Talk:Satanic panic/Archive 2

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New headings for SRA cases

I suggest that the heading 'modern reports' be altered to something like 'contested cases', since all the information contained in this section relates to cases of SRA that have generated significant public concern over possible miscarriages of justice, unfair prosecution, improper investigation, etc.

We can then add an additional section called 'uncontested cases' or 'unambiguous cases' (anyone have any ideas?) which details cases of SRA in which perpetrators plead guilty and there was unambiguous evidence for their guilt. I'm thinking of cases like that in Perth, Australia, in 1991, where a young man plead guilty to the sexual abuse of several young children. During the trial, he claimed to have been a member of a satanic cult since his early teens that engaged in ritualistic sexual practices with young children. The state alleged that the young children had been sexually abused in satanic rituals, and that this included the use of hypnosis, trance, blood letting and blood drinking, animal sacrifice and other ritual practices. Contracts with 'satan' signed in the children's blood were adduced at trial.

There are other cases around the world in which evidence for satanic ritual abuse was adduced at trial, resulting in a guilty verdict, and there are cases in which perpetrators confessed and pled guilty. These cases did not generate significant media attention, because they were unambiguous, complex, and often very disturbing. I think it would add significant value to this article if there was a section here to document such cases, as the current focus on contested cases is prudicial in that it directs the reader to presume that the only SRA cases are contested or ambiguous cases.

Anyone have any thoughts/comments/objections?

--Biaothanatoi 22:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at the introduction to this section - let me know what you think and whether you object to the changes. I had a number of concerns about this section that are worth flagging here:

* The text was factually incorrect in stating that reports of SRA occured in the 1960s - the phrase was unknown at the time.

* The article asserts a number of POV positions as fact, including that allegations of SRA were constructed from material in popular culture.

* The text is contradictory (and the author somewhat hypocritical) in condemning "morbid curiousity" after providing unsourced allegations of babies in microwaves and people drinking urine.

* The text provides unsourced claims from "Wiccan investigators" which characterises people who assert that SRA as mentally ill, whilst referring to "others" (???) which characterises people who watch programs on SRA as voyeuristic.

I've tried to summarise the diversity of skeptical positions on SRA, and the many factors which impacted on early investigations. Since there are more then a few skeptics on this page, let me know what you think. --Biaothanatoi 01:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I've added a few new SRA cases in North America, and extended the section on the West Memphis 3. Information on some cases are only available via Lexus Nexus, since they didn't get any press at the time, however they are pertinent to the question of whether allegations of "satanic ritual abuse" are fabrications (which many authors on this page have previously suggested) or whether they could be based on factual events.

If anyone has more information on the West Memphis 3 that they'd like to add, I would encourage you to do so. The court documents that I've read are not flattering to the accused and I'm unsure why they are garnering such public support, so perhaps there are facts about this case that I'm unaware of. It would be interesting to see them posted here. --Biaothanatoi 03:03, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Moral panic theory - Mary De Young

The quotation from Mary de Young on "moral panics" in the first paragraph is biased in that it's primary position in the article clearly infers that "moral panic" theory is the likely explanation for SRA. This is not the consensus position amongst those who are skeptical of SRA, and it ignores the significant body of empirical research which suggests that allegations of SRA are based on factual experiences of organised and ritualistic abuse.

Whilst moral panic is one explanation of Satanic Ritual Abuse, but it's not the only one - even amongst the skeptics. Elaine Showalter claimed that is was evidence of "pre-millenial anxiety", Linley Hood claimed it was evidence of homophobic attacks on gay childcare workers, Debbie Nathan claimed it was evidence of a backlash against working mothers placing their children in daycare, Ralph Underwager claimed it was a conspiracy created be lesbians and feminist seeking to undermine the nuclear family, John Pooley claimed it was evidence of temporary frontal lobe epilepsy, David Frankfurter claims it's an expression of a universal human need to beleive in ultimate evil, Jeffrey Victor claimed it was an invention of fundamentalist Christians, Richard Ofshe claimed that it was the result of hypnotic police interviewing techniques, Pamela Freyd claimed it was the result of psychotherapeutic malpractice. And so on.

I'm deleting de Young's quote on the basis of it's POV and biased positioning. de Young's contributions to the debate on "moral panic" are important but the centrality given to her opinion is clearly designed to influence the reader to the "moral panic" position. It fails to acknowledge the diversity of the skeptical positions on SRA, let alone on the debate as a whole. Perhaps someone wants to start up a passage on the 'moral panic' position on SRA? Or even a summary of alternative explanations, like the many that I've listed above?

--Biaothanatoi 00:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't see how these explanations are contradictory, especially since de Young specifically mentions "the patriarchy thesis" and "feminist arguments", "religious fundamentalist notions of premillennarian evil", "a hierarchy of abuse with the 'ultimate evil' of satanic ritual abuse at its peak", etc etc. In any case, the use of the quotation was not to privilege a "moral panic explanation" over other skeptical explanations, but to summarize the skeptical view on the subject. And the skeptical view is, in fact, also the mainstream view. I'm aware of the burgeoning network of websites, message boards, and activist groups insisting that academia and the media got it all wrong, that SRA is really a widespread, highly organized network spanning the globe, etc. But this is a fringe theory which needs to be treated as such. I'm afraid that your recent edits to the article have involved extensive synthesis of apparently reliable sources to advance an argument that, taken individually, they do not make. The mainstream view of McMartin, for example, is that "That case, in which hundreds of children made increasingly bizarre claims of abuse against the family owners and employers of a preschool in Manhattan Beach (Los Angeles County), eventually fell apart in acquittals, hung juries and questions about prosecutorial excess." [1]. The supposed archaeological evidence of backfilled tunnels has been received with wide skepticism, despite your incredibly prejudicial conclusion that they "have yet to be refuted by an archaeologist". Since there is a clear mainstream view of SRA, this article should be written to it. It can certainly accommodate the claims of the SRA movement but should not be beholden to them. < eleland // talkedits > 15:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The many skeptical opinions on SRA are worth noting, but I see no reason why "moral panic" theory be privileged over any other. I also see no disjunction between your quote on McMartin and the information I provided. In fact, I detailed the defence's argument in greater detail then any preceeding author. --Biaothanatoi 14:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Removed as unsourced

• As of July, 2007, press and media figures and much of the public treats claims of Satanic ritual abuse with great skepticism.

