Helping multiples and their loved ones to remember the music
| What is Satanic Ritual Abuse? |
| SRA & RA (Satanic Ritual Abuse and Ritual Abuse) are a very complicated, controversial and important topic. We are survivors of Ritual abuse, in secular, satanic and Christian settings. Many people claim that this type of abue either does not exist or is extremely rare. They are wrong. While it us understandable to wish these crimes were made up, ignoring them only makes the problem worse. We are only just begininning our healing from these issues so writing this would have been especially hard for us, but we feel the information is too important to wait so we have taken this page from the report of the ritual abuse task force, Los Angeles county commission for women. This report is very thorough and honest. We have left it as is, though we have taken some things out for length considerations. |
| Report Of The Ritual Abuse Task Force Los Angeles County Commission For Women March 15, 1991 |
| Introduction |
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Ritual abuse is a serious and growing problem in our community and in our nation. Ritual abuse is not a new problem, but society is only just beginning to recognize the gravity and scope of this problem. We are all in need of education on this issue. Parents need to be educated about the hallmarks of this abuse occurring in preschools and day care centers. Many professionals are seeing victims of ritual abuse and not yet recognizing the patterns of this abuse. The concept of ritual abuse, that groups of adults would terrorize and torture children in order to control them, is frightening and controversial, raising for all of us problems of denial and fear of the consequences of such information. Despite detailed evidence of ritual abuse coming from child victims and their families, from adult victims, and from the professionals working with them, and despite the remarkable consistency of these reports both nationally and internationally, society at large resists believing that ritual abuse really occurs. There remains the mistaken belief that satanic and other cult activity is isolated and rare. The Commission for Women recognized the need for education and the dissemination of information about this issue. In February of 1988, the Task Force on Ritual Abuse was formed. The Task Force is made up of professionals from the fields of medicine, mental health, education, law enforcement, prosecution, and religion, serving together with adult survivors and parents of child victims. All are volunteers and give their time and energy to this work unstintingly. This report is the result of months of work and I wish to express my deep appreciation to the members of the Task Force who participated in its writing. My special thanks to Catherine Gould Ph.D. and Lyn Laboriel M.D. for their outstanding contribution to this project and to the work of this Task Force. My thanks also to David Sielaff for his contribution to the design and typesetting of this report. I also wish to thank the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County for their support of our work. Myra B. Riddell, LCSW Vice President, Commission for Women Chair, Task Force on Ritual Abuse |
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Definitions Concise Definition |
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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. The physical abuse is severe, sometimes including torture and killing. The sexual abuse is usually painful, sadistic, and humiliating, intended as a 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. |
| Descriptive Definition |
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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. Ritual abuse is usually carried out by members of a cult. The purpose of the ritual elements of the abuse seems threefold: (1) rituals in some groups are part of a shared belief or worship system into which the victim is being indoctrinated; (2) rituals are used to intimidate victims into silence; (3) ritual elements (e.g., devil worship, animal or human sacrifice) seem so unbelievable to those unfamiliar with these crimes that these elements detract from the credibility of the victims and make prosecution of the crimes very difficult. Many victims are children under the age of six who suffer the most severe and longstanding emotional damage from the abuse. These young victims are particularly susceptible to being terrorized and indoctrinated into the abusers' belief system. During and even long after the abuse victims live in a state of terror and dissociation and suffer from the impact of mind control techniques. All this makes the initial disclosures of abuse exceedingly difficult, and can make each subsequent disclosure a terrifying and painful experience. Ritual abuse is known to occur as an integral part of the life of some families in which one or both parents participate in conjunction with the extended family or other group. These groups are typically satanic in their symbols and beliefs. Children in these settings are severely abused on an ongoing basis with little time during which