From: aw@sei.cmu.edu (Anne Wulffraat)
Subject: Re: "Satanic Ritual Abuse"
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 14:23:01 EST


Hello. For those who've been here long enough to remember me, I am Anika.
This is a little out of date, but I need to say this.

May I quote:


08-Jan-93 03:22	cburian@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Christopher J Burian)	Re: "Satanic Ritual Abuse" in the media
>
>kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>
>>                                                  (Some of the
>>psychotherapists claim that tens or even hundreds of thousands of
>      /\ 
>       Insert space here... 
>
>>ritual murders are involved.)

I used to be very (fairly) active on this board, but left a few weeks ago when
I felt my problems would no longer be heard here because of posts like this.

I don't appreciate your explicit assumption that people who believe these
things happen are mentally ill. 
I don't know where you develop your ideas that these things are
patently impossible. *Maybe* sometimes they're overblown, but to say they
don't exist? Who are you to say you know everything that happens in this
country or on this planet? How can you know for a fact these things *don't*
happen? I know that as survivors, we like to believe we have *some* control.
And I think we do. But that doesn't mean the world is as good a place as we'd
like to believe. If a man sees a child as an object for his gratification
only, enough to molest him, what's the great step to killing? To this person,
you're not a human being, you're a toy. An object and nothing more. There are
many people (look how many of *us* there are) who view children/people this
way. If they can join together under the guise of a religion, who knows what
atrocities they're capable of?

I think this whole topic was unfairly branded Satanism. I've looked through
the original posts and seen "ritual abuse" but nothing about Satanism. There
are groups that can be called cults, that may consider themselves religious,
but despite the "bad" things they do, *they* do not think they're worshipping
satan. At risk of getting way off the track, there are youth gangs in the
inner cities. Sometimes membership "rights" include randomly killing someone.
These groups have a value system, membership "rituals", and they engage in
acts of random and intentional hostility and violence. What I am saying is
that there are other groups, more private, that also have a value system,
membership rights and "rituals", and whose members are also hurtful - abusive,
and yes, murderous. I don't know that the cult itself might necessarily be
murderous, but certain members may very well be. If you become a member of a
group that sets your "dark side" free, who's to say how it will effect your
life outside the group? Anyway, these groups can certainly be classified under
ritual abuse because the abuse is part of the ritual. This does not mean they
are Satanists, that they work under the protection of a supernatural power or
that they are purely evil individuals. 

I feel strongly about this because I know someone who was the member of a group
that wanted to adopt pagan customs. They were not pagans, but they had meeting
in the woods by firelight, and they enjoyed making it as eerie as possible:
chanting, wearing cloaks, the whole works. The group was receptive to sexual
abuse, though I'm not certain it was an accepted standard of the group, and
a member, on his own, murdered a little boy. This was not an act of the
group, but to him, it was a ritual from which he derived great pleasure.

Unpleasant as it may be, I strongly recommend that you keep in mind that
humanity can be very very cruel. Whether they act individually or as a group,
whether they murder or molest, people can be ugly. This doesn't mean people
*are* ugly. It means that some *can be*. Please don't make a laughing matter
out of a serious issue. There are people here who have been hurt by the mob
mentality that is prevalent in these groups, and that is valid. Please keep at
least this space safe for them.

							Anika



Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery