All Stories

How to Stop Cult Activity

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:49:20 +1100

In such a highly technological society as the United States, many of the issues the public faces are complex, even overwhelming. As a result, many people long for a simpler way of life, one that provides easy answers to all of life's problems.

The desire to believe in something magical, special, even supernatural can be great. Many people want to believe in something not easily explained by science or easily packaged and marketed by big business. Such psychological neediness can drive vulnerable persons into joining cults.

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Instructions

1.
Step 1

The first step towards fighting cult activity in one's community is recognition. Cults can be organized around almost any area of human activity: there are financial cults, political cults, religious cults, and even sex cults. And, it must be noted that even in many churches, corporations, political parties, and other groups, elements of cult-like behavior can be found. There are several charcteristics common to cults. Most cults are organized in a rigidly hierarchal structure, typically around a single, supreme leader or prophet. There is an extreme demand for unity and agreement among the members to adhere to the dictates of the leader. Alternative or dissident thinking is discouraged, even ostracized and punished. Irrespective of any calls to nationalism, patriotism, or general flag-waving, cults are, by definition, totalitarian and anti-democratic. Another prominent feature of most cults is the demand for commitment of energy, income, and time from the followers. Followers will be asked to donate a significant portion of income to the group and to participate in every activity as ordered. Likewise, critical evaluation of the tenets of the cult is strictly prohibited. Followers are to believe what they are told no matter how improbable or outlandish. Only the leadership is permitted to create ideology and to interpret it into action, even to the absurd extreme of demanding actions that might clearly violate previously stated tenets. If properly considered, many common corporations and political parties possess similar characteristics of cults.
2.
Step 2

Understand the threat. Cults not only create hardship for the followers who already believe; they also remove resources from the local community. The finances and the property that get tied up in cults could be used to benefit the community. Likewise, cult members, having distanced or even separated themselves from the local community, are no longer available to participate in community activities. The cult then can best be understood as a parasitic organism that not only lives off of communities; it also weakens them.
3.
Step 3

Inform the public. Gather information about the local cult activity; pay special attention to the cult's activities, beliefs, finances, and structure. Carefully note who in the cult profits most from maintaining the cult as it is. Speak to community leaders and civic organizations, law enforcement, and the general public about the negative impact of the cult in the community. Write letters to the editors of area newspapers. Record editorials for radio and television outlets. Start a blog. Post signs where permitted. Lease billboards. Walk door to door if necessary to spread the word about cult activity. Assemble a team of like-minded individuals to assist in these activities.
4.
Step 4

Focus the spotlight of attention on specific cult activity. Report to law enforcement and/or city government any and all infractions of the law. Criminal activities, such as any activity that endangers the health of minors or even adult members, must be reported at once. However, be sure to also report zoning violations. These can include such things as If the cult has too many members living on one property or if the cult is using the property in a way that is hazardous to the community and the environment. Any known violations of tax law should be reported.
5.
Step 5

Single out the leadership. Gather as much information about cult leaders as possible, specifically financial details regarding assets, income, and property holdings. Other valuable information may include arrest record, marital history, number of children, and other potentially incriminating information. Disseminate this information to community leaders and the public at large as soon as the information can be verified as true. Factual information is a defense that cults are typically unable to overcome.
6.
Step 6

Take legal action. Organize like-minded individuals to file a lawsuit to stop every action the cult proposes that may impact the community. Assist ex-cult members in suing the cult for harm it has caused to them and their families.
7.
Step 7

Political actions can include lobbying the city and/or county council to tighten zoning codes and ordinances, increase environmental quality standards, even increase taxes for organizations in such a manner that the cult is specifically impacted.
8.
Step 8

Organize social pressure. The simple fact is restaurants always reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Grocery stores do not have to sell products to every person. Doctors are not obligated to treat everyone. Even school children cannot be made to play with children they do not like. Get the community involved and turn up the heat against the cult and every single one of its members. Publicly humiliate and insult cult members every single time they are encountered. Make daily life as close to impossible as possible. By summoning the courage of individuals in the community to shun cult members and to deny them services, the cult, much like a cancer treated with strong medicine, will contract from the community. With sufficient hardship encountered, the cult will at the very least leave the community.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5952342_stop-...ivity.html

SURVIVORSHIP WEBINARS

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 11:22:58 +1100

Survivorship is happy to announce a series of Webinars and Teleconferences on various aspects of ritual abuse and healing. Webinars are seminars on the Web – basically, conference calls plus slides. Teleconferences are conference calls; sometimes they are accompanied by slides on the Survivorship website. Both can have question and answer periods. They are like presentations at a conference, except there is no travel involved!

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This is how it works. You call a certain number, you are connected to the conference call, and you listen to the presenter over your phone. If it's a Webinar, you see slides or other documents on your computer. There is also a chat feature.

Hopefully, this new technology will be an effective way of imparting information and building bridges between people who cannot meet in person. We hope that many of you will participate and some will be inspired to give Webinars or Teleconferences on aspects of ritual abuse, mind control, and healing that are of particular interest to you. Remember, we are all experts, we all have something to contribute, and together we are writing the “instruction manual” for healing!

SCHEDULE

March 13
12 noon Pacific time
“Art and Activism: What the Public Sees.”
Lynn Schirmer

Lynn Schirmer spent the last five years presenting her experience of extreme abuse, expressed through her artwork, to largely incredulous audiences. She will share anecdotes of successes and failures and her thoughts on which approaches seem most effective in attempts to educate the public and others in her community. She will show photos of her most recent bodies of work, including larger than life sculpture, drawing, and painting. (Please note, this imagery may be upsetting and/or triggering.)

Lynn is an artist and survivor of ritual abuse-torture and trauma-based mind control. She holds regular open studios where she engages audiences about the reality of extreme abuse and tax-funded exploitation of children and adults. Her work has been exhibited in several cities in the US and in France. Her professional art website is: http://LynnSchirmer.com/ and her personal website is: http://lynnsart.net

Saturday, April 17
12 noon Pacific time
"Healthy Supportive Relationships – What They Are, How to Make One."
Kitty Downey

What does a healthy supportive relationship look like? What are warning signs of a non-healthy relationship? What can I do about the relationship I'm in now?

Kitty is a survivor of mind control, hypnosis, amateur programming, and some kind of government research/testing. She has been learning and healing for many decades using psychotherapy, faith, music, and self-help techniques. She has applied this learning to her husband, children, friends, and extended family – seeing what makes some relationships work, some *not* work, and how to improve the dysfunctional ones.

Saturday, May 15
12 noon Pacific time
"Riding off into the Sunrise."
Celestial

"Riding off into the Sunrise" shares the landscape of long-haul recovery after those first ten years. Our reflexes and defenses can become slightly less alienating and unmanageable, and we can find ourselves turning them into a source of strength and specialness – and even humor.

By day, Celestial is a mild-mannered churchlady who listens to and helps people all day long. By night, Celestial is a mild-mannered churchlady who collects recovery stories in various languages, then puts them into writing and pictures and standup comedy and music and green health drinks and gives them away. Her favorite foods are mac and cheese and tollhouse cookies, but instead she eats a lot of kale.

PAST WEBINARS
Survivorship members may listen to past Webinars in the members’ section. (For information on joining Survivorship, click here.) Past Webinars include:
“Hope, Healing and Help through Music and Advocacy.”
Mike Skinner
“Understanding Nazi Influence in Ritual Abuse.”
Alik of the OwlClan
“Sensory and Emotional Flashbacks.”
Jeannie Riseman
“The Intersection between Ritual Abuse and Physical Disability.”
Lara BSW
“Forgiving the Unforgivable: One Survivor’s Journey to Peace ”
Bonnie Bazill-Davis
“How Survivors Can Help Their Own Cases for Disability Application and Appeal.”
Pam Perskin Noblitt
“Empowerment and Managing the Effects of Programming.”
Randy Noblitt, Ph.D.
“Normal Guilt, Guilt Induced by Extreme Abuse, and Some Suggestions for Working with Guilt.”
Jeannie Riseman

PRIVACY CONCERNS
As always, the information you send Survivorship in order to register is kept strictly confidential. No record is kept of your phone number. You choose what name to go by for the Webinar or Teleconference: it does not have to be your real name or message board screen name.

The presentation will be recorded and posted on our website so that you can hear it again. When you call into join, you are asked to agree to being recorded, but of course you will not be recorded unless you speak during a question and answer period.

SELF CARE
We have received feedback that hearing other survivors’ voices is a very emotional experience. Think about ways to take care of yourself afterwards in case you have this reaction or in case the material presented stirs up issues.

EQUIPMENT NEEDED
If you have DSL:
Windows XP SP2, 2003, Vista, LINUX, or Mac OSX or higher
Firefox 2 or 3, Internet Exploror 6 or 7, or Safari
Flash Player 9 (available for free: download at
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer
A cell or conventional phone to hear the audio portion.
If you have dial up, you may use your phone for the audio
portion but you will be unable to see the slides or participate in the chat.

COST
Each Webinar is $20.00, plus the cost of your telephone call. (Figure on an hour and a half to two hours.) There are a limited number of full and partial scholarships available.