they are safe from abuse. The results are devastating. Ritual abuse has also occurred, without parents knowing, at preschools, day-care centers, churches, summer camps, and at the hands of baby-sitters and neighbors. The ritual abuse in such an institutional setting is not incidental to its operation, but is in fact intrinsic to it, the very reason for the institution's existence. Children are subjected to sexual abuse, ritual/intimidation to terrorize them into silence, and ritual/indoctrination to convert them to the belief or worship system of the group. Ritual abuse of adolescents, and participation by adolescents in perpetrating ritual abuse, can take place in family or school settings, or in youth gangs which orient themselves toward a self-styled satanism or other ritualism, and violence. Many adults who are victims and/or perpetrators of ritual abuse came under the influence of such beliefs and practices in their childhood or adolescence and may function with severe dissociative disorders, including multiple personality disorder. Such adults are often working members of society whose identity as members of satanic or other cults is not known outside the cult. Some perpetrate abuse, infiltrate, and/or recruit for the cult in the context of their jobs. Some adults join the cult later in life, enticed by sexual promiscuity and perversion, the availability of illicit drugs, the promise of money, and the satanic spirituality oriented toward power and moral license. |
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Kinds Of Abuse Psychological Abuse |
| The psychological abuse which is inflicted as part of ritual abuse causes severe mental and emotional suffering to the victims. Victims are subjected to profound terror as well as to mind control techniques so severe that most victims dissociate their memories of the experience and lose their sense of free will. |
| Some Reported Examples |
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1. Threats of punishment, torture, mutilation, or death of the victim, the victim's family or pets. Threats are heightened by carrying out killings of animals or human beings in the presence of the victim, sometimes with the victim's forced participation. Told that it would be futile to disclose because "no-one will believe you." 2. Threats against the victim's property including threats that his/her house will be broken into or burned down if s/he discloses the abuse. 3. Told that family or other loving and protective figures are secretly cult members who intend to harm the victim. Or made to believe that parents not only know, but have chosen that their child be ritually abused. Told that s/he is no longer loved by family or by God. 4. Told that his/her family is not the "real" family, that the abusers are in fact the child's "real" family. Victim is told s/he will be kidnapped and forced to live with the abusers, apart from his/her family. Or told that parents no longer want the child and approve of the cult becoming the child's "new family." 5. Tied up or confined to a cage, closet, basement, isolation house, or other confined space. Told s/he being left there to die. Some are placed in coffins and told to "practice being dead." For some this includes mock burials in which the victim is buried and told s/he is being left to die. Sometimes a cult member seems to rescue the child from these terrifying situations and thus the distraught child reaches out gratefully and bonds to the cult member. 6. Tied up or confined in space with insects or animals that s/he is told will harm him/her, or tricked into believing that frightening insects or animals are present. Confined with or hung upside-down in a hole with a dead body or the mutilated body parts of an animal or a human being. 7. Humiliated or degraded through verbal abuse. Forced nudity in front of the group. Body of the victim smeared or covered with urine or feces. Forced ingestion of urine, feces, or semen. 8. Photographed in sexually provocative poses. Photographed while being physically or sexually assaulted, or while physically or sexually assaulting someone else. Forced participation in the production of pornography used in the intimidation and humiliation of the victim as well as to financially profit the abusers. 9. Made to feel constantly watched and monitored by abusers or their spiritual counterparts (e.g., evil spirits). Made to believe that disclosure, or failure to perpetrate evil when expected by the group to do so, will result in punishment or even death. 10. Physically and sexually abused by perpetrators disguised as heroes or authority figures like Superman, Santa Claus, Rambo, clergy, judges, police. Undermines child's trust in authority and heroes. Inhibits disclosure. 11. Subjected to mind control and mind altering drugs which alter the victim's perception, interfere with the victim's resistance to the assault, and cloud the victim's recall of the details of the abuse. Sophisticated uses of hypnosis, indoctrination, programming, and the use of triggering. 