Sitting in the garden of her home, with toys strewn on the lawn, this English mother is still stunned that earlier this week she eventually triumphed against social workers planning to seize her son and hand him to new adoptive parents.

For two years she has played a cat-and-mouse game as the British authorities spent thousands of pounds chasing her around Europe, decrying her as a bad mother and threatening to put her in prison. An MP is now demanding an investigation into the waste of taxpayers' money by Devon social services. Safe at last: Angela Wileman with son Lucas, with whom she now lives in Ireland

Terrified of losing Lucas, Angela fled first to Spain and then Sweden. She now lives in County Wexford, Southern Ireland. The authorities in each of the countries deemed her a perfectly good mother to her son and let her keep him.

But it had been a very different story back in Britain, where Angela, 33, fell foul of a disturbing new tactic by social workers.

In the past ten years there has been a 50 per cent rise in the number of parents who, just like her, have been accused of 'emotionally harming' their children. A quarter of forced adoptions happen after social workers allege that the child has been the victim of emotional abuse - far more than instances of sexual abuse or cruelty.

Last year, 6,700 'emotionally harmed' children were placed on the protection register. There were 2,600 registrations for sexual abuse and 5,100 for physical abuse.

Parents who social workers say might shout at, or even loudly reprimand, their children in the future have been branded as potential emotional abusers and had their toddlers or newborn babies removed from them.

'Emotional harm' is the latest buzz phrase in the social workers' lexicon - one that can condemn almost any family. Yet it has no strict definition under British law.

The abduction unit had traced Angela after she registered Lucas at a Spanish school and with a doctor.

The papers accused her of kidnapping Lucas and said that he should be sent back to England and into care. If she didn't comply, Devon social workers threatened to travel to Spain to seize him. Angela was warned that if she ever returned to Britain she would be arrested by police for child abduction.

She was also told to attend court the following Monday so the 'rights of custody and return of the child' could be enforced under European law.

Angela recalls: 'I went straight down to the police station. The officers apologised because, of course, the Spanish authorities had no concerns about me caring for my own son. Lucas could hear my conversation with the officers. He cried because he was frightened of being taken again.

'That night, back at our house, he had a nightmare. He was so scared. Why would anyone want to put a child through that when I am a strong, independent and loving mother and we were a happy single-parent family?'

Angela felt her only choice was to plan a second secret escape.

The next day she gave most of their possessions to friends and set off with five suitcases of the boys' clothes and toys. In the evening she crossed the border to France, before taking a flight to Sweden.

Once there, she sent a handwritten statement to the Spanish and English authorities stating: 'It makes no sense to fly my son with people he fears back into care with strangers. I still do not understand how my thriving son can be taken from me on the assumption that he might suffer emotional harm in the future. Dragging him into care caused him to suffer more emotional harm than anything he ever suffered at home.'

But soon Angela was penniless. She could not speak Swedish, so could not find work. And when she applied for a passport for baby Marco at the British Embassy in Stockholm the Devon social workers were soon on her trail again.

Realising that she would have to move quickly, she decided to try Ireland. So just before Christmas last year she moved on, again secretly.

Although she contacted the Irish authorities to claim child benefit, they never threatened to take Lucas or Marco away. 'In fact, they have done everything to keep us together,' she says.

But the British abduction unit and social services tracked her yet again because of the benefits claim.

Unless courts drop the concept of ‘emotional abuse’ more mothers will be tempted to flee with their children

With the Government letting thugs out of prison because it can’t afford to keep them there, it was surprising to see a woman jailed for nine months last week for taking her seven-year-old son to Canada. “Abduction” conjures up an image of kidnap, not protection.

This woman feared that her son would be taken into care and then placed with his father who, he claimed, had hurt him. She told me last week that she had fled because she believed that her son was “in imminent danger. I was in despair. I didn’t know how to protect him.”

The woman had approached social services when the boy made allegations of a vaguely sexual nature about his dad, and said that he no longer wanted overnight contact visits with him. A psychologist decided that she had coached her son to lie, and was therefore causing him emotional harm, and that the boy should go into care. He has now been in care for 15 months. His mother is in prison. Even if the father is innocent, the “interests of the child”, that ubiquitous pretext, have been ill-served.

This case is part of a pattern. When Angela Wileman asked Devon County Council to help her alcoholic husband, social workers accused her of emotionally harming her son by letting him witness her husband’s violence. The boy was placed with foster parents, to be adopted. Ms Wileman fled with him to Spain, Sweden and then the Republic of Ireland, pursued at each stage by the Abduction Child and Contact Unit. In each country the authorities found her to be a good mother.

Devon has now withdrawn its case, which means she is free to speak out. Most are silenced. I am still not allowed to name a man who helped his wife and stepson to flee abroad three years ago. The boy packed his bag and, of his own accord, climbed out of a window at the foster home that he had repeatedly run away from. He was in care because of a catalogue of errors — which I cannot legally describe in any detail — after the mother had extricated herself from a violent marriage. The stepfather was jailed for 16 months for what many in his village saw as heroism, not abduction.

One campaigning MP knows of at least 15 other families on the run. One couple left the country soon after I watched an expert witness change her mind in court about a personality disorder that was said to afflict the mother. The expert changed her diagnosis to a different disorder which might, she thought, lead the mother to harm her child emotionally in the future. It was a staggering moment for me. But the court did not blink. The child remained in care.

You can believe, in each case, that the parents are evil or deeply flawed. The lack of information to which we are legally entitled means that this may be true. Or you can wonder whether the serious charge of abduction is being stretched awfully thin by a system that seeks to punish the victims of its own failures.

Common to all these cases is the belief that the children are at risk of “emotional harm”. Last year more children were placed on the at-risk register for emotional harm than for sexual abuse or physical abuse. Yet the term is nebulous. Spain does not recognise it at all. Ireland does, but only in extreme cases. Unlike the British authorities, those countries do not think that having had the misfortune to live with an alcoholic made Ms Wileman an unfit mother. The mother jailed last week told me how terrible it was that she could neither prove nor disprove the allegation that she had coached her son to lie.

Emotional abuse is not clear cut. There are no bruises, scars or cigarette burns. There does not even have to be evidence of neglect, such as lack of hygiene, nutrition or schooling. So cases hinge heavily on expert witness evidence about the mental state of the carers. Courts ask psychologists and psychiatrists to make fine judgments about relationships. Some simply do not spend enough time with the parties to justify the courts treating their subjective opinions as hard evidence. While many judges are assiduous readers of reports, the bald fact is that courts rarely refuse applications for care orders: only 20 were refused in 2008, out of more than 7,000.

There is concern within the profession. In a recent article for Family Law Week, a clinical psychologist at the Maudsley Hospital, London, wrote that he and his colleagues “frequently see cases in which there have already been conducted expert reports of extremely variable quality”. He suggested that “the mismatch in expectations between solicitors and clinicians” makes clinicians “feel under pressure to go beyond their usual service”. A senior psychiatrist expert witness recently told me that good judgments can be made only by examining patterns of behaviour over a long period, not by a one-time snapshot of a family. Yet the latter is what happens.

The central difficulty is that those involved in child protection literally do not know what they are supposed to be doing. Working Together, the document that is supposed to define their role, says their primary task is to “safeguard and promote the welfare of children”. The trouble is, nowhere in that 250-page document, or in the thousands of pages of material that elaborate it, is the notion of “the welfare of children” defined in a way that can guide the behaviour of social services officials in a clear and intelligible fashion.

This becomes glaringly obvious in relation to cases of “emotional abuse and neglect”. What is emotional abuse and neglect, and how can it be recognised? That critical question is not answered anywhere. The definition of what has become one of the most common reasons for taking children away from their parents is left to the judgment of individual psychologists and social workers. It means that the notion has become more or less arbitrary, dependent on whim rather than evidence.

Social workers lament that they are overworked and do not have the resources to investigate all the cases that they should. And it’s true: they don’t. But the situation is made much worse by the lack of any clear criteria for distinguishing those families which should be investigated. Result? Social workers spend far too much of their time investigating families they believe are guilty of “emotional abuse and neglect” — and it contributes significantly to their widespread propensity to miss cases, such as Baby P’s, where the abuse is real, and terrible.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Under the freedom of information act I would like to know numerical statistics during the period of 1998 to 2008 for the following;

1) How many children were taken into local authority care on interim care orders and emergency protection orders under the category of emotional harm during the above period? I do not wish you to include any children for any other categories of harm/abuse.

2) Out of these children who were taken into care for emotional harm how many of them were specifically for domestic violence between their parents? Again I do not wish you to include children who had violence directed at them as that would fall into a different category being physical abuse.

3) Out of these children who were put into care for domestic violence how many were returned to family or extended family ?

4) Out of these how many children were put on full care orders?

5) Of the children put on full care orders how many were adopted during these periods.

Yours faithfully,

Angela Wileman

1) courts must consider the presence of domestic violence in the home when determining if the need to place a child would be eliminated by an order of protection removing the abuser from the home, and 2) requires the Office of Children and Family Services to study the extent to which domestic violence victims have their children removed as a result of the abuser's conduct.

Conforms New York state law to the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act

The New York City Administration for Children's Service (ACS) was alleged to have had a policy dictating that children be removed from mothers who were victims of domestic violence. Federal District Court Judge Jack Weinstein characterised this claimed policy as a "pitiless double abuse": These women were forced to suffer the battering, first, and the loss of their children, second.

In a federal lawsuit brought on behalf of a class of mothers and their children, Judge Weinstein granted a preliminary injunction to stop the practice. He did so in part because he ruled there was a likelihood that constitutional violations would be proven at a trial on the merits.

...

Nearly five years ago, Sharwline Nicholson brought a federal lawsuit on behalf of herself and her two children under Section 1983 -- a federal statute that provides a private right of action for, among other things, violations of federal constitutional rights.

Nicholson's suit was later consolidated with others, and eventually certified as a class action. The class consisted of mothers and their children who were separated because the children were deemed neglected by virtue of their exposure to their mothers' being battered. The children in these cases had not themselves been battered, nor did they appear in danger of becoming abused. And in each case, ACS had done an "emergency" removal without any prior court authorisation.

The class action lawsuit revolved around the allegation that ACS, as a policy, removed children in this situation because the mothers, as victims, were alleged to have "engaged in domestic violence."

The federal district court found that ACS had routinely removed children from mothers who had engaged in no violence themselves and, worse still, it had failed to ensure that the victim-mother had access to necessary social services.

Other findings the court made included that the agency had failed to return children when ordered by a court; that it had provided inadequate training for case managers; that it had failed to consider alternatives short of removal that might have been less harmful to the children; and that it had been unable to reform the system in a timely fashion. One caseworker had testified that it was common for the agency to wait a few days after removal before going to court because "after a few days of the children being in foster care, the mother will usually agree to ACS's conditions for their return without the matter even going to court."

On these findings, the District Court found likely violations of constitutional rights. These rights were rooted in principles of substantive and procedural due process, as well as in the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

CPS and Domestic Violence
When CPS workers get involved with children who have witnessed domestic violence, their main concern is the interests of the children. Critics have charged that CPS further penalises battered women by taking away their children when their partners have abused the children. Stephanie Walton, who tracks domestic violence for the National Conference of State Legislatures, observed that experts on domestic violence and child welfare like Jeffrey L. Edleson have noted that "fragmented treatment systems" stand in the way of solving the problems of domestic violence and co-occurring child maltreatment ("When Violence Hits Home," State Legislatures, vol. 29, issue 6, June 2003). Walton added that child welfare workers and domestic violence agencies work against each other, with the former blaming the mother for exposing the child to her partner's violence and the latter protecting the mother from prosecution for failure to protect her child.

According to Thomas D. Morton, president and chief executive officer of Child Welfare Institute, child welfare agencies need to hold the batterers accountable for their actions (Failure to Protect? Child Welfare Institute, Duluth, GA, February 2002). Morton noted that some CPS caseworkers may equate a mother's victimisation to her inability to protect her child, consequently removing the child from the home. CPS and/or state legislatures should clarify certain CPS practices, including what course of action to take when a non-related caregiver in a household is the child abuser. The author asked whether or not CPS should pursue family preservation (keeping the family together) if the abuser is not legally related to the child. He also raised such questions as to whether CPS may require the biological parent to end a relationship with the nonbiological caretaker as a requirement for keeping the child in the family.

VICTIMS CHARGED WITH CHILD ENDANGERMENT
Reforms are also exposing latent tensions between the needs of two seemingly aligned groups - victims of domestic violence and their children and their respective advocates. All too often, female victims of domestic violence are aware, or perhaps more accurately, they should be aware of physical or sexual abuse of minor children. Not surprisingly, abused women who bring their assailants to the attention of the police are frequently subject to criminal claims that they have "failed to protect" their children. Many have had their children removed from their custody for such reasons or have been prosecuted. In some cases, the "failure to protect" charges appear to be a thinly veiled attempt by prosecutors to retain leverage over the victim, in effect coercing her to support criminal charges against her attacker (D. Epstein, 1999).

One recent commentator noted that in New York State, the legal system has become a source of implicit danger to battered mothers rather than a source of assistance. This came from a recent trend to hold mothers strictly accountable for their actions of their spouse towards their children (e.g., it was common for mothers filing for a civil protective order to face a criminal charge of child neglect for " exposing their children to domestic violence": Lemon, 2000). In other words, even if the child had not been victimised, the mere exposure of violence towards the mother allegedly constituted a crime committed by the mother.

Children who witness domestic violence could be taken into care under new powers for local authorities.

Courts will also take into consideration whether domestic violence has taken place when granting access orders to separated parents.

There is a greater risk of child abuse in homes where domestic violence happens, but campaign groups like the NSPCC argue that just witnessing it can significantly harm children.
The new moves are covered in amendments to the Adoption and Children Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.
Ninety per cent of incidents of domestic violence take place when the child is in the same or next room, according to research cited by the NSPCC.
The charity says children who grow up in homes where domestic violence takes place are themselves at greater risk of abuse.
Other research suggests that one in three children protection cases shows a history of domestic violence for the mother.

In a report published in May, the NSPCC said 8 out of 10 young people who had suffered serious physical abuse had also experienced domestic violence.
For nearly half of these, the domestic violence was constant or frequent.

"Domestic violence often follows a pattern where the male partner seeks to control every aspect of the life of the mother and children, including their thinking and freedom of expression," the report says.

Harriet Harman: Wants changes to domestic violence laws
"The violence is unpredictable, with mothers and children often treading on egg-shells because they cannot tell what will provoke new violence.
"As a result children often live in a climate of fear and uncertainty, which terrorises children even if they are not directly assaulted.
"Mothers' and children's fears for each other are exploited and used as weapons to control both."

Under the proposed changes to the Bill, local authorities will be able to use domestic violence as a reason to inquire into a child's welfare. The legal definition of what causes a child "significant harm" will be changed to include the suffering experienced by witnessing domestic violence.

When a child is at risk of "significant harm", intervention by local authorities will be compulsory.

"We have to get these kids away from this quickly," said an NSPCC spokeswoman.

Women’s Aid has recently increased its campaigning and educating activities in support of the government’s initiative to end domestic violence. It joined forces with the NSPCC to produce a powerful political force to extend the definition of “harm” in the Children’s Act 1989 to now include “impairment suffered from seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another”.

As a consequence “harm”, for the purposes of satisfying the threshold criteria in care proceedings, is statutorily diluted to “ill-treatment”, which can include such nebulous concepts as witnessing the “emotional or financial abuse of another”.

So where does this leave a parent suffering from domestic violence?

Once Women’s Aid was independent of the state and the NSPCC, helping physically abused women by providing temporary and then permanent accommodation away from a violent partner, now it is a campaigning and educating charity that wishes to increase its role in society by promoting the existence of the emotional abuse of children by domestic violence.