REGISTRATION
After we have received your registration and payment, you will receive a confirming e-mail, detailed instructions, and an invitation with the phone number to call and the password to enter the Webinar. (Each Webinar will have its own password.)

To reserve a space in the Webinar, e-mail at shamai@survivorship.org and give her this information:

1. Your name

2. The Webinar(s) you wish to attend

3. Method of payment

4. Whether you need a full or partial scholarship
(You may use PayPal for partial scholarships)

5. Your preferred e-mail address (so we can send you instructions and an invitation containing the password)

6. Your time zone (The conference software automatically adjusts the time for us)

7. The name you will be using for the Webinar

You can do one of the internal links to Registration, or if you are paying by check or money order, send payment to:

SURVIVORSHIP
Family Justice Center
470 27th Street,
Oakland, CA 94612

If you are paying with PayPal, use the buttons below.

http://survivorship.org/webinars.html

Is your church a cult?

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 11:18:47 +1100

Church Team Ministeries International is luring young unsuspecting youth into a faith that falls in line with the basic tenets of a so called cult. Usually one associates cults with some wacky American religious group and not one that operates around the corner and are targeting church's in Pietermaritzburg and top schools in the area.

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What I find more disturbing is that the basic tenets of a cult show up markedly in many church's I have attended in my life. I will not mention names as this would not be fair. But it is fair to say that many church's around the corner express these criteria:

1. Claim exclusivity that they are the only true church. Whether stated directly or indirectly the the subtle innuendo is that other church's don't have what it takes.
2. The authority of the elders and leaders is sacrosanct. One doesn't challenge them as they are the purveyors of truth. How many services have you attended where the uncritical congregation nod their heads after every utterance from the pulpit.
3. Limit the education of their congregation in order to keep things in house. They never attach themselves to a credible seminary or University for study.
4. Start interfering in how youngsters date and go about courtship. The church takes on a controlling influence in the emotions of youngsters.
5. Start creating barriers between the members and their family members who do not belong to their church. Creating social discourse that alienates and estranges folk from each other.

I don't know about you but I see it everywhere I look?

The Witness - article
Mnet - Carte Blanche research

http://barbourblog.blogspot.com/2010/...-cult.html

The Hard Facts about Satanic Ritual Abuse

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:55:44 +1100

Bob and Gretchen Passantino

The Hard Facts about Satanic Ritual Abuse

A teenage girl, who was impregnated during a satanic ritual, is forcibly delivered of her nearly term baby and then made to ritually kill the child and eat its heart as cult members watch. Another girl, a small child, is sewn inside the cavity of a disemboweled animal and "rebirthed" by her cultic captors in a grotesque ceremony. A preschool class is systematically abused — sexually, emotionally, and physically — by members of a nationwide, nearly invincible network of satanic pedophiles and pornographers. A young girl is thrown into an electrified cage with wolves and ritually tortured to deliberately produce a "wolf personality," part of her multiple personality disorder (MPD; see glossary).

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These are but a few of the thousands of horrifying stories circulating throughout the United States and abroad.1 Some true believers (see glossary) in satanic ritual abuse (SRA) say that more than 100,000 "adult survivors" have undergone therapy and "remembered" these horrible abuses.2 Others more than double this number.3 These terrifying accounts are linked to the current public concern about child abductions by strangers, which true believers claim number in the thousands annually.4 True believers say the conspiracy5 is almost invincible, covers the nation (if not the world), and involves key power players in the courts, education, politics, religion, and society in general.

True believers provide unconditional support to alleged adult survivors whose therapeutically recovered "memories" typically implicate their elderly parents in heinous crimes including murder, cannibalism, sexual torture, incest, and bestiality. Some alleged victims bring their cases to law enforcement officials, hoping for criminal prosecution. Some obtain restraining orders barring their parents from seeing them or their grandchildren. Some cut all ties with family and simply disappear. A few begin new lives as television and radio talk show guests, sharing their gruesome stories from coast to coast during after-school television time. Almost all are in the midst of long-term, intensive therapeutic counseling. Many undergo dozens of psychiatric hospitalizations and take part in almost daily therapy sessions and support group meetings. Tragically, small children are sometimes snatched from their parents' custody on the whisper of a suspicion that the parents may be SRA participants.6

True believers among therapists, alleged adult survivors, law enforcement officials, journalists, and Christian leaders unanimously call for the public to believe the stories, to change the justice system so recovered "memories" alone can bring convictions in criminal court, and to rise up against this astonishingly powerful satanic conspiracy.

If the alleged victims' allegations are true, then such reactions are to be expected. If they are false, then countless families and reputations are being destroyed for nothing, truth is being ignored, biblical standards of evidence and testimony are being discarded, "survivors" are being trapped in long-term, destructive therapeutic situations, and Satan is getting more credit than he is due. In this article we will move beyond sensationalism and emotionalism to take a serious look at SRA stories and theories.7

THE HISTORY OF SRA REPORTS8

Until the early 1980s, law enforcement officials, the media, religious researchers, and sociologists recognized four main categories of contemporary Satanism: (1) teenage self-styled, or dabblers; (2) adult self-styled; (3) religious or public; and (4) small group.9 Before this time, the idea of a widespread, almost invincible, multi-generational satanic conspiracy was not entertained any more seriously than ideas of UFO abduction conspiracies. During the early 1980s, however, several factors combined to provide fertile ground for the growth of SRA reports.

First, cohabitation and divorce rates skyrocketed, producing fragmented family units, single-parent families, families "blended" by divorce and remarriage, and many families with no daytime adult supervision of children. This situation provided pressure toward dysfunctional behavior (e.g., neglect, abuse, incest) in intact families. It also created the setting in broken families for a significant rise in custody disputes, child abandonment, spouse and even child accusations against the nonsupportive spouse, and other manipulative actions.10

Second, in the eyes of many people, the mental health community became an authoritative "discerner" of truth. This community also expanded during those years to include many different kinds of counselors, including licensed therapists, social workers, lay counselors, peer counselors, support group members and leaders, and pastoral counselors, as well as psychiatrists and psychologists. Many people assumed that any of these counselors, no matter what their training, should invariably be able to tell if a client is telling the truth.11

Third, an increased interest in women's rights issues and in religious activism caused a greater awareness of, and vigorous opposition to, both pornography and the physical and sexual abuse of children. While women's rights advocates and evangelical activists frequently opposed each other's goals and beliefs, they united to protect the victims of pornography and child abuse. This heightened concern generated special interest groups and experts who — usually with the best of intentions — still needed to find a danger of sufficient depth and breadth to warrant large commitments of time, legislation, and funding for their causes.12

Fourth, a significant segment of American evangelicalism developed a complex satanic end-times view, combining the 1970s "deliverance" ministries with "newspaper prophecy" theology. While the end-times speculators of the 1970s pointed primarily at the rebirth of the nation of Israel as a sign that Christ's Second Coming was near, the speculators of the 80s also emphasized the rise of destructive occult activity as a sign that the end was imminent.13 In Mike Warnke's testimony of his purported former involvement with Satanism, The Satan Seller, he claimed that in 1965 he led a group of 1,500 Satanists in a desert area of Southern California, and that he was "part of a deep and widespread organization, operating not only in the U.S., but all over the world."14

Each of these four developments — family disintegration, diffusion in the mental health community, activist opposition to victimization, and an evangelical expectation of increasing occult activity — provided the nutrients for the development of SRA reports in the 1980s. The first publicized case was that of Michelle Smith. An emotionally dysfunctional woman at the time, Smith claimed to discover — with the help of her therapist (and later husband) Lawrence Pazder — previously repressed early childhood memories of horrible physical and sexual abuse. The abuse was inflicted in a bizarre secret satanic cult whose members included her immediate family.

No corroborative evidence for this shocking account was obtained, said Smith and Pazder, for a variety of reasons. First, by its very nature, a conspiracy's activities are secret and unknown. Second, the cultists planted disinformation, such as wrong dates, in her memory. Third, the almost invincible cult destroyed the evidence of its crimes. And fourth, some of the very people to whom Smith could turn for help were themselves involved in the conspiracy. Nevertheless, the couple claimed that Pazder's therapeutic expertise established Smith's story as true.

Almost all of the subsequent SRA stories have followed the same pattern sparked by Warnke's The Satan Seller and developed in Smith and Pazder's book, Michelle Remembers.

SRA REPORTS

Typical SRA stories display certain essential elements that remain uniform whether the story is "discovered" by a therapist, a social worker, or a parent, and whether the victim is an adult or a child.

The Victims. The adult victim15 is commonly a white woman between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five who has a history of nonspecific psychological problems (which may include suicide attempts). She is herself either intensely religious (usually evangelical or charismatic Protestant) or comes from an intensely religious background. The typical adult victim is highly suggestible,16 intelligent, creative, and well learned if not well educated in a formal sense. The victim first seeks counseling help for a problem seemingly unrelated to occultic abuse. From our own conversations with dozens of alleged adult survivors, we feel comfortable in affirming that the vast majority of them sincerely believe their stories, although sincerity cannot determine a story's veracity.

