had to find only one professional agency 

associated with a case who believed that abuse occurred.  And this study 

swept up all of the much-publicized daycare center abuse cases such as 

McMartin and even Bakersfield.  So the study takes as a working assumption 

that the allegations in the satanic ritual abuse cases are true.  While the 

study makes insightful remarks about child abuse and attempts a 

comprehensive look at abuse, the victims, and the abusers, the inclusion of 

the satanic cases renders the study yet more dogma masquerading as science.  

I said that the skewed data created a new class of offenders.  Every study 

of child sexual abuse portrays offenders as almost exclusively men, usually 

acting alone.  The rare cases involving women usually find them complicit 

as the consequence of involvement with a man:  a boyfriend or husband, for 

example.  Yet the satanic ritual cases involving daycare centers have 

almost entirely focused on the women running the centers.  And the 

allegations hold that women, entire daycare center staffs, ran satanic 

parties replete with mass sex abuse, child pornography, and the like.  I 

should hope that the Bakersfield case suggests to you that other dynamics, 

to use the social work term, govern the sensationalistic cases.  

Nonetheless, Finkelhor and his colleagues pronounce that "Female 

perpetrators were significantly more likely than men to have forced 

children to sexually abuse others and to have participated in ritualistic, 

mass abuse" (l988: 45).



     In rather limp fashion, Finkelhor notes that the satanic allegations 

have emerged in some daycare cases months after abuse investigations have 

begun under some other pretext.  Unlike some investigators who find the 

delay evidence that children have been coached to tell such stories, he 

holds that children may need months of therapy before finding the strength 

to tell the satanic tales.  But Finkelhor's conclusions present a mixed 

bag.  On the one hand, he singles out the marauding women, "We recommend 

that parents, licensing, and law-enforcement officials be educated to view 

females as potential sexual abusers" (Ibid.: 257)  Yet he advises that we 

"avoid a disproportionate focus on day-care abuse" because abuse in the 

daycare setting amounts to a relatively small percentage of abuse overall.



     The idea of pervasive satanic cults which influence and intimidate 

children should not supplant a reasonable, cautious inquiry, for law 

enforcers and therapists alike.  Ironically, despite the cult seminars 

which contrive images of the faceless, tenebrous evil that grips us from 

the bowels of hell, the tentacles of demons wrapped around kids' necks, the 

cult experts who teach the seminars often conclude with common-sense 

advice.  For example, Woman's Day magazine printed "A Parent's Primer on 

Satanism" recently (l988).  The primer noted that bright, bored, 

underachieving, talented and even gifted teens are susceptible to cults.  

Watch for kids exhibiting persone words mean to your child" (Ibid.).  No matter what ill we 
believe threatens our children--whether communists, satanists, The Beatles 
or Twisted Sister--the advice is the same:  don't panic; observe; listen; 
talk.  Don't ignore satanic symbols or paraphernalia, but don't imbue them 
with cosmic significance, either.  Rely on your professional experience and 
training to guide your rational inquiry about satan in teens' lives.  Don't 
panic, and trust children, teens particularly, to behave responsibly most 
of the time, and don't leap to satanic excuses to explain misbehavior.   
     Thank you.
.pa
    Addendum:  Investigation of Child Sexual Abuse Resources

Cult seminars sometimes suggest that women breed babies for sacrifice, that 
runaway or throwaway kids become sacrificial fodder.  For a perspective on 
missing kids, consult "First Comprehensive Study of Missing Children in 
Progress," OJJDP Update on Research, April, l988.  A related study is 
"Stranger Abduction Homicides of Children, OJJDP Juvenile Justice Bulletin, 
January, l989.  Suggestions on new professional thinking for handling child 
sexual abuse cases can be found in "Prosecuting child sexual abuse--new 
approaches," by Debra Witcomb, Research in Action, National Institute of 
Justice, May l986 (reprinted from NIJ Reports/SNI l97.  A related article, 
"Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse:  Innovations in Practice," appeared in 
the NIJ Research in Brief, November, l985, also by Debra Witcomb.  Perhaps 
the best overall investigative guide is the l987 manual, Investigation and 
Prosecution of Child Abuse published by the National Center for the 
Prosecution of Child Abuse.  Some discussion of the problems associated 
with anatomically-detailed dolls in child abuse investigations can be found 
in "Using dolls to interview child victims:  Legal concerns and interview 
procedures," NIJ Research in Action, by Kenneth R. Freeman and Terry 
Estrada-Mullaney, reprinted from NIJ Reports/SNI 207, January/February 
l988.  A review of the dolls' legal issues can be found in "'Real' Dolls 
Too Suggestive," by Debra Cassens Moss, American Bar Association Journal, 
December l, l988.  The ABA Journal also carried another article by Moss in 
its May l, l987 issue, "Are the Children Lying?" which discussed the 
sensationalist daycare center cases.

                        References Cited

Antiwar or Antichrist?  Time, July 3, l989.

B.A.D.D., Dungeons and Dragons, no date, Richmond, VA.

Briggs, E.  Satanic cults said to entice teens with sex, drugs.  
Richmond Times Dispatch, March 5, l988.

Charlier, Tom, and Downing. Shirley.  Justice Abused:  A l980s 
Witch-Hunt.  The Commercial Appeal, January, l988, Memphis. (six-
part series)

Coleman, Lee.  Therapists are the real culprits in many child 
sexual abuse cases.  Augustus, l4 (6): 7-9, l986.

Dager, Albert J.  A Media Spotlight Special Report:  Dungeons and 
Dragons. l980.  Santa Ana, California.

Finkelhor, David; Williams, Linda M., Burns, Nanci.  Nursery 
Crimes:  Sexual Abuse in Day Care.  l988.  Beverly Hills:  Sage 
Publications.

Jenkins, Philip, and Katkin, Daniel.  Protecting Victims of Child 
Sexual Abuse:  A Case for Caution.  The Prison Journal, 
Fall/Winter l988: 25-35.

Kelley, Susan J.  Ritualistic Abuse of Children:  Dynamics and 
Impact.  Cultic Studies Journal 5(2): 228-236, l988.

Lanning, Kenneth V.  Satanic, Occult, Ritualistic Crime:  A Law 
Enforcement Perspective.  Unpublished ms., l989.  FBI Academy.

Luhrmann, T. M.  Persuasions of the Witch's Craft:  Ritual Magic 
in Contemporary England.  l989.  Cambridge, Massachusetts:  
Harvard University Press.

Lundberg-Love, P.  Update on Cults Part I:  Satanic Cults.  
Family Violence Bulletin 5(2): 9-l0, l989.

Mathews, Jay.  In California, a Question of Abuse.  The 
Washington Post, May 3l, l989.

Medical Licensing Board of Indiana.  Findings of Fact, 
Conclusions of Law and Order, Cause #83MLD038 in the Matter of 
Ruth Bailey, MD.  Filed October 2, l984.

Melton, J. G.  Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America.  l986.  
New York:  Garland Publishing Company.

Office of the Attorney General.  Report on the Kern County Child 
Abuse Investigation.  Sacramento, l986.

Pulling, Patricia A.  The Devil's Web.  l989.  Lafayette, LA:  
Huntington House, Inc.

Russell, Jeffrey Burton.  Mephistopheles:  The Devil in the 
Modern World. l986. Ithaca, New York:  Cornell University Press.

Springston, Rex.  Experts say tales are bunk.  (Two-part 
article).  The Richmond News Leader, April 6-7, l989.

A Parent's Primer on Satanism.  Woman's Day, November 22, l988.

                             - 3 0 -



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