-Caveat Lector- http://web.archive.org/web/19991011083213/members.cruzio.com/~ratf/
Let's Get Real... Ritual Abuse is Not Alien Abduction It's Not the X-Files It's done by people. Sick, Trapped, and Power-hungry people. We believe in ritual abuse because we witnessed ritual abuse. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Santa Cruz Ritual Abuse Task Force Home Page About Ritual Abuse If you don't believe it... Listing of Ritual Crimes Report Summary of the McMartin Preschool Archeological Dig Who We Are Mission and Purpose Services provided to the Santa Cruz Area Services provided to Other Areas Links to sites of interest ------------------------------------------------------------------------ About Ritual Abuse Ritual abuse is abuse performed in the name of an ideology or a belief structure. When people say ritual abuse they mean severe abuse, including torture, rape, and all forms of sexual abuse. Sometimes ritual abuse means child prostitution and pornography, murder, and animal and human sacrifice. These acts are done to instill an ideology and to control the victim underneath layers of secrecy. Because these acts are extreme, ritual abuse has been both sensationalized and discounted as hype. This is result of trying to simplify a complex form of abuse. Truly understanding ritual abuse means taking in all pieces of a complex system. Many widely held beliefs about ritual abuse are not true. * Not all ritual abuse is satanic, although this is part of some survivors' experience. * Not all survivors of ritual abuse repress the memories of the abuse. As with all trauma, some survivors forget their experiences, some remember, and some remember in part. * Ritual abuse has nothing to do with alien abduction. It has been linked to paranormal experience by those who want to discount survivors. It is only sensationalism when someone plays up the occult aspects of an abuser's belief system. Examples of ritual abuse are not hard to find and the individual elements of ritual abuse widely believed. * When members of the Temple of the Sun were found murdered in Switzerland, the locals said they had no idea that the cult existed. * When Milwaukee police found a 14 year old boy wandering naked, bleeding, and drugged through the streets in the middle of the night, they readily returned him to Jeffrey Dalmer, who then killed him. It would have been unthinkable at that point to accuse Dalmer of cannibalism and mass murder. * Brainwashing and mind control is common in cults, both underground and above-ground. * Animal and human sacrifice, while sounding like ancient history, is still going on. * Dozens of cases of ritual abuse have been successfully tried in America. This, despite the fact that most cases that go to court downplay evidence of ritual abuse in order to get a conviction. And, as with domestic violence, few cases go to court. Ritual abuse is done by people. It is a complex form of abuse, and if only a part of a survivor's story is told, it can be easily manipulated into sounding ludicrous. But complete stories of ritual abuse are not so easy to discount. It is a misunderstood and misrepresented form of real abuse in the extreme. It deserves attention. Write to us with your questions, comments, or suggestions. Return to Top ------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you don't believe... If you don't believe in ritual abuse, trying keeping an open mind. Almost all the information out there about ritual abuse is wrong, either distorted through sarcasm or sensationalism. Please read through this site and listen to what we survivors say about our own experience. Because we are survivors of ritual abuse, we know it exists. This should go without saying, but to survivors, questions about the existence of ritual abuse is irrelevant. We know what we saw, what we experienced. But we realize that the first question for a non-survivor is "Does this stuff really happen?" So we have dedicated this site to what's not being said about ritual abuse. Try to understand that much of what you have heard about ritual abuse from all sides of this issue comes from non-survivors. Although most coverage of survivors on talk shows portray us as damaged people who are dependent on our therapists, we are very strong people. Many survivors never go into therapy (most therapists won't work with ritual abuse survivors), or go in and out of therapy. Often ritual abuse is referred to as satanic ritual abuse, even though most people who self-identify as ritual abuse survivors aren't survivors of satanism. All definitions of ritual abuse that are written by survivors define it as abuse within an ideology - any ideology. Because satanism is sensational and imbedded in our cultural mythos, media coverage, both believing and disbelieving, have dealt with satanism more than all other forms of ritual abuse combined. So ask yourself, do you really disbelieve that Neo-Nazis, the KKK, or other hate groups could abuse their children in order to instill their belief system? Do you believe organized crime groups might abuse children using religious justification? These are forms of ritual abuse. Despite what you may have heard, some ritual abuse survivors don't dissociate or repress memories of the abuse. Survivors of all trauma experience confusion, dissociation. or repression to various degrees about aspects of the traumatic experience. Ritual abuse survivors are no different. People with a vested interest in encouraging societal disbelief of dissociation and repressed memory, such as accused child molesters or members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, will use sarcasm about ritual abuse to distract debate away from their weaker points. Please bear with us, keep an open mind, and ask yourself questions