Sunday, August 23, 2009

Hail Satan! The satanic panic. Just when you thought religion was nutty enough... thanks Anton Levay

Posted by theGODscam at 6:41 PM






The 1980s saw a rise in evangelical and fundamentalist Christian political activism, and an attendant concern over changing mores. More people were leaving children at Daycare Centers. More people were talking about family violence. And long-standing institutions, such as reform schools, faced scandals over past sexual abuse. These social currents all had their influence on the mainstreaming of a previously fringe belief in vast, well-connected, intergenerational Satanic Cults whose ultimate aims were global control (indeed, some would-be authorities claimed the cult was already running several countries), but whose workaday practices largely consisted of child rape, cannibalism, and cheesy rituals. Many of the stories repeat slander that has, throughout history, been directed at outsider groups; the early Christians, heretical groups within Christianity, Jews, and supposed witches have all, at one time or another, been accused falsely of the very same things.

Politically-motivated therapists and police officers led the demand for prosecution whenever such claims were made. In the McMartin Preschool Trial and similar cases, the therapists actually created the abuse narrative which the children repeated in court. Talk Shows, of course, jumped on the bandwagon, and gave voice to supposed survivors, leaving the checking of facts to viewers.

As in witch-hunts of the past, trials took place with little regard for evidence or even logic. A few of the general problems with the picture developed by believers and promulgators of the Panic, however, should be noted here:


-One study revealed that the majority of ritual abuse cases were reported by less than 2% of therapists, while more than 70% of therapists never had such a case. Very few therapists, then, discovered the patients who supposedly had been abused, often using now-discredited methods and assumptions. Hypnosis, for example, makes a person more


 -No cases of ritual sexual abuse by Satanists exist before the panic. Compare this with the very real problem of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse in places like reform schools. Reports, usually suppressed, exist throughout the institutions' histories. Police heard accounts, but either refused to believe victims or felt the stories were exaggerated. Survivors corroborate each others' stories. Far from repressing their memories, the victims found their abuse impossible to forget. None of this is true of the Satanic Panic cases, despite the claim that these cults were in operation for generations.


-The murders reportedly committed by the cults would leave hundreds of thousands of corpses, yet we do not have anything like the number of missing persons to account for these sacrifices.


-Several supposed survivors talk of past pregnancies or torture that left scars; the corroborative physical evidence never exists.


-Ken Lanning's investigation (actually, a review of existing investigations) for the FBI found no evidence that such large-scale Satanic cults exist. prone to fantasy, not less.


Of course, horrible cases of abuse do occur. Perhaps a belief in evil cults makes this easier to accept. We can blame it all on the obvious monsters, rather than accept the everyday and unpredictable nature of evil. From: http://www.geocities.com/utherworld/seasons/satanicpanic.html


BBC Conspiracies: Satanic Panic part 1 of 3




BBC Conspiracies: Satanic Panic part 2 of 3




BBC Conspiracies: Satanic Panic part 3 of 3