Catholic clergy in Illinois sexually abused more than 1,900 minors, state attorney general says in report

Catholic clergy in Illinois sexually abused more than 1,900 minors, state attorney general says in report BY CARA TABACHNICK MAY 23, 2023

“In many instances, allegations were reported and not acted upon, the report found.”

An investigation has substantiated child abuse claims against Catholic clergy in Illinois by more than 1,900 victims, state Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a news conference detailing the findings of the office’s five-year investigation that uncovered hundreds more cases than first reported by the dioceses in 2018.

More than 100,000 pages of diocesan documents and 600 confidential contacts with survivors of child sex abuse helped the state’s office piece together the 696-page report released Tuesday on clergy sexual abuse in all six Catholic dioceses in Illinois, the office said….

Raoul’s predecessor, former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, began investigating the scope of state clergy sexual abuse in 2018 after a Pennsylvania grand jury report documented the abuse of 1,000 minors in six dioceses in that state, the office said. The revelations in that report shocked dioceses around the country and numerous state attorneys general pledged to investigate clergy within their own states – Illinois included.

At that time, the Catholic dioceses of Illinois publicly listed only 103 substantiated child sex abusers, the office said.

The investigation covered all six Illinois dioceses — Chicago, Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford and Springfield — which serve the state’s 3.5 million Catholics. Investigators substantiated child sex abuse allegations against 451 clerics and religious brothers. The largest number was in Chicago, where there were 150 reported abusers, and Joliet, with 52 reported abusers, the report found. Since some reported abusers were registered in two dioceses, there were a total of 494 substantiated abusers reported, the report said.

The depth and breadth of the sexual abuse varied – as did the punishments they received, the report states. In many instances, allegations were reported and not acted upon, the report found. In 1993, two survivors accused one priest at the Chicago Diocese of abuse, but the review board did not recommend that the priest be punished, the report said. Instead, the clergy had him monitored and he was still allowed to meet with teenage girls, the report found. The abuse continued and at least three more survivors reported abuse at the hands of the priest until in 2002 – almost a decade later – he was removed from the clergy, the report said.

One priest accused of abusing numerous young boys was known by the parish children as “Happy Hands,” the report said, but he evaded punishment for years. Prosecutors often declined to move the case forward — an assistant state’s attorney told Our Lady of the Snows parishioners, “It was our decision not to put the children through any court process, because we feel that our goal can be achieved without doing that,” the report said. The priest moved from parish to parish after accusations against him started in 1990 but he didn’t leave the Catholic church until 2008, the report said. He was never punished for his alleged abuses, the report said, and instead, he resides at “his cottage—the same residence where he had been accused so many times of abusing young boys.”

At least 1,997 survivors reported being abused by Illinois clergy, the report said. Sexual abuse survivors shared their narratives – which were essential to the report’s investigation said the Illinois Attorney General – and many spoke frankly about the struggles they’ve faced since their abuse.
Nearly every survivor struggled with mental health issues, the report found, with some turning to alcohol, addiction and others having anxiety, and feelings of unworthiness…. Some survivors struggled with suicidal thoughts, while others dealt with physical health and financial issues.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illinois-catholic-clergy-sexually-abused-over-1900-minors/

Illinois clergy sex abuse investigation uncovers hundreds more cases in Catholic church

BY BRAD EDWARDS, MEGAN HICKEY MAY 23, 2023

CHICAGO (CBS) — A nearly five-year investigation by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office has uncovered hundreds more cases of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy members than first reported by church officials.

A nearly 700-page report released Tuesday features detailed narrative accounts of child sex abuse committed by Catholic clerics.

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/illinois-attorney-general-clergy-sex-abuse-report/

The Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2023 Online Conference

Survivor Conference – Saturday and Sunday May 20 – 21, 2023

Clinician’s Conference – Friday May 19, 2023

Both conferences will be online.  

Please write info@survivorship.org if you would like to get on our conference mailing list.

Conference information is at: https://survivorship.org/the-survivorship-ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-2023-online-conference/

Special Low Prices are available until March 1, 2023.

Prices are as low as $50.  Please see our conference website for more information. 

Conference Speakers

Survivors may want to use caution reading this material or read it with a safe support person. 

Researching Ritual Abuse and Mind Control in Art and Literature: One Art Historian’s Journey – Lynn Brunet PhD

The Effects of Social Movements on Survivor Support Systems and Survivor Recovery – Neil Brick

The History of Ritual Abuse and the Effects of Social Trends on the Therapeutic Profession – Neil Brick

How to Create a Successful Recovery Path for Disassociated Survival Skills and DID – Shelby Rising Eagle

The Enmeshment of the British False Memory Society and the British Psychological Society. – Dr. Rainer Hermann Kurz 

Child Trafficking through Family Court Proceedings: A UK Case Study – Dr. Rainer Hermann Kurz 

Some Evidence-Based Practice Guidelines and Standards Relevant to the Psychological Care of Extreme Abuse Survivors – Dr. Randall Noblitt 

Lynn is an art historian, artist and survivor of Masonic ritual abuse. She first began to remember her abuse in her mid-forties but realised that she had been unknowingly making art about it for most of her career as a professional artist. In 1999, alongside her recovery, she began a PhD into Masonic themes and trauma in contemporary art. It was based on the realisation that artists can make disturbing art, often for a lifetime, without realising where it comes from. She was a lecturer in art history and theory at the time, and during the 1990s in my field there was a lot of interest in the relation between art, memory and trauma. Her talk will trace the series of case studies where she has uncovered traces of ritual abuse in the work of some key artists and writers in contemporary art and from earlier in the 20th century. In 2017 she came across Carl Jung’s Red Book, a magnificent volume containing his disturbing mid-life fantasies along with his own exquisite paintings. She recognised at the first reading that this could be ritual abuse and in 2019 published Answer to Jung: Making Sense of the Red Book. It demonstrated that his fantasies were not entirely original but were based on abusive forms of Masonic rites practiced in Switzerland when he was a child. This talk will be accompanied by a slide show depicting examples of these artists’ work.

Lynn Brunet (PhD) is an Australian art historian, artist and survivor of Masonic ritual abuse. Her research examines the coupling of trauma and ritual in modern and contemporary Western art and literature. In particular, it traces the connection between Masonic and other fraternal initiation rites and complex trauma in the work of so-called ‘tortured’ artists and writers.

The Effects of Social Movements on Survivor Support Systems and Survivor Recovery – Neil Brick

Neil Brick will speak about the history of ritual abuse and the effects of social movements on survivors. He will present historical information regarding the literature of clinicians and researchers. He will describe the effects of social and historical movements on survivor support systems and survivor recovery.

The History of Ritual Abuse and the Effects of Social Trends on the Therapeutic Profession – Neil Brick

Neil Brick will speak about the history of child and ritual abuse and the effects of social trends on the therapeutic profession. He will present historical information regarding the literature and the practice of clinicians and researchers. He will describe the effects of social and historical movements on the clinical field and clinical practice.

Neil Brick is a survivor of ritual abuse and mind control. His work continues to educate the public about child abuse, trauma and ritual abuse crimes. His child abuse and ritual abuse newsletter S.M.A.R.T. https://ritualabuse.us has been published for over 28 years. http://neilbrick.com

How to Create a Successful Recovery Path for Disassociated Survival Skills and DID – Shelby Rising Eagle

How to create a successful path of recovery for DSS (disassociated survival skills) (DID) of Satanic/Ritual Abuse.  Topics will include: Understanding our boundaries as a victim. Learning what boundaries are for healthy people. Healthy boundaries. How to recognize toxic shame vs. healthy shame. Self-Honesty guidelines. Learning to see life from different viewpoints for similar situations. Understanding memories. Learning to understand and see what happened in the past and how it affects you today. Creating your life as you want it to be. Healthy boundaries, life skills that work in a positive manner for your happiness. Never give up and always believe in yourself.

Shelby Rising Eagle was born in the SF Bay Area raised in the Mormon Church. Mother was a multi-generational Mormon; father was a convert. She reports both parents participated in satanic worship, pedophile sex ring in the church. She has done over 20 years of recovery work. She is the writer of two books – How Would You Know? & How Would You Know My Whole Story? She owns and operates a Martial Arts School and is a Master in her style of martial arts and now testing for her 6th degree black belt. She is a master gardener and loves growing vegetables and flowers. She does workshops with therapists on working with victims with DID and the recovery process. She practices meditation for centering her life and progress towards a better life. She is committed to helping to up lift others in their recovery work. She teaches that everyone that they can recover and claim their life back from extreme abuse.

The Enmeshment of the British False Memory Society and the British Psychological Society. – Dr. Rainer Hermann Kurz 

This presentation builds on an article ‘The Policy Alignment of the British False Memory Society and the British Psychological Society’ published in 2022 by Dr. Ashley Conway and Professor David Pilgrim in the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation. It outlines the exemplary response of the British Psychological Society (BPS) in 1995 to the ‘Memory Wars’, subsequent ‘policy capture’ in 2008 through individuals associated with the British False Memory Society (BFMS), and the ongoing battle to restore a credible position on Memory-Based Evidence.  A new BPS Task and finish group is currently working on this difficult topic and is expected to return to the ‘gold standard’ of the 1995 document. The presentation will feature examples where a Discourse of Disbelief derailed proper procedures.

Child Trafficking through Family Court Proceedings: A UK Case Study – Dr. Rainer Hermann Kurz 

This presentation builds on a decade-long investigation into two index incidents that led to the transfer of parental responsibility for a toddler boy from a mother to a Local Authority, and eventually adoption by the foster carer in suspicious circumstances marred by procedural irregularities.  Index Incident 1, dismissed as untrue in 2013 by a Family Court Judge in Cardiff, concerned the mother’s claim that she gave birth to a baby at age 14 that succeeded from incestuous rape by her father (in the Kingston-upon-Thames area in South-West London), and ‘disappeared’. Index Incident 2, that was also dismissed in the same judicial process, concerned a daytime sexual assault on the toddler boy in broad daylight in a Cul-de-Sac in South Wales.  The presentation draws on a 60-minute audio recording describing the two index incidents and information submitted to a document review by complex trauma specialist in the process of preparing an appeal application. The content of the presentation is potentially triggering but provides rare insights into the workings of an Organized Ritual Crime Abuse Network (ORCAN) in the midst of society.

Rainer Kurz is a Chartered Psychologist based in London. Since 1990 Rainer has worked in Research & Development roles for leading test publishers. His PhD dissertation was on enhancing the validity and utility of ability testing. Rainer developed 50+ psychometric tests and authored more than 100 publications. He is a Consultant Editor for Test Reviews at the Psychometric Testing Centre (PTC) of the BPS. Rainer has been investigating complex trauma assessment problems since 2012. He presented 30+ posters on trauma, dissociation and healing at international peer-reviewed conferences that are available here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rainer_Kurz2

Some Evidence-Based Practice Guidelines and Standards Relevant to the Psychological Care of Extreme Abuse Survivors – Dr. Randall Noblitt 

We will review the APA’s (2021) Professional Practice Guidelines for Evidence-Based Psychological Practice in Health Care, and discuss its relevance to the care of extreme abuse survivors. We will also critically examine Clinical Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Adults (APA, 2017) and the ISSTD (2011) Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision. Included will be discussion of the roles of common factors and empirically supported treatments in implementing guidelines and standards.

Randy Noblitt is a professor of Clinical Psychology at Alliant International University, Los Angeles and a licensed psychologist in Texas. He has evaluated and treated extreme abuse survivors clinically since 1979. He has authored three editions of the book Cult and Ritual Abuse with Pam Noblitt (1995, 2000, 2014). Together they also edited Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century (2008) and they have authored a recent book, Navigating Social Security Disability Programs: A Handbook for Clinicians and Advocates (2020).

Amirault case – Gov. Baker withdraws pardon request for siblings convicted in daycare sex abuse case

Amirault case – Gov. Baker withdraws pardon request for siblings convicted in daycare sex abuse case

Jennifer Bennett is a Fells Acres Victim. She testified at trial against the Amiraults when she was a child.

“They were found guilty for a reason. Because they are guilty. We the children lost our childhoods to courtrooms. We lost our childhoods to a monster that raped us. And molested us. And did horrible things to us,” Bennett said.

Gov. Baker withdraws pardon request for siblings convicted in daycare sex abuse case
Bob Ward
December 14, 2022

Governor Charlie Baker withdrew his controversial pardons for members of the Amirault family just one day after a contentious Governor Council’s hearing on the issue.

“It’s apparent there are not sufficient votes from the Governor’s Council to support a pardon for the Amiraults. Therefore, the Governor is withdrawing his pardon petition,” Lt. Governor Karyn Polito announced at Wednesday’s meeting of the Governor’s Council.

It was a stunning reversal. Baker’s proposal to pardon Gerald Amirault and his sister Cheryl LeFave for their convictions in the Fells Acres Day Care Sex Case in the mid-1980s is now off the table, just one day after an hours-long hearing before the Governor’s Council.

During their hearing, some councilors criticized the proposed pardons — which the Parole Board voted not to recommend — and aired frustrations at Baker over what they described as a lack of explanation for his decision.

Baker, who last month said he believed the pair should be pardoned because he has “grave doubt regarding the evidentiary strength of these convictions,” announced he would scrap his plans just minutes before the council was set to convene an assembly on Wednesday.

“I’m so excited, I’m so lost for words today,” Jennifer Bennett said.