Move some case studies

What do you think of moving the non-satanic cases to False allegation of child sexual abuse? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 07:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC) I am against the move because these cases may have occurred. Abuse truth 22:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

removal of Repeated descriptions of secret rooms section

I am removing the section below because it is unsourced. It is also ambiguous.

Repeated descriptions of secret rooms

While most SRA accounts are regarded by modern eyes as absurd and impossible, the abuse setting of a secret room, tunnel, or other "special" location is a theme which not only is noticeable in (now disproven) victim recollections, but has also been verified by several official investigations. Abuse truth 23:08, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Ralph Underwager and the Institute of Psychologal Therapies

An editor here has accused me of slandering Dr Ralph Underwager, the founder of the Institute of Psychological Therapies and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

For his interest, I have provided exerpts of an article published in The Sunday Times, called "Child abuse expert says paedophilia part of 'god's will' - Dr Ralph Underwager" by Liz Lightfoot, 19 December 1993.

AN AMERICAN psychologist whose evidence has been widely used to discredit child witnesses in sexual abuse cases has claimed that men who have sex with children could defend their behaviour as part of God's will ...

Last night Underwager admitted that his credibility had been damaged by the interview, in which he urged paedophiles to defend themselves publicly. He denied that he approved of the behaviour, but added that "scientific evidence" showed 60% of women sexually abused as children reported that the experience had been good for them. He contended the same could be true for boys.

He confirmed that he had approved the article in the journal Paidika, subtitled the Journal of Paedophilia, before publication. In it he stated: "Paedophiles need to become more positive and make the claim that paedophilia is an acceptable expression of God's will for love and unity among human beings.

"The solution that I'm suggesting is that paedophiles become much more positive. They should directly attack the concept, the image, the picture of the paedophile as an evil, wicked and reprehensible exploiter of children." ...

He has been forced to resign from his high-profile position as a founding member of the False Memory Society (FMS) following the article. The FMS, which has branches in America and Britain, was set up to examine the phenomenon of adults in therapy who falsely recall being abused as children. It told Underwager he could remain a member only if he was prepared to state that any sexual contact between a child and an adult was always destructive.

"I am a scientist and I could not agree to that because it is not a statement based on scientific research," he said this weekend ...

Underwager said he believed feminists were jealous of men's ability to love other men or children and had stirred up hysteria over paedophilia. "The point where men may say that maleness can include the intimacy and closeness of sex may make women jealous," he said in the interview. "This would hold true for male bonding, and paedophile sex too."

--Biaothanatoi 01:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Paul and Shirley Eberle, and child pornography

An editor has accused me of 'poisoning the well' when I stated that information taken from Paul and Shirley Eberle's book "Abuse of Innocence: The McMartin Preschool Trial" was untrustworthy because the Eberles have published and distributed child pornography.

The Eberle's history first came to light with the publication of the article "Paul and Shirley Eberle: A Strange Pair of Experts" in a 1988 addition of Ms Magazine. An excerpt is provided below:

What is startling about the Eberles' reputation as ground-breaking experts in the field is that their dubious credentials have not been widely challenged. Paul and Shirley Eberle edit a soft-core magazine in California called the L.A. Star that contains a mixture of nude photos, celebrity gossip, telephone sex ads, and promos for The Politics of Child Abuse.

In the 1970's, however, the Eberles were also publishing hard-core pornography. Their publication, Finger, depicted scenes of bondage, S & M, and sexual activities involving urination and defecation. A young girl portrayed with a wide smile on her face sits on top of a man whose penis is inside of her; a woman has oral sex with a young boy in a drawing entitled "Memories of My Boyhood."

The Eberles were featured nude on one cover holding two life-size blow up dolls names "Love Girl" and "Play Guy." No dates appear on the issues and the Eberles rarely attach their names, referring to themselves as "The L.A. Star Family."

The Eberles were the distributors of Finger and several other underground magazines, says Donald Smith, a sergeant with the obscenity section of the Los Angeles Police Department's vice division who followed the couple for years. LAPD was never able to prosecute for child pornography: "There were a lot of photos of people who looked like they were under age but we could never prove it." The pictures of young children in Finger are illustrations, and child pornography laws were less rigid a decade ago than they are today.

"Sexpot at Five," "My First Rape, She Was Only Thirteen," and "What Happens When Niggers Adopt White Children" are some of the articles that appeared in Finger. One letter states: "I think it's really great that your mags have the courage to print articles & pixs [sic] on child sex...Too bad I didn't hear from more women who are into child sex...Since I'm single I'm not getting it on with my children, but I know of a few families that are. If I were married & my wife & kids approved--I'd be having sex with my daughters."

Another entry reads: "I'm a pedophile & I think its [sic] great a man is having sex with his daughter!...Since I didn't get Finger #3, I didn't get to see the stories & pics of family sex. Would like to see pics of nude girls making it with their daddy, but realize its too risky to print."

During cross examination of an expert witness in the trial of Margaret Kelly Michaels, the prosecution referred to the Eberles as "child pornographers", and the judge dismissed the defence's application for a mistrial on the basis that such a label was based on fact. (Judge denies mistrial in sex-abuse case, The Associated Press, 22 January 1988). An exerpt is below:

A state judge yesterday refused to declare a mistrial in a 7-month-old child sex-abuse case over the remarks of a prosecutor, who had called the authors of a book recommended by a defense witness "child pornographers." ...

Superior Court Judge William F. Harth denied the motion yesterday, saying use of the word "pornographer" was not improper.

"We established that some of the literature he relied on {as an expert} was written by child pornographers," [prosecutor] Goldberg said outside the courtroom yesterday.

On Wednesday, Goldberg, in front of the jury, called the authors "child pornographers" because of other publications linked to the Eberles: the newspaper L.A. Star, which Goldberg said advertised sex services and contained the Eberles' writings, and the sexually explicit magazine Finger.

Goldberg, outside the courtroom yesterday, displayed a copy of Finger, which he said the Eberles published. On the cover were pictures of a naked couple posing with life-size inflatable dolls. Inside, the couple was identified as Paul and Shirley Eberle, and the dolls as Love Girl and Play Guy.

The copy also showed pictures of naked children.

If it has been deemed appropriate to refer to the Eberles child pornographers in court, then surely it is inappropriate for Wikipedia to rely on their published writings.

I hope that this information assists editors and contributers here in understanding the complexity of the SRA debate, and how this debate has been shaped by pro-incest advocates like Ralph Underwager and child pornographers like Paul and Shirley Eberle.

