Dec. 28, 2012

Let’s not leave behind “Ritual Abuse: What It Is, Why It Happens, and How to Help” without considering Appendix B, “Similarities in the Lives of Ritual Abuse Survivors.”

Author Margaret Smith “asked survivors to note any clues or indicators in their lives that may have suggested they were ritually abused as a child.” She then “organize(d) these responses into meaningful categories.”

Like the symptom charts of psychologist Catherine Gould, these “meaningful categories” strain to make the wildly anecdotal seem scientific.

“Reactions to Objects That Trigger Memories,” for instance, includes not only “Preference for red meat,” but also “Hated read meat. I have been a vegetarians since I was a child.”

“Indicators from Childhood or Adult Behavior” covers both “Threw up a lot” and “Would never allow myself to vomit.”

And just what manner of abuse might be revealed by “clues” such as – I wish I were kidding – “Addicted to book reading”?

July 30, 2012

Death noted: Radical-left polemicist Alexander Cockburn, who as early as 1990 was raging against claims of satanic ritual abuse.

Cockburn gave particular attention to feminism’s role in the mania:

“In the coalition powering the satanic abuse persecutions,” he recalled in a 1999 column in The Nation, “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 1960s, 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.”

Cockburn oversimplified, as was his way, but it’s no stretch to see how feminism fed into not only ritual abuse, but also the sister hoaxes of recovered memory syndrome and multiple personality disorder.

April 11, 2012

“Almost always you find the kids are three or four years old.

“The two-year-olds are no good because they can’t speak well enough and are totally unreliable in what they do say. The five- and six-year-olds are already old enough to say, ‘He didn’t do that, lady, and nothing you say is going to convince me of it.’

“But threes and fours are perfect. After they’ve been worked over by a parent or zealous validator, they can be counted on because they believe it and will testify accordingly.”

– Dr. Richard A. Gardner, clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia
University, quoted in Playboy magazine (June 1992)

Sept. 5, 2016

“Police say they are doing extra patrols in a Winston-Salem neighborhood after two children reported seeing a clown trying to lure kids into the woods with treats…. and one adult reported hearing the clown.

“Officers say they found no evidence of a clown in the woods.

“About four hours later, a caller who refused to give a name reported seeing a clown about 2 miles away. Police say again they found no evidence of a clown.

“Several unverified clown sightings in northern South Carolina have been in the news recently.”

– From “Winston-Salem police increase patrols after clown sightings” in the News & Observer (Sept. 5)

“The rumor has traveled like a Halloween ghost – from Wilson to Coats to Apex to Raleigh.

“Perplexed law enforcement agencies statewide have been fielding inquiries for weeks about stubborn – but unfounded – rumors of a plan by unidentified Satan worshipers to kidnap and sacrifice children….between the ages of 2 and 5 for a human sacrifice on Halloween.

“Sheriff Freddy W. Narron of Johnston County said rumors seem to have started after a local newspaper printed articles about Satanic cults.”

– From “Rumors of satanists kidnapping children are tough to snuff out” in the News & Observer (Oct. 28, 1989)

What fertile ground North Carolina, circa 1989, provided for hysteria about 2- to 5-year-olds. The sheriff of Johnston County seems to have summoned considerably more skepticism about farfetched rumors than the Little Rascals prosecutors. Within three months of the Halloween panic all of the Edenton Seven had been arrested.

What sequela might we expect from the Great Clown Panic of 2016? Prosecutors, line up your child witnesses!