Jennifer Bennett is a Fells Acres Victim. She testified at trial against the Amiraults when she was child.

“They were found guilty for a reason. Because they are guilty. We the children lost our childhoods to courtrooms. We lost our childhoods to a monster that raped us. And molested us. And did horrible things to us,” Bennett said.

The Amiraults have long contended they were wrongly convicted, that their convictions were the result of overzealous prosecutors who coerced victims into making false accusations….

But the Amirault’s prosecutor, Laurence Hardoon said, the evidence in the Fells Acres case was strong, that two juries got it right, and that the Amiraults do not deserve pardons.

“All of the misleading claims that somehow investigators had tried to mislead the children and coach them and coerce them is utter nonsense because the kids had all spoken about the abuse before they were ever connected with the investigators,” Hardoon said.

Both Gerald Amirault and Cheryl LeFave are listed on the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry.

If they were pardoned, they would have been removed from the Registry.

Gerald Amirault is scheduled to complete the conditions of his parole in 2023.

https://www.yahoo.com/now/baker-withdraws-pardon-request-siblings-171150893.html

Day Care and Child Abuse Cases

Fells Acres – Amirault Case

http://web.archive.org/web/20010719201703/http://www.vocal-nasvo.org/hardoon.htm

Letters to the Editor: The Real Darkness Is Child Abuse WALL STREET JOURNAL (J) 02/24/95

excerpts:

As the chief prosecutor of both of the Amirault cases I am writing to prevent the public from being misled into believing that an injustice occurred as Dorothy Rabinowitz alleges in her Jan. 30 editorial-page piece “A Darkness in Massachusetts.”

Her suggestion that the convictions were based on “some of the most fantastic claims ever presented” presumptuously ignores the reality of the cases. The three Amiraults — Gerald, Violet and Cheryl – were convicted after two trials before different judges and juries almost one year apart. They were represented by able and well-known defense counsel. The convictions were upheld after review by state and federal appellate courts. The McMartin case in California was the result of a botched legal system and Kelly Michaels’s conviction was overturned because of legal errors. Contrary to Ms. Rabinowitz’s implication, the Amirault convictions were neither of these.

Studies show, as did testimony from a nationally recognized pediatric gynecologist, that most sexually molested young children have absolutely normal physical examinations. However, in Amirault, the majority of the female children who testified had some relevant physical findings, as did several female children involved in the investigation who did not participate in the trial. The findings included labial adhesions and hymenal scarring of the sort present in a very small percentage of non-sexually abused children.

Ms. Rabinowitz’s article is a superficial, one-sided look at a case handled extensively and carefully by the legal system. The victims and their families in these cases have been irrevocably harmed by what was done to them by the Amiraults. Every argument raised by Ms. Rabinowitz was ably presented by the defense at the trials. The juries, by their verdicts, rejected these arguments. Justice was done.

see for actual case evidence http://abusearticles.wordpress.com/category/commonwealth-vs-amirault/

http://abusearticles.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/common-vs-amirault-424-mass-618-page-624.jpg

http://abusearticles.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/common-vs-amirault-424-mass-618-page-622.jpg

“All nine children testified in a broadly consistent way…The children testified to numerous instances of sexual abuse. Some of the children testified that they were photographed during this abuse, describing a big camera with wires, a red button, and pictures which came out of the camera. The children testified that the defendant threatened them and told them that their families would be harmed if they told anyone about the abuse….The Commonwealth also presented a pediatric gynecologist and pediatrician who examined five of the girls who testified…She made findings consistent with abuse in four of the girls.”

Amirault’s accusers reveal their faces, and their pain Boston Herald – Boston, Mass. – Peter Gelzinis – Aug 7, 2001

Mass. Victims Fight Commutation Plea By Leslie Miller, Associated Press Writer http://web.archive.org/web/20010807011330/http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010802/us/preschool_abuse_3.html

excerpts:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – Victims in the Fells Acres child abuse case broke down Thursday as they described their pain publicly for the first time in hopes of keeping the last person convicted in the case behind bars. Victims urged her to keep Amirault in prison. “During counseling meetings as a child, I would speak of a tall man touching me and taking pictures of me,” Phaedra Hopkins, 20, said at an emotional news conference. “So many times, Mr. Amirault hovered over me, touched me and hurt me and committed many disgusting acts of abuse.” Those children, now adults, stood by their testimony Thursday.

“This family raped me, molested me and totally ruined my life,”said Jennifer Bennett, who was 3 1/2 years old when she started at Fells Acres. “We weren’t coaxed. We weren’t lying. We’re telling the truth and we always will,” said Bennett, 22. “I was there. None of you were there. We weren’t coaxed, nor were we ever ever ever brainwashed.”Brian Martinello, 21, said he was sexually abused by Amirault. His mother, Barbara Standke, claims her son came home from the day care with sores on his genitals and other people’s underwear. “I think it’s an absolute disgrace to let anyone out of prison for such a disgusting crime,” Martinello said.

Governor explains Amirault decision Says she needed to ‘live with myself’ By Douglas Belkin and Frank Phillips, Globe Staff, 2/21/2002

In her announcement, Swift said her first consideration was whether there was ”overwhelming evidence” to contradict the jury conviction and two decisions by the Supreme Judicial Court upholding the verdict.

”I concluded there was not,” she said. Swift said that she also considered the two guidelines for a commutation: that the sentence is too severe and that the person had made ”exceptional strides in self-development.” ”Again, my answer was no,” Swift said. ”I concluded after that review that the jury and the Supreme [Court] decisions should be upheld and that under the commutation guidelines commutation was not warranted,” Swift said….But ultimately, she said, she concluded that the sentence was appropriate and consistent with other cases. Pressed on how she could come up with a far different judgment than the five members of the Parole Board, Swift said her staff conducted ”a more exhaustive review of all of the legal aspects” than the board did. http://web.archive.org/web/20020221235441/http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/052/metro/Governor_explains_Amirault_decision+.shtml

Witness praises Amirault decision By John Ellement, Globe Staff, 2/23/2002 CAMBRIDGE – Jen Bennett wants to give Acting Governor Jane Swift a bear hug in appreciation, and she wants Gerald Amirault to admit he sexually abused her when she attended the Fells Acres Day Care Center in Malden in the 1980s. Bennett was one of nine children who testified against Amirault during his three-month trial in 1986, which ended with his conviction on multiple rape and molestation charges. He was sentenced to 30 to 40 years in prison….As for Amirault, ”I want to say to Mr. Amirault: Admit your guilt, you did this. He is where he is supposed to be. I will fight against you to the end. He destroyed my childhood.” Harriett Dell’Anno, whose daughter was one of the victims, echoed Bennett’s insistence that children were sexually violated and also thanked Swift for keeping Amirault in prison….Hardoon also said the quality of the investigation and the actions of prosecutors, police, and social workers working with the children were all scrutinized intensely during Gerald Amirault’s trial – and still the jury convicted.

He said Amirault supporters are focusing on 2 percent of the children’s claims that ”seem inexplicable and they are conveniently ignoring the 98 percent of the case that was overwhelming” against Amirault.…Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley, who inherited the case from former district attorneys Scott Harshbarger and Thomas F. Reilly, said Amirault’s insistence that he is innocent does not make it true. She drew a parallel between John Geoghan, the former Catholic priest sentenced to 9 to 10 years in prison Thursday for molesting a child. Like Amirault, Geoghan insisted that he, too, was innocent, she said. ”Admitting to child abuse is a very difficult and often, a never-seen thing,” she said. Coakley said it was time for Amirault and his supporters to end their pursuit of an early release from prison so that the victims can finally begin to fully heal from the trauma he caused them as children. http://web.archive.org/web/20020224045327/http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/054/metro/Witness_praises_Amirault_decision+.shtml

Swift won’t free Tooky by David R. Guarino and Elisabeth J. Beardsley Wednesday, February 20, 2002 Convicted child molester Gerald “Tooky” Amirault lost his best shot at freedom yesterday, denied commutation of his sentence by acting Gov. Jane M. Swift in another stunning turn to the roller coaster abuse case. Swift rejected the unanimous July Parole Board recommendation that there was “real and substantial doubt” of Amirault’s guilt. Taking sides in a highly charged case as she drops in election-year polls, Swift said Amirault should be jailed at least until he’s up for parole in 2004 on his 30- to 40-year sentence. “She carefully analyzed every bit of information generated through the investigation and came to her decision that the verdict was just and the sentence was appropriate,” said Swift spokesman James Borghesani….victims rejoiced last night, praising the acting governor for standing up to the Parole Board and claiming vindication after years of doubts about the case. “All along, they’ve always told the truth,” said Harriet Dell’Anno of Lynn, whose daughter, Jamie, remains in therapy over the incidents. Barbara Standke of Tewksbury, whose son, Brian Martinello, was molested when he was 4, said, “He may be doing 20 years, but my son’s doing life.” Amirault, his sister, Cheryl LeFave, and their mother, Violet, were convicted after a parade of children told horror stories about being fondled, raped.
http://web.archive.org/web/20020305205020/http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/swif02202002.htm

Alison Miller

Information about Alison Miller and Her Work

Dr. Alison Miller has a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia and is a retired psychologist who worked in private practice in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She worked with survivors of ritual abuse and mind control from 1991 to 2017. She was named a fellow of the ISST-D (International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation) in 2013, and was given the ISST-D President’s Award in 2021. She was the 2009 and 2017 Chair and the 2021 Secretary of the Organized and Extreme Abuse Special Interest Group of the ISST-D, and has been a member of the Board of Directors of Survivorship. Her books include: Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse (for survivors), and Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control (for therapists). She has contributed chapters on ritual abuse and mind control to Noblitt & Noblitt’s Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century (2008), Breitenbach’s Inside Views from the Dissociated Worlds of Extreme Violence: Human Beings as Merchandise (2015), Sinason & van der Merwe’s Shattered: Multiple Selves, Multiple Voices – speaking on behalf of silenced survivors (2016), and (with Heather Gingrich) Gingrich & Gingrich’s Treating Trauma in Christian Counselling (2017).

Focus on ISSTD History
An Interview with Alison Miller
This interview with Alison Miller forms part of ISSTD News’ Focus on History Series. In this series we interview people who have played an important and influential role in the formation and development of ISSTD, or the wider complex trauma and dissociative disorders field. We are delighted in this latest installment of Focus on History to interview Alison Miller, who has been working as a counsellor and psychologist since the 1960’s and is one of ISSTD’s retired members. She has been involved in the development of the Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Special Interest Group, which has grown and evolved over the years to become our Organized and Extreme Abuse SIG. She is also a past Chair and current Secretary of the SIG. She is well known to many for her conference presentations, workshops, journal articles and her books.

“These first DID clients were all members of the local Satanic cult.

KATE: I guess some mental health professionals, hearing stories of extreme abuse, may be tempted to think it is all made up or delusional, but you didn’t get a chance to disbelieve, as your situation was a little unique.

ALISON: Yes. I had these four clients, all abused by the same cult. They unknowingly corroborated each other – they had information about events and abuse… and it was still going on, these were current events … I was followed by these abusers…. I had all kinds of corroboration and evidence. I tried to work with the police, but it didn’t work out the way it should have.”

“KATE: And those who think that children must have been making it up, that these atrocities could not happen, because humans could not do that to each other, must now face the fact that police officers are literally looking at online material and studying it as evidence. The police know these things did happen to children as they see photos and videos of it.

ALISON: I think the production of materials is an important issue. Pretty much all my clients have been involved with that. There was a studio in Toronto (3000 miles away) which three of my clients had been involved with, one of them as a photographer … and this was a long time before all these things came out in the media, in the public. It is a horrible thing, but it is good that it is being discovered and the world is becoming aware that it does exist.”   https://news.isst-d.org/an-interview-with-alison-miller/

Dr. Miller’s Online Videos

Alison Miller – Survivorship Conference 2017 –

Survivors may want to use caution while watching these presentations. These videos are not meant as therapy or to take the place of therapy.

Confronting the Spiritual Issues in Ritual Abuse  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smVS24Fv__k

Survivors of abuse by ritualistic organized perpetrator groups report numerous experiences designed to destroy their spiritual integrity and leave them believing that they are so evil that no one but the perpetrators will accept them. These experiences include simulation of religious figures such as God, Jesus, and Satan, and the afterlife including heaven and hell; designation of certain internal parts of the victim to be demons or have “demonic attachments,” and most chillingly, forced childhood participation in rape and murder followed by systematic shaming of the victim as “evil.” Many parts of each survivor believe the perpetrators’ lies about how evil he or she must be. These experiences raise existential questions for survivors, such as why such things happen, why there is no divine intervention, and why such groups continue to exist without being stopped. We shall look at various ways of making meaning of such experiences, and whether these ways deal effectively with the horror of spiritual abuse.

Working Through Your Traumatic Memories and Destroying the Mind Control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5CS_3GqeVU
In the second stage of therapy, survivors of organized abuse involving mind control have to confront the traumatic memories which caused their dissociation. Because such survivors usually have a structured personality system, work with the traumatic memories can be pursued in a systematic way. This workshop covers such issues as: deciding whether and when to pursue memories, dealing with flashbacks, choosing memories to work with, planning memory work, finding alters who hide parts of memories, involving all alters who have parts of a memory, dealing with emotions and bodily sensations during memory work, getting the story clear, and cognitive processing of what has been discovered when a memory has been reconstituted.