12. Subjected to rituals like magical surgery, birthing rituals, and marriage rituals which emphasize the victim's belonging to, and subjugation to, the cult. Victims also are forced to participate in ritual sacrifices and human sacrifices. They are forced into the belief and worship system of the group. Often, though not always, the belief and worship of the group is satanic. 13. Sworn into secrecy regarding cult activities, including the abusive activities, under penalty of death. Subjected to mind control regarding how to harm him/herself or even to commit suicide rather than remember or disclose cult activities. Vulnerable to extreme self-destructive impulses if s/he even considers leaving the cult. 14. Compelled to commit heinous acts, including the killing and mutilation of animals or human beings, sometimes including the victim's own children. Compelled to ingest blood or body parts of animals or human beings in cannibalistic rituals. Subsequently subjected by the group to profound condemnation and guilt for perpetrating and surviving these crimes. Victims tricked into believing their participation was voluntary. Threatened with exposure as a perpetrator. 15. Compelled to act on behalf of the group while outside the group by engaging in prostitution, drug dealing, and other illegal activities. Compelled to extend the group's sphere of influence and control in social institutions (e.g., by participating and working in schools, churches, law enforcement, courts, health and mental health professions, etc.). |
| Physical Abuse |
| Ritual abuse victims are physically abused often to the point of torture. Young victims who are being ritually abused without the knowledge of both parents are usually subjected only to physical abuse that is not easily detected. |
| Less Detectable Examples |
| Pins or "shots" inserted into sensitive areas of the body, especially between digits, under fingernails, or in genital areas. Electric shock to these body areas. Being hung by hands or upside down by feet for extended periods of time. Sometimes hung from crosses in mock crucifixions. Sexual abuse while in such positions. Submerging victim in water with perception of near drowning. Withholding of food or water for several hours. Sleep deprivation and activities aimed at inducing exhaustion. |
| More Detectable Examples |
| Physical beatings. Use of cuts, tattoos, branding, burns, often to sensitive body areas. Withholding food, water, or sleep for days or weeks. Removal of body parts, e.g., digits. |
| Sexual Abuse |
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The sexual abuse of ritual victims is unusually brutal, sadistic, and humiliating. It is far more severe than that which is usually inflicted by a pedophile or in the context of intrafamilial sexual abuse (incest). It seems intended as a means of gaining total dominance over the victim, as well as being an end in itself. Repeated sexual assaults by men, women, and other children, often occurring in a group. May be associated with the marriage ritual, repeated fondling, oral copulation, rape and sodomy. Assaults include the use of instruments for penetration of body orifices, including symbolic objects (e.g., crucifix or wand) or weapons (e.g., knife or gun). Sexual assault coupled with physical violence. Participation in rituals in which sexual assault is associated with death. Forced sexual contact with dead or dying people. Forced to sexually perpetrate against children and infants. Forced sexual contact with animals. |
| Some Groups Identified With Satanism |
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Church of the Final Judgment-also known as The Process Church of Satan (founded by Anton La Vey) Ordo Templis Orientalis (once headed by Aleister Crowley) Temple of Set (led by Lt. Col. Michael Aquino, U.S. Army) Worldwide Church of Satanic Liberation (led by Paul Valentine-recruits teens) |
| Ritual Abuse And The Use Of Mind Control |
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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. 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 behaviors 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. The information available about how ritually abusive cults indoctrinate young children comes primarily from child and adult survivors who have been able to remember how the cult achieved mind control over them and others in the cult. Therapists who have worked extensively with ritual abuse victims have gleaned a significant, although still incomplete, degree of understanding of the process by which the mind control is achieved. A key element of the victim's recovery from ritual abuse consists of understanding, unraveling, and undoing the mind control which usually persists for a long time, even in victims who no longer participate in the cult. Undoing these controls is critical, for victims may remain unable to disclose their abuse, or vulnerable to cult manipulation if the systematic programming is not dismantled. As more ritual abuse victims are helped to free themselves from cult mind control, the body of information about this important aspect of ritual abuse continues to grow. Satanic cults focus their initial efforts to achieve mind control most frequently and strenuously with children under the age of six. Like developmental psychologists, satanists