The number of women being accommodated in Women’s Aid refuges appears to have fallen in recent years, yet the number of children taken into care, based on present or future emotional abuse, due to domestic violence, has increased to 30% of all care applications.

Women’s Aid now assesses such abuse under the Common Assessment Framework, having become government and public educators in all aspects of domestic violence.

Fifteen years ago it was unlikely that a social worker would have been able to gain access to a Women’s Aid refuge, such was the residents and charity’s fear of care proceedings. Rather than helping the vulnerable, this change in the law and Women’s Aid’s charitable role could result in women not reporting domestic violence, nor fleeing to a refuge, for fear of losing their children.

This thirteen page article by Beatrix Campbell...concerns mostly the Cleveland Mass Lift case. Beatrix begins by insisting that the paediatricians and social workers were 'right' despite the findings of the Butler Sloss enquiry and then moves on to posit what appears to be a convoluted political ideology of endemic sexual abuse linked to male-dominated, right-wing family structures which are protected by the police and the judiciary at the expense of the victims, the children.

Even though this therapy has been debunked and recovered memory therapists have been sued for damages inflicted through this kind of therapy, Epstein warns that "according to the director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, recovered memory therapy is still being practiced." And, indeed, it is! Christian counsellors continue to use various forms of inner healing, recovered memory therapy, and what is called "Theophostic Prayer Ministry," which is a form of regressive therapy in which people experience their recreated past in the misguided hope of psychological-spiritual healing.

It must have slipped Campbell's mind that she sat next to Andy Croall, the former director of Social Services at Nottingham on the TV program After Dark, which discussed the 'prevalence' of Satanic Ritual Abuse and during which Croall made his infamous statement about abortion being a form of ritual abuse. Croall made his Christian fundamentalist world-view clear to all viewers.

The three-day meeting at a Christian centre in Swanwick, a Derbyshire village, has been organised by Christians In Caring Professions (CICP), a group of evangelical Christians who believe in the devil. A confidential letter advising members about the conference, Light After Dark, lays down an entry requirement that delegates should `demonstrate their current involvement in this area (of satanic ritual abuse)'. It is described as an `area of ministry'.

`As you are no doubt aware, the number of reported cases of satanic ritual abuse is on the increase. This kind of abuse is evil in the extreme and, as Christians, we want to be equipped to bring God's healing to those who have been damaged in this way,' it says.

The letter was sent on behalf of Andy Croall, the CICP's general secretary and the former deputy director of Nottingham social services, scene of one of the first satanic abuse inquiries involving 23 children in 1988. He was suspended in 1991 after a televised comment that abortion was the biggest form of child abuse.

In their five minute speeches, not one of them talked about what role religions would play in that progressive future so my hand shot up as soon as the chair, Guardian journalist John Harris, opened the debate to the floor.

Only Beatrix got to answer my question - and that was only because John pushed her. Sadly, her perspective was downbeat and, for the large part, dated. "Religion is about patriarchal domination," she said. "I have great unease about organised religions playing a role in the future."

JOURNALIST: Do you remember the interview with Bea Campbell? The one that was filmed for the Channel 4 program?

JEAN: Yes.

JOURNALIST: So, are you a witch?

JEAN: No. I’ve never been into ought like that.

JOURNALIST: Then why did you tell Bea Campbell that you were?

JEAN: She came to see me at work. She had Chris Johnstone the social worker in tow. I was really angry about it. I’d only just got the job and the last thing I needed were social workers turning up and asking to speak to me. I told them I didn’t want to be in their program.

JOURNALIST: What happened then?

JEAN: Chris Johnstone said that if I didn’t do the interview and say that I’d been a witch, I’d never see me kids again. I was trying to get them out of care at the time. So I agreed to do it. I just thought I’d get me kids back.

JOURNALIST: So then you did the interview?

JEAN: First Bea Campbell took me to a bank and cashed a cheque and gave me £150.

JOURNALIST: If you lied for Bea Campbell, why should we believe what you are saying now?

JEAN: Because now I know the truth. Chris [Johnstone] lied to me about getting me kids back. I was never going to get me kids back. And I were never a witch.

After I led Harry, the former high priest of Satanism, to Christ, I began to learn from talking with him more about the extent and organisation of Satanism. He told me that he was not a priest in a local coven, but a member of the council of 50 in a worldwide coven. He shared with me that the organisational structure in Satanism corresponds to the four-level hierarchy of demonic rule under Satan mentioned in Ephesians 6:12. “Rulers” is linked to the royal court of Satanism. There are seven major covens in the world which are presented on the royal court. “Powers” corresponds to host-level priests, and “world forces” to legion-level priests. “Spiritual forces” identifies the circle covens or local covens.

The Satanist organisation is massive and extremely secretive. When you hear of satanic priests or rituals, you are hearing only about activities at the level of the circle coven. However, you need not concern yourself too much with what you see or hear, since the Satanist activity which you read about in the newspapers or which is recorded in most police reports is usually the activity of mere dabblers. It’s what you don’t see that is pulling the strings and arranging events in Satanism. I have counselled enough victims of Satanism to know that there are breeders (producing children expressly for sacrifice or for development into leaders) and infiltrators committed to infiltrating and disrupting Christian ministry.

To illustrate how human and spiritual forces of wickedness work together, ask any group of committed Christians this question: “How many of you have been awakened for no apparent reason at 3:00 A.M.?”...Satanists meet from 12:00 to 3:00 A.M., and part of their ritual is to summon and send demons. Three in the morning is the prime time for demon activity, and if you have awakened at that time it may be that you have been targeted. I have been targeted by demons numerous times.

Suggest early intervention and people respond: "But we don't want another Cleveland!" What do they mean? The Guardian said this week that wrong diagnosis was the cause of Britain's biggest child abuse controversy in 1987, in Cleveland.

The Guardian is wrong. The official Butler-Sloss inquiry report into the crisis said there was no reason to doubt the diagnosis. A report signed off by the current chief medical officer of health, Sir Liam Donaldson, reckoned that there was a higher than average rate of diagnostic accuracy by the Cleveland doctors. That report was dropped into drawer at the Department of Health and was never allowed to enlighten us. Official policy is to not know.

People are reluctant to accept that parents, even those classed as social failures, will harm their own children, and even invite others to do so, but involvement with the devil explains it. The notion that unknown, powerful leaders control the cult revives an old myth of dangerous strangers. Demonising the marginal poor and linking them to unknown satanists turns intractable cases of abuse into manifestations of evil

Feminist politics has always linked the empowerment of women with the empowerment of children. But there's a flakey, nay rather fundamentalist feminism around, which has found it as hard as everyone else else to cope with the latest discoveries about the oppression of children. To defend the discovery that the biggest single category of child abuser is the child's father within the family, they and others deny the significance of new evidence which locates child abuse not only within the family but without.

(R)ritual abuse, however, throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s ritual abuse was one of the few issues in which premillenial fundamentalist Christians could not only find common ground with feminists who were normally their mortal enemies, but also cooperate on a day to day basis.

The notion of ritual abuse had surfaced in the United States in the aftermath of the McMartin school case of 1983, and which recurred in a number of other celebrated cases over the next two years, as in Jordan, Minnesota and Bakersfield, California. In essence, it was charged that organised groups of Satanists held ceremonies in which children played a major role. Children were raped and sodomised by large numbers of participants, both male and female, and some infants were mutilated or sacrificed (Jenkins and Maier-Katkin 1992; Hicks 1991). Sacrificial rituals might involve the drinking of a victim's blood or the eating of his flesh. Other rites involved the consumption of urine or faeces. The emphasis on defiling children was said to reflect the view that the most innocent victim was the most satisfying sacrifice to the Lord of Evil. One variant of the story held that women belonging to the cults acted as "breeders" or (the British term), "brood mares", who bred children specifically to be murdered.

A young teenage girl, impregnated during a Satanic ritual, is forcibly delivered of her nearly term baby, forced to ritually kill the child and then to cannibalise its heart as cult members watch. Another girl, a small child, is sealed inside the cavity of a disemboweled animal and "re-birthed" by her cultic captors during a ceremony. A preschool class is systematically sexually, emotionally and physically abused by part of a nationwide, nearly invincible network of Satanic pedophiles and pornographers. A young girl is thrown into an electrified cage with wolves and ritually tortured to deliberately produce a "wolf personality", part of her multiple personality disorder (MPD)

If grown men are capable of dressing up in pinnies and sharing secret signs with each other in masonic lodges up and down the country, what is so hard about contemplating the prospect of grown men dressing up in daft costumes to invert the meanings of the dominant faith; organising rituals to penetrate any orifice available in troops of little children; to cut open rabbits, or cats, or people, and drink their blood; to shit on silver trays and make the children eat it?"

"Neil" This testimony by a SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) survivor should give us reason for concern about the possibility of a connection between Freemasonry and Satanic ritual abuse. What is even more compelling is the fact that this testimony is not unique. All over the United States victims are disclosing that Satanic ritual abuse is being perpetrated by Freemasons and that this type of abuse is taking place on Masonic properties.

There is now a rapidly growing awareness among therapists and Christian counter-cult ministries that high percentages of their victims have a connection with Freemasonry.

A Christian minister has worked with about 100 SRA MPD victims and reports that 90% of his victims claim that they were abused by Masonic perpetrators and that over 50% of the actual abuse took place on Masonic properties.

A practicing psychotherapist gives the following report:

I am a psychotherapist in private practice and treat mainly survivors of Satanic cult abuse. About half of the clients I treat report that their fathers were Masons. About half of the others report that a very close friend of the family's was a Mason. They recall going to parties and gatherings at the homes of Masons.

For some time now our ministry has been involved with warning the church about the cancerous anti-Christian menace of Freemasonry. We have also been compiling a record of statements from therapists and of victims like Neil who have testified to a direct connection between FREEMASONRY and SRA (SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE). These testimonies are becoming too numerous to ignore and the study of the Masonic connection in SRA could open up new areas of understanding and prevention.

A study of cross-national cultural diffusion between social movements by McAdam and Rucht (1993) offers useful theoretical principles for understanding the cultural diffusion of collective behaviour. McAdam and Rucht's study is particularly important, because moral panics are spread by social movements, at least in part. In the case of SRA accusations, Christian fundamentalist and feminist social movements played a central role. McAdam and Rucht emphasise that the transmission of new ideas from one society to another is more likely, the more similar the culture, social organisation and social roles in the recipient society. Particularly important for the transmission of new ideas between social movements are similarities in language, ideologies and the occupations of activists. Secondly, McAdam and Rucht suggest that there must exist social networks of contact and channels of communication between people playing similar institutional roles in the sending and recipient societies. More specifically, there must first be to be direct, interpersonal contacts. These direct contacts activate selective attention to indirect channels of communication, such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, books, and professional journals.

A contrast with a culture where claims about satanic cult crime have not taken root is useful. In France, SRA accusations being made in American society and nearby England are regarded with ridicule, if they are known at all. Journalists and popular writers are often quite critical of the foibles of American culture and often resistant to what they consider to be cultural fads coming from America. In France, only 17% of the population believe in the existence of the Devil compared with 65% in the U.S., according to opinion polls (Gallup 1982:98). Fundamentalist Protestantism has no political significance. French feminism, which centers its demonology upon a critique of the capitalist elite and socioeconomic injustice, is ideologically quite different from Anglo-American feminism. It is likely that cross-national, personal contacts between people in the same occupations, such as medical doctors, psychotherapists and police, are relatively uncommon, due in part to language and cultural differences.

But the skeptics were to be in a minority over the next few controversial months, and a number of feminists supported the reality of the charges. They did so for a variety of reasons, but above all because of the sacrosanct tenet that children's evidence must be believed. In addition, failure to defend these charges would cast doubt on a generation of assertions about child sexual abuse in general. Without this, the movement would (lose) an effective rhetorical weapon against the unsavoury and dangerous patriarchal nuclear family. Radical feminists therefore formed an unlikely common front with the Charismatics and Evangelicals with whom they disagreed on so many other aspects of social policy.

Katha, these were the years when a column by you in The Nation could have been enormously influential. Why? You know the answer perfectly well, though even today you cannot really bring yourself to admit it. In the coalition powering the satanic abuse persecutions feminists constituted a powerful component, most conspicuously in the form of Gloria Steinem and Ms. magazine. How did feminism, a movement that grew out of the radical passions of the l960s, navigate itself into this demonic alliance? Charges of perverse abuse of children seemed an inviting line of attack in the larger onslaught on patriarchy, sexual violence and harassment. Social workers and therapists--many of them feminists -- became the investigators and effective prosecutors.

Since you had belittled her work, Katha, perhaps you didn't bother, back in l995, to read Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker's definitive book Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt. You would have found some very acute analysis of feminism's crucial involvement in the hysteria, plus some well merited condemnation. "It is difficult to explain to justifiably indignant and frightened people that feminist theory and practice are not monolithic, and that many women's advocates abhor that part of the movement that demonises masculinity, forges alliances with the anti-feminist right, and communicates such profound fear and loathing of sexuality that -- as the ritual abuse cases demonstrate -- it is even willing to cast women as demons... It is ...obvious that the anti-pornographers and victimologists are feminism's main contributors to the ritual-abuse panic. Catharine MacKinnon, for instance, has publicly proclaimed her belief in the existence of widespread ritual sex abuse. So have Gloria Steinem and countless psychotherapists, social workers, doctors, lawyers, and writers who call themselves feminists. Indeed, during the past decade, belief in ritual abuse has become so ensconced in this wing of feminism that the arrest, trial by ordeal, and lifelong incarceration of accused women have occasioned hardly a blink from its proponents. They have remained silent as convicted mothers and teachers are sent to prison."

"In the early 1990s, someone with Pollitt's progressive-feminist stature and steady national venue could have helped feminists and leftists claim a critical stance on this issue rather than yielding it to the right, who embraced it mainly because they don't like public child care, because they think children are parents' private property, and because they saw a very easy way to discredit feminism (a theoretical and political contributor to the hysteria). Pollitt could definitely have influenced MS. magazine and Gloria Steinem. She might also have saved some children and their caretakers -- many of them public school and childcare workers -- from hard time in bad therapy and behind bars."

The Role of Ideological Preconceptions
In the face of frightening claims about secret satanic cult conspiracies and allegations of ritual abuse, many people simply fall back on their ideological preconceptions and habitual modes of thinking. This is why religious fundamentalists and feminists have been drawn together into a moral crusade against ritual abuse. This unlikely alliance has occurred in the past, in the moral crusade against "white slavery" and in the Prohibition campaign.

Fundamentalists come from an ideological tradition which affirms the existence of secret conspiracies of evil doers, who do Satan's work. Therefore, they are receptive to claims about secret cults, which sexually abuse children in evil rituals designed to "brainwash" these children into the pursuit of evil.

Feminists, on their part, are very much aware of the past hidden victimisation of women and children, as was commonplace in cases of rape, incest and wife beating. They are receptive to claims that children are being victimised in secretive ways, and that their painful testimony is being discredited once again by people who are insensitive to the ways in which women and children have been so often victimised (Nathan, 1991).

A number of historians have described the recurring emergence of satanic conspiracies, which appear particularly during periods of social stress, and their deep roots in Christian demonology. Dominant or insider groups often accuse the outsider group of heretical practises that threaten the destruction of cherished societal values. When a dominant group is threatened by a competing worldview, such as those that beset the church during the late medieval period, accusations of demonic practises may reinvigorate institutional authority and revitalise the commitment and loyalty of followers.

While it is not difficult to grasp the function of demonology in such contexts, there has been little attention in the literature to the varying and complex political uses of such subversion legends. In the contemporary historical context, the SRA legend finds a ready receptivity in conservative Christian groups, with their preoccupation with the Prince of Darkness, defence of majoritarian religious values, and the advancement of right-wing politics. Accounts of ritual abuse survivors became standard fare on Christian talk shows in the 1980s, circulated through the expanding cable network channels. These tales of sexual perversion merged as the Christian pornography of the 1980s, riveting audiences with descriptions of moral degradation.