--Biaothanatoi 01:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• The Duke Lacrosse players were called rapists in legal proceedings. Legal proceedings are adversarial, in which both sides make conflicting statements. Even being found guilty or innocent does not make legal statements true. The Salem witches were found guilty, and O.J. was found innocent. Wikipedia isn't about "truth". Its about verifiability, and historical consensus, and not giving undue weight to fringe opinions. Anyway, your using a straw man attack. The Eberles are not used as a source in this article. Posing naked does not make you "pornographers". John Lennon and Yoko Ono posed naked for their album cover, and every medical textbook I have has genitals in it, and Wikipedia has nudity in it, so maybe by your definition, your contributing to pornography too. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 08:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The LAPD believes that the Eberles were active in the child pornography trade, and so too did a judge. You can make up your own mind, but it's hard to understand your defense of the Eberles given that their publication "Finger" contained images of children having sex with adults, stories of children being raped, and rapturous fan mail from self-identified paedophiles.

You apply a "floating standard" to material in this article that changes when it suits you. Your previous position was that, as long as information is printed and published somewhere (on a website, in a newspaper, in a book), it is 'verifiable' and can therefore be included here. Your position seems to apply a fairly low standard in terms of credibility or relevance - for instance, you've claimed that the word of an obituarist on a dead woman's mental health is of equal (if not superior) value to the professional opinion of the dead woman's psychologist, simply because the obituary was published in NYT.

Now we find you contesting the relevance of edited reports because they were published outside North America and contesting the findings of a judge and the relevance of newspaper court reporters because the legal process is not perfect. By your previous standard, this information is verifiable and therefore an acceptable source for a Wikipedia. It seems that you are applying a new standard - or rather, a set of spurious tests designed to block information from this article that doesn't suit your POV.

I included this information on the Eberles here after you accused me of slander and libel. Clearly, you were incorrect in that accusation, since the involvement of the Eberles in the child sex trade has been public knowledge for almost twenty years. --Biaothanatoi 02:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The "questioning children" section

I've substantially rewritten the section on "questioning children", which made a number of unsourced and factually incorrect assertions regarding the reliability of children's testimony.

There is a considerable body of research into children's testimony and the accuracy of their memory - research sparked in no small way by the controversies over ritual abuse. This research does not suggest that children are highly suggestible or easily led by adults. What it demonstrates is that, whlist leading interview techniques impact on both adults and children, they rarely lead to false reports.

Play therapy with very young children has also been successfully tendered as evidence of sexual abuse in court for years now, and whilst it may be a controversial technique amongst those influenced by the False Memory Syndrome movement, it does not attract the same skepticism in legal or academic circles.

I've also included information in this section on children's difficulties in sexual assault trials, which is well documented by researchers in America, Australia and Britain. It is pertinent to the issue of questioning children. I can provide further sources and information on this matter if other editors think it would add to the article.

--Biaothanatoi 04:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The "hypnosis and false memories" section

This is a strange section for a number of reasons, and I suggest that it be substantively rewritten.

For instance, not a single source is provided for any assertion in the entire section, and a number of statements are made at such a level of generality that they can be easily disproven. The most concerning aspect of this article is that it uses the phrase "recovered memory therapy" to refer to a "technique" through which memories of child abuse are recovered.

There is no psychotherapeutic technique called "recovered memory therapy". The phrase was invented by Richard Ofshe and Ethan Waters in their book "Making Monsters" to auspice both evidence-based treatment for PTSD as well as fringe practices such as 'rebirthing', 'past-life regression', etc. This was a rhetorical strategy designed to undermine the credibility of all treatment for traumatic amnesia.

As you can read in this article, Richard Ofshe's theories on SRA were thrown out of court in Paul Ingram case, where the judge called his logic "odd" and his conclusions unfounded, and called into question his professional capacity and expertise. The fact that Ofshe later promulgated those same conclusions through his advocacy work with the False Memory Syndrome Foundation does not mean that we should reproduce them here as fact, particularly since they have been found to be lacking in court, and robustly contested by his academic peers.

--Biaothanatoi 06:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Rewritten - see what you think. --Biaothanatoi 01:11, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Interested editors?

For anyone who is interested in edits relating to this topic, I'm having some difficulty at Satanic ritual abuse and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with editors who are incredulous that the term "Satanic ritual abuse" is even appropriate for what is discussed there. Would love to see input/assistance from editors here who are familiar with the topic. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 22:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Broad summary of contested issues at WP:FTN

Over at the fringe theories noticeboard I have posted a broad review of certain recent edits to this page; in summary, I believe that reliable published sources have been selectively misquoted and misinterpreted to push a fringe POV. Please try and keep the resulting discussion in one place. <eleland/talkedits> 15:01, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

The question of secret tunnels or dungeons

Not all SRA accounts mention tunnels or secret rooms, however a significant number do. While these stories are now generally dismissed as the product of over-active childhood imaginations, it should be noted that some evidence of tunnels has appeared in certain documented SRA cases.

The above section has no sources, contains numerous weasel words, and does not document either the 'significant number' of accounts containing tunnels, nor that 'some evidence...has appeared'. Provide citations for both, and that this is significant to SRA, and the section could stay in; otherwise, it looks like a bit of WP:OR that tunnels are somehow significant. Pointing to random bits of evidence or items linked to some cases of SRA and saying that they are somehow significant is not how a featured article is made. Before re-adding the section, use the section on the talk page to try to get it to a point that it is acceptable to most contributors. WLU 13:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

well my source is other wikipedia pages lol. go read some of the pages on the different accusations; secret rooms or tunnels do keep coming up (even though the cases were later disproven). I guess I think its notable, especially when looked at after the alien section. The documented accounts are mentioned above by biaothanatoi... yes I can come up with many citations but is that going to change your mind? With SRA I think it is clear you have to consider the "hypothetical" nature of so much of the rhetoric on both sides of the issue. In that regard I don't think a secret room reference is out of order, again consider some of the far longer sections left in. PS- I think room is proably a better catch-all than tunnel the more I think about it66.220.110.83 01:05, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

This is not a case of 'my citations vs yours'. Tunnels and 'secret rooms' are not a defining feature of disclosures of SRA. Given that tunnels are tangential to the issue under discussion, what would a section on tunnels add to the article? From your explanation above, it seems that you believe it adds value to the article by emphasising an unlikely or impossible feature of some disclosures of SRA, thus adding weight to the argument that SRA is a fabrication.