Child victims are not so easily characterized, though most are highly motivated to please adults, intelligent, and loyal to the supportive parent. Perhaps this lack of a consistent profile is because children's disclosures of SRA almost always follow questioning by worried parents or mental health workers. (It is noteworthy that the supportive parent often has characteristics in common with the typical adult victim.) If the child discloses SRA inflicted by an immediate family member, it is typically in a divorce or separation situation where the accused is the nonsupportive parent or one of the nonsupportive parent's relatives.17

The Victimizers. The alleged adult survivor's immediate family members are usually identified as the perpetrators — even if the victim may see them as former victims turned satanic victimizers due to their own trauma. When the immediate family is not involved — as in many of the children's stories, but almost none of the adult survivor stories — caregivers in regular custody of the victim are seen as the perpetrators (e.g., preschool teachers, day-care workers). Importantly, the hypothetical psychological profile of the SRA perpetrator actually contradicts the most common features of known physical and sexual abusers, psychotics, sociopaths, pornographers, and serial killers — creating serious doubt that such a perpetrator exists.18

Types of Abuse. SRA includes emotional abuse (terrifying threats, deliberate heightening of fear, etc.), sexual abuse (incest, mutilation of genitals, etc.), other physical abuse (beating, cutting, etc.), and spiritual abuse (taunts that God has rejected them, He won't forgive them, Jesus is defeated, etc.).

The ritual elements of the abuse are always satanic or occultic. Features of satanic ceremony folklore — such as the black mass, human sacrifice, drinking of blood, and satanic symbols — are common. However, victims typically cannot recount the intricacies of occult rituals beyond what is commonly found in satanically oriented material available in general bookstores,19 or what they have heard from other victims or therapists.

SRA Disclosure. Usually adult SRA stories are disclosed during counseling or some other therapeutic setting. The adult victim generally begins therapy for a seemingly unrelated problem such as a sleep or eating disorder, depression, or marital difficulties. During the course of treatment, either the therapist or the client raises the possibility of repressed memories of SRA. With sensationalistic reports of SRA scattered throughout the media, few clients or therapists have not heard something of SRA and its horrors.

At first the client may deny a past history of SRA, or may not remember anything, or may have fragments of almost meaningless images that might somehow relate to SRA. However, after long-term, intensive treatment by a therapist committed to believing the client no matter what he or she discloses, the alleged adult survivor gradually pieces together a complex personal SRA history. Ordinarily the therapist decides that the repression was facilitated by the dissociative state known as multiple personality disorder (MPD). After further long-term, intensive therapy and support group involvement, including "abreacting" (see glossary) or "reliving" each of the traumatic "memories", the client may become emotionally well.20

The child who discloses an SRA story almost always does so at the prompting of a parent or mental health professional.21 Such disclosures most often come after frequent, prolonged questioning. And most frequently the child identifies the perpetrator as a day-care worker or other regular, nonfamily care giver. When family members are accused, they are most likely the parents of the spouse other than the one reporting the abuse, or a parent or stepparent who is estranged from the family.

Accusations against public officials, entertainment personalities, neighbors, or other, more distant adults usually come only after the case has been sensationalized and the child has been questioned incessantly about "the others" involved in the abuse. Children are much less likely to be diagnosed with MPD. The common presumption is that they are terrified to tell their stories, not that they have repressed their memories of SRA.

Adults who suspect that they or their children may be SRA victims are urged by true believers to seek help and affirmation from therapists, friends, support groups, and family members who will believe them unconditionally. Whether their accounts are true or not, this reinforcement and isolation from critical thinking intensifies the victims' beliefs concerning SRA.22

The SRA Conspiracy. The typical SRA story includes strong commitment to a conspiracy theory of history. That is, the victimization is seen not as the isolated action of a psychotic or sociopathic individual, but as part of a widespread, multigenerational, and nearly omnipotent satanic conspiracy. This conspiracy involves anywhere from thousands to millions of cultists — many of them in the very highest levels of society, including government, law enforcement, mental health institutions, and even religious leadership. We have heard SRA stories accusing famous televangelists, police chiefs, FBI agents, the Pope, CIA leaders, U.N. diplomats, millionaires, philanthropists, pastors, school teachers and principals, psychiatrists, and others. Such a conspiratorial view accomplishes two very important objectives: (1) it accounts for the absolute lack of corroborative evidence of SRA;23 and (2) it accounts for a number of popularly assumed social ills, such as thousands of missing children and rampant child sexual abuse in day care centers.

SRA CONSPIRACIES AND EVIDENCE

When SRA stories initially surfaced in the early 1980s — first with Michelle Remembers, then followed by the McMartin preschool case in Southern California and the Bakersfield, California and Jordan, Minnesota cases — many journalists, law enforcement personnel, and mental health professionals tended to believe that SRA might exist. We know that horrible people do terrible things to others, that people often conspire, that there really are Satanists, and that abuse sometimes happens within some sort of ritual context.24 However, when dozens of stories multiplied into hundreds and then thousands of stories, none of which produced a single piece of corroborative evidence, some former believers became healthy skeptics.

Supervisory Special Agent Kenneth Lanning, of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, has investigated over 300 SRA reports and has yet to find corroborative evidence. While still affirming his willingness to look for and find such hypothetical evidence, Lanning points out the problems inherent in the standard SRA conspiracy theory:

Any professional evaluating victims' allegations of ritualistic abuse cannot ignore the lack of physical evidence (no bodies or physical evidence left by violent murders), the difficulty in successfully committing a large-scale conspiracy crime (the more people involved in any crime conspiracy, the harder it is to get away with it), and human nature (intragroup conflicts resulting in individual self-serving disclosures are likely to occur in any group involved in organized kidnapping, baby breeding, and human sacrifice).25

SRA "Proofs." True believers, as we already stated, usually offer four main arguments in defense of SRA: (1) all conspiracies are by definition secret and unknown; (2) evidence against an SRA story actually constitutes proof for it, since Satanists plant false evidence as part of their conspiracy; (3) only a conspiracy such as that described by true believers has the capability of destroying all the evidence; and (4) the very people who should be fighting the SRA conspiracy are actually part of it. To these can be added: (5) only therapists can determine whether victims are telling the truth; (6) children (whether physiological children or the fractured "child" personalities of an MPD client) don't lie about such things, and no one would make up such horrific tales; (7) the accused perpetrators' refusal to confess shows the depths of depravity to which they have descended; (8) nondeterminative (i.e., inconclusive) evidence validates the conspiracy (e.g., what a true believer calls an abuse scar a skeptic calls an appendix operation scar); (9) individual occult-related criminal acts validate the whole conspiracy scenario; and (10) the conspiracy explains the purported abduction of thousands of children each year.

Trying to Disprove a Negative. In addition to these ten lines of support for SRA conspiracy theories, true believers often demand that doubters disprove their theory. In other words, unless the investigator can deliver overwhelming, unequivocal evidence that the conspiracy can't possibly exist, the true believer will consider his own view vindicated. This approach matches the absurdity of requiring a man, charged at random, to prove he didn't kill a given murder victim last July 24. (Fortunately, our justice system is based on the premise that one is innocent until proven guilty.) In the same manner, the more reasonable theory should be adopted unless there is overwhelming evidence in favor of the more bizarre. The "evidence" in favor of SRA conspiracies is negligible, not overwhelming.

FALLACIES OF THE SRA CONSPIRACY THEORY

Logical examination of these ten "proofs" quickly reveals their fatal flaws. First, while conspiracies are certainly secret, they cannot continue to exist and function in an open society without leaving a trail. For example, the FBI may not have known how extensive the Mafia's network was until years of painstaking investigation and the confessions of some members revealed the truth, but the Mafia left plenty of physical evidence in the form of homicides, gun battles, arson cases, beatings, and a host of other illegal activities. No one has found Teamster's boss Jimmy Hoffa's body, but the evidence that he existed is beyond dispute.

Statistically speaking, the invincible secrecy that would be necessary to conceal widespread SRA is impossible. Let's suppose there are 100,000 adult survivors, who represent only a small subgroup of the conspiracy. They are the ones who: were not killed; eventually escaped the cult's control; got into therapy; "remembered" their abuse; and were then willing to tell others about it. If we conservatively peg the average number of abusive events per survivor at fifty, that would give us 5,000,000 criminal events over the last fifty years in America alone. And not a shred of corroborative evidence?

Contrary Evidence. There are several problems with the second "proof." Evidence against a story, if gathered professionally and examined objectively, is just that: evidence against a story, not evidence for it. To offer only one explanation for contrary evidence is to commit what is known as the either/or (disjunctive) fallacy. For example, if an alleged adult survivor's story of being an only child is contradicted by proof that her older sister lived with her until she was a teenager,26 the true believer would have us believe that the contrary evidence can only be explained as evidence for victimization. Perhaps (the true believer reasons) the victim was so traumatized that she repressed the memory of her sister, or perhaps the Satanists deliberately manipulated her memory in some way. The true believer will totally ignore the much more likely alternative that the SRA conspiracy scenario is just as untrue as the "only child" memory. Without some objective proof for the story, suspicions of tampering with other parts of the evidence are groundless.