Alison Miller’s reply to Evan Anderson, Grey Faction Director of The Satanic Temple (TST)’s Grey Faction

In 2019, Evan Anderson of the Satanic Temple sent a formal complaint letter to Dr. Miller’s licensing board, saying that in her online videos and her book Healing the Unimaginable, she described behaviors by organized abuser groups which could not possibly be true. Shortly after that, Dr. Miller, whose membership with the licensing board was already in the non-practising category, ended her membership. The Satanic Temple claimed online that it was because of their complaint.

“The reason I discontinued my membership in the College of Psychologists has nothing to do with the Grey Faction’s harassing complaint about my writings and online videos. I left the College because I am 78 years old. I retired two years ago.”  – Alison Miller

“That is why I resigned, not because I was about to be found guilty of promoting unscientific conspiracy theories. Anderson has posted his complaint and the College’s response, distorting the story by omitting the College’s letter to me and my response to it. As for not being allowed to call myself a “psychologist,” that is the situation for every retired psychologist. It is similar for other health professions, and it does not indicate that the work I did was inferior or that I was found guilty of unethical behavior.”  – Alison Miller
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/alison-millers-reply-to-evan-anderson-grey-faction-director-of-the-satanic-temple-tsts-grey-faction/

Here is information on the Grey Faction:

Grey Faction, Satanic Temple and Lucien Greaves Fact Sheet  https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/grey-faction-satanic-temple-and-lucien-greaves-fact-sheet/

Books by Dr. Miller

Miller, Alison (2012). Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control is a practical, task-oriented, instructional manual designed to help therapists provide effective treatment for survivors of these most extreme forms of child abuse and mental manipulation. Paperback: 978 1 85575 882 7 Publisher: Karnac Books https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/becoming-yourself-overcoming-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/34803/

https://books.google.com/books?id=On8cKGyrnfcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Healing+the+Unimaginable:+Treating+Ritual+Abuse+and+Mind+Control+By+Alison+Miller

Miller, Alison (2014). Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. In contrast to the author’s previous book, Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control, which was for therapists, this book is designed for survivors of these abuses. It takes the survivor systematically through understanding the abuses and how his or her symptoms may be consequences of these abuses, and gives practical advice regarding how a survivor can achieve stability and manage the life issues with which he or she may have difficulty. The book also teaches the survivor how to work with his or her complex personality system and with the traumatic memories, to heal the wounds created by the abuse.
A unique feature of this book is that it addresses the reader as if he or she is dissociative, and directs some information and exercises towards the internal leaders of the personality system, teaching them how to build a cooperative and healing inner community within which information is shared, each part’s needs are met, and traumatic memories can be worked through successfully. https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/becoming-yourself-overcoming-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/34803/

https://books.google.com/books?id=o3B_AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Becoming+Yourself:+Overcoming+Mind+Control+and+Ritual+Abuse+By+Alison+Miller

From the Trenches:  A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse
By Wendy Hoffman and Alison Miller
Though desiring retirement, psychologist Alison Miller offered help to the respected mind control and ritual abuse victim Wendy Hoffman. Through Wendy’s internal investigations, they discovered how Illuminati and Nazi programming works, its international goals, as well as finding out new ways to uncover the hidden, and to heal. Their goal was to gain clarity about Wendy’s cult personas, and to learn how to integrate a complicated, tortured brain.https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/from-the-trenches-a-victim-and-therapist-talk-about-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/40435/

Dr. Miller’s Conference Presentations

The 2019 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference

Deception by Organized Abuser Groups: Helping Yourself and Your Clients Think Through the Issues (from Clinicians’ Conference) PowerPoint is at the link above. Please use caution, this may be triggering.

Sophisticated organized abuser groups use torture to deliberately split a child’s mind into different parts, train all parts to obey, and indoctrinate and train each part to do a specific job assigned by the abusers. Drugs, acted-out scenarios, stage magic, stories and films are used to deceive and control the children and prevent them from remembering or speaking out about their abuse, even in adulthood, so that the abusers can continue perpetrating this abuse without being caught. Abusers’ power over victims depends on their victims believing their lies, and that power can be diminished when victims see through the lies told to their young parts. It is important for therapists to use critical thinking to discern the deceptions, and to help their mind-controlled clients do the same.

Deception by Organized Abuser Groups: Helping Your Front People and Your Insiders Recognize the Lies and Tricks Which Keep You Enslaved by Alison Miller https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2019-conference/deception-by-organized-abuser-groups-helping-your-front-people-and-your-insiders-recognize-the-lies-and-tricks-which-keep-you-enslaved-by-alison-miller/

Deception by Organized Abuser Groups: Helping Your Front People and Your Insiders Recognize the Lies and Tricks Which Keep You Enslaved by Dr. Alison Miller – PowerPoint is at the link above. Please use caution, this may be triggering.

If you are a survivor of abuse by a mind-controlling abuser group, you have parts who have been trained to obey abusers because they believe lies your abusers told you. The abusers deceived you in childhood, using drugs, acted-out scenarios, stage magic, stories and films to control your child parts and prevent you from speaking out about the abuse. Their power over you depends on your young parts believing the abusers’ lies. If you learn to recognize when your emotions and behavior are influenced by these deceptions, and to discover the ways in which you were deceived, you can increase your freedom from the abuser group.

Internal Keys to Safety by Alison Miller – Survivorship Conference 2016
Presented at the Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Child Abuse 2016 Conference – Stop Mind Control and Programs in Oakland, CA

Internal Keys to Safety
Survivors’ safety is endangered both externally by parts who maintain ongoing contact with perpetrators and respond to cues, and internally by parts trained to punish the person for forbidden behavior such as disclosures. She gave practical suggestions for survivors to achieve and maintain safety both externally and internally. https://survivorship.org/internal-keys-to-safety-by-alison-miller-survivorship-conference-2016/

Dr. Alison Miller conference PowerPoint
Overcoming Mind Control: Keys to Recovery
https://survivorship.org/documents/OvercomingMindControl.pptx

Alison Miller’s Second Conference Workshop 2015
Building Internal Cooperation
https://survivorship.org/documents/DevelopingInternalCooperation.pptx

Alison Miller’s conference presentation outline
Overcoming Mind Control: Keys to Recovery
https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2014-conference/overcoming-mind-control-keys-to-recovery/

Articles and Books on Parenting and Spouse Abuse

Articles by Dr. Alison Miller and Dr. Allison Rees
http://lifeseminars.com/books/

The Parent Child Connection book for parents and professionals
Published in 2008, “The Parent-Child Connection” is the second of our original two LIFE (Living in Families Effectively) books. It’s based on the course of the same name. It contains everything you need to know about the parent-child relationship, including developing a healthy bond with your children, communicating effectively, establishing and respecting boundaries in the family, handling your own and your children’s emotions, and developing their and your self-esteem.

Sidestepping the Power Struggle book for parents and professionals
LIFE Seminars first book published in 2007 and entitled “Sidestepping the Power Struggle” contains everything you need to know about your children’s individual temperaments, their stage of development, behavior at each age, and what events can trigger difficult child behaviors. It teaches you how to help children take responsibility for their own lives as they mature, and how to help them mature into ethical and competent human beings. It discusses effective and ineffective discipline techniques. If you read and practice everything recommended in this book, it will not only empower you to become a more effective parent, but also enrich the lives of those who matter most.

Articles by Dr. Alison Miller on Parenting
http://lifeseminars.com/articles-by-alison-miller/

The Dissociative Dance of Spouse Abuse
by Alison Miller, PhD
Abstract
Cyclical spouse abusers, whether male or female, appear to suffer from a specific type of dissociative disorder that is related to a disturbance of attachment. This disorder is sufficiently common to be designated as a dissociative disorder in its own right. The partner of the spouse abuser appears to develop a parallel dissociative process, developing chains of state-dependent memory for the different phases of the domestic abuse cycle. This dissociative process helps both partners stay in the relationship, while leaving might be the best course of action. This “dissociative dance” facilitates the formation of dissociative splits in their children, enhancing the likelihood that they will be either victims or perpetrators of domestic violence
http://www.academia.edu/4594732/Dissociative_Dance_of_Spouse_Abuse

Publications

Miller, A. (2019). Therapeutic neutrality, ritual abuse and maladaptive daydreaming. Frontiers in the Psychotherapy of Trauma and Dissociation, 1(3).

Hoffman, W. & Miller, A. (2018). From the Trenches: A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. & Gingrich, H.D. (2018). The treatment of ritual abuse and mind control. In Gingrich, H.D. & Gingrich, F.C. Treating trauma in Christian counselling. Inter-Varsity Press.

Miller, A. (2017). Dissociation in families experiencing intimate partner violence. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 18 (3), The Abused and the Abuser: Victim-Perpetrator Dynamics, 427-440.

Miller, A. (2016). What’s different about ritual abuse and mind control? Chapter 10, pp. 221-232 in Sinason, V. & Van der Merwe, A. P. Shattered but Unbroken: Voices of Triumph and Testimony. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. (2016).Reflections on having my name used. Pp. 24-29 in Sinason, V. & Van der Merwe, A. P. Shattered but Unbroken: Voices of Triumph and Testimony. London:Karnac.

Miller, A. (2015). Foreword to Breitenbach, G. Inside Views from the Dissociated Worlds of Extreme Violence: Human Beings as Merchandise.London: Karnac (translated from German).

Miller, A. (2014). Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. (2012). Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. (2012). Dialogue with the higher-ups. Pp. 111-132 in Vogt, R. & Vogt, I. (Eds.) Perpetrator Introjects: Psychotherapeutic Diagnostics and Treatment Models. Kroning: Asanger Verlag.

Miller, A. (2008). Recognizing and treating survivors of abuse by organized criminal groups. Chapter 17, pp. 479-490 in Noblitt, R. & Noblitt, P. P. (Eds.) Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century. Bandon, Oregon: Robert D. Reed Publishers.

Miller, A. (1998). Treatment of a Young Female Pedophilic Offender with Dissociative Identity Disorder, Treating Abuse Today, 8 (2), 15-23.

Miller, A. (2006). The Role of Dissociation in Spouse Abuse. In Jackson, N.A. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence. New York: Routledge.

Miller, A. (1998). The Dissociative Dance of Spouse Abuse, Treating Abuse Today, 8 (3), 9-18.

Miller, A. & Rees, A. (2008.)  The Parent-Child Connection:  A Manual for Effective Family Living.  Victoria, B.C.: LIFE Seminars Press.

Miller, A. & Rees, A. (2007.)  Sidestepping the Power Struggle:  A Manual for Effective Parenting.  Victoria, B.C.:  LIFE Seminars Press.

Wendy Hoffman

Information about Wendy Hoffman and her publications

Video
Wendy Hoffman – Survivorship Conference 2017 – Dirty Therapy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq75igmOzXk

Survivors may want to use caution while watching this presentation. None of this video is meant as therapy or to take the place of therapy.

Wendy Hoffman Dirty Therapy

We know that satanic cult perpetrator groups infiltrate the very professions and organizations that survivors turn to for help. Survivors in general often look for therapeutic assistance. Consequently, these criminal groups have set up some of their members to become therapists and to lead therapy groups. Even when we think that we are in a safe environment, what we sometimes find are people re-programming us and closing us down. There are still many safe and competent therapists working in the field of mind control. In this presentation, I will talk about some of the professionals I was sent to, how I was ordered to go and what they did to re-assert barriers in my mind. Being aware of these dangers helps survivors to elude them. The underlying issue of betrayal will also be considered. Audience participation is encouraged.

Wendy Hoffman somehow survived various forms of high level secret mind control. She tried all her life to get free and has finally succeeded. Now she wants to help and support other survivors in their quest for freedom. She has been a licensed clinical social worker with decades of experience and is the author of The Enslaved Queen, a Memoir about Electricity and Mind Control, published in 2014, White Witch in a Black Robe, a True Story about Criminal Mind Control, 2015, as well as her book of poetry, Forceps, 2016, all published by Karnac Books, London. Aeon Books reissued her two memoirs. The Enslaved Queen has been translated into German. From the Trenches, co-authored with Dr. Alison Miller, and her third memoir, A Brain of My Own, have recently been published.

