Ritual Abuse - From the Child Abuse Wiki
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Ritual abuse exists all over the world. There have been reports, journal
articles[1][2][3], web pages[4][5][6][7][8][9] and criminal convictions of
crimes against children and adults [10][11][12].
Definition
Ritual abuse has been defined as:
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. The physical abuse is severe, sometimes including
torture and killing. The sexual abuse is usually painful, sadistic, and
humiliating, intended as means of gaining dominance over the victim. The
psychological abuse is devastating and involves the use of
ritual/indoctrination, which includes mind control techniques and mind altering
drugs, and
ritual/intimidation which conveys to the victim a profound terror of the cult
members and of the evil spirits they believe cult members can command. Both
during and after the abuse, most victims are in a state of terror, mind
control, and dissociation in which disclosure is exceedingly difficult.[13]
and as
WHAT IS RITUAL ABUSE? (BROAD DEFINITION) Ritual abuse is the abuse of a
child, weaker adult, or animal in a ritual setting or manner. In a broad
sense, many of our overtly or covertly socially sanctioned actions can be seen
as ritual abuse, such as military basic training, hazing, racism, spanking
children, and partner-battering. Some abuse is private...some public.
Public ritual abuse may be either open or secret. WHAT IS RITUAL ABUSE?
(NARROW
DEFINITION) The term ritual abuse is generally used to mean prolonged,
extreme, sadistic abuse, especially of children, within a group setting. The
group's ideology is used to justify the abuse, and abuse is used to teach the
group's ideology. The activities are kept secret from society at large, as
they violate norms and laws.[14]
Origins of the term
Pazder introduced the term "ritualized abuse" in 1980, describing the
experiences of an adult survivor that was disclosing satanic abuse memories.
He
defined the phenomenon as "repeated physical, emotional, mental, and
spiritual assaults combined with a systematic use of symbols, ceremonies, and
machinations designed and orchestrated to attain malevolent effects." Later
definitions came mostly from professionals addressing ritual abuse in child
care settings. Finkelhor, Williams, Burns, and Kalinowski elaborated on
Pazder's definition, defining ritual abuse as "abuse that occurs in a context
linked to some symbols or group activity that have a religious, magical or
supernatural connotation, and where the invocation of these symbols or
activities are repeated over time and used to frighten and intimidate the
children." Kelley referred to ritual abuse as the "repetitive and systematic
sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of children by adults as part of
cult
or satanic worship"[15].
Evidence
There is a great deal of evidence supporting the existence of ritual abuse
crimes as a worldwide phenomenon. Bottoms, Shaver and Goodman found in
their 1993 study evaluating ritual abuse claims that in 2,292 alleged ritual
abuse cases, 15% of the perpetrators in adult cases and 30% of the
perpetrators in child cases confessed to the abuse[16]. "In a survey of 2,709
members of the American Psychological Association, it was found that 30
percent
of these professionals had seen cases of ritual or religion-related abuse
(Bottoms, Shaver & Goodman, 1991). Of those psychologists who have seen cases
of ritual abuse, 93 percent believed that the reported harm took place and
93 percent believed that the alleged ritualism occurred....The similar
research of Nancy Perry (1992) which further supports (the previous findings)…
Perry also conducted a national survey of therapists who work with clients
with dissociative disorders and she found that 88 percent of the 1,185
respondents indicated "belief in ritual abuse, involving mind control and
programming"[17].
Recently an online survey[18] of over one thousand people answered
questions about ritual abuse and extreme abuse crimes. In a summary of the
survey
[19], it was found that ritual abuse/mind control is a global phenomenon.
Fifty-five percent stated they were abuse in a Satanic cult. Seventy-seven
percent of the adult survivors that responded "had been threatened with
death if they ever talked about the abuse." Also, "257 respondents reported
that secret mind control experiments were used on them as children."
Eighty-two percent reported being sexually abused by multiple perpetrators.
Anne Johnson Davis in her book Hell Minus One reported that her parents
confessed to her abuse in writing and verbally to clergymen, and to the
detectives from the Utah Attorney General's Office. Her suppressed memories
started when she was in her mid-30s, which were fully substantiated by her
mother and stepfather[20][21].
Many scientific journals articles have discussed the reality of ritual
abuse and its effect on its victims. Some of these articles have discussed the
extreme nature of these crimes[22], proof of the reality of the ritual
abuse phenomenon and victims' symptoms[23], the connection between ritual
abuse, multiple personality disorder and mind control[24] and the connections
between ritual abuse reports and the higher levels of symptoms of childhood
sexual and physical abuse[25]. Several additional studies and organizations
have compiled research on the reality of ritual abuse crimes[26][27][28].
Ritual abuse and mind control crimes have also been confirmed in other
books[29][30].
A study which identified 270 cases of sexual abuse in day care settings
found that allegations of ritual abuse occurred in thirteen percent of the
cases[31]. Additional evidence of ritual abuse in day care and child abuse
cases has been found in news reports, journal articles and legal
transcripts[32][33][34][35][36][37].
Ritual abuse occurrences have also been found in the Netherlands[38]and
England[39]. Reports of ritual abuse have also been found in multiple
personality disorder sufferers[15]. Kent believes that intergenerational
satanic
accounts are possible and that rituals related to them may come from a
deviant interpretation of religious texts[40][41]. Others have stated that the
theories and research around recovered memory "strongly confirm the reality
of...cult abuse" of SRA survivors[42].
References at _http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Ritual_Abuse_
(http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Ritual_Abuse)
