Satanism and satanic ritual abuse. Stemming from the 1991 Orkney satanic ritual abuse scandal, and further reinforced by the documentary “Accused” broadcast on BBC2 in 2006, the general view is that such things don’t happen, and never happened.
The Establishment (by that I mean the police, social workers, teaching profession, parliament and the Church of England) view is that Satanism and satanic ritual abuse are a myth. This view was, and still is, founded on the report “THE EXTENT AND NATURE OF ORGANISED AND RITUAL ABUSE (Prof. J LaFontaine) 1994”.
For practitioners of “alternative” rituals, such as myself, this is a good thing. Around the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, most self-styled pagans, new-age witches, druids, nature-worshippers, etc. were in a state of paranoia, as a holy alliance of evangelical Christian sects sought to discredit anti-establishment spiritual practices as cruel and abusive Satanism.
Now, most people smile benignly at a bunch of hippies round a bonfire, and only the few extreme evangelical sects get the jitters. Not that they’re overly concerned, as their primary focus now is to stem the tide of Islam, the latest “Devil’s work”.
Unfortunately, this is also good news for those who abuse children and vulnerable adults: surround the abuse with a few whacky rituals and nobody in authority will believe the victims or bother to investigate further.
Now, I’m not somebody who thinks that there’s a vast satanic conspiracy to hijack parliament, police, church and monarchy. However, it is undeniable that, every so often, individuals will turn up in mental institutions in a state of terror, complaining of being pursued by, or imprisoned by, or abused by, Satanists.
If I were a psychiatrist, or a psychologist, would I believe them? Of course not. These are classic signs of paranoid schizophrenia.
On the other hand, state-employed front-line mental health workers have a different experience. The following is a précis of several brief conversations with a psychotherapist with experience in the field:
“There is nothing a Satanist fears so much as their activities becoming known to the authorities. When one of their number arrives at mental health services, because their trauma has rendered them unable to function, it is a cause of great concern to them. One may at first dismiss the tales of occult ceremonies, rituals and related rapes and abuse, as fantasy, the sick products of a sick mind. The physical scars may be dismissed as inflicted by the patient themselves, to add credence to the patient’s own paranoid fantasy.
“However, when files start disappearing from locked filing cabinets … when one starts to receive death threats on one’s home phone … when one reports to the police that the individual may be at risk, but nothing happens … then one can only conclude that there is more truth to some of these stories than one may be comfortable with.
“Psychologists who deal with victims of satanic ritual abuse take it in turns. It is too traumatic, and plain dangerous, for one person to specialise in this area full time.”
Satanists are power-hungry. Not in the traditional, Faustian, sense of trading one’s soul for earthly power and riches. But in the individual sense, of enjoying having moment-by-moment power over individuals. The ability to inflict terrible cruelty on a person, repeatedly, with no fear of retribution.
It’s the kind of power that the worst slave-owners enjoyed, as immortalised in the 1970s book and TV series “Roots”. To rape, whip, beat, order about, transport, maim and even kill, with impunity. Where such behaviour is legal, there is no shortage of people prepared to exemplify it. Where such behaviour suddenly becomes illegal, it doesn’t simply stop.
So what is it with the ritual thing? Well, as Catherine Bell’s sociological/anthropological deconstruction of ritual demonstrates, it is an activity that is easily used to gain power over individuals. One only has to look at the power wielded by spiritual leaders such as the Pope, power which is largely maintained through ritual, to see how this can work.
If one enjoys such power, then ritual is an easy way to gain it. If one is conducting such rituals, then it helps to have something to worship. In a nominally Christian country where child sexual abuse is both outlawed and villified, the obvious candidate is the Devil. Hey presto! One has satanic ritual abuse.