Missing Evidence. The third argument, a variation on the second, falls into the same either/or fallacy. The true believer accepts only one possible reason that there is no evidence: obviously, only a conspiracy as big as the SRA stories depict could destroy everything. However, in reality there are at least two possible reasons for a lack of evidence. Besides the one suggested by true believers, the other is that the theory is not true. The facts of the case do not change; one's presupposition determines how one will interpret the lack of evidence. This, then, is not a proof, and certainly not evidence; it is a subjective belief.27

Paranoia. The fourth argument, which accuses those who disagree of being co-conspirators, stretches the true believers' credibility and, without warrant for such charges, dwindles to paranoid name calling. Lanning described this vulnerability well, saying, "Another very important aspect of this paranoia is the belief that those who do not recognize the threat are evil and corrupt. In this extreme view, you are either with them or against them. You are either part of the solution or part of the problem."28

Ph.Deities. The fifth way true believers attempt to support the SRA conspiracy theory betrays a naivete and misplaced trust in authority, if not self-aggrandizement on the part of true-believer therapists. Therapists do not have some sort of omniscient capacity to determine who is recounting reality and who is ascribing reality to fantasy. As one forensic psychologist joked, "They sound more like Ph.Deities than therapists!"

Children Do Not Always Tell the Truth. The sixth claim, that children (or childlike MPD manifestations) don't lie about abuse, gained popularity during the early 1980s as part of the child protection movement. This belief is heavily promoted by many of the most vocal child protection advocates, even though some, such as UCLA psychiatrist Roland Summit, admit that there are no controlled studies to validate it.29

Another major problem with accurately discerning the veracity of SRA stories is that psychological models used to understand the dynamics of ordinary child abuse are superimposed on alleged SRA victims without demonstrating that such a transference is valid. One such model proposed by Summit, the "child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome," asserts that children who have been abused are characteristically reluctant to disclose, and often recant, their stories. Summit and other therapists even use the accommodation syndrome to determine whether or not a child has been abused. This may have limited validity in an incest situation involving an intact family in which the revelation of child abuse may cause both the perpetrator's removal from the family and recriminations from other relatives. However, as Lee Coleman notes, it is worse than useless "in cases in which the perpetrator is a non-supported outsider or a non-custodial parent accused by the custodial parent."30

No one wants to minimize the pain, trauma, and terror that child victims of any kind suffer. However, nonabused children become victims of misdirected intervention when they are treated as though they have been abused and so become convinced they were abused.

It is considered more incredible that someone would lie or invent stories about bizarre ritual abuse than it would be for such abuse to have actually occurred. Some true believer therapists have developed variations of this idea, such as psychiatrist Bennet Braun's "rule of five": if he hears of the same abuse scenario from five different clients who have no known common association, he accepts that scenario as authentic.31 Such a fallacy of credulity, however, ignores the many possible sources of co-contamination among therapists, clients, the media, and so forth; the possible reasons one could believe and/or tell a story that is not true; and the fact that some SRA accounts have been proven to be false. Clients who unknowingly told vivid, yet false, stories have been reported. The causes for this are often broadly described as "directive therapy."32 Often the controversial practice of hypnotism is used, sometimes with clearly false results.33 Several experts — including one of the nation's leading MPD specialists, psychiatrist George Ganaway,34 and a leading hypnosis expert, psychologist Nicholas Spanos35 — have linked high suggestibility (which includes susceptibility to hypnosis) to claims of MPD and alleged adult survivor SRA stories.

Sometimes inadvertent hypnosis or self-hypnosis can have tragic consequences, as in the nightmarish case of Paul Ingram. Ingram, who was accused of SRA by his adult daughter, succumbed to intensive interrogation, pastoral pressure, and subtle hypnotic cues. Eventually, through self-induced hypnosis, he "remembered" his participation in satanic crimes so he could confess and plead guilty in criminal court!36 Memory idiosyncrasies can also play a crucial part in false stories, as noted by leading memory expert and psychologist Elizabeth Loftus and others.37

Some false stories are produced with the cooperation of the client, including cases of factitious (fabricated), simulated (imitative), or malingering (avoiding responsibility for one's eventual recovery) dissociative disorders.38 One of the most interesting examples of factitious disorder is chronicled by Philip M. Coons in his "Factitious Disorder (Munchausen Type) Involving Allegations of Ritual Satanic Abuse."39 In this case, the client made a minicareer of traveling cross-country, being assisted by different SRA support groups and gaining admittance to inpatient facilities, where she would remain until her ruse was discovered and then move on.

Denial Does Not Prove Guilt. The seventh argument true believers use is a variation of the fourth. Accused perpetrators are given a nonlethal form of the same kind of guilt-or-innocence test that was administered to suspected witches during medieval times. If the witch didn't confess when charged, that proved he or she was unrepentant and should die. If one did confess, the punishment was the same. Today's true believers don't kill those they accuse, but they leave them with no way to establish their innocence. Indeed, a protestation of innocence becomes a tautological "proof" of guilt.

Nondeterminative Evidence. In connection with the eighth argument, true believers sometimes attempt to find corroborative evidence. Some refer to amorphous "files full of evidence," yet are unable to cite even one example thereof. They may even refer to unidentified "officials" who have seen their evidence and advised the victims to keep quiet lest they risk death from the avenging cult.

True believers sometimes cite ambiguous or nondeterminative evidence. For example, in a telephone interview, Dr. James Friesen, a Christian therapist and author of the popular Uncovering the Mystery of MPD, told us he had corroborative evidence to support an SRA story. A woman claimed she had been impregnated through SRA and given birth to a child later used in a human sacrifice. This woman's family had no knowledge of her ever giving birth, and her gynecologist confirmed that she had delivered a child at some time in the past. This, however, proves only that she gave birth; it doesn't prove the circumstances of the pregnancy, the birth, or the fate of her child.

Individual Occult-Related Crime. In the ninth argument, true believers almost invariably point to sensational crimes with occultic overtones as though they prove the SRA conspiracy theory. Loner and self-styled Satanist murderer Richard Ramirez does not fit the SRA profile at all. But true believers frequently mention him along with Sean Sellers, a self-styled teen Satanist who killed his parents, and Ricky Kasso, a teen drug dealer and self-styled Satanist who killed a friend and then committed suicide. They also cite the Matamoros, Mexico drug ring murders, which were committed in rituals derived from Palo Mayombe, an Afro-Cuban form of occultism. None of these, however, fits the SRA pattern in any way. During our telephone interview with James Friesen, he said he would send us news clippings citing evidence in support of his SRA theories. The clippings, none of which substantiated SRA claims, included crimes like those above.

Missing Statistics for Missing Children. The tenth and final argument most true believers employ is some variation on the idea that the SRA conspiracy theory explains a number of widely held beliefs — for example, that thousands of children disappear each year.40 The SRA conspiracy theory is said to account for this phenomenon: the children are sacrificed in satanic rituals! Dr. Al Carlise estimates that 40,000-60,000 people are killed in satanic rituals yearly. Other true believers cite smaller numbers, but still in the tens of thousands. And yet, when statistical studies on missing children are examined, we find that the truth does not fit the SRA conspiracy model. In fact, the vast majority of children reported missing each year are accounted for within a twelve-month period,41 leaving fewer than 300 unaccounted for after one year. The majority of missing children either are taken by noncustodial parents in custody disputes or are runaways.42

Certainly to a parent whose child is missing, the size of the problem is immaterial, the grief real, and the suffering profound. But it is wrong to confuse compassion for an individual with a blind acceptance of false statistics in a futile effort to bolster an SRA conspiracy theory.

Equally damaging, if not more so, are the growing number of false accusations of child sexual abuse which are sometimes fueled and supported by inadequate test methods, overly zealous medical and mental health professionals, and excessively concerned parents.43 Drs. Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield summarize the tragedy of false reports concerning children and SRA:

To treat a child as if satanic abuse were real....is to reify a child's most terrifying fantasies and force a child to grow into an adult whose world remains at the level of a constant night terror. It is to run the risk of training a child to be psychotic, not able to distinguish between reality and unreality. It is to irrevocably and likely irretrievably damage a child and induce a lifelong experience of emotional distress.44

SRA STORIES VS. BIBLICAL STANDARDS

There is still no substantial, compelling evidence that SRA stories and conspiracy theories are true. Alternate hypotheses more reasonably explain the social, professional, and personal dynamics reflected in this contemporary satanic panic. The tragedy of broken families, traumatized children, and emotionally incapacitated adults provoked by SRA charges is needless and destructive. Careful investigation of the stories, the alleged victims, and the proponents has given us every reason to reject the satanic conspiracy model in favor of an interpretation consistent with reason and truth.

The Bible tells us that we serve the God of truth (Isa. 65:16). Paul exhorts us to test everything, clinging only to what is good (2 Thess. 5:21-22), and commends the Bereans for testing what he taught by God's Word; that is, by what was known to be true (Acts 17:11). Peter warns us by example not to be seduced by cunningly devised myths (2 Pet. 1:16). God commands us not to bear false witness against another (Deut. 5:20). In Matthew 18:15-19, Jesus warns us not to bring any accusation of sin against a fellow Christian without evidence and witnesses.