Although they did feature in some high-profile allegations, there is no research which suggests that tunnels are a frequent feature of disclosures of SRA. There are also cases in which tunnels and secret rooms where alleged, and later found. For instance, Marc Dutroux was a high-profile sex offender and murderer in Belgium who was trafficking kidnapped girls and children into an international child abuse ring which also, according to survivors, practiced Satanic rituals. He held the children in secret undergorund rooms beneath his seven houses whilst trafficking them into slavery.

Given that tunnels aren't a defining feature of SRA, and that there is no research to suggest they are a common feature of SRA, it seems to me that a section on tunnels would add very little to the article. If that section were to claim, as you apparently advocate, that allegations of tunnels are significant because they have never been found to exist, then you would be misleading the reader, because such a claim is factually incorrect. --Biaothanatoi 13:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I'm not being clearer. My point is that why would tunnels show up in stories AND verified cases, if there wasn't some truth to it? I think the tunnel/secret room issue is important, I haven't reade much of the research, but I have read the entireity of almost every wikipedia page on the subject and secret rooms do keep showing up, either in the verified cases mentioned above or in simple accusations. Even if it is a psychological explanation, the events forcing a need for safety and privacy in child so the concotion of the secret room stories, or something else. I think there is a hundred different ways to cut the issue but none of them are simple "totally made up" scenarios. So anyways I think its notable as proof of the existence of SRA or at least the need for further investigation.66.220.110.83 00:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Removed as WP:OR I believe. WLU 20:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The McMartin section

The section on the McMartin preschool appears to have been drawn from a book written by Paul and Shirley Eberle, who came to the attention of the police in the 1970s for the manufacture and distribution of child pornography (see Laurina, M. (1988). "Paul and Shirley Eberle: A Strange Pair of Experts." Ms. Magazine).

The Eberles are notable for their belief that some forms of sex with children are 'benign', and their conspiracy theory that a vast network of corrupt social workers, psychotherapists and police officers are trying to convict innocent parents of sexual abuse. The Eberles have no credibility in the field of child abuse and child protection, although they were able to propagate their work through groups such as Victims of Child Abuse Laws and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

Any reference to their book should be removed from this article and any information drawn from their book should be considered extremely suspect. The McMartin section needs to be substantially rewritten.

Biaothanatoi 11:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I have substantially rewritten the McMartin section and included multiple references, including material from press clippings at the time. The previous text was false and misleading, particularly in it's characterisation of the mental health of the mother of one of the complainant children, who later committed suicide. The reliance of the previous text on the ritualistic elements of the children's disclosures was also questionable, since those disclosures did not result in charges against the defendants and were therefore not facts in issue during the case.

Please feel free to review the changes and make others where necessary. It would be good to see Wikipedia providing some factual and objective commentary on this case. The previous reference to the published work of child pornographers was beyond the pale. Biaothanatoi 12:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), if you want to make changes to a section, please

discuss your reasons on this page. You removed factual information from a peer-reviewed journal article written by a

consultant psychologist on the McMartin case, and replaced it with second-hand and selective information taken from an

obituary written fifteen years after the events took place. Obituaries aren't exactly objective sources of information.

The psychologist who wrote that particular article met with and assessed the mental health of Judy Johnson in 1984 and wrote the following:

"If post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments are to be honored, and if an author is to be equally empathic with all the

players, one might consider that McMartin whistle blower Judy Johnson's psychotic break and alcoholic toxicity were

precipitated by, rather than precipitants of, her desperate concern that she and her not-quite three-yr-old son were victims

of unfathomable treachery. Having met Ms. Johnson in February, 1984, I am convinced of the first option. Judy Johnson was

quite sane and emotionally contained even as she described the improbable complaints of her child."

Johnson did eventually suffer a psychotic break, which, in the opinion of Prof. Roland Summit, was caused by the stress of

the case. Your changes infer that Johnson was mentally ill prior to the events of the McMartin case, and infer that her

complaint to the police was motivated by her mental illness. In fact, as the information which you deleted states, a number

of McMartin children were already in treatment for suspected sexual abuse. Your changes have no basis in fact and I have

altered them accordingly.

It is also worth noting that, during the case, several hundred former McMartin students contacted the prosecution stating that they had been sexually abused at the school, a fact openly acknowledged by the "Friends of McMartin" support group that formed around the defendants at the time. Biaothanatoi 15:58, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I see it's been removed from the article, but it is worth noting that Johnson had a "psychotic break" before all of

this occured. Whether she was "cured" is a separate question. And all of the parents of "McMartin students (who)

contacted the prosecution" had been contacted by the police. I don't have sources with me, but I was living in the Los

Angeles area at the time, and the information was in the newspapers, if anyone cared to read it. — [[User:Arthur

Rubin|Arthur Rubin]] | (talk) 21:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Diana Napolis responds on May 28, 2008

This arose from my review mentioned above. User:Biaothanatoi has [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?

title=Satanic_ritual_abuse&diff=159924353&oldid=159915598 added a summary] of an SRA case in Orlando, Florida. He referenced

three newspaper articles in the Orlando Sentinel Tribune. His citation was, to the letter, identical to the citation in

a "Satanism and Ritual Abuse Archive" which has been

floating around less reputable websites.

My background is as a child abuse investigator, researcher, licensed therapist, and independant contractor for Family Court in San Diego County. After a cover-up of ritual abuse occurred in my local community, I created an archive of satanic cases to serve as objective proof that this type of crime existed. In 1998 I posted the results of my research in an archive titled Satanism and Ritual Abuse Archive. In the year 1999-2000 I was stalked in my local community by a satanist who was trying to identify me for the cult group she worked for. After I was identified I was targeted with nonlethal technology called “Voice to Skull Devices” http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/vts.html and "Voice Synthesis Devices" http://call.army.mil/thesaurus/toc.asp?id=32228&section=v . A recent wired.com news article describes how these weapons can be used to simulate mental illness and can be found at http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/report-nonletha.html.

On March 25, 2008 I filed a Federal lawsuit against Michael Aquino, Michelle Devereaux, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, Carol Hopkins, Mark Sauer, David Copley, and San Diego State University for Defamation, Infliction of emotional distress, conspiracy, violation of my first amendment right to free speech, invasion of privacy, and lastly, in the body of my lawsuit I have alleged that I was intentionally targeted with nonlethals in retaliation for my research. On May 1, 2008 I amended my complaint. A link to this lawsuit can be found at my web site.

I have recently returned to my work and research. I have updated my Satanism and Ritual Abuse archive and it can be found at http://members.cox.net/dnap/srarchive.pdf. Approximately 99% of these cases in this archive can be objectively confirmed and it contains very valuable information.