Books:
The Enslaved Queen, a Memoir about Mind Control and Electricity
By Wendy Hoffman

Written by a survivor of mind control and ritual abuse who is also a therapist, this memoir exposes the existence and practices of organized criminal groups who abuse children, helps survivors of those abuses, and provides important information for professionals about the dissociative brain. The author’s poetic prose contrasts with the horror of the subject matter. The adult journeys back to give voice to infant and child parts of her, describing her handlers’ early interventions to destroy bonding and create dissociation, the foundation of reverse-Kabbalah suicide and pathway programming, and the installation of mind control. Scenes from ordinary life are interspersed throughout the memoir. Nazi post-war recruitment of American subjects during the 1940s and 50s (including the infamous Dr. Mengele), children used for prostitution, pornography and the drug trade along with the workings of the Illuminati leadership and their international Feast of the Beast rituals are all included. https://www.amazon.com/Enslaved-Queen-Electricity-Control-Fiction/dp/1782201483/

White Witch in a Black Robe By Wendy Hoffman

White Witch in a Black Robe is a memoir about how secret high-level mind control is performed throughout victims’ lives and the ways heads of governments and religious organizations participate in this, as well as the healing process and how the mind becomes whole again. The memoir begins with the author’s childhood in a multi-generational cult family, her ordinary life in the normal world and her simultaneous secret tortuous world. She describes her world travels as a satanic cult queen and prophet, encountering well-known and influential people. The final section portrays the process of weaving the pieces of her mind back together with the help of a therapist, and adjusting to life with a whole mind. https://www.amazon.com/White-Witch-Black-Robe-Criminal/dp/1782203664

Forceps: Poems about the Birth of the Self By Wendy Hoffman

The search for my true past came in distinct waves. This collection of poems includes some from the long period when I knew something was drastically wrong but didn’t consciously know what that was and some from the breakthrough when I discovered my never-bloomed self. The poems cover the outskirts of my awakening, my plowing through and arrival in the middle of awareness. When dissociated memories and emotions exploded inside, eventually they filtered into a poem. The horror transmuted itself. These poems are that record. I have regained a real, not imposed, self. https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/forceps-poems-about-the-birth-of-the-self/38047/

From the Trenches: A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse
By Wendy Hoffman and Alison Miller

Though desiring retirement, psychologist Alison Miller offered help to the respected mind control and ritual abuse victim Wendy Hoffman. Through Wendy’s internal investigations, they discovered how Illuminati and Nazi programming works, its international goals, as well as finding out new ways to uncover the hidden, and to heal. Their goal was to gain clarity about Wendy’s cult personas, and to learn how to integrate a complicated, tortured brain.
https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/from-the-trenches-a-victim-and-therapist-talk-about-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/40435/

A BRAIN OF MY OWN, A memoir about dissociation dissolved
By Wendy Hoffman

A Brain of My Own is about slavery, about brains stolen in childhood and before; brains that have been intruded upon, stopped, shrunk, paralyzed. We know about the history of people whose bodies were enslaved; but we know barely anything about the victims who appear free but whose brains are invisibly chained. Nor do we know about the international collusion, silence, and apathy that surround this kind of slavery.
In A Brain of My Own, Wendy Hoffman describes her final years of attempting escape from the criminal mind control cult into which she had the misfortune of being born. This is her third memoir, and chronicles the final years of reclaiming her brain, including the ongoing abuse and torture during her recovery process. Hoffman describes the ways in which perpetrators manipulate the brain to create amnesiac barriers, methods held secret for generations. She exposes the duplicity of perpetrators functioning as normal people in the ordinary world and what is under their masks. She gives advice about how to spot seemingly helpful people who are actually out to destroy victims of mind control. The book includes an Afterword by Dr. Alison Miller.
This kind of dissociation is difficult to overcome, but the path back to full humanity is possible and happening.

Presentation:

Self-Esteem Loosens Mind Control by Wendy Hoffman – Survivorship Conference 2016
Mind control roots in people’s minds even though it does not benefit them in any way. Why? One reason is that strong feelings hold the mandates in place. Where do these feelings come from? From the perpetrators, not their victims. The perpetrators begin manipulating in these feelings during infancy and before the infants and children even know who they are. This workshop presentation will discuss the kinds of feelings the mind controllers place in their victims to secure that they will not try to break free of their poisonous commands, and how improving self-esteem can help loosen mind control. But people can break free. They can and are and have. Right now.
This workshop discussed:
1. Explore these early emotional states
2. Understand the distortions and lies told to children
3. Help loosen programming through improved self-esteem.
Integration will also be discussed.
Transcript of Wendy’s Presentation:
https://survivorship.org/self-esteem-loosens-mind-control-by-wendy-hoffman-survivorship-conference-2016/

Essays:

“On writing a scary memoir and using my own name,” in Shattered but Unbroken: Voices of Triumph and Testimony
Editor : Amelia van der Merwe, Editor : Valerie Sinason
https://www.amazon.com/Shattered-but-Unbroken-Triumph-Testimony/dp/1782203494

Various essays in Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse
Author: Alison Miller
https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/becoming-yourself-overcoming-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/34803/

#Wendy_Hoffman #WendyHoffman WendyHoffman

Michael Salter

Organised abuse has been reported by child victims, adult survivors and a range of professionals for over thirty years. However, organised abuse remains poorly understood.
This website has been developed by criminologist Scientia Associate Professor Michael Salter who specialises in the study of organised abuse and complex trauma. The aim of the website is to disseminate reliable information about organised abuse to professionals, victims and survivors.
https://www.organisedabuse.com/

Scientia Associate Professor Michael Salter
I am the Scientia Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of New South Wales, Australia. I specialise in the study of organised sexual abuse. In addition to my work on complex trauma, I have researched and published widely on violence against women and children.
I sit on the Scientific Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. I am an Associate Editor of Child Abuse Review, the peer-reviewed journal of the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, and I sit on the editorial board of the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation.
I act as a consultant and trainer to a range of non-government organisations and government departments at the state and national level. I am an expert advisor to the Australian Office of the eSafety Commissioner and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.
https://www.organisedabuse.com/michael-salter

    Salter, M. and Hanson, E. (2021) “I need you all to understand how pervasive this issue is”: User efforts to regulate child sexual offending on social media. In Baily, J., Flynn, A. and Henry, N. The Emerald International Handbook of Technology-facilitated Violence and Abuse. Emerald Publishing.
  Salter, M. (2018) Child sexual abuse, in Rennison, C.M., Dekeseredy, W. S., Hall-Sanchez, A. (Eds), Routledge International Handbook of Violence Studies, London and New York: Routledge
  Salter, M. (2018) Finding a new narrative: Meaningful responses to ‘false memory’ disinformation, in Sinason, V. Memory in Dispute, Karnac: London.
Salter, M. (2018) Child sexual abuse. In Dekeseredy, W. and Dragiewicz, M. (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Critical Criminology, Routledge: London and New York.
 Salter, M. (2016) Organised child sexual abuse in the media. In Pontel, H. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Oxford University Press: Oxford and London.
 Salter, M. (2008) Out of the shadows: Re-envisioning the debate on ritual abuse. In: Perskin. P. and Noblitt. R. (eds) Ritual abuse in the twenty-first century: Psychological, forensic, social and political considerations. Robert D. Reed: Brandon, OR.
https://www.organisedabuse.com/resources/

Organised abuse and the politics of disbelief
Michael Salter
https://www.academia.edu/2042170/Organised_abuse_and_the_politics_of_disbelief

Out of the shadows: Re-envisioning the debate on ritual abuse
2008 Michael Salter
https://www.academia.edu/2046900/Out_of_the_shadows_Re_envisioning_the_debate_on_ritual_abuse

Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Organised Abuse: Examining our History and Looking Forward
Michael Salter, PhD
I was a teenager when ritual abuse was first reported in Australia. A series of newspaper articles in the mid-1990s claimed that women were entering psychotherapy only to ‘recover’ memories of grotesque and improbable abuse.

The general thrust of coverage was that the movement against child abuse had gone too far, and that therapists and social workers were encouraging, and sometimes forcing, children and women to imagine abuse that had never happened. I was entirely unprepared when, only a few years after the publication of those articles, a friend began disclosing ritual abuse in the context of a paedophile ring. These disclosures occurred without facilitation or encouragement by a mental health professional, and they did not conform to mass media warnings about ‘false’ and ‘recovered’ memories. She had never ‘forgotten’ her abuse and she was reporting attacks in the present that left behind undeniable marks and injuries. Her disclosures set me on the path to a career as a criminologist specializing in the study of organized child sexual abuse. I now chair the Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Organised Abuse Special Interest Group (RAMCOA) which is full of people just like me: people who unexpectedly encountered survivors of extreme abuse and have sought to understand and address their particular needs. The SIG includes an important cohort of therapists who are also survivors, driven by personal experience and professional commitment to provide care for others who share their history. Over the last few years, there’ve been moves afoot within the ISSTD to revisit and come to grips with the fractious legacies of the ‘memory wars’, including controversies over ritual abuse and mind control. I listened with great interest at the national ISSTD conference in Chicago this year as a number of ‘veterans’ of those wars shared their reflections on that time.
https://news.isst-d.org/ritual-abuse-mind-control-and-organized-abuse-examining-our-history-and-looking-forward/

Michael Salter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Criminology and Scientia Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales
https://violenceresearch.wvu.edu/executive-board/research-associates/michael-salter
Dr. Michael Salter is an Associate Professor of Criminology and Scientia Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at UNSW. Michael applies critical and feminist theory to the study of child sexual exploitation, gendered violence and complex trauma. He is leading two national studies: one on multi-sectorial constructions on complex trauma, and the second on the role of parents in the production of child exploitation material. Other current research projects include an analysis of perpetrator interventions in gendered violence and the role of technology in domestic violence. Michael sits on the Board of Directors of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, and he is Associate Editor of Child Abuse Review.

Dr. Salter’s recent publications include:
Salter, M. (2020). Improved accountability: The role of perpetrator intervention systems.
Salter, M. (2020). “A deep wound under my heart”: Constructions of complex trauma and implications for women’s wellbeing and safety from violence.
Salter, M., Robinson, K., Ullman, J., Denson, N., Ovenden, G., Noonan, K., & Bansel, P. (2019). Gay, Bisexual, and Queer Men’s Attitudes and Understandings of Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Assault. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. DOI: 10.1177/0886260519898433.
McPhillips, K., Salter, M., Roberts-Pedersen, E., & Kezelman, C. (2019). Understanding trauma as a system of psycho-social harm: Contributions from the Australian royal commission into child sex abuse. Child abuse & neglect, 99. DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104232.
Salter, M. (2019). The transitional space of public inquiries: The case of the Royal Commission into Institutional Forms of Child Sexual Abuse. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. DOI: 10.1177/0004865819886634.
Salter, M. (2019). Online Justice in the Circuit of Capital: #MeToo, Marketization and the Deformation of Sexual Ethics. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-15213-0_20.
Dragiewicz, M., Harris, B., Woodlock, D., & Salter, M. (2019). Domestic violence and communication technology: Survivor experiences of intrusion, surveillance, and identity crime.

Michael Salter
UNSW Sydney | UNSW · School of Social Sciences
My research is focused on violence against women, child abuse, primary prevention and complex forms of victimisation, including organised abuse and technologically-facilitated abuse.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Salter7

Organised Sexual Abuse
By Michael Salter
Copyright Year 2013 1st Edition
ISBN 9781138789159
Organised Sexual Abuse offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary investigation of this phenomenon. Since the early 1980s, social workers and mental health professionals around the globe have encountered clients reporting sexual abuse by organized groups or networks. These allegations have been amongst the most controversial in debates over child sexual abuse, raising many unanswered questions. Are reports of organized abuse factual or the product of moral panic and false memories? If these reports are true, what is the appropriate response? The fields of child protection and psychotherapy have been polarised over the issue. And, although cases of organized abuse continue to be uncovered, a reasoned and evidence-based analysis of the subject is long overdue.
Examining the existing evidence, and supplementing it with further qualitative research, in this book Michael Salter addresses: the relationship between sexual abuse and organized abuse; questions over the veracity of testimony; the gap between the policing response to sexual abuse and the realities of child sexual exploitation; the contexts in which sexually abusive groups develop and operate; the role of religion and ritual in subcultures of multi-perpetrator sexual abuse; as well as the experience of adults and children with histories of organized abuse in the criminal justice system and health system. Organized Sexual Abuse thus provides a definitive analysis that will be of immense value to those with professional and academic interests in this area.
https://www.routledge.com/Organised-Sexual-Abuse/Salter/p/book/9781138789159

“A deep wound under my heart”: Constructions of complex trauma and implications for women’s wellbeing and safety from violence May 2020 Michael Salter
Responses to women who have experienced complex trauma need to be sensitive, coordinated and consistent between services and agencies to ensure women’s wellbeing and safety from violence. However, the development of shared frameworks of practice for addressing complex trauma has been forestalled by a lack of professional consensus and understanding…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341667576_A_deep_wound_under_my_heart_Constructions_of_complex_trauma_and_implications_for_women’s_wellbeing_and_safety_from_violence

Organized Sexual Abuse. Dr. Michael Salter
Today on the podcast, Michael Salter.
Michael is an Associate Professor in Criminology at Western Sydney University, Australia and specializes in the study of organized sexual abuse.
In addition to his work on complex trauma, Michael Salter has researched and published widely on violence against women and children.
Michael sits on the Scientific Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation and is an associate editor of Child Abuse Review, the peer-reviewed journal of the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.
https://www.thetraumatherapistproject.com/podcast/organized-sexual-abuse-dr-michael-salter/

Organized abuse in adulthood: Survivor and professional perspectives
October 2019
DOI: 10.4324/9781351213981-13
In book: The Abused and the Abuser (pp.199-211)
Authors: Michael Salter UNSW Sydney
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338868934_Organized_abuse_in_adulthood_Survivor_and_professional_perspectives

Malignant trauma and the invisibility of ritual abuse
June 2019 DOI: 10.33212/att.v13n1.2019.16
Authors: Michael Salter UNSW Sydney
Abstract
This article draws on psychoanalytic theories of malignant trauma to explain the invisibility of ritual abuse. Ritual abuse refers to the misuse of rituals in the organised sexual abuse of children. Despite expanded recognition of the varieties of child maltreatment, ritual abuse remains largely invisible outside the trauma and dissociation field as a specific form of sexual exploitation. Presenting qualitative data from interview research with ritual abuse survivors and mental health specialists, this article argues that the trauma of ritual abuse and its invisibility are co-constitutive. The perpetration and denial of ritual abuse occur within a relational matrix of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders structured by the presymbolic dread of vulnerability and dependency. The simultaneity of perpetration and disavowal creates the conditions for the malignancy of ritual abuse, including the invisibility of victims and the intergenerational transmission of extreme abuse. The article examines how the provision of care to ritual abuse survivors can become contingent on its erasure, and reflects on the role of therapists and others in interrupting the metastases of malignant trauma and crafting cultural and moral frameworks to transform the dread at the core of ritual abuse.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337804310_Malignant_trauma_and_the_invisibility_of_ritual_abuse