God's judgment against those who do evil is according to truth (Rom. 2:2). Should our judgment be based on fallacies, nonevidence, subjectivism, and worldly wisdom? Let us be committed to compassion for victims and biblical judgment for victimizers, but let us not become victimizers by faulty judgment and false accusations. With sound wisdom and biblically based discernment, we need have no fear of a monolithic satanic conspiracy (Prov. 3:23-26).

NOTES

1 Some stories are chronicled in such books as Truddi Chase's When Rabbit Howls (New York: Jove Books, 1987), James G. Friesen's Uncovering the Mystery of MPD (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, 1991), Robert S. Mayer's Satan's Children (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1991), Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder's Michelle Remembers (New York: Congdon & Lattes, 1980), Judith Spencer's Suffer the Child (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), and Lauren Stratford's Satan's Underground (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1988; Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Co., 1991).
2 See, e.g., Friesen. A good reference in response to SRA stories is James T. Richardson, Joel Best, and David G. Bromley, The Satanism Scare (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991).
3 Bob Larson, who hosts a nationally syndicated Christian radio talk show, claims that there are "several hundreds of thousands" of adults who "remember" such horrible abuse.
4 Some say that between 40,000 and 60,000 persons per year are ritually murdered (statistic attributed to Dr. Al Carlisle of the Utah State Prison System by Jerry Johnston [The Edge of Evil (Dallas: Word Books, 1989)] and others).
5 Whether the true believer uses the term conspiracy, a synonym such as "infiltration" (as Bob Larson uses), or no term at all, the assumption is the same.
6 Three notable cases where dozens of children were taken from their parents before there was any corroborative evidence to back up suspicions were in Bakersfield, California; Jordan, Minnesota; and in England.
7 The phenomenon of SRA reports is of relatively recent origin. The various aspects are often ambiguous, open-ended, and/or complex. In addition, most of the constructive professional dialogue on the subject has appeared in papers presented at conferences, articles in professional journals, and newspaper articles. Little has been discussed in book form. A comprehensive research bibliography is available by sending a request with a business sized, self-addressed, stamped envelope to Bob and Gretchen Passantino, Answers in Action, P.O. Box 2067, Costa Mesa, CA 92628.
8 Space limitations preclude discussing a history of Satanism here. The reader is referred to Bob and Gretchen Passantino's When the Devil Dares Your Kids (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Publications, 1991), 34-38. A description and history of witchcraft is on pages 50-55.
9 Further information on the types of contemporary Satanists is available in Craig Hawkins's "The Many Faces of Satanism," Forward, Fall 1986, 16-22.
10 For further information on this aspect of SRA development, see the journal Child Abuse and Neglect; Debbie Nathan, "The Ritual Sex Abuse Hoax," The Village Voice, 12 June 1990, 36-44; Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield, "Cur Allii, Prae Aliis? (Why Some, and Not Others?)," Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 3, 3:178-93; Jeffrey Victor, "The Satanic Cult Scare and Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse," Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 3, 3:135-43; Wakefield and Underwager's "Sexual Abuse Allegations in Divorce and Custody Disputes," Behavioral Sciences and the Law (in press); and Sherrill Mulhern, "Ritual Abuse: Creating a Context for Belief," Laboratoire des Rumeurs, Paris.
11 For further information on this subject, see John Johnson and Steve Padilla's "Satanism: Growing Concern — And Skepticism" (Los Angeles Times, 23 April 1991) and Jeffrey Victor's "The Spread of Satanic-Cult Rumors" (Skeptical Inquirer 14 [Spring 1990]:287-91).
12 See Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham's Witness for the Defense (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), Joel Best's "Missing Children, Misleading Statistics" (The Public Interest, 84-92), Lee Coleman's "False Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse" (Forum, January-February 1986, 12-22), and the journal Issues in Child Abuse Accusations.
13 For further information on this development in end times theology, see Gary DeMar's Last Days Madness (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth and Hyatt, Publishers, 1991), especially chapters eight and nine.
14 Mike Warnke, The Satan Seller (Plainfield, NJ: Logos Books, 1972), 93, 116.
15 The vast majority of alleged adult survivors fit this general profile, although occasionally there are male victims, younger women, ethnic minority members, and so forth.
16 See George Ganaway's discussion of this in "Historical versus Narrative Truth: Clarifying the Role of Exogenous Trauma in the Etiology of MPD and Its Variants," Dissociation 2, 4:205-20.
17 See, e.g., Wakefield and Underwager, "Sexual Abuse Allegations in Divorce and Custody Disputes."
18 A fascinating study of this is in Martha Rogers's "Evaluating an Alleged Satanic Ritualistic Abuser: What We Don't Know," Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 3, 3:166-77.
19 Many details closely follow descriptions in Anton LaVay's The Satanic Bible (New York: Avon Books, 1969), The Satan Seller, Michelle Remembers, and other popular books found in general bookstores. It sometimes is possible to follow particular details as they spread from one victim through a support group or therapist to other victims (see, e.g., Victor's "The Satanic Cult Scare," 135-43).
20 In our three years of extensive research into SRA and alleged adult survivors, the fully well adult survivor is rare to nonexistent.
21 While it is true that questioning often begins with a general troubling complaint by a child such as "My teacher touched me funny," that is not considered a disclosure of an SRA story.
22 See, e.g., Underwager and Wakefield's "Cur Allii, Prae Aliis?"
23 Remember, the individual or small group engaging in criminal abuse is not indicative of SRA, in which widespread conspiracy is an essential part of the definition.
24 E.g., loner Satanist abuse, sexual fondling in a Roman Catholic confessional, or repeated nonreligious abuse in a prescribed manner, location, or sequence.
25 Kenneth V. Lanning, "Commentary on Ritual Abuse: A Law Enforcement View or Perspective," Child Abuse and Neglect 15 (1991):171-73.
26 See our article on Lauren Stratford's Satan's Underground entitled "Satan's Sideshow," Cornerstone, issue 90, 26-28.
27 This fallacy is discussed in our book Witch Hunt (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990), 113-16.
28 Kenneth V. Lanning, "Satanic, Occult, Ritualistic Crime: A Law Enforcement Perspective," The Police Chief, October 1989.
29 Coleman. See also Jerome Cramer's "Why Children Lie in Court," Time, 4 March 1991, 76; Wakefield and Underwager's "Sexual Abuse Allegations in Divorce and Custody Disputes"; and Debbie Nathan's "False Evidence: How Bad Science Fueled the Hysteria over Child Abuse," LA Weekly, 7-13 April 1989, 15-18.
30 Coleman, 12.
31 Reported in Diane S. Lund's "Psychiatrists Debate the Extent of Ritual Abuse," The Psychiatric Times, April 1991, 54-55. Often true believers believe Braun's Rule of Five is misrepresented. However, Braun confirmed his view essentially as stated in a phone interview with our frequent coauthor, Jon Trott.
32 See, e.g., Philip Coon, "Iatrogenic Factors in the Misdiagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder," Dissociation 2, 2:70-76; George Ganaway, "Historical versus Narrative Truth," and Ganaway, "Alternative Hypotheses Regarding Satanic Ritual Abuse Memories" (presented at the ninety-ninth annual convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, 19 August 1991); Jon Trott, "Satanic Panic: The Ingram Family and Other Victims of Hysteria in America," Cornerstone, issue 95, 9-12; Ethan Watters, "The Devil in Mr. Ingram," Mother Jones, July/August 1991, 30-68; and Glenna Whitley, "The Seduction of Gloria Grady," D Magazine, October 1991, 45-71.
33 The best data on the use of hypnosis subtly directing client response is detailed in Nicholas Spanos et. al, "Secondary Identity Enactments During Hypnotic Past-Life Regression: A Sociocognitive Perspective," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 61, 2:308-20.
34 Ganaway, "Historical versus Narrative Truth."
35 Nicholas P. Spanos, John R. Weekes, and Lorne D. Bertrand, "Multiple Personality: A Social Psychological Perspective," Journal of Abnormal Psychology 94, 3:362-76; and Spanos et. al, "Secondary Identity Enactments."
36 The psychological aspects of the case are chronicled in Richard J. Ofshe's "Inadvertent Hypnosis During Interrogation: False Confession Due to Dissociative State; Mis-Identified Multiple Personality and the Satanic Cult Hypothesis" (Department of Sociology, University of California [Berkeley], in press). The entire case, now on appeal, is discussed in Trott, "Satanic Panic," and Watters, "The Devil in Mr. Ingram."
37 See Loftus and Ketcham; Beverly Beyette, "Not-So-Total Recall," Los Angeles Times, 10 September 1991; Pat Brennan, "Bad Memories Can End Up in Court," Orange County Register, 24 March 1991; Lawrence W. Daly and J. Frank Pacifico, "Opening the Doors to the Past: Decade Delayed Disclosure of Memories of Years Gone By," The Champion, December 1991, 43-47; and Irene Wielawski, "Unlocking the Secrets of Memory," Los Angeles Times, 3 October 1991.
38 See Susan S. Brick and James A. Chu, "The Simulation of Multiple Personalities: A Case Report," Psychotherapy 28 (Summer 1991):267-71; Cramer, "Why Children Lie in Court"; and Ganaway, "Alternative Hypotheses Regarding Satanic Ritual Abuse Memories."
39 Philip M. Coons, "Factitious Disorder (Munchausen Type) Involving Allegations of Ritual Satanic Abuse: A Case Report," Dissociation 3, 4:177-78.
40 U.S. Representative Paul Simon (not to be confused with Senator Paul Simon of Illinois) told the House a "conservative estimate....50,000 children [are] abducted by strangers annually" (Nathan, "The Ritual Sex Abuse Hoax," 36-44).
41 A careful analysis of missing children statistics is in Best's "Missing Children, Misleading Statistics," 84-92.
42 Nathan, "The Ritual Sex Abuse Hoax," 39.
43 See especially Nathan's "False Evidence," and "Sex, the Devil, and Day Care," The Village Voice, 32, 39:25-26.
44 Underwager and Wakefield, "Cur Allii, Prae Aliis?" 3, 3:190.