understand that people are most susceptible to having their character, beliefs, and behavior molded during this early period of development. This review of the mind control techniques utilized by satanic cults will focus primarily on the techniques used on very young children, both those in ritually abusive families, and those in extrafamilial settings, such as day-care and preschools. Children who are abused in intrafamilial settings are subjected to ongoing mind control that is often sustained in extreme forms throughout their childhood and adolescence. There is a growing body of research into the indoctrination techniques which are used by a wide range of destructive cults. It is helpful to consider how satanic cults make use of these and other techniques to control their victims. In Cults, Quacks and Non-Professional Psychotherapists, West and Singer have described elements of cult indoctrination as follows: 1. Isolation of the recruit and manipulation of his environment. 2. Control over channels of communication and information. 3. Debilitation through inadequate diet and fatigue. 4. Degradation or diminution of the self. 5. Induction of uncertainty, fear, and confusion, with joy and certainty through surrender to the group as a goal. 6. Alternation of harshness and leniency in a context of discipline. 7. Peer pressure generating guilt and requiring open confessions. 8. Insistence by seemingly all-powerful hosts that the recruit's survival-physical or spiritual-depends on identifying with the group. 9. Assignment of monotonous or repetitive tasks such as chanting or copying written materials. 10. Acts of symbolic betrayal or renunciation of self, family, and previously held values, designed to increase the psychological distance between the recruit and his previous way of life. Satanic cults use many of the same techniques, but apply them in unique ways to indoctrinate and control very young children. To begin with, they impose a variety of PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL, and COGNITIVE CONDITIONS which are conducive to indoctrination. |
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Physical Conditions 1. Hunger And Thirst |
| Ritually abused children are often deprived of food and water for extended periods of time, and are told they will be left to die of hunger and thirst. Their deprivation and fear of dying make them willing to comply with virtually any behavior or belief necessary to be given food or water again. The cult member who finally does feed the child is perceived as an ally and benefactor. The child feels deeply grateful and is thus susceptible to bonding with that cult member, thereby increasing the child's vulnerability to identifying with the cult and its beliefs and practices. |
| 2. Pain |
| Ritually abused children are physically tormented and sexually abused in very painful ways. The pain can cause them to dissociate and, like prisoners of war subjected to torture, they become willing to do whatever is demanded of them in order to make the pain stop. For a young child who is ritually abused in an out-of-home care setting, even a brief encounter with intense pain profoundly impacts that child's susceptibility to cult mind control. For those children raised in cults, the use of pain and the threat of pain continues for as long as they are submitted to the cult, causing an ongoing and deepening degree of subservience to the cult. |
| 3. Drugs |
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Both child and adult victims of ritual abuse have described being abused with mind-altering drugs. Some drugs are injected or administered in suppositories. Others are hidden in food or drink, or simply swallowed under duress. The drug effects include hypnotic and paralytic effects, causing victims to experience mental and emotional states ranging from confusion and drowsiness, to passivity and helplessness. Memory distortions occur as well. Victims tend to recall very real and painful experiences only with difficulty as though they were unreal or even just dreams. Additionally, in such drug-induced states, young children are even more pliable than they would otherwise be, and more open to the belief system into which the cult is attempting to indoctrinate them. Cult leaders capitalize on drug-induced reality distortions to create the illusion that they have absolute power to which the child must submit. |
| 4. Exhaustion |
| Ritually abused children are often deprived of rest and sleep. In the extrafamilial settings in which ritual abuse occurs, children are frequently deprived of needed nap and rest periods. In ritually abusive family settings, children may be deprived of sleep for extended periods of time. The influence of repeated drugging further deepens their sense of exhaustion. People in a state of exhaustion are more open to mind control because fatigue saps their normal coping capacities. This effect is especially pronounced in young children. |
| 5. Isolation |