I am also in the process of reviewing several major reports in the United States which purported to debunk the notion that satanic ritual abuse occurs. I have critiqued the research study "Characteristics and Sources of Allegations of Ritualistic Child Abuse," which contained so many irregularities that I requested an academic review at the University of California school system.

I discovered that there had been an article published on Wikipedia about satanic ritual abuse which tried to make it appear that I had been "mentally ill" while on the internet. That was the agenda of my opponents, strangely enough, to try to deflect from the damning information I had revealed. Although this bogus allegation was removed from Wikipedia, I found a copy of this article on seven different web sites. I am putting others on notice. Any allegations made about me should have the evidence to support it, otherwise, I will be taking multiple parties to court. Other details about my case can be found at my website http://diananapolis.wordpress.com

Diana Napolis, May 28, 2008

_________________end

I doubt that Biaothanatoi actually read these newspaper articles; I suspect he simply rewrote the summary and passed it off as proper research. The "archive" was originally compiled by "Diana Napolis aka Karen Jones © 2000". Diana Napolis is currently on probation for stalking and threatening Jennifer Love Hewitt, who she believed was the lynchpin of a satanic-ritual conspiracy involving "psychotronic weapons".

Biaothanatoi then substantially expanded the case of the West Memphis 3; his information purported to prove that the case was not false, but rather involved Satanic Ritual killers escaping the net with media co-operation. His citation was again letter-for-letter identical to Ms. Napolis's.

Strangely, Biaothanatoi earlier commented on this individual, opining that the reference to her mental illness should be removed since she is not a significant figure in ritual abuse literature or research. Apparantly, her conclusions are still perfectly OK. <eleland/talkedits> 15:01, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, the actual factual accuracy of Diana Napolis' website has never been questioned or debated. The fact that the above writer doubts that "Biaothanatoi actually read these newspaper articles," is simply an unproven assumption. Abuse truth 02:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Eleland, if you can prove that any of the information provided in this article relating to any of these cases is false, then please do so. As I made clear when I made the initial changes, the information on all these cases is drawn from Lexis Nexis and newspaper articles, which are accessible via Factiva or any other newspaper archive. You are free to engage in your own fact checking.

However, if all the information is verifiable via Lexis Nexis and the newspaper articles cited, then you do not have grounds to quesiton that information. I am not taking Napolis' word for anything. Everything she has collated is supported by independant and reliable sources.

I would also point out to you that you have previously defended the reputations of a professed pro-paedophile advocate and two people who were found to be child pornographers in a court of law. It is odd to me that you considered their opinions on child sexual assault to be valuable additions to the article, despite their public pro-incest stance, whilst Napolis' verifiable research is somehow unreliable because of her history of mental illness.

If you want to challenge info in this article, then please find a firm basis from which to do so (beyond ad hominem) - and perhaps you could make it consistent with your standards for other authors, which is apparently very low. At the moment, it seems that you are applying a very strange double standard indeed. --Biaothanatoi 03:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

• Who are the child pornographers? I am assuming the alleged pro-ped person is Eberle. But he isn't used as a source here. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 03:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The Eberles have been referenced here for years, and their credibility has been repeatedly defended by yourself and Eleland, despite two sources with statements from both the LAPD and a trial judge that they are child pornographers. --Biaothanatoi 01:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

it is unacceptable to copy summaries of court cases from pages like hiddenmysteries.org. It appears obvious that Biaothanatoi is attempting to inflate credibility of SRA cases, and isn't picky about her methods. I find the discussion of individual cases questionable in any case, and such as we so discuss need to be directly referenced to the court verdict mentioning "rituals" or "satanism", to make sure we do not fall victim to stale media hype. dab (𒁳) 16:29, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

ok, regardless of the murky origins of these case studies, this is an encyclopedia article, not a newspaper archive. We need to present the pattern of such "satanic" cases in the early 1990s, not report the headlines of each one. The notable ones, like West Memphis 3, can get their own articles, the rest can just be listed. dab (𒁳) 16:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

For years, this article has contained lists of "SRA cases" with reams of factually incorrect information and quotes from dubious sources - some with a history of child sexual offences, like the Eberles. The relevance of those individual cases, and the credibility of those sources, was not questioned for as long as they were skewed to the POV that the allegations had no basis in fact.

Now the relevance of including any individual cases is questioned - and the credibility of newspaper articles and Lexis Nexis - because other cases have been listed in which ritualistic and organised child sexual offences were substantiated.

I challenge editors here to demonstrate where the information that has been provided on these cases is incorrect. Check the sources cited and get back to this page. If the information is incorrect, then please correct it. If it is not, leave it alone.

As it stands, the information is factual and verifiable, and you have no basis for removing it - aside from a very clear preference amongst some editors to withhold information from the reader regarding substantiated cases of organised and ritualistic abuse. --Biaothanatoi 01:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Biothanatoi, your constant drumbeat of accusations related to Underwager and the Eberles is uncouth and uncalled-for. You're trying to discount all of our arguments based on tenuous and obscure connections that have nothing to do with anything. Even if the accusations against those sources were as damning as you make them out to be (and they're not, by a long shot), it doesn't have anything to do with the discussion. It's pure Chewbacca defense.

You're also digging yourself a hole, here. I thought you just copied the citations; now I actually noticed that you stole whole chunks of text in violation of copyright (and common sense). The Orlando piece is just a slight rewrite of Napolis. "The parents of three of the victims moved residences and the prosecutor expressed concern because the children had been threatened by the cult not to testify" becomes "The parents of the complainant children later moved residences and the prosecutor at trial expressed concern because the children had been threatened by the Satanic cult not to testify," etc. Your "Fran's Day Care" case is almost entirely the Napolis piece (with more lurid or unbelievable details removed). Your "Arizona" is also a rewrite; for example, your sentences "Five other relatives..." is just Napolis' with an extra clause tacked on the end.

Better watch yourself. I'm removing all your copyviol sections, then I'll go and report this in the appropriate place. I'd advise you to be contrite and acknowledge your error, otherwise you might get banned from here. <eleland/talkedits> 18:28, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

When assessing sources on a discussion on child sexual abuse, it is relevant to consider whether that source has a history of child sexual offences (like the Eberles) or is a pro-paedophile advocate (like Underwager). Underwager has been person non gratis in the field of child abuse since his public fabrications and outright lies were exposed by Dr Anna Salter in 1991, and he sued for libel, only to lose, with the court upholding Salter's criticisms of Underwager that he had fabricated his research findings.