Cultures of Abuse: ‘Sex Grooming’, Organised Abuse and Race in Rochdale, UK
June 2015 International Journal for Crime Justice and Social Democracy 4(2)
DOI: 10.5204/ijcjsd.v4i2.211
Authors: Michael Salter UNSW Sydney Selda Dagistanli Western Sydney University
Revelations of organised abuse by men of Asian heritage in the United Kingdom have become a recurrent feature of international media coverage of sexual abuse in recent years. This paper reflects on the similarities between the highly publicised ‘sex grooming’ prosecutions in Rochdale in 2012 and the allegations of organised abuse in Rochdale that emerged in 1990, when twenty children were taken into care after describing sadistic abuse by their parents and others. While these two cases differ in important aspects, this paper highlights the prominence of colonial ideologies of civilisation and barbarism in the investigation and media coverage of the two cases and the sublimation of the issue of child welfare. There are important cultural and normative antecedents to sexual violence but these have been misrepresented in debates over organised abuse as racial issues and attributed to ethnic minority communities. In contrast, the colonialist trope promulgating the fictional figure of the rational European has resulted in the denial of the cultural and normative dimensions of organised abuse in ethnic majority communities by attributing sexual violence to aberrant and sexually deviant individuals whose behaviours transgress the boundaries of accepted cultural norms. This paper emphasises how the implicit or explicit focus on race has served to obscure the power dynamics underlying both cases and the continuity of vulnerability that places children at risk of sexual and organised abuse.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281229060_Cultures_of_Abuse_’Sex_Grooming’_Organised_Abuse_and_Race_in_Rochdale_UK

Reducing Shame, Promoting Dignity: A Model for the Primary Prevention of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Recommended citation: Salter, M. & Hall, H. (2021) Reducing Shame, Promoting Dignity: A Model for the Primary Prevention of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma Violence Abuse, forthcoming.
The recent inclusion of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) into the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 11th revision is the culmination of over twenty five years of research and clinical practice. Since the early 1990s, it has been proposed that a complex variant of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be differentiated from classical PTSD by alterations in affect and behavioral regulation, interpersonal problems, dissociative symptoms, and somatizations (Herman, 1992). As clinical scholarship and research into CPTSD has developed, it has been linked to concepts of developmental and attachment trauma, recognizing the aetiological role of early onset abuse and neglect, and associated disruptions in the child-caregiver bond (Farina, Liotti, & Imperatori, 2019). Parallel scholarship into adverse childhood experiences links child-onset trauma to major social and public health challenges, including common mental and physical illnesses, entrenched poverty and criminality (Lambert, Meza, Martin, Fearey, & McLaughlin, 2017). In light of the evidence of the public health burden of CPSTD, Ford (2015) argues for population-level interventions to reduce the prevalence of CPTSD, otherwise “vulnerable individuals and entire populations are at risk for becoming trapped in intergenerational vicious cycles escalating danger, disadvantage, and dysregulation” (p 3).
https://www.academia.edu/44436007/Reducing_Shame_Promoting_Dignity_A_Model_for_the_Primary_Prevention_of_Complex_Post_Traumatic_Stress_Disorder

Perspective
Speaking out about child sexual abuse within the family
As France continues to grapple with how a top academic who allegedly sexually abused his stepson for years was able to act with impunity, we speak to Michael Salter, Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He says coercive sexual relationships with children were “the dark side of the sexual revolution” and that it’s vital to understand that sexual abuse of minors happens across all sectors of society. “Child sexual abuse is a public health crisis,” he tells us.
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/perspective/20210201-speaking-out-about-child-sexual-abuse-within-the-family

https://twitter.com/mike_salter
Michael Salter
@mike_salter
“Recovered memory therapy” does not refer to an actual therapy. It’s a pejorative term invented by “false memory” advocate Richard Ofshe in 1993. Nobody has ever trained in or practiced RMT because it doesn’t exist, except in the fevered imaginations of false memory advocates.

Ritual Abuse Conference – Special Prices until August 1st

Ritual Abuse Conference – Special Prices until August 1st .

   Online conference dates: August 14 – 15, 2021
Information: http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/ Prices as low as $50.

International conference speakers:Ritual Abuse in the UK – Dr. Laurie Matthew OBE
Her presentation will focus on the challenges, experiences and perspectives of ritual abuse survivors in the UK and parts of Europe over the past 30 years and explore the current situation in the UK. 

Dr Laurie Matthew OBE is founder and Manager of Eighteen And Under https://www.18u.org.uk

Founding member and advisor to Izzy’s Promise https://rans.org.uk/izzys-promise/

and the Ritual Abuse Network Forum (RANS) https://www.rans.org.uk/

Mind Control and How to Stop it – Neil Brick
This presentation will explain how mind control and different suggestive techniques work in a variety of individual and public settings. Ways to expose and prevent mind control will be discussed. Neil Brick is a survivor of ritual abuse and mind control. His work continues to educate the public about child abuse, trauma and ritual abuse crimes. http://neilbrick.com

Self-Esteem – Wendy Hoffman
Programmers do everything they can to make their victims feel bad about themselves, debasing them in every way possible. Deprived of the self-esteem that others take for granted makes surviving victims more vulnerable to programming lies. This workshop discusses ways survivors can achieve a truer picture of who they are. Wendy Hoffman endured various forms of secret mind control, and consequently had amnesia for most of her life. Books: The Enslaved Queen, White Witch in a Black Robe (2015), Forceps, poems, co-authored book From the Trenches (2018) and A Brain of My Own (2020) https://ritualabuse.us/smart/wendy-hoffman

One Hundred Children: A Parable for Healing from Dissociation-savvy Mind Control – Dr. Ellen Lacter
Based on intensive therapy with survivors of ritual abuse and mind control, Ellen has written a parable with 15 fictionalized examples of programming of dissociated child identities that describe common kinds of tactics used in programming. Ellen P. Lacter, PhD is a California licensed Clinical Psychologist in private practice and Academic Coordinator of the Play Therapy Certificate program at University of California- San Diego, Division of Extended Studies. www.endritualabuse.org

Developing a Mind of your Own – A Question and Answer Format – Facilitators: Wendy Hoffman and Neil Brick
Mind control is overwhelming by design. This is an opportunity to ask questions about what is difficult for you.

Child Abuse Organization Announces its 24th Yearly International Conference

Child Abuse Organization Announces its 24th Yearly International Conference

Since 1996, S.M.A.R.T. has provided online information about child abuse.

Online conference dates: August 14 – 15, 2021
Information: http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/

International conference speakers:

Ritual Abuse in the UK – Dr. Laurie Matthew OBE
Her presentation will focus on the challenges, experiences and perspectives of ritual abuse survivors in the UK and parts of Europe over the past 30 years and explore the current situation in the UK.

Dr Laurie Matthew OBE is founder and Manager of Eighteen And Under https://www.18u.org.uk/ Founding member and advisor to Izzy’s Promise https://rans.org.uk/izzys-promise/ and the Ritual Abuse Network Forum (RANS) https://www.rans.org.uk/

Mind Control and How to Stop it – Neil Brick
This presentation will explain how mind control and different suggestive techniques work in a variety of individual and public settings. Ways to expose and prevent mind control will be discussed.

Neil Brick is a survivor of ritual abuse and mind control. His work continues to educate the public about child abuse, trauma and ritual abuse crimes. http://neilbrick.com

Self-Esteem – Wendy Hoffman
Programmers do everything they can to make their victims feel bad about themselves, debasing them in every way possible. Deprived of the self-esteem that others take for granted makes surviving victims more vulnerable to programming lies. This workshop discusses ways survivors can achieve a truer picture of who they are.

Wendy Hoffman endured various forms of secret mind control, and consequently had amnesia for most of her life. Books: The Enslaved Queen, White Witch in a Black Robe (2015), Forceps, poems, co-authored book From the Trenches (2018) and A Brain of My Own (2020) https://ritualabuse.us/smart/wendy-hoffman/

One Hundred Children: A Parable for Healing from Dissociation-savvy Mind Control – Dr. Ellen Lacter
Based on intensive therapy with survivors of ritual abuse and mind control, Ellen has written a parable with 15 fictionalized examples of programming of dissociated child identities that describe common kinds of tactics used in programming.

Ellen P Lacter, PhD, is a California licensed Clinical Psychologist in private practice and Academic Coordinator of the Play Therapy Certificate program at University of California- San Diego, Division of Extended Studies. http://www.endritualabuse.org

Developing a Mind of your Own – A Question and Answer Format – Facilitators: Wendy Hoffman and Neil Brick
Mind control is overwhelming by design. This is an opportunity to ask questions about what is difficult for you.

For media inquiries: email smartnews@aol.com

Proof That Ritual Abuse Exists

Ritual Abuse

Ritual abuse exists all over the world. There have been reports, journal articles, web pages and criminal convictions of these horrific crimes against children and adults.

(This page also has day care and other child abuse cases at the bottom.)

List of Ritual Abuse references –

http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/studies/satanic-ritual-abuse-evidence-with-information-on-the-mcmartin-preschool-case/

http://ritualabusearticles.wordpress.com/category/satanic-ritual-abuse-evidence/

What is Ritual Abuse?

“…is methodical abuse, often using indoctrination, aimed at breaking the will of another human being. In a 1989 report, the Ritual Abuse Task Force of the L.A. County Commission for Women defined ritual abuse as: “Ritual Abuse 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,humiliating, intended as a means of gaining dominance over the victim.The psychological abuse is devastating and involves the use of ritual indoctrination. It includes mind control techniques which convey to the victim a profound terror of the cult members …most victims are in a state of terror, mind control and dissociation” (Pg. 35-36) “Safe Passage to Healing”, by Chrystine Oksana, 1994, HarperCollins, which is an excellent source for survivor and co-survivors on the topic, though there is a newer edition out by iuniverse.com (2001)

List of legal cases:

Believe the children (1997). “Conviction List: Ritual Child Abuse”. http://ra-info.org/faqs/ra-convictions/

Web pages proving the existence of ritual abuse:

Noblitt, PhD, J. R. – An Empirical Look at the Ritual Abuse Controversy (2007) http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/an-empirical-look-at-the-ritual-abuse-controversy-randy-noblitt-phd/

Ritual Abuse Bibliography http://ra-info.org/for-researchers/bibliographies/ritual-abuse-primary-and-secondary-source-books/

Ritual Abuse Statistics & Research http://web.archive.org/web/20071210161357/http://home.mchsi.com/~ftio/ra-stats.htm

Searchable releases on satanic ritual abuse http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psnews/

Frequently Asked Questions about Ritual Abuse and Mind Control https://survivorship.org/frequently-ask-questions/

Satanic Ritual Abuse: The Evidence Surfaces By Daniel Ryder, CCDC, LSW http://web.archive.org/web/20080125051057/http://home.mchsi.com/~ftio/ra-evidence-surfaces.htm

2008 Publications on Ritual Abuse and Mind Control
http://endritualabuse.org/publications-on-ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-in-2008/

Lacter, E (2008-02-11). “Brief Synopsis of the Literature on the Existence of Ritualistic Abuse”.  http://endritualabuse.org/brief-synopsis-of-the-literature-on-the-existence-of-ritualistic-abuse/

Information on Ellen Lacter and Her Research
https://ritualabuse.us/smart/ellen-lacter/

Information on Valerie Sinason and Her Research
https://ritualabuse.us/smart/valerie-sinason/

Information on Randy Noblitt and His Research
https://ritualabuse.us/smart/randy-noblitt/

Ritual abuse diagnosis research – excerpt from a chapter in: Lacter, E. & Lehman, K. (2008).Guidelines to Differential Diagnosis between Schizophrenia and Ritual Abuse/Mind Control Traumatic Stress. In J.R. Noblitt & P. Perskin(Eds.), Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-first Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations, pp. 85-154. Bandon, Oregon: Robert D. Reed Publishers. quotes: A second study revealed that these results were unrelated to patients’ degree of media and hospital milieu exposure to the subject of Satanic ritual abuse. “In fact, less media exposure was associated with production of more Satanic content in patients reporting ritual abuse, evidence that reports of ritual abuse are not primarily the product of exposure contagion.” Responses are consistent with the devastating and pervasive abuse these victims have experienced, so often including immediate family members. http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/studies/ritual-abuse-diagnosis-research-2/

Bottoms, Shaver and Goodman in their 1993 study to evaluate ritual abuse claims found that in 2,292 alleged ritual abuse cases, 15% of the perpetrators in adult cases and 30% of the perpetrators in child cases confessed to the abuse. Data from Brown, Scheflin and Hammond (1998).”Memory, Trauma Treatment, And the Law” (W. W. Norton) ISBN 0-393-70254-5 (p.62) Bottoms, B. Shaver, P. & Goodman, G. (1993) Profile of ritual abuse and religion related abuse allegations in the United States. Updated findings provided via personal communication from B. Bottoms. Cited in K.C. Faller (1994), Ritual Abuse; A Review of the research. The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children Advisor , 7, 1, 19-27

On Page 170 (first edition), of Cult and Ritual Abuse – Noblitt and Perskin (Praeger, 1995) states “One of the best sources of evaluative research on ritual abuse is the article “Ritual Abuse: A Review of Research” by Kathleen Coulborn Faller (1994)….in a survey of 2,709 members of the American Psychological Association, it was found that 30 percent of these professionals had seen cases of ritual or religion-related abuse (Bottoms, Shaver & Goodman, 1991). Of those psychologists who have seen cases of ritual abuse, 93 percent believed that the reported harm took place and 93 percent believed that the alleged ritualism occurred. This is a remarkable finding. Mental health professionals are known to be divergent in their thinking and frequently do not agree with one another regarding questions of the diagnosis and etiology of psychiatric problems…this level of concurrence in a large national sample of psychologists…would be impressive….the similar research of Nancy Perry (1992) which further supports (the previous findings)…Perry also conducted a national survey of therapists who work with clients with dissociative disorders and she found that 88 percent of the 1,185 respondents indicated”belief in ritual abuse, involving mind control and programming” (p.3).”

