April 4, 2016

Junior Chandler may be the last still-imprisoned victim of the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care panic.

Chandler was a driver for a Madison County, N.C., day care. The prosecutor alleged that Chandler, in the words of appellate attorney Mark Montgomery, “would drive off his route to a park by a river, strip the children of their clothes, troop them down to the river, put them in a rowboat, commit various sexual acts, put them back on the bus and take them home.”

Based almost exclusively on hearsay and no-longer-permissible expert “vouching,” Chandler was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to two life sentences. This month he will begin his 30th year behind bars for a crime that never happened.

Nov. 21, 2016

“Transgenderism would refute the natural laws of biology and transmute human nature. The movement’s philosophical foundation qualifies it as a popular delusion similar to the multiple-personality craze, and the widespread ‘satanic ritual abuse’ and ‘recovered memory’ hysterias of the 1980s and ’90s. These last two involved bizarre accusations of child abuse and resulted in the prosecution and ruined lives of the falsely accused.

“Such popular delusions are characterized by a false belief unsupported by any scientific or empirical evidence and have a contagious quality that overrides rational thinking and even common sense. …”

– From “Psychiatry Professor: ‘Transgenderism’ Is Mass Hysteria Similar To 1980s-Era Junk Science” by Richard B. Corradi at the Federalist (Nov. 17)

Dr. Corradi is professor emeritus of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, where his opinion of transgenderism is “in no manner shared by this department or by Case Western Reserve or… the American Psychiatric Association or mainstream psychiatry.”  A more widely accepted view: “You would think that a professor of psychiatry would know better” by David Cary Hart at the Slowly Boiled Frog (Nov. 18)

But what you won’t see debated among 21st Century psychiatrists and social scientists is Corradi’s characterization of  “satanic ritual abuse” as “a popular delusion.” Perhaps one day the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children will decide to join them.

Jan. 25, 2013

“With regard to recovered memories, ritual abuse charges and multiple personalities, the tide seems to have turned. Courts are continuing to reverse decisions…The Edenton Seven have been released from prison…. Yet many of these people’s lives have been wrecked by false allegations….

“If, as some polls claim, millions of Americans believe in alien abduction, we have a long way still to go before credulity, superstition and hysterical epidemics are on the wane…”

– From “Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media” by Elaine Showalter (1998)

May 29, 2013

“Very sick! There is clear evidence (the Edenton Seven) are guilty… Very troubling to know someone wastes their time writing about this every day. He’s just as sick as they were. Will pray for (him) and the others. Very sad! Think about the real victims here, they were the children (who) never can escape what they went through. Let it go.”

– Comment from “Believer” in response to “Retired Charlotte Observer Columnist Lew Powell Pursuing State’s Admission of Guilt in Witch Hunt of Wrongly Accused” at NewspaperAlum.com (Aug. 9, 2012)

Was Ben Franklin (or Ambrose Bierce?) correct that “You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into”? If so, he could hardly have imagined a better example than continued belief in day-care ritual abuse.