You have yet to demonstrate that any of the information provided in this new section is incorrect, but I am touched by your concern about Napolis' copyright. You are welcome to bring up those concerns here, but instead you have presumed bad faith and run off to Wiki admin. I am unsure how to proceed in improving this article since you have proven yourself to be profoundly hostile to me, and to anyone who disagrees with you on this matter. --Biaothanatoi 01:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is the kicker. When assesing sources. Not when discussing the selection of quotations from other sources, for example. And can you provide sources for your assertion that "the court upheld Salter's criticisms of Underwager"? My impression was that the judgement was on the basis that Underwager could not demonstrate the Salter's "knowledge that the statement was false, or doubts about its truth coupled with reckless disregard of whether it was false".

Moving along, respecting copyright is a policy on Wikipedia. You may not like it, and you can make all the insinuations about my motives that you want, but it's still policy. And even Napolis' work was not copyrighted, it is grossly inappropriate to present the ramblings of a paranoid-delusional ex-convict as proper research, especially when citing newspaper articles rather than the actual source. <eleland/talkedits> 04:13, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Eleland, I suggest you do some research of your own for once. I've sourced all my statements on Underwager and others in the past only to find thouse sources disputed by you on the most spurious grounds. You like Google - surely you can find more information on Anna Salter there, given her standing as a researcher on child abuse.

Napolis' research was not copyrighted and, in fact, was meticulously sourced and verifiable. You haven't bothered to check those sources, and you have yet to demonstrate that a single statement was factually incorrect. Given your hostility to me since you entered this discusison, it is not unreasonable for me to suggest that your sudden concern about Napolis' (non-existence) copyright was motivated by something other then etiquette. In short, it seems to me that you expunged verifiable and factual information simply because it did not accord with your POV.

If you felt that a breach of Wikipedia policy had occurred, then all you had to do was bring it up here and we could resolve it as adults. Instead, you presumed bad faith and deleted the entire section, and then ran off to try and get me banned. You've previously gone to other boards and claimed that I am a fringe activist and a conspiracy theorist, when I am neither. You acccuse me of 'original synthesis' without every checking my citations, you dismiss books that you admit you've never read, and insult researchers that you admit you know nothing about.

If anybody is acting in bad faith, it's you. You seem to want to take a discussion and turn it into a conflict. Let's both just chill out, drop the point-scoring, and actually try to improve the article? --Biaothanatoi 04:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

All original work is copyrighted unless the copyright is explicitly disclaimed; furthermore, many of the sites which mirror the Napolis stuff specifically attribute the copyright to her. See [2] [3] [4] etc. How do you know it isn't copyrighted? <eleland/talkedits> 05:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Great, Eleland. Thankyou for making this point clear. Perhaps it would have been more constructive for you to have made this point earlier and sought some kind of resolution that we could both agree on. Instead, you've run off to other boards and falsely claimed that I called you a 'pedo'. What a joke. --Biaothanatoi 05:57, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

If you're writing a Master's thesis, I would assume you have a basic grasp of copyright as it pertains to research, and that you are capable of reading your own sources and noticing the copyright tags. As for the "pedo" post you mention from WP:FTN, the full quote was, "According to Biaothanatoi, this makes anyone remotely associated with [Ralph Underwager], anyone who uses the same terminology as him, or anyone who takes their coffee the same way as him a pedo. Including you and me." I note with disappointment that you read and quote Wikipedians as tendentiously as you do source material. <eleland/talkedits> 06:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Precisely, Eleland. Another example in which you claim that I hold beliefs that I do not. You are clearly incapable of engaging in this discussion in good faith - instead you have systematically attempted to prove I am the 'type' of person that you believe me to be. You won't engage with the actual material that I have cited, because you can't be bothered to read the sources. Instead, you base your objections on ad hominem attacks on me, or you create specious tests in order to dismiss sources of information that contradicts your POV.

You have yet to prove that the information that I have added is incorrect, whilst there were numerous factual inaccuracies in your own writings on this subject matter. --Biaothanatoi 06:33, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

It appears that two standards are being applied to data. There is no evidence showing that any of Biaothanatoi's are factually inaccurate. I believe all of their edits should stay. It is unfortunate that Eleland above needs to resort to threats to promote his own point of view. If this page is going to have any sort of balance, then both sides of the argument need to be treated with the same standards for data and without threats. Abuse truth 01:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

the burden lies on Biaothanatoi to show that his material is correct. We do not include material in Wikipedia "until proven incorrect", this would lead to madness. It has been shown that Biaothanatoi has lifted his material off a cranky website, which is (a) copyright violation, and (b) casts severe doubt on both the credibility of the material and the credibility of Biaothanatoi himself. Who are these Eberles and how are they at all relevant? How can a finding that there is no satanic conspiracy be construed to endorse pedophilia?? At all? Unlike this satanist nonsense, pedophilia is a sad reality, and has its own article, at pedophilia. dab (𒁳) 09:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I see, Eberle's book discusses the McMartin preschool trial. Now seeing that we have a full article on Day care sex abuse hysteria, I fail to see why these case studies need to be repeated here. I also fail to see how pointing out that no sexual abuse has taken place in a given case is in any way apologetic of actual sexual abuse? Nobody endorses sexual abuse. There was a moral panic surrounding "satanic ritual abuse" in the 1980s to 1990s USA. What is unclear about this state of affairs? dab (𒁳) 09:31, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Biaothanatoi has proven that his data is accurate. His data is being held up to a much higher standard than that of the data on the side of those that don't believe SRA exists. The connection between pedophilia and SRA is that publishers of pedophilia have also published "data" on SRA. see Paul and Shirley Eberle: A Strange Pair of Experts by Maria Laurina Reprinted in the ICONoclast, WINTER 1988 / VOL. 1, NO. 2 with permission from Ms. Magazine (December 1988) [5]