Journal of Psychology and Theology – Satanic Ritual Abuse: The Current State of Knowledge

Satanic Ritual Abuse: A Question of Memory
http://journals.biola.edu/jpt/volumes/22/issues/3/articles/167
…Leading memory researchers such as Dr. Bessel van der Kolk of Harvard Medical School maintain that traumatic memories, which typically are engraved in the sensorimotor processes, are not subject to the same kinds of contamination that can affect normal memory. Traumatic amnesia, described in the dsm-iii-r as psychogenic amnesia, is a phenomenon which has been known to mental health professionals for more than 100 years. The clinically observed characteristics of traumatic memory formation and retrieval match precisely the patterns of memory recovery exhibited by sra survivors, and strongly confirm the reality of their cult abuse. Author D. McCulley Pages 167 – 172

http://journals.biola.edu/

Adults who report childhood ritualistic abuse. By: Cozolino, L.J.; Shaffer, R.E. Volume 20, Issue 3 Fall 1992 Therapists are finding an increasing number of patients uncovering memories of ritualistic forms of abuse from childhood. To gain a fuller understanding of this phenomenon, twenty outpatients reporting memories of ritualistic abuse were interviewed. Questions focused on the nature of the abuse and its perceived impact on interpersonal, occupational, and spiritual development. Reasons for entering psychotherapy as well as the nature and course of treatment were also discussed. Subjects entered therapy with similar psychological complaints. Reported psychiatric sequelae included dissociative, affective, somatization, and eating disorders. Abuse experiences were reported to have affected every aspect of their adult functioning. Subjects began therapy with little or no knowledge of the phenomenon of ritualistic abuse, and only one patient reported vague memories of ritualistic abuse before entering therapy. Reports from this sample reflect striking convergence among subjects and with data from previous research and clinical reports. A composite clinical case study is presented based on these data.
excerpts from the article:
“Skeptics question the legitimacy of these reports,but many factors point to the reality of the phenomenon of ritualistic abuse. First of all, the degree of consistency between reports of individuals from different parts of the country is very high. The fact that children as young as 2 and 3 report ritualistic abuse experiences that mirror those reported by adult victims is especially striking in light of the fact that young children do not have access to the kind of printed information that might conceivably allow an older person to fabricate such experiences (Gould, 1987). Second, experiences of ritualistic abuse reported by victims of all ages are virtually identical to written historical accounts of Satan worship and the like (Hill & Goodwin, 1989; Russell, 1972), findings that substantiate our present-day understanding of Satanism and ritualistic abuse as intragenerational phenomenon. Third, the symptoms from which individuals reporting histories of ritualistic abuse tend to suffer are consistent with our current understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder and the dissociative disorders. The progression in which ritualistic abuse survivors respond to psychotherapy places these victims squarely within the category of individual who have suffered real-not imagined-trauma.
That is, when memories of the dissociated traumatic event have been fully surfaced into conscious awareness and re-associated in all their aspects, the often extremely debilitating symptoms from which the individual has suffered abate dramatically and over the course of treatment frequently disappear altogether (Ray & Reagor, 1991).
Comments on study: Shaffer and Cozolino (1992) interviewed 19 women and one man who reported types and aftereffects of ritualistic abuse consistent with those reported by Young et al. All subjects reported witnessing the murder of animals, infants, children and/or adults. All reported suicidal ideation and half reported suicide attempts. The majority reported severe and sadistic forms of abuse by multiple perpetrators. Some reported continued recontact/revictimization into their adult years.

describes crimes
Journal of Psychology and Theology – Satanic Ritual Abuse: The Current State of Knowledge
Gould, C., & Cozolino, L. (1992). Ritual abuse, multiplicity, and mind control. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 20, 194-196.
As a result of the psychologically intolerable nature of their early childhood experiences, victims of ritual abuse frequently develop multiple personality disorder (MPD). Therapists who treat these victims often assume that all MPD stems from a system of spontaneously created defenses against overwhelming trauma. As a result, these therapists tend to focus on treating the post-traumatic stress elements of the disorder and on integrating alter personalities. Recent experience with victims of ritual abuse suggests the presence of “cult-created” multiplicity, in which the cult deliberately creates alter personalities to serve its purposes, often outside of the awareness of the victim’s host personality. Each cult-created alter is programmed to serve a particular cult function such as maintaining contact with the cult, reporting information to the cult, self-injuring if cult injunctions are broken, and disrupting the therapeutic process that could lead to the individual breaking free of the cult. A majority of ritual abuse victims in psychotherapy may maintain cult contact unbeknownst to either the host personality or the treating therapist.
Selected quotes:
“Ritual abuse is conducted on behalf of a cult whose purpose is to establish mind control over the victims. Thus, these perpetrators have a conscious motive for the abuse beyond compulsively repeating their own childhood abuse in an effort to gain mastery over the original trauma. Most victims state that they were ritually abused as part of satanic worship, for the purpose of indoctrinating them into satanic beliefs (Los Angeles County Commission for Women, 1989). Mind control is originally established when the victim is a child under 6 years old. During this formative stage of development, perpetrating cult members systematically combine dissociation enhancing drugs, pain, sexual assault, terror, and other forms of psychological abuse in such a way that the child dissociates the intolerable traumatic experience. The part of the child that has been split off to handle the overwhelming trauma is maximally open to suggestion as the abuse is occurring. The cult perpetrators exploit the vulnerability of the child who is being tortured by directing the child to create a new personality who is to answer to a particular name as well as to other specific cues. During the abuse, the newly formed alter personality is imbued with particular qualities and functions by the cult programmer. Alter personalities which are structured by the ritually abusing cult in this fashion are created to serve particular cult functions. These functions usually lie outside of the awareness of the core (or host) personality.
Such cult functions typically include, but are not limited to, maintaining contact with the cult, reporting information to the cult, self-injuring if the cult injunctions are broken, and disrupting the therapeutic process that could lead to the individual breaking free of the cult (Neswald, 1991).

Ritualistic child abuse, psychopathology, and evil. By: Cozolino, L.J. – Journal of Psychology and Theology Volume 18, Issue 3 Fall 1990 p.218
Ritualistic abuse is an extreme form of psychological, physical, and sexual maltreatment of children in the context of “religious” ceremony. The clinical presentation of the victims of such abuse is complex and raises many issues related in the diagnosis and treatment of psychopathology as well as the importance of spiritual counseling. The acknowledgment of belief systems so repugnant to the Judeo-Christian world view and the addressing of our own negative emotional reactions to the reality of ritualistic abuse are important first steps in responding to these issues. The phenomenon of ritualistic child abuse forces us to consider the relationship between theological notions of evil and psychological concepts of psychopathology. This article addresses the phenomenon of ritualistic child abuse, the psychological sequelae of victimization, and possible motivations for this form of abuse.

Psychological sequelae in adult females reporting childhood ritualistic abuse Kathy J. Lawrence, Louis Cozolino and David W. Foy – Child Abuse & Neglect Volume 19, Issue 8, August 1995, Pages 975-984 doi:10.1016/0145-2134(95)00059-H
Abstract: The present study sought to increase current scientific knowledge about the controversial issue of subjectively reported childhood ritualistic abuse by addressing several key unresolved issues. In particular, the possibility that those reporting ritualistic abuse may be characterized primarily by the severity of their abuse histories or the severity of their present psychological symptoms, rather than the veridicality of the ritualistic events, was explored. Adult female outpatients reporting childhood sexual abuse with ritualistic features were compared with a second group of women who reported childhood sexual abuse without ritualism. Measures included characteristics of childhood sexual and physical abuse, current posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnostic status and symptom severity, and severity of current dissociative experiences. Women reporting ritualistic features scored significantly higher on measures of childhood sexual and physical abuse. Neither PTSD diagnostic status nor severity for PTSD nor dissociative experiences were significantly different between the groups. While preliminary in nature, these results suggest that it may be helpful to conceptualize reported childhood ritualistic abuse as indicative of the need to assess carefully for severe abuse and its predictable sequelae within existing traumatic victimization conceptual frameworks.
http://www.nctsnet.org/nctsn_assets/Articles/115.pdf

Why Cults Terrorize and Kill Children – LLOYD DEMAUSE
The Journal of Psychohistory 21 (4) 1994
describes graphic crimes of abuse
“Cult abuse is increasing, only that-as with the increase in all child abuse reports-we have become more open to hearing them. But it seemed unlikely that the surge of cult memories could all be made up by patients or implanted by therapists. Therapists are a timid group at best, and the notion that they suddenly begin implanting false memories in tens of thousands of their clients for no apparent reason strained credulity. Certainly no one has presented a shred of evidence for massive “false memory” implantations.”
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/why-cults-terrorize-and-kill-children-lloyd-demause-the-journal-of-psychohistory/

The Dark Tunnels of McMartin – Dr. Roland C. Summit
The opportunity came in April, 1990 with permission from the new owner of the preschool to search for the tunnels before he demolished the building and redeveloped the property. These soiled but solid citizens managed to find what the district attorney had disclaimed: solid, scientific evidence that someone had not only dug tunnels under the preschool, but also had taken the trouble to try to undo them. The results of this definitive excavation are described in meticulous detail in the 185 page Report of the Archaeological Excavation of the McMartin Preschool Site by E. Gary Stickel, Ph.D., the UCLA archaeologist commissioned to do the study….Dr. Stickel’s report (p.95) concludes: There is no other scenario that fits all of the facts except that the feature was indeed a tunnel. The date of the construction and use of the tunnel was not absolutely established, but an assessment of seven factors of data all indicate that it was probably constructed, used and completely filled back in after 1966 (the construction date of the preschool). This age assessment has also been corroborated by the consulting Geologist for the project, Dr. Don Michael.
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/the-dark-tunnels-of-mcmartin-dr-roland-c-summit-journal-of-psychohistory/

Common Programs Observed in Survivors of Satanic Ritualistic Abuse
describes crimes of abuse and programming techniques
Increasingly, cases of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) and Satanic Ritualistic Abuse (SRA) are being reported in the psychotherapeutic community. Though controversy concerning authenticity remains, such cases are slowly gaining in acceptability as a genuine social and psychopathological phenomenon. Concurrently, the etiological underpinnings and treatment demands of these special patients are being unraveled and understood as never before. As a result, it is becoming increasingly clear that perhaps the most demanding treatment aspects of such cases concern the problems posed by what is known as “cult programming.”
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/common-programs-observed-in-survivors-of-satanic-ritualistic-abuse/

Report of the Ritual Abuse Task Force – Los Angeles County Commission for Women
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….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 [only on the surface.] 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.
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/report-of-the-ritual-abuse-task-force-los-angeles-county-commission-for-women/

Believing Rachel JEANNE HILL The Journal of Psychohistory 24 (2) Fall 1996
describes graphic crimes of abuse
Rachel’s story is one of suffering, courage and hope. As a young child she was the victim of unspeakable crimes, but because she received therapy and the support of a loving family, she has emerged intact. I hope that parents of other abused children will be reassured by our story. When I look at the strong, confident young woman my daughter is becoming, I know that believing Rachel was the right thing to do. Believing Rachel made her whole.
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/believing-rachel-jeanne-hill-the-journal-of-psychohistory/

Denying Ritual Abuse of Children – Catherine Gould
The Journal of Psychohistory 22 (3) 1995
The evidence is rapidly accumulating that the problem of ritualabuse is considerable in scope and extremely grave in its consequences.Among 2,709 members of the American Psychological Association who responded to a poll, 2,292 cases of ritual abuse were reported(Bottoms, Shaver, & Goodman, 1993). In 1992 alone, Childhelp USA logged 1,741 calls pertaining to ritual abuse, Monarch Resources of Los Angeles logged approximately 5,000, Real Active Survivors tallied nearly 3,600, Justus Unlimited of Colorado received almost 7,000, and Looking Up of Maine handled around 6,000. Even allowing for some of these calls to have been made by people who assist survivors but are not themselves survivors, and for some survivors to have called more that one helpline or made multiple calls to the same helpline, these numbers suggest that at a minimum there must be tens of thousands of survivors of ritual abuse in the United States.
Evidence also continues to accumulate that the ritual abuse of children constitutes a child abuse problem of significant scope. In1988, Finkelhor, Williams and Burns published the results of a nationwide study of substantiated reports of sexual abuse in day care involving 1,639 young child victims. Thirteen percent of these cases were found to involve ritual abuse. Other studies of ritually abused children have been relatively small. Kelly (1988; 1989; 1992a; 1992b;1993) report-ed on 35 day care victims of ritual abuse, Waterman et al.(1993) reported on 82 children complaining of ritual abuse in preschool, Faller (1988; 1990) studied 18 children who had disclosed ritual abuse in their preschool, and Bybee and Mowbray (1993) from the Michigan State Department of Mental Health identified 62 children alleging ritual abuse in their preschool and 53 children who reported seeing others be ritually abused. Snow and Sorenson (1990) studied 39 children reporting ritual abuse in five neighborhoods in Utah, and Jonker and Jonker-Bakker (1991) reported on a total group of 98 children, at least 48 of whom were believed to be victims of ritual abuse.
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/denying-ritual-abuse-of-children-catherine-gould/

McCulley, D. “Satanic ritual abuse: A question of memory.” Journal of Psychology and Theology Fall 1994 22(3) p.167-172
In spite of reports by thousands of adults who describe satanic ritual abuse in their backgrounds, the Special Issue of the Journal of Psychology and Theology reveals obdurate skepticism regarding their credibility on the part of several contributors. Some of these disbelievers currently are citing experiments demonstrating extreme malleability for human memory as evidence that survivor accounts, especially those involving delayed memory, are fantasies implanted by incompetent clinicians. However, leading memory researchers such as Dr. Bessel van der Kolk of Harvard Medical School maintain that traumatic memories, which typically are engraved in the sensorimotor processes, are not subject to the same kinds of contamination that can affect normal memory. Traumatic amnesia, described in the DSM-III-R as psychogenic amnesia, is a phenomenon which has been known to mental health professionals for more than 100 years. The clinically observed characteristics of traumatic memory formation and retrieval match precisely the patterns of memory recovery exhibited by SRA survivors, and strongly confirm the reality of their cult abuse.
Quotes: If satanic ritual abuse is a question of memory, the data redound to the credibility of those thousands of individuals who identify themselves as SRA survivors. All the scientific studies of memory under trauma indicate that the bimodal response described by van der Kolk (1994), whether hyperpotentiated or dissociative, heightens the reliability of recall. The phenomenon of recovered memory is not a new therapeutic fad created by irresponsible clinical experimentation, but a well established aspect of trauma. The connection between trauma and memory disturbance is made clear by the definition of psychogenic amnesia in the DSM-III-R (1987) which states that “The predominant disturbance is one or more episodes of inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness” (p. 273).
Further, there often is corroboration for these retrieved memories. Judith Herman and Emily Schatzow (1992) found that in a sample of 53 women who disclosed memories of abuse for which they had been amnesic, 74% of the subjects were able to find independent confirmation from family members, pornographic photos, or diaries. Ivor Browne (1990a) found the “internal consistency of the traumatic account” persuasive, and also discovered that in the sizeable minority of cases where there was an available witness that “in every instance, the traumatic events . turn out to be true” (p. 30).
There is no longer room for denial and disbelief – for evading the grim reality of SRA – by recourse to memory research which simply does not apply. Solid scientific inquiry does not allow us that luxury; neither should Christian conscience. https://wisdom.biola.edu/jpt

Jonker, F; Jonker-Bakker, I “Reaction to Benjamin Rossen’s Investigation of Satanic Ritual Abuse in Oude Pekela” Journal of Psychology and Theology 1992 20(3) p.260-262
quotes: The authors, Jonker and Jonker-Bakker, respond to Benjamin Rossen’s criticisms of their handling of an alleged satanic ritual abuse incident in Oude Pekela, The Netherlands.
This response in turn criticizes the quality of Rossen’s scientific work, especially in respect to his judgments made without having had direct contact with the children or their parents, or other principals in the incident….All Rossen’s statements about the children and their parents, about Professor Mik, about school teachers and about ourselves were based on no contact whatsoever with any of us. https://wisdom.biola.edu/jpt

Ritual Abuse-Torture Within Families/Groups Authors: Jeanne Sarson, Linda MacDonald DOI: 10.1080/10926770801926146 Published in: Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, Volume 16,Issue 4 July 2008, pages 419 – 438  Abstract – Case studies provide insights into identifying 10 violent thematic issues as components of a pattern of family/group ritual abuse-torture (RAT) victimization. Narratives from victimized women suggest that victimization generally begins in infancy or soon thereafter. A visual model of RAT displays the organization of the co-culture. Examples of the family/group gatherings known as “rituals and ceremonies” provide insights into how these gatherings are used to normalize pedophilic violence. Global activism afforded the first effort ever to track RAT and human trafficking. Recognizing RAT as an emerging form of non-state actor torture, discontinuing the use of language that sexualizes adult-child relationships, and promoting human rights education are suggested social solutions.
Available at : http://www.informaworld.com/index/903766904.pdf
html article : http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/ftinterface~content=a903766904~fulltext=713240928

Organized abuse and the politics of disbelief – Michael Salter (p.243 – 283) Faculty of Law – Faculty of Medicine – University of New South Wales in Proceedings of the 2nd Australian & New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference 19 – 20 June 2008 Sydney, Australia – Presented by the Crime & Justice Research Network and the Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology Network Edited by Chris Cunneen & Michael Salter – Published by The Crime and Justice research Newtork University of New South Wales December, 2008 http://www.academia.edu/2042170/Organised_abuse_and_the_politics_of_disbelief ISBN: 9780646507378 (pdf)

“Since the 1980s, disclosures of organised abuse have been disparaged by a range of activists, journalists and researchers who have focused, in particular, on cases in which sexually abusive groups were alleged to have behaved in ritualistic or ceremonial ways…Whilst these authors claimed to be writing in the interests of science and social justice, what has emerged from their writing are a familiar set of arguments about the credibility of women and children’s testimony of sexual violence; in short, that women and children are prone to a range of memory and cognitive errors that lead them to make false allegations of rape. This paper argues that this body of literature has systematically misconstrued allegations of organised abuse, and used organised abuse as a lens through which the debate on child abuse could be re-envisioned along very traditional lines, attributing victim status to accused men and constructing liars out of women and children complaining of sexual abuse.”

Journal of Child and Youth Care – ISSN 0840-982X – SPECIAL ISSUE 1990 – CONTENTS
A Case of Multiple Life-Threatening Illnesses Related to Early Ritual Abuse
Rennet Wong and Jock McKeen
Ritual Child Abuse: A Survey of Symptoms and Allegations
Pamela S. Hudson
Satanic Ritual Abuse: A Cause of Multiple Personality Disorder
George A. Fraser
Differentiating Between Ritual Assault and Sexual Abuse
Louise M. Edwards
The Choice – Gerry Fewster
http://www.cyc-net.org/Journals/jcyc/jcycSpecial1990.html

Recent worldwide survey of ritual abuse

The Extreme Abuse Survey final results are online with findings,questionnaires and presentations for download as pdf-files. More than 750 pages of documentation http://extreme-abuse-survey.net/

Understanding ritual trauma: A comparison of findings from three online surveys – Handout  for Karriker, Wanda. (2008, November). Understanding ritual trauma: A comparison of findings from three online surveys. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, Chicago, IL.
10 Extreme Abuse Survey Findings Helpful to Understanding Ritual Trauma
1. Ritual abuse/mind control (RA/MC) is a global phenomenon.
2. A diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder is common for persons who report histories of
RA/MC. (84% of EAS respondents who answered that they have been diagnosed with DID [N=655] reported that they are survivors of RA/MC).
3. Ritual abuse (RA) is not limited to SRA, i.e., satanic ritual abuse, sadistic abuse, satanist abuse.
4. RA is reported to involve mind control techniques.
5. Some extreme abuse survivors report that they were used in government-sponsored mind control experimentation (GMC).
6. RA/MC is reported to be involved in organized “known” crime.
7. RA/MC is reported to be involved in clergy abuse.
8. Most often reported memories of extreme abuse are similar across all surveys.
9. Most often reported possible aftereffects of extreme abuse are similar across all surveys.
10. In rating the effectiveness of healing methods, therapists tend to favor stabilization techniques; survivors are more open to alternative ways to cope with indoctrinated belief systems.
http://ritualabuse.us/mindcontrol/eas-studies/understanding-ritual-trauma-a-comparison-of-findings-from-three-online-surveys

MEDIA PACKET – Torture-based, Government-sponsored Mind Control Experimentation on Children – Documentation that torture-based,government-sponsored mind control (GMC) experimentation was conducted on children during the Cold War. Data from two international surveys that give voice, visibility, and validation to survivors of these crimes against humanity….SURVEYS – EAS: Extreme Abuse Survey for Adult Survivors (An International Online Survey for Adult Survivors of Extreme Abuse) January 1 – March 30, 2007 with 1471 respondents from 31named countries. P-EAS: Professional – Extreme Abuse Survey (An nternational Online Survey for Therapists, Counselors, Clergy, and Other Persons Who Have Worked Professionally with at Least One Adult Survivor of Extreme Abuse) April 1 – June 30 2007 with 451 respondents from 20 named countries. Contact: Wanda Karriker, PhD sandime@twave.net  http://my.dmci.net/~casey/GovernmentSponsoredMindControlExperiments-MediaPacket.pdf

Rutz, C. Becker, T., Overkamp, B. & Karriker, W. (2008).Exploring Commonalities Reported by Adult Survivors of Extreme Abuse:Preliminary Empirical Findings. In Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-first Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations,J.R. Noblitt & P. S. Perskin (Eds), pp. 31- 84. Brandon, Oregon:Robert D. Reed Publishers.

Becker, T., Karriker, W., Overkamp, B. Rutz, C. (2008). The Extreme Abuse Survey: preliminary findings regarding dissociative identity disorder. In A. Sachs & G. Galton (Eds.), Forensic Aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder, pp. 32-49. London: Karnac.

Karriker, Wanda (November, 2007). “Helpful healing methods: As rated by approximately 900 respondents to the “International Survey for AdultSurvivors of Extreme Abuse (EAS).” http://endritualabuse.org/data-on-survivors-of-ritual-abuse-mind-control-and-healing-methods/

Karriker, W. (2008, September). Torture-based mind control as a global phenomenon: Preliminary data from the 2007 series of Extreme Abuse Surveys. In Torture-based mind control: Empirical research, programmer methods, effects and treatment. Workshop conducted at the 13th International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, San Diego,CA.  http://ritualabuse.us/mindcontrol/eas-studies/torture-based-mind-control-as-a-global-phenomenon/

https://eassurvey.wordpress.com/extreme-abuse-survey-final-results/

Other organizations with data proving the worldwide existence of ritual abuse

http://www.ra-info.org

http://www.survivorship.org

http://web.archive.org/web/20071218103952/http://www.aches-mc.org/

http://www.endritualabuse.org/

http://nonstatetorture.org/

A Nation Betrayed – The Chilling True Story of Secret Cold War Experiments Performed on our Children and Other Innocent People by Carol Rutz http://www2.dmci.net/users/casey

Pepinsky, H – PEACEMAKING – Reflections of a Radical Criminologist by Hal Pepinsky – The University of Ottawa Press ISBN10:  0776606409 2006 “I have mentioned that since 1993 I have come to know many people whom I believe to be genuine survivors of “ritual abuse.”
http://critcrim.org/sites/default/files/Pepinsky_proofs_0.pdf

Craighead, W. E.; Corsini, R.J.; Nemeroff, C. B. (2002) The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science Published by John Wiley and Sons ISBN 0471270830 – Sadistic Ritual Abuse (p.1435 – 1438) http://books.google.com/books?id=JQMRmyOfpJ8C&pg=PA1435&lpg=PA1435&focus=viewport&vq=ritual+abuse&output=html

Books on Ritual Abuse

Johnson Davis, Anne  “Hell Minus One: My Story of Deliverance From Satanic Ritual Abuse and My Journey to Freedom” Transcript Bulletin Publishing – ISBN 978-0-9788348-0-7 – 2008  “Anne’s parents confessed their atrocities—both in writing and verbally—to clergymen, and to detectives from the Utah Attorney General’s Office.  Anne’s suppressed memories, which erupted when she was in her mid-30s, were fully substantiated by her mother and stepfather….The book’s foreword was written by Lt. Detective Matt Jacobson, who was the lead investigator with the Utah Attorney General’s Office on Anne’s case in 1995.” http://www.HellMinusOne.com

Hell Minus One – signed verified confessions of satanic ritual abuse – Anne’s parents confessed their atrocities – both in writing and verbally.
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/survivor-stories/hell-minus-one-signed-verified-confessions-of-satanic-ritual-abuse/

An Interview With the Author of Hell Minus One http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/survivor-stories/interview-with-the-author-of-hell-minus-one/

Epstein, O., Schwartz, J., Schwartz, R.  Ritual Abuse and Mind Control: The Manipulation of Attachment Needs 2011 Karnac Books. London ISBN 1-85575-839-3 http://www.karnacbooks.com/Product.asp?PID=29482 Google Books Version http://books.google.com/books?id=xU6GZ28gGy4C&dq=Ritual+Abuse+and+Mind+Control:+The+Manipulation+of+Attachment+Needs&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Karriker, Wanda (2003). Morning, Come Quickly. Catawba, NC: Sandime, LTD. ISBN 0-9717171-0-9.

Noblitt, J.R.; Perskin, P. S. (eds) (2008). Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-first Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations. Bandor, OR: Robert Reed, 552. ISBN 1-934759-12-0.