'Less understandable is the receptivity to SRA accounts that flourished in grassroots feminist organisations during this same period. In crisis clinics throughout the country, materials began to circulate on ritual abuse, including elaborate glossaries, checklists of signs and symptoms, and intervention strategies. By 1990, ritual abuse was a standard part of staff training in many feminist crisis facilities throughout the United States. Initially distributed by the Los Angeles County Commission for Women through its task force on ritual abuse, these materials elicited no discernible critical response or skepticism among feminist practitioners. Given the large percentage of suspected female perpetrators of SRA, particularly day-care workers, and the number of feminist "witchcraft" practices implicated in ritual abuse cases, the enthusiastic participation of feminist organisations in circulating news of the "epidemic"is startling."

As Shermer (1997) has pointed out, the recent concern about satanic ritual abuse is a modern version of the medieval witch crazies. In such crazes, the intermeshing of psychological and social conditions become coupled with a feedback loop that feeds on peope's fears and drives legends and rumour panics in such a way that they come to have a life of their own. Although a variety of commonalities between historical witch crazes and modern SRA accusations have been noted in the literature, some of the most salient similarities include 1) the prevelence of allegations of sex or sexual abuse; 2) mere accusations become equated with factual guilt; 3) the denial of guilt is seen as proof of guilt; 4) single claims of victimization lead to an outbreak of similar claims; and 5) as the accused begin to fight back, the pendulum begins to swing the other way as the accusers sometimes become the accused, and the falsity of the accusations is demonstrated by skeptics (Shermer 1997).

Goldstein and Farmer (1993) are two false memory advocates who believe that “aspects of the radical feminist movement” have contributed to the development of “a milieu in which false memories can flourish,” although these authors fail to explain what aspects they are referring to (p. 7). My analysis of the major culpability for the development of false memories is very different from theirs. While these authors blame feminists, I share Armstrong's view that the major liability lies with therapists.

The recovered memory movement has victimized, in horrendous fashion, not only men, but mostly women, the latter group in the name of liberation, empowerment, and healing. Who are the major movers of this therapy gone amuck? When and why did the movement start and how did it proliferate? Above all, why did recovered memory therapy receive such enthusiastic approval from some feminist factions?

To start with, accusations based on supposedly repressed and recovered memories only began to appear in the mid-eighties, and reached epidemic proportions in the late eighties and early nineties. Prior to the mid-eighties, patients claiming that they had uncovered memories of childhood sexual trauma for which they had no previous awareness were rare or nonexistent (Goodyear-Smith, 1995). The outburst of allegations based solely on recovered memories coincided with the publication of several self-help memory-recovery books, all written by women (Bass & Davis, 1988; Blume, 1990; Courtois, 1988; Fredrickson, 1992; Maltz, 1992), and with proliferation of erroneous beliefs in massive repression. The Courage to Heal (Bass & Davis, 1988), the so-called bible of the recovered memory movement, was written by two women with no background in psychology or psychiatry. Probably the greatest irony is the fact that this openly anti-male hate literature encouraged therapy practices which have caused untold suffering to thousands of women.

In War Against the Family, Canadian writer W. D. Gairdner (1993) argues that radical feminism is essentially an antifamily movement. Grossly distorted sex abuse statistics, together with allegations originating in the offices of the recovered memory therapists, provide handy ammunition for the feminist fringes in their fight against the cornerstone of society — the traditional family of origin. Along the same line, Webster (1995) claims that the most disturbing feature of the recovered memory movement is the manner in which it encourages an attitude of emotional coldness and cruelty between generations. According to Ofshe and Watters (1994), recovering memories of abuse has proved a powerful metaphor for the larger goal of exposing the perceived unfairness of the patriarchal family structures of a male-dominated society. The defense of recovered memory therapy became synonymous with the defense of the women's movement.

The marriage of feminism and the phenomenally popular recovery movement is arguably the most distrubing (and potentially influential) development in the feminist movement today. It's based on a shared concern about child abuse, nominally a left-wing analogue to right-wing anxiety about the family. There's an emerging alliance of anti-pornography and anti-violence feminists with therapists who diagnose and treat child abuse, including "ritual abuse and "satanism" (often said to be linked to pornography). Feminism is at risk of being implicated in the unsavoury business of hypnotizing suspected victims of abuse to help them "retrieve" their buried childhood memories. Gloria Steinhem has blithely praised the important work of therapists in this field without even a nod to the potential for, well, abuse when unhappy suggestible people who are angry at their parents are exposed to suggestive hypnotic techniques designed to uncover their histories of victimization.

But the involvement of some feminists in the memory-retrieval industry in only one manifestation of a broader ideological threat posed to feminism by the recovery movement. Recovery, with its absurdly broad definitions of addictions and abuse, encourages people to feel fragile and helpless. Parential insensitivity is classed as child abuse, along with parental violence, because all suffering is said to be equal (meaning entirely subjective); but that's appropriate only if all people are so terribly weak that a cross word inevitably has the destructive force of a blow. Put very simply, women need a feminist movement that makes them feel strong.

Jenkins has shown that the satanic ritual abuse panic that flared up in Britain in the late 1980's "offered ideological confirmation of the limitations of liberal theology. Since the 1960s, the dominant faction in British churches has emphasised social and political activism with a left/liberal slant. For Evangelicals and Charismatics, this was a lethal distraction from the critical issues of personal holiness and spiritual warfare. During the 1980s the point was reasserted by a new focus on black magic, cults, ancestral demons, and ritual abusers" (Jenkins, 1992, p.204). Not surprisingly, fundamentalists, evangelical, and charismatic Christian organisations have been at the forefront of the British (and American) satanic ritual abuse panic from its very inception. For the most part, liberal and mainstream Christians found incredible and implausible the charges of satanic ritual abuse that more conservative Christians regarded as believable. In this case, religious conservatives argued from a certain definition of reality - that satanism is alive and well in contemporary society and inflicting evil deeds on innocent children - which advances both their material and ideological interests.

In addition, in Britain in the 1980s, social workers too to gain from the satanic ritual abuse panic both in terms of status and as a result of an increase in public funding for social welfare services. "A child abuse crisis…let to perceptions of a major problem requiring the urgent allocation of new resources: A larger and more specialised child protection establishment would mean more investigation and detection and thus more concern. This spiral effect goes far towards explaining the overall growth [of the number of social workers in Britain] during the decade [of the 1980s]" (Jenkins, 1992, p201). Public opinion polls have found social workers to be at the bottom among all professions in prestige. "The only way to reaffirm the value of the profession was to show that social workers were dealing with truly menacing problems, which they were uniquely qualified to investigate and combat. Exposing a vast and unsuspected prevalence of child abuse thus fulfilled both ideological and professional needs, and fully justified the need for specialised social services agencies" (Jenkins 202).

It is also true that the American child-savers often side-step the 'gender question' entirely by offering another version of the banality of evil explanation, a version that is especially influential in the European satanic ritual abuse cases that more often are discovered in family and neighbourhood settings than in day care facilities. In this version satanic ritual abusers are robed and hooded every-persons living everywhere: women and men, old and young, strangers and acquaintances, rich and poor, urban and rural, respectable and raffish. Satanic ritual abusers are 'normal looking and carry on normal lives,' insists Pazder (1989). 'They are members of every strata of society' (Pazder, 1989: 39). According to Sexton they also have infiltrated every profession and organisation in civilised society. 'We're not talking about the sleaze bag in the park,' he told a child-saving conference audience. 'We're talking about attorneys, ministers, high-ranking military people, Eagle Scouts' ('Satanic rites' 1998: A-3). This notion of the banality of evil is given an alliterative twist in the panic discourse of Braun(1988), one of the most prominent American child-savers, whose 'Rule of P's' reveals the public persona of secret satanic ritual abusers: physicians, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, principals and teachers, pallbearers, public workers, police, politicians and judges, priests and clergies of all religions, parents and providers of day care.

Today's witch hunters also see themselves as seeking persons living in the visible world who draw upon the invisible. Lieutenant Larry Jones of the Boise, Idaho police, and very much a believer in the existence of a Satanic cult conspiracy, advises:

When confronting those criminals who are led or controlled by supernatural evil beings, philosophies or motivations, traditional police tools are not effective (Smith & Watalad, 1989, p. 100).

There are criminals of this world, according to Jones, who are so aided by supernatural beings of the invisible world that traditional police tools, even if previously proven effective, will not be effective against them.

This line of thinking seriously undermines public confidence in the ability of public authorities to investigate and ultimately solve crimes with Satanic overtones. Furthermore, it opens the door for employment of unproven or questionable methods in the search for the devil's own. The danger lies in that one finds what one seeks. The "success" of extraordinary or questionable methods to unmask previously unidentified servants of Satan helps explain the "failure" of more traditional methods to do so. This has the additional effect of legitimising the methods employed.

(from the "blurb") Although both journalists and lawyers played a major role in driving this modern witch-hunt forwards, the ideas and fantasies out of which it grew developed within the profession of social work. The book traces the origins of these ideas and sets them in a much broader historical context, arguing that the modern child protection movement is a revivalist movement, rooted deeply, for all its apparent secularism, in an ancient religious tradition.

"In October, 1991, a Grand Juror was present at a meeting of the San Diego Commission on Children and Youth when a report on ritual abuse was adopted. This report, entitled Ritual Abuse Treatment, Intervention and Safety Guidelines, was the result of a task force effort and made numerous recommendations for handling ritual, and, of particular concern to the Jury, satanic abuse. The following definition of "satanic" appears in this report.

'Satanic - Satanists may infiltrate other types of cults, or remain separate. Satanic cults may range from an extra-familial collection of methamphetamine abuses who torture for excitement, to decades old, multi-national sects, with established political systems, revenue mechanisms, etc., which indulge in the deification of Satan. Numerous cults exist which have sophisticated suppliers of sacrificial persons, from kidnapers through "breeders" (women who bear children intended for sexual abuse and sacrifice).'

Within the week Jurors were present at a dependency proceeding where a referee was presented a detention petition involving allegations of satanic behavioural abuse. The referee followed the recommendations in the social study which were almost verbatim from the recommendations made for handling these cases in the Commission on Children and Youth report. The children named in the petition were placed in confidential placement with no family contact whatsoever. They were also placed with a therapist "well-versed" in ritual abuse.

Citizen complaints of social workers pursuing satanic ritual abuse cases began to come to the Jury. Four families were from the same church congregation; the other complaints were unrelated. In one case the County Counsel filed a petition actually alleging that the child would be sacrificed on his birthday. All of the cases tested rational credulity. Each involved the same set of social workers, therapists, and detectives. At this time, all cases with which the Jury is familiar have been terminated. The emotional cost to the children and families cannot be calculated. In at least two cases, lawsuits against the County have followed.

Jurors contacted expert witnesses across the country. The ritual abuse report was sent to various experts for evaluation.

Police detectives involved in these investigations, members of the task force who wrote the report and an involved therapist were interviewed. Jurors attended a conference workshop by another therapist who served on the task force which prepared the report and was being used as a recommended ritual abuse therapist. Witnesses were asked to provide a factual information or evidence they had available which would substantiate the existence of satanic ritual abuse in San Diego County or elsewhere. No such information or evidence was provided. The Jury found that there is no physical evidence of satanic ritual child abuse in San Diego County. There is evidence and considerable professional testimony that the existence of satanic ritual abuse is a contemporary myth perpetuated by a small number of social workers, therapists, and law enforcement members who have effected an influence which far belies their numbers. These "believers" cannot be dissuaded by a lack of physical evidence.

The Jury had extensive contact with Ken Lanning, head of the FBI Behavioural Sciences Investigation Unit. Mr. Lanning has spent ten years in nationwide search for reliable evidence of satanic ritual abuse. He has found none. It is his position that if satanic ritual abuse were occurring his unit would have found some concrete evidence during their exhaustive search.

Mr. Lanning advised jurors that epidemic allegations of satanic abuse frequently follow conferences where social workers and therapists are exposed to a "survivor" or speaker on the subject. Jurors attended one of these sessions at a national conference on child abuse held locally and coordinated by the Center for Child Protection. "Survivors" told about their abuse in detail. One "survivor" had memories of sexual abuse on the day she was born. This same survivor reported memories of her mother's attempts to abort her. Another "survivor" told a detailed story of satanic ritual abuse which included a large number of prominent citizens from her hometown .
....
The alleged satanic abuse cases which have surfaced nationwide during the past ten years share many common elements. No matter how incredible the allegations, the "believers" believe them. No physical evidence is found. The "believers" have complex theories to explain the absence of physical findings and evidence. The "evidence" presented is the testimony of children. The children testify to fantastic tales which can not be confirmed. The children have spent a considerable time with therapists. Most often, religious fundamentalism is an element. Frequently, a "survivor" or someone who has "memories" of having been ritually abused as a child is involved either as the therapist, the social worker, the prosecutor, or the reporting party. Criminal trial juries find it hard to believe that children can tell such incredible stories if nothing has happened to them. They find themselves faced with either believing the children are lying or the perpetrator is guilty. In some cases they have chosen to believe the children. Another option is to choose to believe that the child's narrative memory has been contaminated by the therapy.

Of particular interest is the information the Jury received about the Little Rascals pre-school case in North Carolina. Eighty-five percent of the percent of the children received therapy with three therapists in the town; all of these children eventually reported satanic abuse. Fifteen percent of the children were treated by different therapists in a neighbouring city; none of the children reported abuse of any kind after the same period of time in therapy.

Ms. Dawson does not refer to her own beliefs, if any, but she has appeared on a video-tape produced by the Evangelical Alliance, a fundamentalist Christian organisation with one million members in Britain. Published in July and called Doorways to Danger, the video warns adults and children of the dangers of dabbling in the occult, from Ouija boards and tarot cards to witchcraft and black magic.
...
The most enlightening insight into what happened in Nottingham, and possibly elsewhere, is contained in the 650-page report complied by in inquiry team of police and social workers set up by the Chief Constable and Director of Social Services. It is a damning indictment of the interviewing techniques and leading questions used by social workers.

Professors John and Elizabeth Newson, psychologists who were asked by assess the techniques used, concluded that one 17-year-old girl "was led to confabulate" a story that she had taken part in Satanic sacrifices. The girl later said the story was totally untrue and that "the only knowledge that she had, had come from social workers, that she had been pressurised, that the social workers would not take no for an answer".

The report concluded: "The social workers who already believed in Satanic abuse could by this method convince a child that she was a murderer and that she was guilty of cannibalism and Devil Worship...It is a sobering thought that in the 17th century [she] could have been burnt as a witch with inquisitors using identical methods."

It seems to us that the whole purpose of the therapy is to prove that [Mary] was involved in Satanism and to find out who further she would implicate. The questioning moves from establishing that she has killed and eaten babies and likes drinking human blood to questions about the adults involved and a Church, whether special days were used, whether special clothes were worn, whether prayers, words, or chants were used. It appears to be finally established to the social workers' satisfaction that all this has happened because [Mary]'s family are involved in 'Devil Worship'. The work appears to have all the elements of an interrogation; leading and limited choice questions (e.g. you killed at least one baby, more than one, 3?, 30? How many?) Statements make her believe that she had already admitted something, the sudden demand for 'a name' and "the Church", 'names' to catch her off guard are also employed. The questioner appears to have no doubt that the person being questioned is involved and the task is to make them "confess" by any means available. It is reminiscent of MacFarlaine's attitude in the McMartin trial when she calls for unconventional interviewing methods that "do whatever it takes to get children to talk". However, to believe [Mary], the social workers have to accept that seven murders and acts of cannibalism had taken place in the front room of a semi-detached house on a council estate to coincide with access visits without anybody noticing and that a social worker must have been implicated.