also see "Why Cults Terrorize and Kill Children" LLOYD DEMAUSE The Journal of Psychohistory 21 (4) 1994 - a peer reviewed journal at [6] "In addition, some of authors of false memory books also turned out to be pedophile advocates. For example, one of the most widely cited books claiming that cult abuse reports were mass hysteria is Paul and Shirley Eberle's The Abuse of Innocence: The McMartin Preschool trial.(6) Taken quite seriously by reviewers and widely quoted In later maga-zine articles as authoritative, the book makes such claims as that the over 100 McMartin children who reported they had been abused by a cult were all "brainwashed" and the mothers were all "hysterical" and that it was meaningless that physicians found three-quarters of the children bore physical evidence that corroborated their stories. What reviewers didn't mention was that the Eberles had been called "the most prolific publishers of child pornography in the United States" by Sgt. Toby Tyler, a San Bernadino deputy sheriff who is a nationally recognized expert on child pornography.(7) Their kiddie porn material that I have seen and the articles they have published such as "I Was a Sexpot at Five" and "Little Lolitas" Included illustrations of children involved in sodomy and oral copulation and featured pornographic photos of the Eberles. Abuse truth 00:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Excuse the offtopic comment, but the phrase "a peer reviewed journal at http://www.geocities.com..." is one of the funniest things I've heard in a while. Anyway, DeMause's playground is not a peer reviewed journal, and it's amusing that you claim it is, given the fulminations from others every time an "Issues in Child Abuse Accusations" (Underwager's playground) article is mentioned here. DeMause, who has few relevant qualifications, invented a field called "psychohistory" which is unrecognized and practiced only by him and his associated disciples. He believes that all of human history can be explained in terms of child sexual abuse, and that at least 60% of girls and 45% of boys are sexually abused, many before the age of 5. He is, to be blunt, a kook, and should not be cited as anything but a minority view. <eleland/talkedits> 17:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

DeMause's Journal of Psychohistory was peer-reviewed, Eleland. The fact that he has permitted some material to be hosted for free online doesn't change that. And psychohistory isn't a 'field', it's simply a form of historical analysis which emphasises psychological or psychodynamic principles. Psychohistorical analysis and research has been supported by some of the most eminent scholars of the 20th century, such as Robert Jay Lifton. DeMause is also credited with compiling one of the most comprehensive historical accounts of child abuse to hand.

Yet again, you launch spurious attacks on sources who provide information that conflicts with your POV. --Biaothanatoi 01:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Prevalence: none?

This article is obviously torn by edit wars. What strikes me by scanning it is

• (a) "Satanic Ritual Abuse is often used interchangeably with sadistic ritual abuse" -- really? By whom? This is rather significant for further discussion of "prevalence": the existence of "sadistic abuse" is hardly disputed. This article needs to make up its mind whether it is about alleged satanic abuse, or just about sexual abuse in general.
• (b) prevalence: the existence is doubted in some quarters (spinning). "what quarters" one immediately asks oneself. The paragraph then descends into a blurred discussion of allegations and opinions, and only in conclusion casually mentions that there isn't a single substantiated case. I mean, hello? It is clear that there are people who have fantasies about ritualistic abuse, but the fact that such stories are never substantiated as factual makes the whole topic appear in a rather different light, doesn't it? Wouldn't this deserve to be mentioned up front, in the intro? The article is still relevant as discussing a psychological condition and/or a conspiracy theory, but it needs to put its cards on the table.

it is clear that the notability of "SRA" is that of a "hysterical epidemic", and not the isolated case of some batshit crazy grandparents in the "South". --dab (𒁳) 11:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

There are numerous credible books and peer reviewed articles proving the existence of SRA. There are also many court cases with convictions for SRA. For the article to be accurate, these need to be presented. Abuse truth 01:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

People are in jail for a crime - the organised abuse of children with ritualistic and satanic features - that editors on this page want to claim does not exist. I've provided information on confessions of perpetrators, convictions, and substantiations of the more lurid allegations such as animal sacrifice. There are many more cases that I can list, and I'm more then happy to do so.

There is a false consensus among some editors on this page that no allegations of organised and ritualistic abuse have ever been found to have a basis in fact. This is incorrect and it has been repeatedly demonstrated to be so.

However, any editor acting in good faith who tries to provide some objective balance to this article is confronted by other editors who then subject the change to a set of specious tests as to the veracity of sources, or the entire section is simply deleted. Those same editors have been quite satisfied with the article in the past, despite it's outright factual inaccuracies, citations to anonymous sources such as "Wiccan investigators", and citations to people like the Eberles with a history of child sexual offences.

This is an extremely controversial topic and it would be best if cool heads prevailed. Instead, it seems that we are confronting editors who insist on attributing the most pejorative possible motivations to other editors who disagree with them.

I repeat: None of my changes have been demonstrated to be factually incorrect. I have not lied or provided false information. Instead, the information I have provided is consistently dismissed on the most ridiculous grounds e.g. the author can't be trusted because they have no Wikipedia entry, the article isn't verifiable because it was published in a peer-reviewed journal that can't be accessed online, the source is unverifiable because it was a report published outside North America, and so on. These tests were not applied to the Eberles, the anonymous "Wiccan investigators", or the many dubious sources that dominated this article for years.

• I questioned the timeline put forth in an Australian seminar, that could not be examined. It was questionable because it created an alternate timeline that contradicted the one used by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. The claim was made, by yes, someone without an article in Wikipedia. Extraordinary claims need to be made by reliable people who are recognized in their field, and even then they aren't given undue weight in articles. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times both have articles. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 04:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't present a 'timeline', I simply added information from a report published by an Australian state government. You have no basis to object to this source - it is a reliable source by any definition of the word - and nor did it contradict the timeline that you have accessed from the print media. It simply added new information to that timeline that was both verifiable and factual, and provided by a reliable person (Prof. Roland Summitt) who is one of the most recognised people in his field.

I repeat: Your objections are specious and your repeated removal of the information is not justified by Wikipedia policy. You are acting to withhold relevant, factual and verifiable information from the reader because it does not accord with your personal POV. --Biaothanatoi 05:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Some editors here are not acting in good faith, and they are attempting to bully, intimidate, and harrass those who are. --Biaothanatoi 02:03, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Why do you keep bringing up the Eberles? They're not cited in the article except when your WP:BLP violations are re-inserted. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 02:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Because the Eberles (referenced here for years) clearly demonstrate the double standard that is being applied by Wikipedia editors to the SRA page e.g. very low standards for sources who believe that SRA has no basis in fact vs arbitrarily high standards for those sources who believe otherwise.