Noblitt, JR; Perskin PS (2000). Cult and ritual abuse: its history, anthropology, and recent discovery in contemporary America. New York:Praeger. ISBN 0-275-96665-8. http://books.google.ca/books?id=zJkTTpfyJ-8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0

Cult and Ritual Abuse – James Randall Noblitt – Chapter 6 – Empirical Evidence of Ritual Abuse http://books.google.com/books?id=zJkTTpfyJ-8C&printsec=frontcover#PPA55,M1

Rutz, Carol (2001). A Nation Betrayed. Grass Lake, MI: Fidelity Publishing. ISBN 0-9710102-0-X.

Ryder, Daniel. (1992). Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse: Recognizing and Recovering – CompCare Pub.

Oksana, Chrystine (2001). Safe Passage to Healing – A Guide for Survivors of Ritual Abuse. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse.com. ISBN0-595-201000-8. 1994 pub. HarperPerennial.

Raschke, Carl A. (1990). Painted Black. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-104080-0

Smith, Margaret. (1993). Ritual Abuse: What it Is, why it Happens, and how to Help by Margaret – HarperCollins

Sinason, V (1994). Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10543-9. http://valeriesinason.co.uk/index.html

Scott, S. (2001). The politics and experience of ritual abuse:beyond disbelief. Open University Press. ISBN 0335204198. http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Experience-Ritual-Abuse/dp/0335204198

Secret Weapons – Two Sisters’ Terrifying True Story of Sex, Spies and Sabotage by Cheryl and Lynn Hersha with Dale Griffis, Ph D. and Ted Schwartz. New Horizon Press, P O Box 669 Far Hills, NJ 07931 – ISBN0-88282-196-2 Is a well-documented, verifiable account of not one, but two childrens’ long untold stories of being CHILD subjects of Project MKUltra. Quotes from the book: “By the time Cheryl Hersha came to the facility, knowledge of multiple personality was so complete that doctors understood how the mind separated into distinct ego states,each unaware of the other. First, the person traumatized had to be both extremely intelligent and under the age of seven, two conditions not yet understood though remaining consistent as factors. The trauma was almost always of a sexual nature…” p. 52 “The government researchers,aware of the information in the professional journals, decided to reverse the process (of healing from hysteric dissociation). They decided to use selective trauma on healthy children to create personalities capable of committing acts desired for national security and defense.” p. 53 – 54 The book also contains a variety of documents on mk-ultra and different projects as well as reports to the Presidential Committee on Radiation and Mind Control, including information on the five Canadians’ lawsuit against the U.S. Government.

Twenty-Two Faces – Inside the Extraordinary Life of Jenny Hill and Her Twenty-Two Multiple Personalities Judy Byington MSW, LCSW, ret. Tate Publishing May, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-1620240328

Saved by an angel from certain death, Jenny Hill utilizes prayer, forgiveness and her multiple personalities to triumph over a Nazi mind controller attempting to mould her into a Manchurian Candidate. Twenty-Two Faces documents how the only known survivor-intended-victim of a modern-day human sacrifice ceremony six year-old Jenny Hill, overcomes multiplicity resulting from brainwashing, her perpetrators having subjected the child to insidious mind-control techniques culled from Nazi Germany. As is the case for thousands of children across the globe unfortunate enough to be born into families still practicing these aberrant religious rites. Using a lone resource: faith in God, Jenny tries to make sense of a life where she jumps from one day to the next. Eventually with help of a psychologist: she takes charge of her divided mind by facing alter personalities and their traumatic repressed memories, overcomes family-society rejection, confronts and forgives abusers, showing an ability of the human spirit to overcome against all odds, profound emotional shock and miraculously healing from severe childhood trauma.  http://22faces.com/

22 Faces revives ritual sexual abuse controversy by Stephen Dark 2012-06-25  CityWeekly
excerpts
A new book, Twenty Two Faces: Inside the Extraordinary Life of Jenny Hill and Her Twenty-two Multiple Personalities, by retired, Saratoga Springs-based psychiatrist Judy Byington, tells the story of Hill, who, according to Byinton, was the victim of sexual assaults by both her father and by neighborhood boys. Hill told Byington that on June 21, 1965, in Garden Grove, Calif., she was tortured on an altar and forced to watch the murder of a 6-year-old by a satanic coven, only to be saved by the intervention of an  angel.
Subsequently, Hill was subjected to mind control experiments which resulted, Byington says, in Hill having 22 personalities. Hill moved to Utah County and ended up spending a year in the Utah State Hospital under the care of Weston Whatcott between 1984 and 1985. In a press release by the book’s publisher, Whatcott acknowledges that Hill’s multiple personalities were a result of childhood trauma, “namely repeated sexual assaults coupled with ritual abuse.”
Byington says Hill “really wanted her story told.”  Byington drew on journals Hill and some of her other personalities kept from when she was 5 to 24. “We could all be multiple personalities if we have gone through all the trauma that these people have gone through,” Byington says.”Children under tremendous torture, their minds can separate into different personalities.”
Hill went to the FBI looking for the parents of the child she had seen killed, Byington says. While an FBI agent who looked at Hill’s medical records told Byington that there was confirmation that horrendous torture had occurred, “he wouldn’t open up a case for her.”
Byington has also investigated local satanic covens in Utah, she says, and talked to a special-investigations unit at the Utah Attorney General’s office in 2006 on ritual abuse cases. “”It’s still very much of a problem,” Byington says. “These covens are very active and it’s very difficult to prove what’s going on.”

The McMartin Preschool Case – What Really Happened and the Cover-up

http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/mcmartin-preschool-case-what-really-happened-and-the-coverup/

Day Care and Child Abuse Cases

http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/day-care-and-child-abuse-cases/ This page has information on the McMartin Preschool Case, Michelle Remembers, the Fells Acres – Amirault Case, the Wenatchee, Washington Case, the Dale Akiki Case, the Glendale Montessori – Toward case, the Little Rascals Day Care Center case, Fran’s Day Care case, the Baran case, the Halsey case, the West Memphis 3 case, the Friedman’s case and the Christchurch Civic Creche sex abuse – Peter Ellis case.

Sexual Abuse in Day Care: A National Study – Executive Summary – March 1988 – Finklehor, Williams, Burns, Kalinowski “The study identified 270 “cases” of sexual abuse in day care meaning 270 facilities where substantiated abuse had occurred involving a total of 1639 victimized children….This yielded an estimate of 500 to 550 reported and substantiated cases and 2500 victims for the three-year period. Although this is a large number, it must be put in the context of 229,000 day care facilities nationwide service seven million children….allegations of ritual abuse (“the invocation of religious, magical or supernatural symbols of activities”) occurred in 13% of the cases.” The authors divided these cases into “true cult-based ritual,” pseudo-ritualism” with a primary goal of sexual gratification and ritual being used to intimidate the children from disclosing and “psychopathological ritualism” the activities being “primarily the expression of an individuals obsessional or delusional system.”  https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/113095NCJRS.pdf

Journal Articles on Child and Ritual Abuse – Laurie Matthew

Laurie Matthew, Ian Barrow & Ann Hodson (2018): Perspectives of Young Child Abuse Survivors on Confidentiality: An Exploratory Literature Review, Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, DOI 10.1080/10538712.2018.1534918

ABSTRACT

The current systematic narrative literature review sought to discover the views of young child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors, unknown to child protection services, on confidentiality. Due to the paucity of research on young CSA survivors, the review was widened to include users of sexual health services. Seventeen databases were searched, and results were refined by reading titles and abstracts, followed by full text. Analysis involved an exploratory interpretist approach to identify conceptual themes and research methodologies. Fifteen published papers were identified. Research methods were narrow and included surveys, interviews, and focus groups, with limited youth participation. In addition to the theme of confidentiality essential to this study, themes identified included – needing accurate information about services, the importance of someone non-judgemental to talk to, control over decisions affecting their lives, and better access to services. Studies indicated young people were fearful of child protection involvement. In conclusion, studies suggest young survivors unknown to child protection services need a higher level of confidential services and more control of their information. Further research involving young survivors in participatory methods is needed to explore issues of confidentiality, survivor participation, and fear of child protection agencies.

Conclusion

The current review identified confidentiality as a significant issue for young survivors unknown to child protection services. Studies indicated that the parameters of confidentiality from services were often ambiguous. The importance of being believed, having someone non-judgemental, and confidential to talk to, along with time to build trust were recurring findings. Analysis of studies suggested a mistrust of authorities, fear of consequences,lack of information, shame, embarrassment, and fear of losing of control, inhibited young people from talking to child protection services. Instead, young people preferred support and information from friends and relatives. Methodologically, the review found that few studies asked young people’s views on confidentiality and none involved active participation as researchers. For those studies that did seek young people’s views, methods used covered a narrow range of traditional approaches.

Laurie Matthew & Ian G. Barron (2015) Participatory Action Research on Help-Seeking Behaviors of Self-Defined Ritual Abuse Survivors: A Brief Report, Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 24:4, 429-443, DOI: 10.1080/10538712.2015.1029104

The existence of ritual abuse is the subject of much debate. Ritual abuse survivor perceptions of seeking help have not been explored, and studies have yet to utilize self-defined survivors as collaborative researchers. This study addresses both issues. Participatory action research was utilized to design a survey and semistructured interview to investigate ritual abuse survivor experience of seeking help. Sixty-eight participants completed the survey, and 22 were interviewed. A group approach to thematic analysis aided validity and reliability. Participants reported experiencing disbelief and a lack of ritual abuse awareness and help from support services. In contrast, participatory action research was reported by participants as educative and emancipatory. Future research should explore the benefits of participatory action research for survivors of different forms of oppression.

Conclusions

The current study found survivors appeared to suffer from the continued polarized discourse around belief, memory, and mental illness. The researchers discovered that survivors reported low awareness of RA issues among professionals, which in turn resulted in services being perceived as poor. As a consequence, participants reported they were reluctant to reveal histories of RA due to anticipated negative reactions. The authors suggest there is a need for survivor agencies to raise awareness of issues for RA survivors, share the experiences of survivors, and encourage development of survivor-sensitive services. PAR appears to be an empowering process for self-defined survivors, resulting in new competencies, positive perceptions,and social supports as well as the development of new life opportunities. In terms of the process of PAR, survivor researchers were able to be critically reflect on (a) their experiences of seeking help; (b) the action they engaged in, such as the research process itself; and (c) the action participants engaged in beyond the study, such as real-life change and ongoing research. Despite these methodological challenges, PAR offers a promising approach to achieving social change through research and contributing to personal growth of participant researchers. Although this study has focused on ritual abuse, future PAR research with other survivor groups is likely to be applicable and worthwhile

Laurie Matthew, Ian Barrow & Ann Hodson (2019): Participatory Action Research: Confidentiality and Attitudes of Victimized Young People Unknown to Child Protection Agencies, International Journal on Child Maltreatment Research, Policy and Practice  https://doi.org/10.1007/s42449-019-00020-x

Abstract
This study explores views of young child abuse survivors, whose abuse was unknown to child protection, about confidentiality. Survivors involved with charity Eighteen And Under (n= 185) were invited to participate. A total of 140 participated. Eight aged 12–20, two males and 6 females chose involvement as researchers and participants and 132 aged 11–30, 25 males, 114 females and one non-gendered chose participant involvement. Eighty-five percent (n= 117) were survivors of child sexual abuse and 15% (n= 23) were survivors of child abuse. Utilizing participatory action research, researchers designed and analyzed qualitative and quantitative data gathered through surveys, interviews, focus groups, online-chats and graffiti walls. A social construction thematic approach analyzed data. Interrater reliability was maximized through independent data analysis. The results showed that participants, particularly males and under 16 s, wanted greater protection of confidentiality. Males were less likely to disclose sexual abuse. Two superordinate themes were identified: (a) limited confidentiality led to fear of loss of control and trust and (b) retractions of abuse and higher levels of confidentiality led to talking openly, feeling respected and believed and a sense of control and empowerment. Two further themes were identified from young researcher reports: improved self-esteem and positive life changes. In conclusion,young people unknown to services want greater confidentiality than is currently offered. Participative research was emancipatory, and further participatory research with young CSA survivors is needed.

Conclusion

      Young CSA survivors unknown to CPS wanted higher levels of confidentiality than they currently receive from services. Further, young people reported that lack of confidentiality was one of the reasons they did not disclose abuse to professionals. This study highlighted the importance of young CSA survivors building relationships based on trust in confidentiality, being believed and having adults available with a positive attitude who would not judge them. Staying in control was also important to the young survivors. Current CPS in the UK do not lend themselves to this, as prosecution is a key aim. It also tends not to prioritise the support needs of young people and can be harmful, while not always ending abuse. All of this, including abuse retractions and the reluctance of young survivors to disclose abuse to authorities, would indicate that something different is needed. Having the opportunity to access confidential services could help meet the needs of many young CSA survivors better and possibly lead to more positive outcomes.
Indications are that young CSA survivors, unknown to CPS, do not trust these systems in the UK. This perspective, coupled with survivors’ powerlessness when faced with professionals and protectionist arguments prevents young people remaining in control or gaining any say in decisions affecting them.
Involving young CSA survivors as researchers in research with other young CSA survivors allowed them to address issues that had affected them directly and brought their own expertise into the study in a way that has not been achieved before now. Survivors conducting research led to novel foci of research and outcomes. All young researchers reported feeling empowered and increased self-esteem and self-confidence.

All articles posted with written permission of the author.