"I am particularly concerned that in the course of their disclosure interviews the social workers involved appear to have offered the children a whole vocabulary for describing their experiences which serves to transform their accounts into apparently plausible description of witchcraft practices".

(The Guardian) that at the height of the Rochdale controversy in 1990 published a sympathetic account of American therapist Pamela Hudson. This noted that since her pioneering work in southern California in 1984, no less than six cases had been proved in the United States, where ritual abuse rings had been preying on nursery schools. This statement appears to be simply groundless, as no such organised abuse has ever been accepted by an American court, but the claim is indicative of sympathy toward the ritual abuse theorists.

INTERVIEWER: It would be okay to tell me the truth if she did try to bother you just so that you can show me how she might just try to hurt these other kids. 'Cause the more we know, the longer she will stay in jail. You understand...? What were some of the other stories that she used to scare the kids? That they wouldn't tell anybody. Did she tell them she would hurt their parents or something? Do you know if she said that?
CHILD: Yeah INTERVIEWER: You know that's not true...The police put her in jail. Because she was hurting you, you know. That's why I really need your help...And you will be helping to keep her in jail longer so that she doesn't hurt anybody else.
CHILD: It's scaring me.
INTERVIEWER: That's okay. Believe me, she's not going to coming out of jail. She's not going to be hurting you guys anymore...
CHILD: I didn't get hurt.
INTERVIEWER: No, maybe you didn't; maybe you fought her off. Maybe you really didn't hurt then. Maybe you saw your other friends getting hurt and you didn't like it very much, you know.
...
TREACY: Did Kelly ask the kids to look at her private parts, or to kiss her private parts?
CHILD: She made me. She made me, but I couldn't do it. So I didn't even really do it. I didn't do it.
TREACY: Did is smell good? CHILD: Shhhh. TREACY: Did it taste good. Did it taste like chocolate? CHILD: Ha, ha. No, I didn't even do it. TREACY: You Wee Care kids are so scared of her. CHILD: I wasn't. I'm not even... TREACY: But while you were there, were you real scared? CHILD: I don't know. TREACY: What was so frightening about her; what was so scary about her? CHILD: I don't know. Why don't you ask her? TREACY: Did she drink the pee-pee? CHILD: Please, that just sounds crazy. I don't remember about that. Really don't.

Psychologist Corydon Hammond of the University of Utah has lectured on what he believes to be the Satanic techniques of mind control. He claims that a team of Nazi doctors had been conducting mind control experiments in concentration camps. They came to the US after the war to secretly continue their experiments for the CIA. They allegedly programmed and tortured children on army bases across the US. At this time, the CIA, NASA, the Mafia, Hollywood and some business leaders are part of a massive, tightly controlled Satanic network which is gearing up to rule the world. He asserts that children are programmed from age 3 to teenage years; this involves disorienting noise, flashing lights and electric shocks. He believes that alters are created to perform specific functions. Programmed is done in layers; some are:

• Alpha layer is general programming
• Beta controls sexual behaviour including knowledge to make kiddy-porn
• Delta are assassins and are responsible for slashing
• Theta are psychic killers; through mental energy, they can cause another person to develop a malignant brain tumour
• Omega self-mutilate and commit suicide
• Gamma provide misinformation and create confusion
• Zeta has information to produce snuff films

Mind control is the cornerstone of ritual abuse, the key element in the subjugation and silencing of its victims. Victims of ritual abuse are subjected to a rigorously applied system of mind control designed to rob them of their sense of free will and to impose upon them the will of the cult and its leaders. Most often these ritually abusive cults are motivated by a satanic belief system [only on the surface.] The mind control is achieved through an elaborate system of brainwashing, programming, indoctrination, hypnosis, and the use of various mind-altering drugs. The purpose of the mind control is to compel ritual abuse victims to keep the secret of their abuse, to conform to the beliefs and behaviours of the cult, and to become functioning members who serve the cult by carrying out the directives of its leaders without being detected within society at large."

Ritual abuse, trauma-based mind control of young children, is real enough - but media that quote pedophile advocates and CIA mind control operatives without identifying them as such, all the while censoring out the victims and their supporters, filling the gap with libellous and cruel smears of both - aren't real at all.

For 20 years, the mere mention of RA has been sufficient grounds for "mainstream" media rejection of anything a victim has to say. The blackout on legitimate RA reporting has left the public completely ignorant of mind control issues.

Like others who have investigated RA, I've been forced to work around a press that remains completely one-sided and disingenuous in its support of child rapists and torturers. The cynical games played by the press to discredit victims of RA constitute an organised cover-up. It draws heavily on the tactics of Holocaust denial.

In January 1996, the full-grown director of a support group for ritually abused children in Los Angeles (she has worked closely with the families in the McMartin case) discovered firsthand what happened at the preschool when the local mind control team targeted her for torture from a remote source. The experience began with a splitting headache, "like needles" boring into her cranium. The attack continued for seven or eight hours. She was reduced to screaming and crying and took to bed. When she closed her eyes, her head was filled with images of figures in robes moving in a circle. She opened her eyes and the figures still swarmed in the darkness in front of her. She switched on the light. The image was still there.

She wasn't hallucinating. And the McMartin children weren't suffering "false memories." These days, the images -- frequently combined with an electronic form of hypnosis -- are projected to the brain's visual pathways, received with perfect clarity.

Unlike the SRS final report, Stickel's report lacks any indication that each step of the excavation process was sequentially photographed. The nearly total absence of this critical documentation makes it difficult or impossible to examine purportedly important and supposedly in situ (found as is) artifactual evidence to validate its authenticity. The few photographs of alleged artefacts that now exist are of such poor quality that their value as evidence vanishes.

¥ A purportedly in situ photograph of a sandwich wrapper with Walt Disney character on it, dated 1982/83, offered by Stickel as proof that a tunnel once existed under Ray Buckey's room and was later filled in after the McMartin case broke, does not actually show the wrapper in situ.

¥ An old rural mail box, allegedly found under classroom #4 by Stickel's excavators, and which purportedly came from a neighbouring house that was demolished in 1972, is also offered as strong evidence that the supposed "secret room" area was filled in by unknown persons after the construction of the school. No photograph of this item in situ is presented in Stickel's report.

¥ Four large pots full of artefacts dating long before the school was built, one of which Stickel refers to as like a "cauldron" and a "good Halloween prop," are not shown photographed in situ.

¥ A set of photos (Stickel, Fig. 32a, 32b) offered to illustrate soil variations (supposedly evidence of a filled in tunnel leading in the past to a hypothetical cavern under Ray's room) are too dark to pass as meaningful documentation. Stickel admitted to his APSAC conference audience in San Diego that the photos are too dark to show any soil variation but he uses them as evidence anyway.

¥ Another photo of the soil underneath a supposed concrete tunnel "arch," said to have been found beneath a wall foundation dividing classroom #4 from classroom #3, is also too dark for clear viewing. Yet Stickel states, "I wish you could see it better," and proceeds to offer it as evidence of incriminating soil variations.

¥ A set of photos (Stickel, Fig. 34a, 34b), taken at the end of one of the alleged, but purely hypothetical, tunnels under the classroom #3 next to Buckey's (Room 3, Trench 1S4) is presented to show soil differences. But no soil differences are apparent in the photos; one dark photo (Stickel, Fig. 34a) does contain apparent shadow intrusions, but the other (Stickel, 34b) is pitch dark.

¥ Another photo (Stickel, Fig. 35), of a supposed tunnel support post, is nothing but a large black space — nothing is visible where the post allegedly sat except pitch black. Stickel introduced this photo to his APSAC audience as evidence, stating "Boy, this one [photo] looks like a UFO photograph. . . . If you could see it a little bit better, and hopefully in the report — there is a post here. And this post was found precisely at this location (points to a map). . . . I think it was a support system for a crossways tunnel."

During the course of the MTP, Ted Gunderson, the former FBI agent who coordinated that project, had political ties to right-wing groups that espouse bizarre conspiracy theories to further their political agendas. Gunderson's credibility as an objective participant is severely diminished by a reported past history of questionable or false claims (see Conclusion). Gunderson's credibility is clouded further by an apparent conflict of interest due to a romantic association between himself and Jackie McGauley prior to and during the project.

The opportunity came in April, 1990 with permission from the new owner of the preschool to search for the tunnels before he demolished the building and redeveloped the property. These soiled but solid citizens managed to find what the district attorney had disclaimed: solid, scientific evidence that someone had not only dug tunnels under the preschool, but also had taken the trouble to try to undo them.

The Trigger-Word doctrine is perhaps the most pernicious of the rumours surrounding the Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth. Anyone believing in SRAM must, perforce believe to an extent in 'trigger words'. Trigger words which enable Satanists to stop therapists from getting at truth which doesn't exist from children who don't know anything. Trigger Words which stop adult victim impostors from telling all the truth (and therefore justify their inability to provide checkable evidence to prove their fantasies). Trigger Words which stop pro-Sramists from talking to anyone who is not entirely aligned with their own beliefs in case they are struck dumb or insensible by 'Trigger-Words' from Satanic Sympathisers (leading to a complete rejection of any pro-Occult lobby information and a one-way passage of biased anti-Satanic data).

So prevalent has this ridiculous belief become that in the latest 2009 Satan Seminar one of the key pro-Sramists Sue Richardson, originator of CAUSE (a protection group for the clinicians who were publicly abominated for their idiotic and dangerous activities which caused the Cleveland Scandal in the mid 1980s and which was a fore-runner of the SRAM) and long-time member of RAIN (the Ritual Abuse Information Network) makes sure to pacify other believers by actually stating on the overview of her keynote lecture on Trigger Words and Mind Control that no actual examples of triggers would be used in her lecture. If she didn't give this assurance then of course no other pro-SRAMists would attend for fear of being turned into Satanic Zombies in their seats by exposure to them!

Their belief in the possibility of trigger-words means that one is constantly supposed to be susceptible to influence by conspirators whom one can't identify and by the very nature of the lies surrounding the SRAM could be colleagues, policemen, doctors, lawyers etc. These people may say or show you something which you cannot immediately identify as dangerous but which may turn out to be a 'trigger-word' or symbol which will not only bend your mind but may even lead you to your doom. And if any genuine occult group or association attempts to contradict a social worker then they consider that they have provoked one of the 'Satanic Outreach' organisations then their paranoia soars to new heights with every statement and action they take.

Day Three: Recognising the Patriarchal Paedophile Cult;Recognising Spiritual Evil and how it interferes with the therapy process; Recognising Dissociated and Disembodied Foreign Human Spirits and Installed Personalities.

The therapist will be introduced to the Patriarchal Paedophile Cult [PPC] with a brief history, and understanding of basic theology, typical control of personalities and some guidelines for recognising PPC in a client. Since PPC is much more complex than either TSor MFC, considerable material will be given concerning the eradication of identity and the steps necessary to allow liberation from its control and point the path toward the co-creation of the self.

Differentiating between these various systems is necessary as most often more than one system exists within a client and each must be handled differently. What is helpful for the removal of one system may reinforce the control of another group and result in deeper bondage.

The therapist will be introduced to the fear-producing arena of spiritual evil within understanding that eliminates the terror of dealing with it. Understanding how it interferes with the client, the therapist and the therapy process is essential to diminishing its effect so the healing can continue.

The therapist will be introduced to the very complex field of dissociated and disembodied foreign human spirits including their level of attachment to the client, how they can interfere with therapy and ways in which they can be successfully disentangled from the authentic humanity.

The therapist will be introduced to installed personalities [programming alone in charge of the body without humanity involved], the types of them that have been encountered, how they are installed and guidelines on deactivating and removing them.

The therapist will be presented with a diagnostic tool to differentiate between authentic human personalities, spiritual evil taking over the body, foreign human spirits in possession of the body, and installed personalities.

I have felt, since first hearing of Mr. Icke, that he was put out there to discredit me specifically. His conspiracist sci-fi confabulations, or "research," tracks my own themes (mind control, political assassinations, fascist globalism, etc.) in a grossly distorted form.

He boosted my writing on the Simpson case whole, for instance, and mixed it up, defiled my research, with "Lizard Aliens." He's a repulsive parody of myself ...

I've attempted to read the capricious, wrong-headed "research" of David "Jesus" Icke, and found it an amateurish omelette of used conspiracy theories concocted by the John Birch Society and other far-right groups to discredit legitimate research on fascism, which is inherently conspiratorial. Most people, dumbed down by "mainstream" media, can't tell the difference, and Icke takes advantage of that fact to peddle stupid, far-right conspiracy theories and "alien" invasions.

Icke - who took up conspiracy writing, c. 1990 - about the time the CIA silenced me with constant harassment, torture and death threats - is tailor-made to cast a pall on my own field, my own work, and he's been doing it for years. - AC

And I got a call from a lady in America who is the head of Parents Against Ritual Abuse. And I was talking to her, again, not about shape-shifting reptilians, but about the ritual abuse of children in America, and she said during this conversation, "Do you know, about 12 of my clients have actually reported that, during the rituals, they've seen the participants turn into reptiles." And, she said, "I've always taken it to be that they're dressing up to confuse them."

When the Chitauli gets sick this way, a young girl, a virgin, is usually kidnapped by the servant of the Chitauli and is brought to the underground place. There the girl is bound, hand and foot, and wrapped in a golden blanket, and is forced to lie next to the Chitauli, the sick Chitauli, week after week, being well fed and well cared for, but kept bound hand and foot, and only released at certain times to relieve herself. It is said that after the sick Chitauli shows signs of getting better, then the human girl is manipulated into trying to escape. She is given a chance to escape, a chance which is really not a chance. Then, when the girl escapes, she runs, but she is pursued over a long distance underground by flying creatures which are made of metal, and she is recaptured when she reaches the height of fear and exhaustion.

Then she is laid on an altar, usually a rough rock, flat on top. Then, she is cruelly sacrificed, sir, and her blood is drunk by the sick Chitauli, which then recovers. But, the girl must not be sacrificed until she is very, very, very frightened, because if she is not frightened, it is said that her blood will not save the sick Chitauli. It must be the blood of a very frightened human being, indeed.

Now, this habit of chasing a victim was also practiced by ordinary African cannibals, sir. In Zulu-land, in the last century, there were cannibals who used to eat people, and their descendants, even today, will tell you, if they trust you, that the flesh of the human being who has been frightened and made to run over a great distance, while trying to escape, tastes far better than the flesh of someone who was simply killed.

How do they do it? Well, sad to say, there are sexual rituals involving demonic beings known as sucubus and incubus. These reptilian beings densify during the slaughter of a young virgin girl, no older than 12, but menstruating. That's the reason for the growth hormones in milk - to produce more menstruating young women in western countries. It was getting tough - as the CIA continued its Satanic expansion of itself into every town, city, and hamlet in the North and Southern Americas, to fill the needs of the Beast. Plus, keeping their own undead here, requires a whole catalogue of young children.

Closing Satanic Killing Fields

By Don Croft http://educate-yourself.org/dc/closingsatanicfields23oct03.shtml Oct. 23, 2003

Last week, Laozu came over to tell us that a lot of bad ch'i was coming off of Tomer Butte, which borders the southeast part of our valley. It's one of the peaks he can see from where he lives, ten miles to the west of us. Carol and I figured that the satanists, whom we'd driven away from all the other vortices in the region, were now going there to do their ritual murders.

We made arrangements with Diane Johnson, who owns the Latah County Landfill next to Tomer Butte and owns a cloud-buster, to access the little mountain from the landfill, as the butte was surrounded by private land. It's quite pretty and typical of many of the buttes in the American Northwest: long, gentle grassy slopes topped with a craggy, pine-covered peak.