GLOSSARY

abreaction: In therapy, the process of "reliving" a previously repressed traumatic event as a step in integrating a dissociative personality.

adult survivor: An adult presumed to have survived and escaped from the control and abuse of a satanic cult, especially one who has "recovered" repressed memories of such abuse, usually in directive therapy settings.

directive therapy: Any form of counseling, therapy, or support group interaction that knowingly or unknowingly directs, suggests, leads, or persuades the client to adopt the therapist's ideas, beliefs, presuppositions, or presumptions. Obvious directive therapy such as hypnotic suggestion is easy to detect. Directive therapy can be as subtle as a meaningful silence, a nod of approval, or an assurance that the client is "believed."

dissociative state: A general category of psychological dysfunction wherein a complex pattern of psychological processes function independently of the core personality. Several dissociative conditions are clinical hysteria, amnesia, schizophrenia, and multiplicity (MPD).

multiple personality disorder (MPD): A dissociative state in which the integrated personality fragments (usually as a result of extreme trauma) into two or more "personalities," each of which manifests a relatively complete complex of personal attributes and often acts independently and unknown to the other fragments.

occult crime: Any crime or alleged crime with some connection to the occult; ranging from rebellious teenagers who spray-paint occult graffiti to serial killers who use occult symbology or claim a commitment to occult belief.

paranoia: Clinically, paranoia is characterized by highly systematized, persistent, incapacitating delusions of persecution and/or grandeur; commonly used to describe hypervigilence over a (mis)perceived threat, belief that danger is everywhere, and belief that those who do not recognize the threat are evil and part of the threat themselves.

satanic ritual abuse (SRA): The preferred term referring to charges that a group of individuals, assumed to be in association with a widespread conspiracy, practice physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse on unwilling victims in a ritualistic manner, especially in connection with a commitment to Satanism. This is distinguished from loner or isolated small group abuse.

support group: For the purposes of this article, any group of fellow-sufferers of a similar emotional or physical trauma (or alleged trauma) meeting regularly to provide emotional and friendship support as well as advice and encouragement to each other.

true believer: For the purposes of this article, someone who is committed to believing the SRA conspiracy world view, and who often is an outspoken proponent, such as a true believer therapist, law enforcement person, parent, adult survivor, and so on.

http://equip.org/articles/the-hard-fa...tual-abuse

Oppose Pope Benedict’s State Visit to the UK

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:25:31 +1100

Protest the Pope

This Sunday 14 February 2010

Meet at 1pm outside Westminster Cathedral (not Westminster Abbey).

Victoria Street, London SW1 (near the corner with Ambrosden Avenue)

March to the Italian Embassy in Grosvenor Square for a rally at 3pm.

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We support:

• Women’s equality and reproductive rights

• Equal rights for LGBT people

• A secular Europe – immune to the Vatican’s agenda

• One law for all, no religious exemptions from the law

• State neutrality in matters of religion and belief

We oppose:

• European Union collusion with religion (Lisbon Treaty Article 16c)

• The special status of the Vatican in the United Nations

• State-funded faith schools

• The economic privilege and political influence of the Vatican in Italy

• Taxpayers funding the Pope’s State Visit to the UK this September

• Misogyny, homophobia, fascism, racism and xenophobia

Protest against the Pope’s State Visit to the UK

“We want a secular Europe, where the Vatican and the Catholic church cease attempting to impose their harsh, intolerant morality on everyone else,” said Peter Tatchell of OutRage!, who is speaking at Sunday’s protest and assisting with its organisation.

“The Pope opposes women’s rights, gay equality, embryonic stem cell research, death with dignity and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV.

“He wants the Catholic Church to be exempt from equality and anti-discrimination laws that apply to everyone else.

“Pope Benedict played a key role in the cover-up of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy.

“He has rehabilitated the Holocaust-denying bishop Richard Williamson, and even though Pope Pius XII failed to speak out against the Holocaust he plans to make him a saint.

“Given that he opposes universal equality and human rights, Pope Benedict should not be accorded the honour of a State Visit to Britain.

“The estimated £20 million cost of the visit will be funded by the taxpayer. The Pope has already denounced our equality laws. He is likely to abuse his presence in Britain to further attack our democratically-agreed legislation that gives equal rights to women and gay people.

“The Pope has discouraged the use of condoms in countries where HIV infections are decimating whole populations. Such teachings are irresponsible and immoral,” said Mr Tatchell.

Sunday’s demonstration is organised by the Central London Humanist Group in partnership with the British Humanist Association, the National Secular Society, One Law for All, the Gay And Lesbian Humanist Association, the Rationalist Association and OutRage!.

It is in solidarity with the demonstration happening the same weekend in Rome, also against the Vatican and its reactionary interference in Italian, European and world-wide politics.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=415005340443

http://www.meetup.com/Central-London-.../12192702/

Program of the demonstration:

- Assemble: 1pm at Westminster Cathedral (not the Abbey)
- March: 2pm – 3pm from Westminster Cathedral to the Italian embassy
- Rally: 3pm – 5pm at the Italian embassy (Grosvenor square)

Speakers at the Italian embassy (3pm) :

* Bob Churchill (British Humanist Association),
* Derek Lennard (Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association)
* Maryam Namazie (One Law for All)
* Gerard Phillips (Protest The Pope)
* David Pollock (European Humanist Federation)
* Terry Sanderson (National Secular Society)
* Peter Tatchell (OutRage!)
* Josh Kutchinsky (Central London Humanist Group)

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE VATICAN

Protest organiser, Marco Tranchino, writes:

The tiny Vatican State is inhabited mainly by priests. It is extremely powerful and its “moral” crusades adversely affect the lives of millions of people in Europe and across the world.

Officially part of the UN, its “observer-state” status means it can access, influence and pressure UN debates on issues such as birth control, abortion and homosexuality. No other religion has such privileged UN status.

The Vatican has diplomatic relationships with almost all the countries in the world (174 when John Paul II died) and in many EU countries it benefits from the support of Catholic politicians and, in many cases, of Christian political parties.

Of the 27 countries of the European Union, 14 are bound to the Vatican by at least one treaty. No other faith has such political power in Europe and the world; prompting the Economist to publish an investigation about the diplomatic service of the Vatican, questioning whether it deserves its special status in the UN (21 July 2007)

The Catholic Church is an extremely profitable business. It owns businesses such as hotels, restaurants, shops and private schools and the Vatican pays no tax! On top of this, the Vatican receives public money in many countries: in Italy about 1000 million Euros in taxes paid to the Vatican every year (991 millions € in 2007 ).

Through its very considerable political, diplomatic and economic power, the Vatican adversely impacts on the lives of European citizens, and the wider humanity.

THE POPE’S OPPOSITION TO WOMEN’S & LGBT RIGHTS

The issue of women’s rights and the Catholic Church goes way beyond the hierarchy of the church, where women are unable to ascend to priesthood as a result of their gender. Women who have had a divorce, women who want to have an abortion and women who are living as single parents in Catholic countries are often victims of moral intimidation and discrimination. The Pope encourages us to view women as unequal to men, by consistently and publicly stating that the two genders are different and that women are naturally inclined to be mothers and child-carers. In some Catholic countries, like Ireland and Poland, abortion is illegal. In others, like Italy, the right to an abortion is constantly under threat from the Vatican’s pressure on the government.

The Pope says that being gay is an “objective disorder” and a “moral evil”. In nearly half the countries in the world, homosexuality is totally illegal and punishable by long terms of imprisonment. A proposal for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality was opposed by the Vatican in the UN in 2008. It has a long history of blocking attempted UN debates on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) human rights; often refusing to condemn homophobia and opposing laws to protect LGBT people against discrimination. .

RELIGIOUS POWER IN THE UK

Although Britain is a fairly “secular” society, Christianity still has considerable influence in many British institutions and it continues to enjoy unfair privileges.

A limited right to abortion has been granted to women living in England, Scotland and Wales, but in Northern Ireland it remains illegal. This anomaly is significantly due to religious influence, including that of the Catholic Church. Christian lobbies are engaged in continual efforts to restrict a woman’s right to abortion and have succeeded in reducing the time limits for an abortion.

Religion retains undue influence and power in various ways. With increasing numbers of state funded faith schools (1 in 3 of all schools in the UK is either Catholic or Church of England), religious institutions continue to exercise an influence on many young people.