as you go through this site. If you read or hear a disbelieving statement about ritual abuse, is it based on facts and sound logic or is it only using sarcasm and humor. Double check sources. Read writings from all sides of the issue. And remember this isn't only an "issue". It's real people's lives. It's individual cases. Thousands and thousands of individual cases. Write to us with your questions, comments, or suggestions. Return to Top ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Listing of Ritual Crimes UNDER CONSTRUCTION We are in the process of gathering information about ritual crime and crime that contains elements of ritual abuse. This will be the bulk of this site. Stay posted to this page as we add to this list. We wish to use this site as a resource to amass information about ritual crime. If you know of a documented case of ritual crime, or of a case that contains elements of ritual abuse, please let us know so we can include the information here. Write to us with your questions, comments, or suggestions. Return to Top ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Who We Are The Santa Cruz Ritual Abuse Task Force is a grassroots organization striving for the well being and safety of survivors of ritual abuse. We are survivors of ritual abuse ourselves, and look to our own lives as a base for our activism. Our goal is to combat ritual abuse on four fronts. * Assist survivors achieve safety and support * Enable those working with survivors to provide quality support * Provide accurate information to the general public * Act as a focal point for gathering information on active ritual abuse in the Santa Cruz Area As survivors, we view our own activism as a integral part of our healing from our past experiences. None of us would have survived to be the people we are today with out deep and terrible healing. However, as we have healed, we have been angered by the world we have entered. Ritual abuse continues despite the thousands of individual survivors who have entered therapy. We are activists because of our healing, because of our hope for what the world could be. We are indebted to the Walnut Avenue Women's Center for their help and the Santa Cruz Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women for funding this web space. Write to us with your questions, comments, or suggestions. Return to Top ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mission and Purpose Our goal is to combat ritual abuse on four fronts. 1. Assisting survivors achieve safety and support. * Serve as a point of entry into systems of support, connecting survivors to services through our voicemail, P. O. Box, or email. * Provide access to accurate information about ritual abuse and its effects on survivors. * Provide a mail drop service as a buffer for survivors' addresses. 2. Enable those working with survivors to provide quality support. * Create and send out a survey for supporters and therapists to assess their views on ritual abuse and their needs as providers. * Facilitate trainings about ritual abuse to those who work with survivors. * Inform supporters of the others services offered by the Task Force. 3. Provide accurate information to the general public. * Be available to answer general questions about ritual abuse through phone contact, mail, and email. * Publish articles about ritual abuse and educate the media with press kits about ritual abuse. * Find or translate basic texts about ritual abuse into Spanish. * Compile Community Notebooks about ritual abuse. * Creation of this web site, with factual information about ritual abuse, thereby altering the predominantly hostile environment towards ritual abuse that currently exists on the web. 4. Act as a focal point for gathering information on active ritual abuse in the Santa Cruz Area * Network with Santa Cruz community organizations to compile data on their contact with ritual abuse activities. * Create a base for more comprehensive needs assessment for combating active ritual abuse in the Santa Cruz Area * Appraise the different forms of ritual abuse in the different communities in Santa Cruz Write to us with your questions, comments, or suggestions. Return to Top ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Services Provided to the Santa Cruz Area We provide the following services * Trainings on working with survivors * Maintaining Community Notebooks about ritual abuse at * Herland Book Cafe 902 Center Street * Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women's Office 915 Cedar Street * Walnut Avenue Women's Center (the old YWCA)303 Walnut Avenue * Mail drop service * Currently conducting needs assessment for community * Amassing information about ritual abuse activity in Santa Cruz Area What are your needs? Let us know if you would like one of these services or how we can add to this list. Write to us with your questions, comments, or suggestions. Return to Top ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Services to the General Public We provide the following services * Help to survivors in other areas with grass-roots organizing * Help constructing Community Notebooks in you area * Press kits (in process) * We are available to answer questions about ritual abuse or to refer you to further resources ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [About Ritual Abuse] [If you don't believe it...] [Listing of Ritual Crimes [McMartin Preschool Archeological Dig] [Who We Are] [Mission and Purpose] [Services provided] [Links to sites of interest] [Back to Top] Write to us with your questions, comments, or suggestions. Number of visitor since June 16, 1998: 6195 Last updated June 16, 1998 ----- Om K <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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