I figured that we'd find some evidence of satanic activity somewhere near the top and I wasn't disappointed. There's a mound of earth and charcoal that Kelly said was the focal point and source of the strongest DOR and he buried several of his water-based, water-energised Towerbusters strategically to vector that energy back to it's pristine, vital state.

As far as we can tell, he's developed the best use for energised water to date. In each deployment he's brought vortices to a level of vitality that we've been unable to achieve with simple originate. It remains to be seen what relative effect his devices have when they are the primary gifting tech because in each case except yesterday's he's gifted vortices which others had already gifted with ordinary orgonite.

As we were walking back down the mountain to the truck Kelly could see that the two energies were vying with each other for dominance. I was a little surprised that there was so much resistance but then I realised that the now totally defeated satanists in Moscow were trying hard to maintain that DOR field. We'd taken away all of their other ritual sites and other real estate assets and freed most of the trapped spirits they were tapping for DOR.

By the time we'd gotten back to the paved road leading back to Moscow (not to be confused with the town of that name in Russia) he started laughing out loud and I knew that the vortex had entirely reverted to a healthy spin and was vital again. Kelly's a very reliable energy sensitive.

Carol was tracking our efforts from town and knew exactly when Kelly had done the trick. She said that particular mound of earth and charcoal near the summit is where they cremate the bodies of their victims. There'd been a fire there very recently.

I bet your town has as many of these murderous cretins per capita as ours does. The biggest concentration of satanic covens is in the Bible Belt, by the way, because fundamentalists, perhaps because they're 'already saved,' and have no discernible consciences frequently indulge in blood sacrifices when not spouting gibberish and resonating rhythmically against their pews.

As I see it, run of the mill satanists are bad enough to work directly for MI6/CIA and NSA but not disciplined enough and are usually dope addicts. Without an army of these mayhem generators in their thrall the secret police agencies would be dead in the water, so we all need to take care of business locally. Satanists are easy meat for even a Succor Punch, of course.

Do you have a clue how dirty this world order is? Now that Cbswork has joined us on EFF perhaps we'll get some fruitful lessons again.

~Don

Is this, like, a bad example from a creative writing workshop at a community college?
...
It's a fucking abysmal article, written in an nanosecond, without thought or structure or any respect towards its readers' intellect or understanding, tagged together by an ego so far up its own arse it needs a soil stack out the eye socket to see if its raining or not.

You know it too don't you. It's fucking awful.

The great child psychiatrist Roland Summit once said that the only person besides the perpetrator who needs to keep the crime secret is the victim.

Summit is a prime believer in organised widespread satanic ritual abuse. Despite the complete absence of any objective evidence from police investigation of the McMartin Pre-school case, and the acquittal of all accused, he has published articles arguing that satanism really was practiced there, and that the tunnels existed despite the police's inability to locate them. In the last decade he has been one of the primary professionals endorsing the viewpoint that "children never lie about abuse" and has close associations with the "Believe the Children" organisation.

"An estimated 9 million women and girls met death by fire between the years of 1300 and 1700 for practising witchcraft. In the eighteenth century, 19 suspected witches were killed in Salem, Massachusetts. Despite such extreme countermeasures, the occult rituals of witchcraft are widely practised today around the world. No longer threatened with death, witches enjoy a degree of respectability in America's lenient New Age society."

Bonnie Bell, the backup host for Larson's Christian radio show "Talk Back", was the first person to appear on the stage, wearing a black dress with a pattern of pink hearts on it. Bell had worked for Larson for 5 and a half years at that time. It was Bell that started the ball rolling: Larson did not appear until after the video was shown, in order to capitalise on the tape and make a dramatic entrance. Bell began by announcing that this was Larson's 17th presentation of this movie on this tour. Bell then called up a volunteer from the audience, who displayed the following books and tapes by Bob Larson while Bell did a sales pitch for them:

• Larson's video tape Metal Mania.
• Larson's video tape In The Name of Satan.
• A video tape of Bob Larson's latest Satanism Symposium.
• The Bob Larson Live video tape.
• Larson's book Tough Talk on Tough Issues.
• The latest edition of Larson's Book of Cults.
• Larson's book Satanism: The Seduction of America's Youth.
• Larson's book Straight Answers on the New Age.

Bell informed the audience that these books and tapes were on sale in the lobby and joked that "Christians were supposed to buy books on Satanism," indicating Larson's books. I noted that Bell implied to us that the version of In the Name of Satan that we were about to see was an abbreviated version, stating that "the full length version will be on sale in the lobby." This proved interesting, in light of what happened later.

Next Bell introduced the sponsor of Larson's Vancouver appearance, the owner of radio station KARI, a Christian radio station based in Blaine, Washington.

Bell then stated:

"What you are about to see is not a theological statement on Satan. What you are about to see was designed and produced as a teaching video. Many of the police officers you will see in this video are not Christians. We don't want you looking for Satan behind every doorstep."

Bell then contradicted her opening line about theological statements by making the following pronouncement, which brought cheers from the audience:

"God is going to war, folks! There is a few skirmishes left!"

At this point they started the video In the Name of Satan. One of the most notable features of this In The Name of Satan, as compared with similar videos produced by other organisations, is that while in most others the name of the person speaking on screen is identified with subtitles at least once, this was not done in Larson's video. This would make it difficult for those unfamiliar with the speakers in this film to identify them and verify their stories. Most of them were easy for me to identify however. Besides Bob Larson, the following individuals appeared in this film:

• Laurel Rose Wilson, better known as "Lauren Stratford," a notable fraud discussed elsewhere in this series. Wilson/Stratford, based in Bakersfield, California, is the author of the discredited book Satan's Underground.
• Sergeant Randall Emon of the Baldwin Park (CA) PD. Randy's name has come up repeatedly in this series as he used to be very active in disseminating information on occult crime. He has since recanted and no longer supports Satanic conspiracy theories. Emon was the only police officer who appeared in this film, which is interesting if you recall Bonnie Bell's earlier remarks about the number of Christian police officers in this video. In this video he states: "Satanism is as addictive as a narcotic."
• A "ritual abuse survivor" verbally identified as "Esther." I'm pretty sure that this was Esther Cantella, author of the tape "A Witness for Healing" who appeared on the 8 March 1990 "Inside Edition" television show. Cantella appeared in a seminar in Colorado on 6/7 October, 1989 with the next two individuals on this list.
• Linda Young, RNC, BSN, a therapist at the Columbine Psychiatric Center who appears to be related to the next person on our list. Young appeared in the aforementioned seminar with Cantella and Dr. Young in 1989. In this video Linda makes the statement: "Most of the world won't believe these people. But I believe them."
• Dr Walter C. Young, a psychiatrist at the Columbine Psychiatric Center. Walter appeared with Linda Young and Esther Cantella at the aforementioned Colorado seminar in 1989. Dr Young has appeared in films by Cavalcade Productions, who we discussed in an earlier article in this series.
• Myra Riddell, vice president of the Los Angeles County Commission for Women and chairperson of the LACCW's Ritual Abuse Task Force. This "Task Force" includes in its membership such people as Lauren Stratford's therapist, Lyn Laboriel (who last I heard continues to believe Wilson even though she has been revealed to be a fake) and the next person on our list, Dr. Gould. Riddell states in Larson's video that she believes that Satanists are setting up preschools in order to recruit children.
• Dr. Catherine Gould, a California based therapist who has authored a list entitled "Signs & Symptoms of Ritualistic Child Abuse" which has appeared in countless manuals on occult crime that I have seen over the years.
• Dr. Roland Summit, a therapist who appeared in Geraldo Rivera's awful special "Exposing Satan's Underground" TV special. Summit is based in Torrance, California, at the HVD/UCLA Medical Center. Summit's name appeared on Larry Jones's "File 18" subscriber list and has appeared in two of "File 18's" newsletters. The LACCW, mentioned above, supports Summit.

Ms. Howes was a key organiser in the first Satan Seminars in the early 1990s and is a leading member of RAINS. In Spring 1990 at the height of the Satan Scare she gave this professional opinion to a child protection unit involved in a case thought to have Satanic connections:

'It is now known that satanic practices involve the physical, emotional and sexual assault of children taken to meetings. If the family is involved in any way in these activities the children are clearly at risk'.

Outcome: The case was dropped. It turned out that the family concerned were completely innocent, the meetings they attended were for Morris Dancing!

Speaking about one of her first Satan Seminars, (also held in Reading) , Norma Howes gave an interview in March 1990 which was published in God's Word Now', a religious missionary tract intended for distribution in the street by members of Prophetic World Ministries, a wacky fundamentalist Christian group fronted at that time by Andrew Boyd (a key figure in the campaign to try to establish the idea of Satanic Ritual Abuse and regular contact of Valerie Sinason and Maureen Davies [ Maureen glowingly reviewed Boyd's book on Satanic Abuse in a fundamentalist activist's magazine] ). Under the headline CHILD VICTIMS OF BLACK MAGIC RITUALS, we are treated to a list of circumstantial evidence (all of which were disproven in the course of time) and then Howes, billed as 'the conference organiser' is reported as saying::

' The conference reacted with a sense of overwhelming horror. We were stunned.''

She has done a disservice to the ministers. This could have been a great moment, says sexual violence expert Professor Liz Kelly – a moment to match Sir William Macpherson's critique of institutional racism in the police. It has been squandered.

This response takes issue with John Paley's paper ‘Satanist Abuse and Alien Abduction’ (this issue) in a number of areas: his definition of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA); the parallels he draws between SRA and alien abduction; his assertions that there is no evidence of SRA and that accounts of SRA can be viewed as urban legends; and his ‘temporal lobe connection’ conclusion.

So, is peace in Northern Ireland still threatened by the republicans?

No, says the IMC.

2.35 We conclude from this that both factions of RIRA remain in a state of heightened activity; that they are at present determined and ruthless; and that they will not hesitate to use violence, particularly but not only against members of the security forces, and will not hesitate to kill. They are committed to undermining the peace process and community-based policing and present a very serious threat.

The local Labour Party, the dominant political presence in Cleveland, was divided between the traditionalists and the modernisers, the right and the left, and the split over sexual abuse mirrored that division. Middlesbrough MP Stuart Bell was building his constituency into a fortress against a radical wing emerging in the party. The campaigners against child abuse were associated with a challenge to unseat Bell, a right winger, from his safe Parliamentary sear. The local Labour Party never took the debate outside its own ranks, and the elected members of the Labour-controlled county council left the skirmishes to their employees in social services.

More recently, a newer "third wave" of feminism has produced scathing critiques about feminist theory and practice that is rooted in the concept of victimisation (see Kaminer, 1995; Robbins, Chatterjee, & Canada, 1998). Requiring women to assume the role of the "victim," a person who is perpetually in recovery, has been criticised for being disempowering as well as being a suppression of women's rights to sexual, psychological, and economic freedom. Nonetheless, "victim feminism," as it has been dubbed, was an integral part of the recovery culture that emerged in the 1980s.

Press Gang Publishers
1723 Grant Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, V5L 2YC, CANADA; (604) 251-3315
"Publishers of lesbian and feminist writers...Founded in 1975, we take pride in the diversity of our books ranging from women's history to sexual politics, psychiatry to sexual and ritual abuse, censorship to lesbian erotica, women and the law to union organising and unlearning racism."

SAFE 01722 410889 National helpline for survivors of ritual abuse (Mon-Sat 6-8pm)

ABORTION
This subject seems to be in the news more and more. We are anti-abortion and pro-life. Unfortunately, there are many other sins beside abortion that can make a person have problems with their relationship with the Lord. Many ministries condemn those who commit abortion above other sins, yet never touch the other sins, such as gossip, lying, homosexuality, or membership in secret societies. We minister to survivors of Post-abortion depression and those suffering from the guilt from the sin.

One of the types of abortion, Partial birth abortion, has been in the news lately and we are thrilled that there has been some progress made in stopping it, but we have a long way to go so keep that issue in your prayers. 90% of babies aborted are normal. When an "oops" happens and the baby's head pops out, the doctor must deliver the baby alive, drown it, or let the child die from exposure or neglect. Many young mothers are lied to and do not know that they carry a live baby from conception and they are told it is just a "blob of tissue". As Christians we know otherwise. We also believe that a person can be forgiven for making the mistake of abortion if they go to Jesus with a sincere heart.

(Isaiah 44:24 KJV) Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;

Beatrix Campbell is a writer of great wisdom and talent. She has written perceptively about child protection “scandals” for many years, certainly since the problems that arose some years ago in the north east of England. Her comments in this article triggered by the tragedy of Baby P are very relevant and could be used to guide those in positions of influence.

THE ABUSE AND SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE OF CHILDREN, AND HUMAN SACRIFICE CEREMONIES IN GENERAL

Staggering as it may seem, all of the above are massively widespread all over the world. It is happening in your community now, I don't care where you are. I, and others, have been highlighting this for years and now, as you will see on this site, the scale of it, and the famous people involved, are coming to light at last.

Partly these rituals and abuse networks are to do with traumatising people, especially children, but it is far more than just that. Follow the Illuminati-reptilian bloodlines from the ancient world to now and they have ALWAYS taken part in human sacrifice ceremonies and blood-drinking. The sacrifices to "the gods" in the ancient accounts were literally sacrifices to the reptilians and their hybrid bloodlines. The story of the blood-drinking Dracula is symbolic of these reptilian "vampires". One of the locations of this reptilian group would appear to be the star-system known as Draco and "draconian" certainly sums up the Illuminati.

To hold their human form, these entities need to drink human (mammalian) blood and access the energy it contains to maintain their DNA codes in their "human" expression. If they don't, they manifest their reptilian codes and we would all see what they really look like. "Oh, my God, Mr. President, do you always eat your breakfast from across the room?".

From what I understand from former "insiders", the blood (energy) of babies and small children is the most effective for this, as are blond-haired, blue-eyed people. Hence these are the ones overwhelmingly used in sacrifice, as are red- haired people also, it appears.

This is why people like George Bush, Henry Kissinger, and a stream of the other Illuminati "big names" are exposed in my books and on this site as reptilian shape-shifters who take part in human sacrifice and blood drinking. The two go together. There also appears to be a very significant emphasis among the Illuminati-reptilians and their offshoots with paedophilia, which is rampant on this planet.

I would emphasise also before I end here that I am exposing certain reptilian GROUPS behind the Illuminati, not the reptilian genetic stream in general. There are many of reptilian origin who are here to help humanity to free themselves from this mental and emotional bondage. Indeed, every one of us has a body with much reptilian genetics, including part of the brain called the R-complex, the reptilian brain. It is merely a matter of degree.

On Sept. 21, 2008 Mary Anne said that tens of thousands of children will be sacrificed that night (the autumnal equinox) in Illuminati ceremonies. The children are bred for the purpose or kidnapped. Satanists believe they gain power from killing. Often they rip out the heart and eat a piece of it. They prefer it to be still beating. At Easter, they kill adults.

There are also sexual rituals involving young children. They are believed to increase power, and create fear and solidarity in members.

[A troubling error. Mary Anne let me refer to this as the "Vernal Equinox" when it is the "Autumnal Equinox."]

Illuminati members live double lives. At night they engage in these Satanic rituals. By day they are found in all walks of life: medicine, education, psychology, therapy, banking, law, law enforcement, government, technology, military, charities and religion.

They are everywhere. The worst are in the news on a daily basis posing as leaders.

They are the elite of Freemasonry. They are generational Satanists, which means you have to be born into it. You can't join. Their children are evaluated and trained. Mormons and "Nation of Islam" have parallel beliefs, she said.

The world has been divided into ten regions. Different groups are in control of North America. They are related to the Crowns of Europe.

Many Jews have a prominent role but the Illuminati is not predominantly Jewish. Muslim, Christian, Mormon, Wicca, Pagan and New Age groups all play a role.

She said 80-90% of the House of Representatives and %100 of the Senate belong to the Illuminati.