The churches (especially the Catholic church) made sure that the proposed EU Constitution – and the now approved Lisbon Treaty (article 16c) – dangerously commits the European Union to “an open, transparent and regular dialogue with Churches and religious organisations”. Why should religious bodies receive this special treaty guarantee, which is denied to humanists and human rights advocates?

WE DEMAND A SECULAR EUROPE

The state should be neutral in matters of religion or belief.

No faith should have privileged legal or social status, or special access to government
The beliefs of one group should not be used to limit the rights of others.
We affirm the common values of the people of Europe as expressed in the Brussels Declaration. https://www.iheu.org/v4e/html/the_declaration.html

We want to protect democracy and to champion human rights against those who seek to retain undemocratic influence and deny equality and protection against discrimination to others.

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2010/02/1...to-the-uk/

I don’t care if I lose my life fighting cultism in C’River – Imoke

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:56:30 +1100

WHEN Gov. Liyel Imoke of Cross River State summoned an unusual courage to expel cultists from his administration last year, nobody, including his close political associates, took him serious. The governor immediately became a laughing stock with many referring to him as a time waster.

To them, Imoke was daring the tiger and was at a risk of being consumed. It was their belief that cultism was so entrenched in the state that nobody could dare question it.

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The doubts cast on the governor‘s war against cultism and secret fraternities could be justified. The state was notorious for all forms of occult activities. Cultists appeared to have overrun the state, occupying various positions of authority. Bloody cult clashes were rampant and in each confrontation, many people, including non-members, were killed and maimed.

There was palpable tension on the streets of Calabar as everybody was a potential victim of cult-related violence and robberies. Last year alone, clashes among rival cult groups in the state claimed over 20 lives. In fact, the state was touted to be home to head offices of many secret organisations and no government had attempted to probe the activities of cultists in the state.

Inundated by complaints of insecurity arising from cultism, Imoke became undaunted to make a difference. He immediately began a campaign against secret cults. As if to weed off cultists from his administration, Imoke mandated all his aides, including special advisers and commissioners, to take oaths denouncing membership of secret cults in the state.

It was a shocking development to most of the aides, but the governor insisted, ”Denounce cult or quit offices.” In a twinkle, over 108 public office holders assembled in the executive chamber of the Governor‘s Office, Calabar, each holding the Holy Bible and renouncing cultism.

Imoke told the bewildered officials that his administration would no longer tolerate the gruesome killings and maiming arising from cult clashes in the state. He was not frightened to tell them that the oath became urgent because a security report had indicted some of them as members of dreaded fraternities and sororities.

He had said, ”We have invested resources in building the socio-economic status of our state and we will not fold our arms and watch cultists destroy our efforts. I am following due process that is why I administer the oath. If you know that you belong to any cult group, please it is better to leave the oath, because if you take it when you are still a member, your life will be at risk.”

That explained the reason behind the oath. Imoke had believed that the spiritual power behind the oath was enough to destroy the loyalty of his aides to any cult group. He thought that by compelling them to take oaths, he would have pitted them against the leadership of their various cult groups. Perhaps, he wanted to show public demonstration of his seriousness and transparency in stemming the tide of cultism in the state.

The aides in loyalty to their boss went through the ritual oath-taking without qualms. But, it was not all over. Imoke took his oath administration to the grass roots level – the local government areas where cultists were believed to be having a field day.

The unwavering Imoke gathered all the chairmen, vice-chairmen, councillors, supervisors, personal assistants and other aides of the 18 local government councils in the state to the main bowl of the Cultural Centre Complex, Calabar for the same purpose of oath-taking. The governor dared the grass roots politicians threatening to initiate a process of sacking any of the elected officials directly or indirectly sponsoring the activities of secret societies in the state. He accused them of using cultism as a means of winning elections in the state. But he said that the era was over as he was determined to ensure that no cultist would stand for the next elections in the state.

Imoke further stunned some of them who thought the ceremony was a joke when he said, ”I will fight cultism in Cross River State. I don‘t care if I lose my life in the course of doing that.” He, therefore, vowed to prosecute any government official found to be a member of a secret cult.

A few days after, 10 councillors from Calabar South Local Government Area of the state became the first casualties of the cleansing exercise. They were accused of playing different roles in the bloody cult clash that killed many people in the state last year.

Acting on a security report, the governor immediately sent a letter to the state house of assembly seeking the suspension of the indicted councillors for 90 days to enable the police to investigate the matter. The request was granted and the councillors were suspended.

The suspended councillors are Mr. Michael Eyo, Ward I; Mr. Effiong Akirika, Ward II; Mr. Antigha Eneyo, Ward III; Bassey Ekpo, Ward VI and Francis Obo, Ward VII. Others include Maurice Archibong, Ward VIII; Philip Okang, Ward IX; Bassey Eyo, Ward XI and Gabriel Edet, Ward XII. While eight of the councillors were alleged to be members of a cult group called the Vikings; one was said to belong to the Ku Klus Klan, while the others were accused of belonging to the Buccaneers.

Imoke mandated the police to thoroughly investigate the matter. For over three months, the councillors were in the custody of the police as investigation lasted. Eventually, they were arraigned and remanded in prison custody. Sensing that the 90-day suspension slammed on the councillors had elapsed, the governor urgently forwarded another letter to the House of Assembly seeking an extension of the suspension to another 90 days. The request was also granted. Though three of the councillors were said to have been bailed on health grounds, others are still languishing in prison.

By all indications, the 10 councillors may not be the last casualties of the cleansing assignment. This is because the governor has further constituted a six-member committee to investigate involvement of local government council‘s officials in secret fraternities. The committee was asked to ascertain the extent to which the involvement of the councillors in cultism impacted on their responsibilities as council members. It was also required to recommend sanctions against any of the local government council‘s officials found to be a member of a cult group. It was learnt that the committee which was given eight-week deadline to carry out the assignment had submitted its report.

It is certain that many heads would roll if the governor could muster courage to implement the report of the committee. Those who are close to the committee said that many government officials were indicted. They said the governor was amazed at the report and was seriously considering what to do with it.

However, for people to take the governor‘s war on cultism seriously, he might need to unmask the identities of those indicted in the report.

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?th...2142301979

What Scientific Research is Relevant to Cults?

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:45:01 +1100

ICSA's scholarly journals have published over 200 articles since 1984 and hundreds of academic presentations have been given at ICSA conferences over the years.

Listed below are selected resources that address various aspects of the research that has been conducted.

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More on This Subject

Almendros, Carmen et al.: "Psychometric Properties of the Spanish Version of the Group Psychological Abuse Scale" - abstract
Ando, Kiyoshi et al.: "College Students and Religious Groups in Japan: How are they influenced and How do they Perceive the Group Members?" - abstract
Baron, Robert: "Arousal, Capacity, and Intense Indoctrination" - abstract
Chambers, William, Ph.D. et al.: "The Group Psychological Abuse Scale"
Dole, Arthur, Ph.D.: "Clinical Case Studies of Cult Members" - abstract
Kent, Stephen, Ph.D.: "Scientific Evaluation of the Dangers Posed by Religious Groups" - abstract
Lalich, Janja, Ph.D.: "Using the Bounded Choice Model as an Analytical Tool: A Case Study of Heaven's Gate" - abstract
Langone, Michael D., Ph.D.: "Psychological Abuse: Theoretical and Measurement Issues"
Langone, Michael D.: "Academic Disputes and Dialogue Collection: Preface"
Langone, Michael, Ph.D.: "Boston Church of Christ Movement Study"
Langone, Michael, Ph.D.: "New Religions and Public Policy"
Langone, Michael, Ph.D.: "Prevalence"
Langone, Michael, Ph.D.: "Research on Destructive Cults

Lucas, Phillip, Ph.D.: "Spiritual Harm in New Religions: Reflections on Interviews with Former Members" - Abstract
Malinoski, Peter, M.A., Ph.D.: "Thoughts on Conducting Research with Former Cult Members"
McKibben, Jodi et al.: "Are Cultic Environments Psychologically Harmful?" - abstract
Rosedale, Herbert and Langone, Michael, Ph.D.: "On Using the Term "Cult"
Whitsett, Doni & Kent, Stephen: "Cults and Families" - abstract
Zimbardo, Philip, Ph.D.: "Mind Control: Psychological Reality or Mindless Rhetoric?"
Zimbardo, Philip, Ph.D.: "What messages are behind today's cults?"

Irish priest's extradition in rape case a step closer

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:37:15 +1100

Accused could be in custody next week as US judge blocks legal bid

By Don Lavery

A Catholic priest fighting extradition to Ireland over accusations he raped a 15-year-old boy 40 years ago could be in custody as early as next Wednesday, and faces being sent back here, after a US judge blocked attempts to halt his extradition.

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Evidence being presented before the federal courthouse in South Bend, Indiana, regarding Fr Francis Markey may be weak and suspect but it was up to an Irish court to weigh the evidence, said magistrate judge Christopher Neuchterlein on Friday.

Fr Markey, 82, was arrested by US marshals last November at his Indiana home in connection with the alleged rape of a 15-year-old boy in 1968 on foot of an extradition warrant. Fr Markey and his attorneys have been fighting the extradition bid since.