| Ritually abused children are put into closets, holes, cages, coffins, and other confined, usually dark, spaces. The children are often isolated there and told they will be left to die. The sensory deprivation that may result can cause some degree of disorientation. The isolation causes the child to feel desperate and overwhelmed with fear and dread. An abusive adult who subsequently releases the child from confinement is perceived by the child as a rescuer, often causing the young child to bond to that cult member. The child's bonding with one or more cult members increases the degree of the child's identification with the values and beliefs of the cult. In other words, both the isolation and the rescue make the child more susceptible to indoctrination into the destructive beliefs and practices of the cult. |
| 6. Sexual Abuse |
| Ritually abused children are subjected to brutal sexual abuse which involves severe pain and may involve sexual arousal with which the children are neither physically nor emotionally prepared to cope. Sometimes the sexual abuse is performed with symbolic instruments (e.g., penetration with a crucifix or wand) which reinforces the satanic belief system of the cult. The pain, especially if in combination with arousal, is extremely disorienting and overwhelming, again making the child willing to comply with the demands of the cult members in order to make the feelings stop. The sexual arousal can contribute to the formation of distorted bonds with the abusers, leading to identification with the abusive cult. |
| 7. Bright Lights |
| Adult and child victims of ritual abuse describe having harsh, intensely bright lights shined in their eyes immediately before and during indoctrination. The lights appear to disorient them and to induce a state of trance which lowers the victim's resistance and heightens the susceptibility to indoctrination. |
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Emotional Conditions 1. Terror |
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Ritually abused children have been terrorized and are profoundly afraid of their abusers. They have endured physical torture and painful sexual assaults. They have witnessed the terror, torture, and murder of other children and adults in group settings, experiences which greatly intensify the child's own overwhelming fears. Their terror is heightened by what they perceive as the omnipotence and omniscience of their abusers, including what they believe are their abusers' abilities to control them through the use of demons and evil spirits. Ritually abused children have also been threatened repeatedly with death to themselves and their families should they disclose. This state of terror causes the child to be willing to do or believe anything to appease the abusers, thereby reducing the degree of threat the child feels from them. |
| 2. Guilt And Shame |
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Ritually abused children have been forced to engage in humiliating and degrading activities such as handling, smearing, and ingesting urine, feces, blood, and human flesh. They have been photographed pornographically and, sometimes, been made to view these pictures. They have been forced to participate in the abuse, torture, and killing of animals, and the murder of children and adults. They are then made to feel responsible for their actions as though these actions were freely chosen by them. They are threatened with exposure as perpetrators, and fear being rejected completely by their families or even being arrested and jailed. Their feelings of guilt and shame contribute to a perception that through their actions, they have already shown their loyalty to the cult and its beliefs. They are made to feel that the abusive group itself is their only refuge of acceptance. By turning to the abusive group for a sense of acceptance and protection, these children are open to even further indoctrination. |
| 3. Emotional Isolation And Despair |
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Children who are ritually abused are made to feel cut off and rejected by their families and the rest of the world. They are often told that their "real parents" have died or have abandoned them, and that the people with whom they live are pretenders. Sometimes they are told that the cult members are their "real parents" who will someday "rescue" them from their homes. These ritually abused children often come to feel emotionally estranged from their families. The deep loneliness which results opens them to bonding with abusive cult members, identifying with them, and thus becoming open to indoctrination into the cult's system of beliefs and practices. In addition, children who are ritually abused are profoundly sad. They experience tragedy and horror, as well as isolation, at an intensity which would induce an overwhelming sadness in a mature adult. They may come to feel utterly hopeless, and in their despair they are likely to feel that cult abuse and cult membership are all that they deserve and all that they can imagine for their future. The cult convinces them that there is no place to turn for help, and thus no way out of the cult. |
| 4. Rage |