Mary Anne said she was sexually abused by her own family from an early age. In spite, or because of this, she was groomed to be a prominent political figure. She worked closely with many world leaders and was sexually abused by them. She was tortured when she refused to carry out assassinations.

All religions are infiltrated and controlled by the Illuminati. The Vatican is rotten at the top. The future "Anti Christ" will be a Pope. All countries, including Russia, China and Iran, are controlled by the Illuminati. "You don't say no."

The Illuminati is behind the homosexual agenda, AIDS, and the sexual revolution. They foster anything that is in rebellion against the Christian God.

I was excited to receive a copy of Third Way with a picture of one of my heroes on the front: Bea Campbell. She is a wonderful example of the provocation and inspiration a genuinely compassionate and insightful person can give when not tied to supporting or preserving a religious institution.

It's also good to be reminded that there are so many people who are not Christians who can appreciate the contribution that Christians and Christianity make to society. Thank you (and her) for allowing us dignity where we don't allow it to ourselves, through our paranoia about being a minority and our subsequent feelings of exclusion and unloveableness. Her truthfulness allows God to bless me.

I'd like to thing I'm part of a Christian community that is just as forthright, compassionate, uncluttered and free of the defences that encroach then you think you have to sustain power. Reminds me of Jesus.

Andy Thornton, London

Abuse Of Faith
Bea Campbell's article on ritual child abuse (MT November) presents only one side of the story. She says nothing about the 18 foster parents who did not report any signs of ritual abuse from the children in their care, or the intensive forensic investigation that did not turn up a single trace of human or animal sacrifice. Campbell talks about the inquiry's' need to believe' that there is no sub-culture of Satanic abuse in Britain. I would like to know why Campbell needs to believe in something for which there is about as much physical evidence as there is for flying saucers.

Over the last two and a half years, the ritual abuse myth has been rising in Britain, and there is no doubt whatsoever that it emanates from the US Christian right via international fundamentalist information networks. In America,the ritual abuse allegations focussed on day-care centres, but so far no physical evidence has been produced to show that satanic abuse rings have been making use of these centres - all the evidence has consisted of the 'disclosures' of very young children who had been through months of therapy with people who firmly believed in ritual abuse.

It has taken this time for the idea of satanic abuse to become established in Britain. It generally takes about that long for American cultural ideas to penetrate to Europe. Had ritual abuse rings been operating in Britain before 1987-8,details and hints of it would have been circulating for years beforehand. Instead, the current British scare has all the appearance of a transplanted myth, with the confirming 'proofs' appearing only after the details had been made part of public knowledge through tabloid reporting.

'Believe the children' is Campbell's entirely understandable gut reaction to satanic abuse. But gut reaction simply cannot be trusted! I wish that she showed some of the honesty and insight of Simone Weil, who wrote: 'I know that if at this moment I had before me a group of 20 young Germans singing Nazi songs, a part of me would instantly become Nazi. This is a very great weakness...'. Justice is not served by wild emotionalism- just ask the Guildford Four.#

Val Dobson, Lancashire

Another defence of the ritual claims appeared in the rather inappropriate setting of Marxism Today, a popular left-wing journal. Campbell was writing for an audience that had struggled to accept claims of widespread child abuse, and that now gagged at the prospect of accepting satanic rings as culprits. However, the charges had to be taken seriously, or else we would be challenging the truth of what children were saying (Campbell 1990).

In defence of the charges, she asserts that satanism is often not taken seriously, and thus only provides abusers with a more exciting setting and justification for the crimes: "Satanic rituals in a secular culture like ours aren't taken seriously. Anyone who respects children's accounts of ritualised abuse isn't taken seriously either." After all, the occult was commonplace in the culture, in the form of heavy metal music, horoscopes, and New Age shops. Her linkage of these phenomena with satanic abuse reflected (no doubt unconsciously) the connections so frequently made in the religious press.

But throughout her writing, Campbell knowingly or otherwise repeats the charges from the fundamentalist literature, most strikingly the alleged claims of human sacrifice made by Aleister Crowley, as great a charlatan and practical joker as an occultist (Symonds 1973). She is left defending the truth of human sacrifice and ritual abuse in the Nottingham case and elsewhere, and excoriates the police for their failure to pay attention: "All the progress of the 1980s in transforming the way children and women witnesses alleging sexual crimes have been treated by the police has been undermined by the notion that the child witnesses should be treated as if they were the culprits and not the victims...Once again the problem of policing has confounded the struggle for children's rights" (Campbell 1990). The appropriation of left and feminist rhetoric in such a cause is striking, but it was not untypical.

The breadth of media support-and the odd coalition of religious and radical groups that now emerged-created an atmosphere conductive to the rapid spread of ritual abuse accusations.

So, we have the seemingly strange situation of quite secular feminists sometimes appearing to take seriously the claims being made by anti-Satanists with whom they appear to have very little else in common. Jenkins tell of a feminist scholar writing in a Marxist journal who treats quite seriously objective claims by Christian fundamentalists about the action of Satanists in child care centers. Such occurrences are illustrative of the many forces and movements that flow together to help form the Satanism scare.

But if one is a Catholic, then surely double-speak and duplicity are second nature. A Church which rails against abortion and then spends decades covering up the most appalling degree of child abuse obviously has no problem with holding two opposing ideas at once – and at least the opposition to termination now makes perfect sense, with hindsight. All those unborn children that could have been molested – what a waste!

It ought to be said that even at the time not everyone was convinced. Notably, regular spiked contributor Dr Michael Fitzpatrick challenged the myth of Satanic ritual abuse in the pages of Living Marxism. In many ways, 'Satanic abuse' was a classic moral panic, and transparently so, but it was given special impetus by the peculiar political character of the child abuse issue. While concerns about the occult might seem more in keeping with religious conservatism, especially coming from the USA, in fact the uncovering of child abuse had become a feminist, even left-wing cause, and the idea that sinister things were going on behind the closed doors of the family had a certain resonance even beyond the lunatic fringe. The former Communist and noted feminist Beatrix Campbell wrote a series of articles and made a Channel 4 Dispatches programme promoting the myth more enthusiastically than any American evangelist group or salacious tabloid.

The belief in the demonic, or indeed our belief in God is therefore not delusional. It is possible that some symptoms of mental illness are actually demonic in origin. Voices heard in the head commenting on the sufferer in a hostile way, could perhaps be demons. That is not to say that such people are necessarily possessed. The devil's legions are all around us. It could well be that a biochemical problem in the brain causes an individual to be sensitive to a dimension we are not. This is speculation, and the alternative view that such phenomena are the product of a sick mind is certainly possible from this verse.

All this talk of the occult and supernatural may sound very unfamiliar. We like to think such things are just superstition, and from the past. This very obvious work of Satan is still prominent today, however.

It is said that 250,000 Britons describe themselves as witches or pagans today. This could well be an underestimate, since such groups are clandestine by their very nature. Groups often involve important people, and in spite of highly illegal activity, are rarely brought to justice. The CMF quarterly Newsletter of July 1989 reported on a conference held by the Association of Christian Psychiatrists at the Royal Society of Medicine. This conference examined the controversial issue of child satanic sexual abuse. 'All of the speakers were able to talk from first hand experience with cases of ritual child abuse in which multiple physical and sexual assaults, the use of drugs, brainwashing and inverting of normal values (psychological abuse) and child and animal sacrifice featured consistently.'

In all of his appearances, Summit wore his die fixed on his sleeve. Having already laid the foundation for believing anything children said with his "child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome", he now set about extending it to the more improbable stories of day care ritual abuse. Summit's message was not based on child development theories and research, therefore it rarely invited questions about children's developmentally-based ability to be truthful or to resist suggestion. Rather, it was all about belief. By elevating belief over empiricism, he exhorted audiences to abandon critical thinking and healthy skepticism, and in doing so, encouraged a kind of moon-eyed gullibility.

A sample of his comments at various ritual abuse conferences that were all of the rage during the 1980s illustrates this point. At one, he urged his audience to believe that lack of evidence is really evidence of ritual abuse by insisting that the inability to prove satanic conspiracy is behind the day care cases is due to the conspirators' skills in "creating paralysing, calculated confusion and mind control" of their young victims (Summit 1987). In another, he admonished mental health clinicians to believe that conspiring law enforcement officers may hide evidence of day care ritual abuse to protect satanic providers. "Any investigation that you might prompt on behalf of your client needs to be channeled as much as possible to trusted individuals," he asserted, although he hastily expressed regret for the comment when confronted on camera by a sceptical documentarian (cited in Earl, 1995, p124). And in another venue, he urged conferees to believe the ritual abuse allegation made my mentally unstable individuals like Judy Johnson whose fantasies fuelled the McMartin Preschool case, because they are able to discern what those with logical and analytical minds simple cannot - a conspiracy of evil. "Eccentric, alienated, unsocialized and paranoid personality types are needed to ferret our allegations," he explained. "It takes somebody paranoid to continue to express suspicion" (Summit, 1989).

In 1984 MacFarlane warned a congressional committee of scatological behaviour and animals being slaughtered in bizarre rituals which children were forced to watch. Shortly after the United States Congress doubled its budget for child-protection programs. Psychiatrist Roland Summit delivered conferences in the wake of the McMartin trial and depicted the phenomenon as a conspiracy theory, suggesting that people skeptical of SRA were part of the conspiracy. By 1986 Carol Darling, a social worker, argued in a grand jury that the conspiracy reached the government. Brad Darling, her husband, gave conferences about a satanic conspiracy of great antiquity, now permeating American communities. By the late 1980s therapists or patients who believed someone had suffered from SRA could suggest solutions that included Christian psychotherapy, exorcism and support groups whose members self-identified as "anti-Satanic warriors." Federal funding was increased for research on child abuse, with large portions of the funding going towards child sexual abuse. Funding was also provided for conferences supporting the idea of SRA, adding a veneer of respectability to the idea as well as offering an opportunity for prosecutors to exchange advice on how to best secure convictions (with tactics including the destruction of notes, refusing to tape interviews with children and destroying or refusing to share evidence with the defence). Had proof been found, SRA would have represented the first occasion where an organised and secret criminal activity had been discovered by mental health professionals.

In 1987, Geraldo Rivera produced a national television special on the alleged secret cults, claiming "Estimates are that there are over one million Satanists in [the United States and they are] linked in a highly organised, secretive network." Tapings of this and similar talk show episodes were subsequently used by religious fundamentalists, psychotherapists, social workers and police to promote the idea that a conspiracy of satanic cults existed and were involved in serious crimes. In the 1990s, psychologist D. Corydon Hammond publicised a detailed theory of ritual abuse drawn from his hypnotised patients, alleging they were victims of a worldwide conspiracy comprised of organised, secretive clandestine cells who used torture, mind control and ritual abuse to create alternate personalities that could be "activated" with codewords and were trained as assassins, prostitutes, child sex workers] (who were used to create child pornography) and drug traffickers. Hammond claimed his patients had revealed the conspiracy was masterminded by a Jewish doctor in Nazi Germany, but who now worked for the Central Intelligence Agency with a goal of worldwide domination by a Satanic cult. The cult was allegedly comprised of respectable, powerful members of society who used the funds generated to further their agenda. The patients' lack of memories (and the failure to find evidence for their claims) were cited as evidence of the power and effectiveness of this cult in furthering their agenda. Hammond's claims gained considerable attention, due in part to his prominence in the field of hypnosis and psychotherapy.

Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 12:21:57 -0500 Reply-To: Women's Studies List WMST-L@UMDD.UMD.EDU Sender: Women's Studies List WMST-L@UMDD.UMD.EDU From: Kim Cordingly Cordingly@JAN.ICDI.WVU.EDU Organisation: Job Accommodation Network Subject: Re: The Courage to Heal/Feminism & Science? In-Reply-To: 009C7D68.21CE47A0.41@acad.ursinus.edu

Gina Oboler, Anthropology & Sociology wrote: > In response to Sasha -- The critical response I expect is careful investigation
> of such claims. Has your friend published her findings? I'd like to know
> the details of the events of Satanic abuse, and who specifically was involved.
> I'd like to be provided with information that would allow an independent
> investigator to check out the claim. That's science.


I was particularly interested in the last line of this paragraph, "That's science." I think for those who had the opportunity to attend many of the presentations at NWSA on feminist critiques of science & technology, they would agree that this is contested territory. "Science" or western versions of science have often been used to discount and distort women's experiences. Applying mainstream scientific methods to verify memories of abuse/ritual abuse will not provide us with *all* the answers we are looking for. This is often the frustration of survivors of abuse. "Science" is given more credibility as "knowledge" than the individuals own "knowing" what has happened to them. Yet, it is clear that "science" also carries with it its' own biases, subjectivities and agendas. It's important to critique abuse/ritual abuse issues, but if we're doing it from a feminist perspective, we also need to look critically at the methods we use to "verify" human experience. Using "science" doesn't ensure a complete or unbiased picture either. Kim Cordingly kcording@wvu.edu West Virginia Univ.

A devil of a tail...
In case you hadn’t heard, the satanic abuse, alien abduction and military mind control theories that keep the likes of the Ritual Abuse Information Network afloat have been subsumed and superseded by the reptile conspiracy.

This development can be tracked through the internet and by reading sceptic researcher Robert Schaeffer’s amusing account of a Californian conference for conspiracy theorists in the Skeptical Inquirer.

“Survivor” narratives of the nineties, where child incest victims were delivered to a CIA experimental mind control programme coded MK-ultra, have been amended to include the lizard connection. One such presenter, Cathy O’Brien claimed to have seen President Bush (the elder) momentarily revealing his true self in a “lizard projection” during her former existence as a White House sex slave. Like so many others, Ms O’Brien was apparently quite unconscious of her early experiences, until the hypnotically repressed “memories” began to surface at around the age of 30. The victims, who have been programmed to have “false memories” of a normal existence, tend to wake up at this point in their lives. But through pre-programmed sabotage, the victims self-destruct or go crazy at this stage – which explains why so many only discover their true lives in the confines of MPD psychiatric units.

Masterminding the reptile connection is Britain’s own grade-one listed conspiracy theorist, former TV presenter and goalkeeper, David Icke. Icke strides the stage with tales of the world being governed by lizards cunningly disguised as world leaders who secretly slake their thirst on the blood of sacrificed infants made available by a global network of satanic paedophile covens. The aliens it seems, have not only landed, but have always been with us, and for Icke and his ilk it is no coincidence that the Evil One has traditionally been portrayed with a slippery spiked tail.

Interestingly, reptile apparitions displayed by channellers on Icke’s web-site bear a passing resemblance to ET. This was the image of choice of the now-passé alien abductees. ET meanwhile looks a bit like a ninja-turtle, and they were supposed to have abused the children in the Orkney ritual abuse case back in 1991. QED for Icke? That these characters are the creation of Hollywood, and are chronologically synchronised with the theories, might pose an alternate explanation. It provides the setting for a perfect folie à deux between theorists and victims who have both imbibed the same imagery. Jurassic Park would explain the ascendancy of the reptile connection over ET, just as the benign Indiana Jones films contained much of the pre-1990 satanic imagery of snake pits and drinking blood. No doubt Icke would have Hollywood ruled by the lizards too, but why they should give themselves away so readily when they have rocket science at their bidding is not clear.

Whether the reptile connection will be endorsed by therapists remains to be seen, but the O’Brien presentation suggests that leakage, if not the truth, is already out there. After all alien abductee and satanic abuse theories, though superficially poles apart, were reconciled through the military mind control paradigm which preceded the reptiles. And this was endorsed by the likes of MPD psychiatrist Colin Ross. Furthermore images of brain structure are now routinely paraded before forests of glazed eyes at traumatic memory conferences. Bombarded with talk of neurotransmitters and the amygdala, what’s the betting that all some delegates subsume is an image of a hazy rippled outline called the “reptilian brain” only to regurgitate it as a “lizard projection” on a client’s “alter”? Watch this space.