The priest, who was based in Monaghan, is accused of raping a 15-year-old boy twice, including the day of the then-teenager's father's funeral.

The man, who is now 57, made a complaint to gardai.

Fr Markey had been working as a drug and addiction counsellor at a centre in Michigan, with clients including young people. On Friday, his attorney, Mahmoud Bassiouni, said the only evidence of the crime presented by Irish authorities in their extradition bid was a report by the alleged victim -- who recalled being molested by Fr Markey as a child while recently undergoing counselling for alcoholism.

Mr Bassiouni wanted to introduce testimony from a psychologist who would cite research showing that improperly trained counsellors could "coach" or "induce" clients to recall past traumatic events as a way of rationalising current substance abuse or mental health problems.

"It goes to the very heart of the credibility of the only witness in this case," said Markey's attorney.

But assistant US attorney Kenneth Hays argued that Markey's attorneys were trying to "contradict" rather then merely "explain" the State's evidence, something not allowed in extradition cases under US law. The judge agreed and refused to allow the psychologist to testify.

"The evidence before this court may be weak. It may be suspect. But it's simply not the role of this court to weigh the evidence. That's up to the Irish court," the judge said.

The judge said he would also rule against a second argument made by Markey's lawyers, that because of a change in Irish law in 1993, which abolished the law against "buggery", his extradition was not lawful.

But the judge said that, regardless of the change, it was still illegal in Ireland to have sex with children. He gave the two sides until Wednesday to make further motions and Markey's attorneys said they would file more motions seeking to block the extradition.

The judge agreed to let the priest remain free on bail until then. But it's understood he could be taken into custody then and extradited soon after.

- Don Lavery

Sunday Independent

http://www.independent.ie/national-ne...62888.html

More German Roman Catholic sexual abuse scandals

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:31:57 +1100

This is a video from CNN in the USA about protesters against sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests.

From The Local, Germany’s news in English:

Commission: Bishops covered up priests' child abuse

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:31:27 +1100

DUBLIN (AP) - Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Dublin covered up decades of child abuse by priests in order to protect the church's reputation, an expert commission reported Thursday after a three-year investigation.

Abuse victims welcomed the commission's report on the Dublin Archdiocese's mishandling of child abuse cases - one of several government investigations into chronic child rape, beatings and other cruelty in Catholic-run schools, children's workhouses and orphanages in 1975-2004.

The government said the investigation "shows clearly that a systemic, calculated perversion of power and trust was visited on helpless and innocent children in the archdiocese."

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"The perpetrators must continue to be brought to justice, and the people of Ireland must know that this can never happen again," the government said, also apologizing for the state's failure to hold church authorities accountable to the law. This is the second major government-ordered report this year exploring how and why Irish authorities permitted widespread abuse of boys and girls at the hands of the Catholic Church throughout most of the 20th century, the gravest scandal in the history of independent Ireland.

The 720-page report - delivered to the government in July but released Thursday - analyzes the cases of 46 priests against whom 320 complaints were filed. The 46 were selected from more than 150 Dublin priests implicated in molesting or raping boys and girls since 1940. Eleven priests convicted of child abuse are named in the report, but 33 are referred to by aliases and two have their names blacked out because they have yet to face justice.

The report rejected past bishops' key claim that they were ignorant of both the scale and criminality of priests' abuse of children, showing that the Dublin Archdiocese negotiated a 1987 insurance policy for future legal costs of defending lawsuits and compensation claims. At the time, bishops knew of at least 17 priests linked to abuse cases, the report said, and "the taking out of insurance was an act proving knowledge of child sexual abuse as a potential major cost to the archdiocese." Investigators spent three years poring over 60,000 previously secret Dublin church files.

They were handed over by Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, a veteran Vatican diplomat appointed to Dublin in 2004 with a brief to confront the scandal. Among the files were more than 5,500 that Martin's predecessor, retired Cardinal Desmond Connell, had tried to keep locked in the archbishop's private vault. The investigators, led by a judge and two lawyers, said that while it was not their job to confirm the scale of abuse cases, they had no doubt the 46 priests abused many more than 320 children.

"One priest admitted to sexually abusing over 100 children, while another accepted that he had abused on a fortnightly basis during the currency of his ministry which lasted for over 25 years," they wrote. Three Dublin archbishops - John Charles McQuaid (1940-72), Dermot Ryan (1972-84) and Kevin McNamara (1985-87) - did not tell police about clerical abuse cases, instead opting to avoid public scandals by shuttling offenders from parish to parish, the commission found. It was not until 1995 that then-Archbishop Connell allowed police to see church files on 17 clerical abuse cases kept in a secret, locked vault, though at the time Connell had records of complaints against at least 29 priests, the report says.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said the state would renew efforts to prosecute more of the 46 priests in the report, as well as police officers that the investigation found colluded with church authorities to suppress complaints. Ahern said, however, that the cover-ups reflected "a different era where there was deference by state agencies to the church. I don't think that would happen today."

The investigators lauded a handful of priests and mostly low-ranking police who pursued complaints and prosecutions, almost always unsuccessfully, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Senior police officers "clearly regarded priests as being outside their remit," handing "complaints to the archdiocese instead of investigating them."

"A few (priests) were courageous and brought complaints to the attention of their superiors. The vast majority simply chose to turn a blind eye," the report said. In May, the government published a report on decades of child abuse in Catholic-run schools, workhouses and orphanages. More than 12,000 victims of rape, beatings and metal abuse have received compensation payments from a government panel exceeding euro800 million

(DUBLIN (AP) - Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Dublin covered up decades of child abuse by priests in order to protect the church's reputation, an expert commission reported Thursday after a three-year investigation. Abuse victims welcomed the commission's report on the Dublin Archdiocese's mishandling of child abuse cases - one of several government investigations into chronic child rape, beatings and other cruelty in Catholic-run schools, children's workhouses and orphanages in 1975-2004.

The government said the investigation "shows clearly that a systemic, calculated perversion of power and trust was visited on helpless and innocent children in the archdiocese." "The perpetrators must continue to be brought to justice, and the people of Ireland must know that this can never happen again," the government said, also apologizing for the state's failure to hold church authorities accountable to the law.

This is the second major government-ordered report this year exploring how and why Irish authorities permitted widespread abuse of boys and girls at the hands of the Catholic Church throughout most of the 20th century, the gravest scandal in the history of independent Ireland. The 720-page report - delivered to the government in July but released Thursday - analyzes the cases of 46 priests against whom 320 complaints were filed. The 46 were selected from more than 150 Dublin priests implicated in molesting or raping boys and girls since 1940.

Eleven priests convicted of child abuse are named in the report, but 33 are referred to by aliases and two have their names blacked out because they have yet to face justice. The report rejected past bishops' key claim that they were ignorant of both the scale and criminality of priests' abuse of children, showing that the Dublin Archdiocese negotiated a 1987 insurance policy for future legal costs of defending lawsuits and compensation claims.

At the time, bishops knew of at least 17 priests linked to abuse cases, the report said, and "the taking out of insurance was an act proving knowledge of child sexual abuse as a potential major cost to the archdiocese." Investigators spent three years poring over 60,000 previously secret Dublin church files.

They were handed over by Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, a veteran Vatican diplomat appointed to Dublin in 2004 with a brief to confront the scandal. Among the files were more than 5,500 that Martin's predecessor, retired Cardinal Desmond Connell, had tried to keep locked in the archbishop's private vault.

The investigators, led by a judge and two lawyers, said that while it was not their job to confirm the scale of abuse cases, they had no doubt the 46 priests abused many more than 320 children. "One priest admitted to sexually abusing over 100 children, while another accepted that he had abused on a fortnightly basis during the currency of his ministry which lasted for over 25 years," they wrote.

Three Dublin archbishops - John Charles McQuaid (1940-72), Dermot Ryan (1972-84) and Kevin McNamara (1985-87) - did not tell police about clerical abuse cases, instead opting to avoid public scandals by shuttling offenders from parish to parish, the commission found. It was not until 1995 that then-Archbishop Connell allowed police to see church files on 17 clerical abuse cases kept in a secret, locked vault, though at the time Connell had records of complaints against at least 29 priests, the report says.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said the state would renew efforts to prosecute more of the 46 priests in the report, as well as police officers that the investigation found colluded with church authorities to suppress complaints. Ahern said, however, that the cover-ups reflected "a different era where there was deference by state agencies to the church. I don't think that would happen today."

The investigators lauded a handful of priests and mostly low-ranking police who pursued complaints and prosecutions, almost always unsuccessfully, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Senior police officers "clearly regarded priests as being outside their remit," handing "complaints to the archdiocese instead of investigating them."

"A few (priests) were courageous and brought complaints to the attention of their superiors. The vast majority simply chose to turn a blind eye," the report said. In May, the government published a report on decades of child abuse in Catholic-run schools, workhouses and orphanages.

More than 12,000 victims of rape, beatings and metal abuse have received compensation payments from a government panel exceeding euro800 million ($1.2 billion). --- On the Net: Report, http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504 (Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) .2 billion). --- On the Net: Report, http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

http://www.necn.com/pages/landing?blo...agID=27575