Satanism may help to explain why their outwardly good and religious parents did such terrible things to them in the privacy of their home. It may be that we should anticipate that individuals severely abused as very young children by multiple offenders with fear as the primary controlling tactic will distort and embellish their victimization. I do not believe it is a coincidence nor the result of deliberate planning by satanists that in almost all the cases of ritual abuse that have come to my attention, the abuse is alleged to have begun prior to the age of seven and perpetrated by multiple offenders. It may well be that such abuse, at young age by multiple offenders, is the most difficult to accurately recall with the specific and precise detail needed by the criminal justice system, and the most likely to be distorted and exaggerated when it is recalled. The third possible answer may be normal childhood fears and fantasy .
Most young children are afraid of ghosts and monsters.
Even as adults, many people feel uncomfortable, for example, about dangling their arms over the side of their bed. While young children may rarely invent stories about sexual activity, they might describe their victimization in terms of evil as they understand it. In church or at home, children may be told of satanic activity as the source of evil. Children do fantasize. Expecting young children to give accurate accounts of sexual activity for which they have little frame of reference is unreasonable.