Report of the Ritual Abuse Task Force – Los Angeles County Commission for Women
Ritual abuse is a brutal form of abuse of children, adolescents, and adults, consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, and involving the use of rituals. Ritual does not necessarily mean satanic. However, most survivors state that they were ritually abused as part of satanic worship for the purpose of indoctrinating them into satanic beliefs and practices. Ritual abuse rarely consists of a single episode. It usually involves repeated abuse over an extended period of time…. Mind control is the cornerstone of ritual abuse, the key element in the subjugation and silencing of its victims. Victims of ritual abuse are subjected to a rigorously applied system of mind control designed to rob them of their sense of free will and to impose upon them the will of the cult and its leaders. Most often these ritually abusive cults are motivated by a satanic belief system [only on the surface.] The mind control is achieved through an elaborate system of brainwashing, programming, indoctrination, hypnosis, and the use of various mind-altering drugs. The purpose of the mind control is to compel ritual abuse victims to keep the secret of their abuse, to conform to the beliefs and behaviours of the cult, and to become functioning members who serve the cult by carrying out the directives of its leaders without being detected within society at large.

Professor La Fontaine's orthodoxy on this issue echoes the views of well-known promoters of pedophile.

Sir: Professor La Fontaine rightly complains of being accused of promoting pedophilia by Beatrix Campbell's techniques of 'suggestion and innuendo'; I am similarly accused, the difference being that I am no longer surprised by Ms Campbell's methods ('Where Satan goes unseen', 4 May).

She describes me as 'a patron' of Rossen, and as 'one of the main architects of the notion that children have been brainwashed by foster carers and social workers', having appeared as an expert witness at Rochdale although I 'had never worked on child abuse'.

Although much of my play therapy work has involved abused children, I was called as an expert witness because of my many years of research on interviewing techniques, on children's ability to fantasise both in therapy and in more normal situations, and on children's drawing - all of which were highly relevant to the Rochdale case.

Sadly, the children in the case did suffer secondary abuse from the aggressively suggestive way in which they were interviewed; my report rested entirely on the evidence of videoed social work interviews (not foster care) compared with social work reports.

The children were isolated for many months from their parents, despite their protests. I shall not forget the child who exclaimed: 'Why doesn't someone listen to me like it says on the posters? I want to go home, I am safe at home.' When there is professional determination to discover satanic abuse, children will be listened to only selectively.

Defending her view that satanic abuse is taking place, Beatrix Campbell ('Where Satan goes unseen', 4 May) has accused me of promoting paedophilia. The accusation is made by suggestion and innuendo: the only evidence offered is a letter written to the Child Abuse Review and a telephone conversation from which Ms Campbell has selected one remark which, quoted out of context, suits her purpose.

As regards the first, I recently (March 1994) protested against a one-sided Review of Literature on Organised Abuse. I drew attention to the omission of eight works, including the standard work by Spencer and Flin, The Evidence of Children. I also pointed out that the review relied on American cases, and referred to published material on European cases. With respect to Rossen I wrote:

B. Rossen has published on child prostitution and pornography in Europe and his article 'Mass hysteria in Oude Pekela' gives a different view of the best- known Dutch case from that presented by the Jonkers (special issue of Child Abuse and Neglect 1991).

Ms Campbell fails to mention that I told her that I had had a 'row on paper' with Mr Rossen over his views on child abuse, which I emphatically do not share.
Yours faithfully,
J. S. LA FONTAINE
London School of Economics
London, WC2

In 1990, New Statesman and Society published a Judith Dawson piece on the Nottingham case, "Vortex of Evil" which argued that an "insidious and dangerous" contagion was sweeping the land, the opinion that ritual abuse was imaginary: "This contagion takes the comforting form of skeptical and rational inquiry, and its message is comforting too: is is designed to protect 'innocent family life' against a new urban myth of the satanic abuse of children inspired by evangelical fundamentalists" (Dawson 1990)."

People are always demanding evidence of the existence of ritual abuse so that they can believe more readily that it happens or deny its existence more rigorously. Unfortunately, the abusers do not usually (leave?) proof lying about for others to find. They do not want the world to know what they are doing and therefore do their best to carefully dispose of evidence.

But the system could not withstand the resistance of accused adults and their advocates, nor could it cope with the unsettling evidence of scale.

Oh my gosh, i don't think I've seen a more heavily moderated thread in a long time!

Bea, your article appears to be nothing more than (hypocritical) biased opinion.

Expect commentators here to tear it to shreds, well, where they're allowed to!

A search of the Medline and PsycINfo data bases for articles (both credulous and skeptical) for the acronym "SRA" yielded the following total number of articles by year:

1984 1 articles
1986 1 articles
1987 1 articles
1989 3 articles
1990 22 articles
1992 36 articles
1993 21 articles
1995 16 articles

It would appear that at least professional interest in SRA peaked about 1992 and that interest has since dropped of considerably.

Many advocates of SRA realised that there simply are not enough Satanists in North America to account for all of the abuse that they believe is happening. They expanded their accusations by blaming ritual abuse on secret cults, criminal gangs, self-help groups, mutual support groups, Christian, Jewish and Pagan religious groups, secret Government agencies, the CIA, etc. The fear and harm generated by promoters towards innocent, helping groups is immense. Meanwhile, some governments became involved in the promotion of public hysteria and intolerance. The Ontario Government, for example, funded many SRA seminars during the mid-1990s. Some professional organizations gave credits to their members for attending these seminars.

From the late 1990's the vast majority of papers being submitted were those concerned with studying the SRA Myth and discussing its sociological aspects that could be traced back to the witch trials of the late 17th century.
Current status of belief in SRA:

Belief in SRA by professionals is currently almost non-existent everywhere in English speaking countries, particularly in the U.S. and Canada.

By 2010 it will probably be essentially defunct worldwide, except among victims of recovered memory therapy who are still plagued with false memories of abuse that almost certainly never happened.

Specialists know today a great deal more about conducting proper child interview techniques, inaccuracies of physical examinations and lab testing. It is unlikely that the Satanic Panic will reappear in the future. However, something similar may surface in its place.

35. Use of Charismatic Gifts in the Assessment & Treatment of Satanic Ritual Abuse Annette Sarcinelli, MSW & Sherri McKenna, MSW

Therapists who are able to use Christian spiritual approaches in their practice are best equipped to assess & to treat clients who have experienced Satanic ritual abuse because Satanic doctrine & rituals are the exact antithesis of Christian belief and practice. The soul, which is comprised of oneʹs spirituality & sexuality, is deeply wounded by traumatic experiences. ʺUse of Charismatic Spiritual Gifts in the Assessment & Treatment of Satanic Ritual Abuseʺ demonstrates the importance of using spiritual approaches for spiritual issues.

Please use caution while reading all of these papers. Some of the information may be very heavy for survivors. If in doubt, download the page and wait to read it until you are with your therapist or a trusted support person.

Demons and Evil Spirits

[from Greek daimon = a spirit]

Spiritual beings who are evil and ruled by Satan. According to Christian tradition, they are angels who shared in Satan’s rebellion and were expelled with him.

Ritually abused children and adults are victimised at rituals which invoke such beings. Victims report believing that perpetrators of ritual abuse possess control over these spiritual entities. Some victims are made to believe that these spirits have power to control the victim’s life. For some, the fear of harm from such evil spirits or demons, or the fear of being controlled by them, is more oppressive and debilitating than fear of the perpetrators themselves.

A woman told the psychiatrist that she was being taken out regularly and hurt, and that people were leaving dead animals on her doorstep. I arranged for fixed cameras to be put in place that would show anyone coming or going from her house. I did not tell her or the psychiatrist that I was doing this. Two weeks later the woman reported that she had been taken out and hurt again. But when we looked at the tapes, we could see no evidence for anything she'd described. I discussed it with the psychiatrist, who was quite taken aback and asked the woman about it. The woman said that she had left the house by another route, through a window, and that was why the camera had missed it.

GG: I know that some of the patients being seen by the clinic are still being ritually abused. And this must raise important ethical issues for you as a clinician. Have you been able to get any support regarding these ethical issues from the psychotherapy or psychoanalytic professional bodies?

VS: No. We have written to them all and had acknowledgements, but had no response. Of course, how can there be if there is not enough of a body of us who have written in? I'm about to be sending off again, not just by myself, but also with other therapists from different trainings, a shared letter to say, `We are at risk, and the patients are at risk, in the absence of guidance in the ethical code'. Patients are at risk from their therapists' bodies not having a certainty around this. You see, if you have a total certainty that outside reality doesn't count, that it's inner work, it's easy.

GG: And it's the belief that outside reality doesn't count which has been the traditional view.

VS: Which has been the traditional view, yes. Although, again, where is the idea coming from that that's traditional? Freud and Anna Freud were key liaisers with police officers and barristers. Freud worked on a free association test he hoped would reveal guilt in criminal courts and wanted to do that. You find, on the whole, that Anna Freud cared a lot about child abuse and treatment of children. But then clones come in and fossilise what original pioneers did. So, yes it's traditional, but the word traditional needs close looking at. If someone is saying, `Well, I'm pregnant and the baby's going to be taken away and killed tonight'. Then what are you supposed to do? Or someone has witnessed a murder and you have told the police, which we have. You know, `Halloween is coming up. This person wants you to follow them and is saying there will be a murder'. `No'. The provision and resource needed when this is considered an unreal subject means it would only be a police officer who really had such a high moral sense who would push for something to happen. Since all the cases could turn into Fred West cases, then what's our position? `You didn't tell the police enough'. `You didn't tell the public enough'. Well, we have actually told, but that's no consolation.

It is likely that such conferences as this are self-propagating. One presenter related how in 1994 she went to a study day at Southampton University presented by Valerie Sinason: ‘Ritual Abuse: Does it Exist.’ At first she felt “total disbelief” at what she was hearing, but by the end of the day she believed in ritual abuse. The following years one of her patients started ‘disclosing’ having been made to take part in Satanic rituals (during which devils and humans flew about in the air), hence by the time of this conference she was herself an authority on the subject.

Finally, it may be remarked that one piece of actual physical evidence was produced in the course of the weekend, A woman who was in the process of remembering the Satanic rituals she had been made to attend as a child awoke one morning, so she said, to find a box of voodoo dolls on her doorstep, obviously a curse placed there by the Satanists to warn her to keep her mouth shut, The voodoo dolls were shown. They were Guatemalan ‘Worry Dolls’, as sold at charity shops all over the country.

Curiously, some of the patients supposedly continue in Satanism even while in therapy. Joan Coleman’s first survivor once had to postpone her sessions by two days because she had been summoned to a Satanic court in France, When she got to the delayed sessions she described how two ‘hoods’ had taken her to a chateau, where a black cockerel was sacrificed, she was urinated on, smeared with excrement, and all the usual stuff, questioned, then apparently let off. Valerie Sinason has a Multiple Personality Disorder patient who, as a child, was made Satan’s daughter and had “a goat’s horn shoved up her bum”. Her ‘adult alter’ still goes to rituals, returning with injuries, and she is now in a wheelchair. Though Sinason and her colleague Rob Hale at the Portman Clinic were doing an NHS-funded study of SRA, asking “what corroboration?”, it did not seem to occur to her that surveillance of such a patient could readily provide proof, if her story were true.

In our previous article about heaven, I commented that when I minister for satanic ritual abuse, these satanically ritually abused persons often see and hear from heaven while they are seated in my office. A common memory for someone who was satanically ritually abused is one of having given birth to a baby who was tortured and sacrificed to Satan. Such a memory is painful and terrifying beyond anything imaginable. After such a memory, I ask Jesus to minister to the person. As He ministers to her, she is able to see and hear Him. He lets her see her baby and how happy the baby is in heaven. She often gets to hold the baby for a minute right in my office in front of me. I can’t see or hear any of the things she is experiencing.

My question has always been, why can’t I see and hear also? From the very beginning of the satanic ritual abuse ministry 17 years ago, I noticed that the survivor, the demons, Jesus—everyone connected with the ministry situation could see what was going on but me. I always wondered why I couldn’t. After many years of study, I have found some interesting answers in God’s Word. As we turn to the Bible, God will reveal why most of us do not see into the spiritual realm yet and at the same time He will reveal why we may be able to do so in the future.

Forced impregnations and infanticide. These impregnations occur within the context of the ritual abuse-torture victimizations described above. However, when the impregnations are permitted to develop until term or near-term women describe that the delivered infants were frequently drowned in a bucket of water and destroyed, burned, buried, 'disappeared' or sado-necrophilically 'sacrificed' – killed – or cannibalised during the violent RAT family/group gathering. Women also report that infanticide (as well as foeticide) occurred in various familiar settings secured by the perpetrators such as in their home, business, or farm surroundings, in the out-of-doors, or by professionals such as doctors and nurses for example who used their positional power and prestige to secure and misuse the hospital facilities in which they work. Some women also informed us that they were raped during labour and/or following delivery by the RAT perpetrators.

“There’s a grave problem,” Maureen tells us, about the time of the Reading shindig; “the way we are going to deal with it is not by bringing back the Witchcraft Act, but by talking confidentially with police and social services, so they know what to look for.”

I was born into a cult practicing a ritualised and sadistic form of pedophilia. Along with profiting from child pornography and prostitution, the group also had connections to people involved with government medical and behavioural experimentation programs. Many cult children were used as subjects in these programs.

From earliest memory I was subjected to unspeakable acts of torture. It occurred within private settings, such as cult gatherings, and at research facilities during experimentation sessions. The torture included: food, water, sleep, and sensory deprivation; confinement; multiple sexual assaults; electroshock; burials; and other near-death experiences. I was also forced to witness and participate in acts of violence and cruelty.

My responses to the brutality, such as dissociative reactions including amnesia, were intentionally manipulated. This manipulation is called trauma-based mind Control. The intent was to ensure that I would remain loyal to the cult and unaware of government use and experimentation. The people who subjected me to this process knew exactly what they were doing. Despite years of therapy, it was not until my late thirties when I began to discover the other side of my life.

Trauma-based mind control is the deliberate infliction of trauma to produce dissociative reactions and the subsequent manipulation of those reactions. It is the deliberate creation of multiple personality systems that are vulnerable to control. The goal of cults and other mind control perpetrators is to supplant the victim's original personality with trained, perpetrator-loyal alters. Quoted from a high ranking program doctor: "We do not break her will, we make her will our will."

A Perfect Conspiracy

The diabolical cleverness attributed to satanists runs afoul of other contentions by ideology proponents. On the one hand satanists allegedly have a tightly organised, powerful, infallible network that leaves no evidence of its large-scale abduction, breeding, and human sacrifice activity. On the other hand, these groups supposedly leave behind an easily discovered trail of clues such as animal carcasses and open graves that invite official investigations. Although satanists are very powerful, they allow ritual abuse survivors to recount their stories publicly, and use easily discovered intimidation techniques such as tapping phones, breaking and entering, mailing warning messages, and planting explosive devices. Finally, satanists maintain perfect disciplines and secrecy despite the fact that their network consists of teenage dabblers, sociopathic criminals, public satanists, and prominent, powerful individuals who secretly occupy positions of cult leadership. Not a single defector has managed to leave with any type of organisational records. This absence of defectors who could furnish hard evidence is striking since radical groups historically have been particularly prone to schism, defection, and internecine conflicts.

Now in their late 30s, the Hersha sisters claim to have experienced chilling childhoods, recounted here by two Ohio-based investigators Schwarz (The Hillside Strangler) and former police captain and "ritual abuse expert" Griffis who say they have studied declassified CIA files and interviewed military personnel in an effort to bolster the Hersha memories.