| Ritual abuse provokes children to feel enormous rage, because the violation which they experience is so great. This rage within the child contributes to the cult's efforts to indoctrinate that child into a belief system in which violence and rage are valued and encouraged. A child who has been repeatedly violated by the cult over time, and not permitted to express any emotion about his/her abuse, may be eager to vent his/her rage by striking out and victimizing others. The assaultive behavior which ensues is encouraged and rewarded by adult cult members, and is used to make the child feel s/he already is just like the abusive adults who have provoked the rage. |
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Cognitive Conditions 1. Lack Of Information |
| Young children who are being ritually abused lack sufficient information and experience to know that much of what their abusers tell them is untrue. They lack the cognitive development to perceive the contradictions in some of the lies they are told. They are likely to accept the misinformation offered by the cult members as part of the mind control process. |
| 2. Confusion |
| Ritually abused children are confused by the infliction of pain, the extreme sexual arousal caused by sexual abuse, the incessant directives to do things they know are wrong, the extensive lying and deception by cult members, and the perceived loss of control over their own behavior and the behavior of those around them. Children in such situations long for explanations from adults to reduce their confusion about what is happening to them. The result again is an increased vulnerability to indoctrination as they open themselves to any explanations offered by the adults in the cult. |
| The Role Of Trance States |
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These conditions-physical, emotional, and cognitive-exacerbate the impact of the child's ritual abuse, especially in combination with the used trance states. It is important to look at the role of trance states in achieving mind control over the ritually abused child. When children are in a state of trance, they are more open to indoctrination and other techniques for attaining control over their minds and behavior. For example, a child who hears an adult state repeatedly, "Satan has the power," is much more likely to incorporate that as a deeply held belief if the child is in a state of trance, than if the child is in a normal waking state. There are many means by which trance states can be achieved with children during the course of ritual abuse. The rituals themselves contain many trance inducing elements, among them, chanting, isolation, sensory deprivation, pain, and other forms of extreme physical discomfort. Trance states are also induced in ritual abuse victims by using hypnosis and hypnotic drugs. Traumatic experiences which occur while the victim is in a trance state can be used to indoctrinate victims. These experiences have a profound and long-lasting impact on the beliefs, feelings, and even the behavior of victims, despite the fact that these experiences cannot always be remembered consciously. Only later in life, usually with the help of a highly skilled therapist, are some ritual abuse victims able to painstakingly reconstruct what happened to them while they were in various states of trance or dissociation. The fact that certain events are not easily remembered does not mean that they do not have a significant impact on the life of the individual. Until the memories are surfaced and worked through in a safe environment, the survivor of such abuse is still controlled to some extent by these past experiences. Typically, the survivor will react most strongly to past indoctrination when triggered by an event which is a reminder of it. For example, if the survivor was abused in childhood by a cult that conducted abusive rituals on every full moon, s/he may feel compelled as an adult to seek out a cult and participate in rituals whenever the moon is full. Or s/he may be triggered to perform a physically or sexually assaultive act on the full moon without seeking out a cult. Alternatively s/he may act out in some other compulsive way to cope with the anxiety associated with the dissociated memory of this traumatic event. Survivors experience triggering of certain beliefs into which they were indoctrinated, or certain behaviors that they are programmed to enact. They are usually unaware of what it is that is triggering them. With help, a victim can bring the triggering events to conscious awareness, and then can gradually become empowered to free him/herself from these compulsions. Behaviors can be triggered spontaneously by cues that by chance happen to remind the individual of past indoctrination or programming. Cues may be implanted by the cult during indoctrination which can also be employed deliberately by cult members to elicit particular behaviors from a victim. For example, a survivor who was ritually abused and indoctrinated in early childhood can often be called back into the cult years after the indoctrination occurred when approached by a cult member who knows what trigger words or signs to use to access that individual's programming and gain the desired response. The abusive system of mind control described has distinct EMOTIONAL CONSEQUENCES, as well as a major impact upon the COGNITIVE and RELIGIOUS BELIEFS under which the victims function. Emotional Consequences of ritual abuse and mind control for both adult and child survivors include the following. |
| 1. Terror |
| Ritually abused children are overwhelmed with profound fear. They are hypervigilant, feeling that they are constantly being watched. They are anxious and agitated, sometimes mistakenly perceived as "hyperactive." |
| 2. Guilt And Fear Of Discovery |
| Ritually abused children experience profound fear both of punishment and loss of love from family and friends. They have been made to feel that their participation in heinous acts was freely chosen and that they are responsible for their actions. They are especially fearful of being found responsible by their families or by the authorities (e.g., police) and of being punished for their participation in the violence, sexual contacts, pornography, and murders. |
| 3. Loneliness |
| Children abused ritually outside of their families feel painfully cut off from their families and deeply lonely. They feel that the acts they have committed, and the vows they have been forced to make to the cult and to Satan, separate them from their families irrevocably. This kind of emotional estrangement from their parents is often accompanied by profound despair. |
| 4. Identification With The Group And A Sense Of Personal Badness |
| Ritually abused children tend to feel identified with the evil performed by the cult. This feeling of being "one of the bad people" often leads to compulsions to behave in physically and sexually assaultive ways. |
| 5. Rage Over Victimization |
| Enraged child victims are encouraged to act out their anger by assaulting others and are then told that this is evidence that they are truly becoming members of the abusive group. Thus, even their own rage is turned against ritually abused children, thereby heightening their sense of hopelessness and entrapment. |
| 6. Loss Of Sense Of Self |
| Ritual abuse victims feel a loss of boundaries between the self and the group. Often, they come to be so identified with the group that they feel like an extension of it. This loss of the sense of self contributes to feelings of personal badness and of rage. |
| 7. Absence Of Free Will |
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As a result of techniques like magic surgery*, the perception that controlling evil spirits* are present, that cult members know everything that the child thinks or does, and the use of impossible double binds (e.g., stab or be stabbed), the victim comes to feel that there is no choice but to comply, and yet is still burdened by guilt and shame. Cognitive Beliefs imparted by ritual abuse and mind control, seen in both adult and child survivors, include the following. |
| 1. There Is No Escape |
| "The cult members are everywhere. The spirits, monsters, demons, devils, etc. that the cult controls, surround me, too. They know if I violate any of the rules of the cult, and they will punish me. I can never leave." |
| 2. The Cult Completely Controls Me |
| "I am controlled by the cult and by the demon which the cult has placed in me to both control and monitor my behavior. I have no freedom and must follow the orders of the cult leaders in all things. I must be ready to assault others and neither trust nor make any close associations with anyone outside the cult." |
| 3. I Am Incapable Of Protecting Myself |
| "I am inadequate. I have no control and no power. I am paralyzed." |
| 4. The Cult Is My Only True Family |
| (In extrafamilial cases)-"My family is dangerous to me and only the cult members accept me. I will eventually live with them forever because they are my true family." |
| 5. Memories Are Dangerous |
| "I must hurt myself if I begin to remember. I must cut myself, beat myself, or kill myself if I remember what happened. Terrible things will happen to me and my family if I remember." |
| 6. Disclosures Are Dangerous |
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"The cult will know if I tell anyone. If I do tell, I or my family will be hurt by them, or I will be compelled to hurt myself." Religious Beliefs imparted by ritual abuse and mind control, seen in both adult and child survivors, include the following. |
| 1. Satan Is Stronger Than God |
| "Satan has all the power. He is stronger than God. God has not been able to do anything to protect me from what has happened." |
| 2. God Does Not Love Me |
| "I am despised and rejected by God. I am guilty of crimes that God could never forgive. I am evil and beyond hope for redemption or restoration." |
| 3. God Wants To Punish Me |
| "I am profoundly afraid of God who must want to destroy me." |
| 4. My Life Is Controlled By Satan |
| "I belong to Satan irrevocably. His power lives inside me and has taken over my life. I am possessed by an evil spirit or demon that controls my life." |
| 5. My Life Is Dedicated To Satan |
| "I have taken vows to serve Satan throughout my life. I will serve him by willingly committing acts of evil and destruction. In turn, he will protect me from harm and allow me to gratify all of my desires." |
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