Message #9 board "P_Metaphysical (Mag Articles)"
Date : 22-Jan-93 15:57
From : Simon Novali
To   : All
Subj : Lanning (6 of 11)

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:

---- (1) 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.

---- (2) 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. 

6. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS

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.

-- a. PATHOLOGICAL DISTORTION.

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."

-- b. TRAUMATIC MEMORY.

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 



--- msgedsq 2.1a
 * Origin: The Northern Lights 916-729-0304 (1:203/444)
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