Before the age of seven, the sisters say, they were inducted into a covert, government-authorized, mind-control program designed to spawn spies and assassins. During weekends and summers, they were subjected to traumatising experiments. Cheryl tells of her days as a caged "lab rat," released to navigate electrified mazes. The two became "psychological captives," programmed to respond to code words. Following practice in weaponry, martial arts and flight training, altered identities were purportedly introduced. At 15, Lynn "was made part of a unit that experienced murder," and she assumed the identity of team leader "Lt. Rick Shaw." As the seductive "Samantha Gooding," Cheryl would paralyse her victims, and she later became the cocky chopper pilot "Sgt. Thomas O'Neil." Naturally, these two "men," long separated, were destined to meet: "Cheryl Hersha! It's me, Lynn, your sister. You've got to let me go. You can't shoot me." Credibility collapses, as improbabilities are piled on inconsistencies, and the truth is buried beneath simplistic, pulp-adventure prose. In closing, the authors claim that "Their story is true," following with an admission that they found no government documents about the program or the sisters. An elaborate disclaimer about the "presumed thoughts and imagined words of the participants" will lead many readers to ponder just how much real events have been fictionalised.

This conference will be of interest to social workers, police, emergency service workers, health, education workers, therapists in the NHS and private practice. For attendees of this conference, we also recommend the conference 'Ties that Bind' in October 2008.

Norma Howes is a Social Worker, Child Forensic Psychologist and Sensory-motor Psychotherapist. Norma is involved in training police, social workers, health and education staff on all aspects of childhood trauma and abuse.

Norma has a private practice working with adults and children most of whom have experienced severe childhood trauma. She has worked in the field of trauma, mental health and dissociation for more than twenty years and has researched the impact of dissociation on memory and the implications this has for both civil and criminal court proceedings.

This book is aimed at workers who may come into contact with survivors of ritual abuse. It is intended as a basic information resource. Covers issues such as: feminism and ritual abuse, supporting survivors of ritual abuse, children and ritual abuse and a survivor’s perspective.

6a. Dissociative disorder and ritual abuse – MORNING ONLY
Valerie Sinason (Director, Clinic for Dissociative Studies)
This seminar will outline the work of Valerie Sinason, a child psychotherapist and adult psychoanalyst who has been at the forefront of the growing awareness and understanding of ritual abuse and the ways that psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be used to treat its victims. Delegates will have an opportunity to explore some of the difficulties encountered in trying to support children who have experienced ritual abuse, including where the consequences of ill treatment can lead to a further condition, dissociative disorder (DID). Treatment can be complicated by the fact that this type of abuse, and DID, is not well understood or believed. The presenter will use her extensive experience of providing assessment and long term therapy for ritual abuse survivors to consider some of the paths which can be taken and their consequences.

Elected members, policy makers, senior officers, managers and practitioners from health, police, probation, children’s social care, education and voluntary and community groups, with a particular interest in or responsibilities for child safeguarding work or work with vulnerable children and their families.

Children who had once exhibited bizarre antisocial behaviour were, in some cases, completely cured. No one had ever achieved such success with this enigmatic disorder. Although Bettelheim's book did have its critics, the overflow of praise from Bettelheim's advocates drowned out the voices of the few detractors. As a result, Bettelheim's thesis, that the infant's relationship with her "refrigerator mother" caused autism, soon became the accepted explanation in popular and some professional circles.

For the next twenty-three years(following the publication of Empty Fortress) the writings of researchers, parents of autistic children, and adults with autism served to discredit Bettelheim's claim of maternal causation. However, shortly after Bettelheim, a Holocaust survivor, committed suicide in 1990, at the age of 89, the world suddenly had reason to question more than his hypothesis. Letters poured into newspapers from former students of the Orthogenic School. Bettelheim, the staunch advocate of safe and comforting environments for children with emotional disabilities, allegedly had physically and emotionally abused the children in his care. Some of the adults that Bettelheim claimed to have "cured" of severe developmental disabilities, including autism, charged that they had entered the school with nothing more than behavioural problems. The shocking revelation that Bruno Bettelheim had neither a degree in psychology nor therapeutic training also emerged during this time. We have learned that in fact he wrote his dissertation on aesthetics, and while in Vienna was a lumber merchant.

I have worked in senior front line positions in Voluntary Sector children’s provision in the UK. Nevertheless, three years ago, both of my children were (briefly) put onto the Child Protection (At Risk) Register for fear that I was causing “significant harm” to my son by asking that he be formally assessed for ADD/ADHD/Aspergers Syndrome and by taking the LEA to SEN Tribunal. The grounds were that a former GP had started a “whispering campaign” amongst health and educational professionals who did not understand Autism/Aspergers Syndrome / Dyslexia / Dyspraxia and related conditions-always preferring to suspect and blame the mother. The lasting damage of the Social Work intrusion into our lives is much greater for my daughter, who was only 5 at the time. She was previously an extremely independent young lady who, faced with the fear of being taken from me, became extremely clingy and afraid to sleep without me. I still can’t easily go out on a school night as she forces herself to stay awake for my return. Her education was undermined by the intrusion, which caused enormous difficulties in relationships with her school. Low teacher expectation of the “CP kid” led to massive and totally unfair delaying her getting help with her Dyslexia.

Eventually at the age of 12 my Dyslexic son was diagnosed as high functioning Autism or Aspergers Syndrome (DAMP –Disorders of Attention, Motor control & Perception). In the wake of complex pneumonia he also developed some of the symptoms of ME/CFS. His main difficulty is that he is extremely bright-and uses his intelligence to mask his difficulties. Education professionals (led on by the whispers from the GP) had mistaken his educational difficulties for lesser intelligence. I had identified that something was wrong when he was 3 and the whispering campaign had persisted for 9 years. Misapprehensions by some personnel in the LEA still make it difficult for him to get appropriate educational help.

Without putting factitious or induced illness into a proper context the NAS fears that there may be an 'epidemic' of this type of abuse, with many parents/carers reported as abusers, when the reality is that their children have very real but undiagnosed conditions such as autism. If this guidance on factitious or induced illness has to be issued, then this rare form of abuse must be put into an appropriate context, with a list of prevalence figures for other, more common, conditions which could explain the 'symptoms' which are said to indicate possible abuse.

* Firstly, the list in chapter two (para 2.16) which describes symptoms which may occur as a result of abuse is a list of classic pointers to autistic spectrum disorders. These symptoms are, however, presented in a very subjective way (see our light italic type, below) — underlying causes are implied, yet the people being asked to recognise these symptoms are not qualified to make these judgements. There could be many other reasons for these symptoms, all of which must be ruled out by referral to appropriate specialists before suspecting factitious or induced illness in the parent.
o Delay in speech and language or motor development as a result of distress;
o Development of feeding disorders as a result of unpleasant feeding interactions;
o Dislike of close physical contact and cuddling because it recalls episodes of smothering;
o Development of attachment disorders as a result of the mother-child relationship being over-controlled;
o Low self-esteem as a result of not being able to understand why they have been abused in this way;
o Having no or poor quality relationships with peers because their opportunities for social interactions are restricted;
o Under-achievement at school because of frequent interruptions in attendance;
o Development of abnormal attitudes to their own health (for example, the development of abnormal illness behaviour and even somatoform disorders) because of their abnormal experiences


This list of symptoms is likely to become the 'cut out and keep' checklist for your average health practitioner from the 60-plus pages of this guidance document. In order to avoid a wrong diagnosis, a full developmental history of the child must be taken by a qualified clinical professional before the possibility of an autistic spectrum disorder can be ruled out. There are undoubtedly many other conditions which may cause one or more of these symptoms. All of these must also be ruled out through assessments by appropriate specialists.

o Secondly, awareness of autism amongst all the groups identified in this guidance is very low. Given that autism is far more prevalent than 'factitious or induced illness' there is an urgent need for guidance on autistic spectrum disorder to be issued by the Department. This particular guidance document places a huge weight and importance on a very rare form of child abuse, out of all proportion to its prevalence. Yet a complex and far more common condition such as autism is not taken as seriously as it needs to be.

Despite the government’s official view that MSBP, also known as fabricated or induced illness, occurs in only about one person in a million, up to 12,000 children a year are being taken into care for MSBP-related reasons, according to the report.

The 104-page report, drawn up by Consensus, a group of parents and professionals, says Department of Health guidelines on MSBP issued in 2002 are phrased in such a way as to trigger referrals of parents to social workers even without any evidence.

The guidelines state: “When a possible explanation for signs and symptoms is that they may be fabricated or induced by a carer, and as a consequence the child’s health or development is likely to be impaired, a referral should be made to social services.”

Although we have major concerns about the above noted government policies towards the human rights of people with autism, it is in the history of government policy as regards Munchausens Syndrome By Proxy (MSBP) that we find most to worry us specific to children with ASD, because of the overlap in the features of MSBP contained within government guidelines with the international clinical criteria for ASD. Given the absence of research data on this `syndrome` and proper peer reviewed research, it cannot be considered to exist. Whilst we know that accusations of MSBP are disproportionately directed against parents of children with autism, and that an unknown number of autistic children have been taken into local authority `care` on the basis of such an accusation (through the Children's Panel system), we also know that this is the tip of a very large iceberg, where professionals often accuse parents of being responsible for their child's autistic behaviours or genuine medical problems, even where a diagnosis of ASD has been made. Most parents recognise that this is a defence mechanism against parents who have greater expertise in matters related to autism than the `professionals`, and is used when parents are attempting to access services that are more appropriate to the needs of their child.
...
Although we have major concerns about the above noted government policies towards the human rights of people with autism, it is in the history of government policy as regards Munchausens Syndrome By Proxy (MSBP) that we find most to worry us specific to children with ASD, because of the overlap in the features of MSBP contained within government guidelines with the international clinical criteria for ASD34. Given the absence of research data on this `syndrome` and proper peer reviewed research35, it cannot be considered to exist. Whilst we know that accusations of MSBP are disproportionately directed against parents of children with autism, and that an unknown number of autistic children have been taken into local authority `care` on the basis of such an accusation36 (through the Children's Panel system), we also know that this is the tip of a very large iceberg, where professionals often accuse parents of being responsible for their child's autistic behaviours or genuine medical problems, even where a diagnosis of ASD has been made.37 Most parents recognise that this is a defence mechanism against parents who have greater expertise in matters related to autism than the `professionals`, and is used when parents are attempting to access services that are more appropriate to the needs of their child.

We have concerns regarding other pseudo-medical diagnoses – especially Reactive Attachment Disorder38, which is at the core of a major Scottish-based research study (of 12,000 subjects) into child development linking RAD to autism.39 It is the best opportunity yet to reinvigorate the `refrigerator mother` theory for autism, and we are convinced that it will be used to bolster the continued denial of an explosion in numbers of children presenting with autism, both as regards the future and retrospectively.

Mr Shattock said: "Accusations of Msbp are often focused on parents who believe autism has been triggered by the MMR jab. The child is ill so something has happened. But the official medical dogma says it can't be the MMR vaccine so it must be the mother.

"The guidelines social services use for Msbp describe children on the autism spectrum, so what we are seeing is a plague of these false allegations.

"Yet there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that Msbp even exists. It's a witch hunt. I believe that the secrecy surrounding Family Courts could be masking very serious miscarriages of justice."

I spent a day observing what happened to the group. I also studied close-ups of children on video. What became clearer and clearer as the day went on was that all these children had a serious history of suffering behind them. This however, was never referred-to...In my conversations with therapists and mothers, I inquired about the life stories of individual children. The facts confirmed my hunch. No one, however, was willing to take these facts seriously

One particularly dubious element of the standard M.S.B.P. profile, which was published in such periodicals as the Journal of Mental Health Counselling and Archives of Disease in Childhood, was its assertion that perpetrators were "deniers" who would firmly deflect accusations of abuse. This placed accused mothers in an absurd bind. "The 'perpetrator' may genuinely be innocent and that is why she persistently and vehemently denies harming her child," C.J. Morley, who is now a professor of paediatrics at Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, wrote in 1995. "In some cases the mothers are told if they do not confess they are unlikely to have their children back. This is blackmail and may result in a false confession."

ASPERGER SYNDROME Anti-social services

It is hard to envisage more ignorant or unsympathetic treatment by the “caring professions” than that meted out to the Storey family of Rayleigh, Essex.

Debbie Storey, 41, has Aspergers Syndrome (AS), as do her sons Ben, 16, and Sam, 12. AS is a form of autism where sufferers often have high IQs but lack social and communication skills. This can be seen in apparently “odd” behaviour.

Last year Ben and Sam were nearly taken into care because a therapist who had been visiting the Storey home decided — without being qualified to do so — that the children were being psychologically abused. Nothing could have been further from the truth. But a confidential report prepared for Essex social services concluded that Mr and Mrs Storey were “consciously or unconsciously using their children to meet their own needs.” They were summoned to a child protection conference and the boys were put on the “at risk” register for emotional abuse and neglect.

In what was subsequently found to be only one of a series of failures by the authorities, no input was sought from any expert on autism to throw more light on the condition of Mrs Storey and her sons. Lisa Blakemore-Brown, a psychologist and expert on Aspergers, was so horrified by what was happening to the family she even gate-crashed a case conference to act as a family advocate. She found the intimidation of the family “absolutely unbelievable and unacceptable”.

After a mammoth battle with Essex county council involving lawyers and various experts, Ben and Sam Storey were eventually removed from the “at risk” register last September. But the year-long ordeal took an enormous toll on everyone, especially Mrs Storey. In emails she revealed the depth of anxiety and desperation she felt throughout the period. In March last year, for example, she wrote: “They are ripping my family to pieces and there isn’t anyone who can intervene at a higher level and stop the damage this is doing to the children.

“Ben is really unwell with all the flu symptoms again that flare up when he is under immense stress….but thanks to the core group (those monitoring the children) we’re too afraid to take him to a GP who has blatant disregard for experts and is totally ignorant to the needs of a family dealing with autism…. This is spiralling out of control and I’m rapidly going with it.”

But it was not just her mental health that was suffering. According to Debbie’s mother Rosemary, Debbie had been fatigued and feeling unwell for some time but was too fearful to go to the doctor lest this was interpreted as more “attention seeking behaviour” that could harm her chances of keeping the children.

She had complained of increased back pain in the middle of last year and in November was referred to the Royal Orthopaedic hospital for spine and hip investigations. No cause for the pain could be found. Instead, according to Rosemary, questions were asked about whether Aspergers could have affected Debbie’s perception of pain.

Later in November the pain was so bad it was frequently causing Debbie to vomit. A GP at her practice prescribed slow-release morphine to ease the pain, but another GP took her off it. At one stage she was in such pain she dialled 999 and was taken to casualty at Southend Hospital. After two painkilling injections she was sent home. But she was then readmitted to hospital by her GP when blood tests revealed worryingly low levels of haemoglobin. Again she was discharged.

It was only in March of this year that, on mother Rosemary’s suggestion, Debbie was seen by the consultant who was treating her brother for a rare renal cancer. It turned out that Debbie’s “perception” of pain was all too horribly real. She too was diagnosed with rare renal cancer, only hers had spread to other parts of her body.

While her husband Michael now cares for Ben and Sam, Debbie is being nursed by her parents and awaiting an operation to remove a kidney on 4 May.

Because she is so seriously ill, an advocate from Mencap has written to the respective health authorities, the Southend Hospital NHS trust and Castle Point Health Trust, to question and complain about her treatment. But Lisa Blakemore-Brown has no doubt that the labels attached in ignorance to Debbie and her family over the years mean she has not received the kind of treatment and care she needed when she needed it. “What has happened to Debbie and her family should not be ignored. We have seen over the last seven years more and more cases of parents being wrongly blamed and their real needs ignored. In this case a completely unqualified person set a rumour running that then permeated the entire health, education and social work systems, blinding the professionals. This resulted in no support for the children, no recognition of their condition — and a mother fighting for her life.”