This discussion is quite long, and it's often been quite circular, so if you are curious as to why the Eberles are relevant to this discussion, then I suggest you read the debate from the beginning. --Biaothanatoi 02:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Biaothanatoi, you are trying to push an agenda. There are a couple of convictions of occultists involved in sexual abuse. Nobody is trying to censor that fact. The significance of these cases (how many are there, a half dozen?) pales in comparison to the attention received by the moral panic surrounding "satanic ritual abuse". This article discusses the moral panic in the 1980s-1990s USA (and its spilling over to the UK and other countries, such as it was). We can also mention that a number of occultists did in fact perpetrate sexual abuse, which obviously served to add to the hysteria. If the Eberles are unreliable as a source, we'll just not cite them then. I don't know why you keep harping on them long after mention of them has been removed from the article. If you want to discuss Paul Eberle (within WP:BLP), you are welcome to do that at Paul Eberle. Btw, I fail to see how the credibility of a book is compromised by the fact that its authors published hardcore pornography 20 years earlier. I agree that it casts a shadow of doubt on the Eberle's credibility, but I am in no position of judging the reliability of their account of the McMartin case. We'll have to rely on independent reviews for that question. This is a question best addressed at Talk:McMartin_preschool_trial#Eberles, not here. dab (𒁳) 09:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

There are dozens and dozens of cases of ritualistic and organised child sexual abuse, and I'm more then happy to provide the details here. Sit tight. --Biaothanatoi 23:33, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

it turns out that the allegations against the Eberles are just a smear campaign without merit. dab (𒁳) 10:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

For pete's sake. You've provided us with an article written by one of the Eberles assistants, published by the Institute of Psychological Therapies, which set up and run by Dr Ralph Underwager, who (like the Eberles) believed that incest is not harmful. Not exactly the most objective source of commentary, but it seems that standards here are pretty low as long as the source supports the POV of a few editors here. I think I'll listen to the LAPD vice squad and the trial judge, who found that the Eberles were child pornographers on the basis of a copy of one of their kidde porn magazines.

Round and round in circles we go. --Biaothanatoi 23:03, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

In addition to the data on the Eberle's in the previous section, see: The Eberle’s, proponents of the theory that the children at the McMartin School were not ritually abused, were publishers of sexually explicit periodicals, including “Finger,” a Los Angeles tabloid containing pornographic photographs, drawings and stories about children. "Cult and Ritual Abuse - It’s History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America" - Noblitt and Perskin (Prager, 2000) also a chapter called “Empirical Evidence of Ritual Abuse” contains a variety of research studies and data showing that ritual abuse exists.

Also at [7] Entire families have been implicated in the ritual abuse of children which proves the fact that generational Satanism exists. See Parker (1995) Figured/Hill (1994) and Gallup (1991) Perpetrators have been found to be professionals who work in law enforcement, the military or daycare, and Christian fronts have been used in some instances as a means of hiding the satanic motivation of the perpetrators. See Cannaday (1994) Wright (1992) Gallup (1991) and Orr (1984). In several cases the perpetrators have confessed to the satanic element of the crime or participation in prior satanic offenses. - See Helms (2006) Cala (2003) Smith (2003) Delaney (2002) Morris (2001) South (2000) Page (2000) T. Kokoraleis (1999) Bonacci (1999) Brooks (1996) Hughes (1996) Penick (1995) Alvarado (1995) Ingram (1992) Rogers (1992) and Fryman (1988) The FMSF and those affiliated with this organization have been using the Appellate courts to overturn cases convictions involving ritual abuse themes.Abuse truth 01:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I suppose it is the hallmark of the conspiracy theorist that when his claims are debunked, he will only conclude the conspiracy goes deeper than he thought... "generational Satanism", now I've really heard it all. The Eberles are apparently spaced out hippie lefties. You are certainly excused if that worldview isn't your cup of tea, but going around smearing them as child abuse apologists is libel, pure and simple. --dab (𒁳) 07:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

There is no conspiracy theory, only data (see the above) and the reality that ritual abuse exists. The Eberle's were pornographers, not "spaced out hippie lefties."Abuse truth 23:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

they were pornographers and hippies (where is the contradiction?), in the 1970s. In the 1990s, they wrote a non-fiction book on the McMartin case. Neither "hippie" nor "pornographer" equates to "child abuse apologist".

In most forums, this would go without saying, but apparently on Wikipeida it is necessary to point out that a person who manufactures and distributes child pornography ... probably thinks that having sex with children is OK. Obvious to most, but apparently not here.

And since we ALSO know that the Eberles make a distinction between "sadistic paedophilia" (that means bad) and "benign paedophilia" (that means good) then we can ALSO surmise that the Eberles think that some forms of sex with children is "benign" (read: good). I'm taking you through step by step here.

And that means ... that, yes, they are child abuse apologists ... and that, yes, this article has been based in part or in whole on their writings for years ... and that, yes, some editors here have read the Eberles (after all, they were cited and the article mirrors their position) and apparently agree with them ... and that, yes, the Eberles continue to be defended by editors here (like yourself) although their history of child sexual offences has been amply substantiated.

Which goes on to raise serious questions about the role that Wikipedia has to play in debates on child abuse, since a complex and sensitive issue like SRA has been so skewed, for so long, by such perturbing sources and biased editors. --Biaothanatoi 02:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

re "only data". Nobody denies occultism exists. Nobody denies sexual abuse exists. You would expect co-incidence of both phenomena as a matter of statistics. The notable thing about this is the hysteria it caused. Let us reasonably assume 0.05% of US Americans are into some sort of occultism (this is a very conservative estimate, see Religion in the United States). About 90,000 child abuse cases are reported each year (as of 2000; back in 1992, the number peaked at 150,000. unsurprisingly, numbers fell as hysteria subsided). From this, you would expect about 50 cases of child abuse perpetrated by occultists reported each year (or 75 as of 1992), even if there is no connection whatsoever between occultism and abuse (or accusation thereof). If less than 40 cases per year are reported, this would actually indicate a negative correlation between occultism and child abuse). 88% of US Americans are Christians. From this, we would expect 80,000 cases of child abuse by Christians. Unless significantly more than 88% of Christian child abusers are reported, there is statistically no justification to speak of a phenomenon of "Christian child abuse". dab (𒁳) 10:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Many editors here miss the point that pro-incest advocates like the Eberles and Underwager defined SRA as a "conspiracy theory" about cabals of paedophile Satanists in the first place. They used this definition to contest the gains of the child protection movement and to try and cast professionals working with abused kids as crazy, overly zealous, unprofessional, etc. The majority of professionals and researchers in the field of abuse and trauma never subscribed to this definition, and this is evident in the literature from the late 1980s onwards.

The problem with this page is that many editors here are unreflective about the impact of Underwager and other pro-incest advocates in crafting the debate on SRA from the late 1980s. Eleland, Dab and others think that their position on SRA represents a kind of universal 'recieved wisdom' and, therefor, the only people who would disagree with them must be from the 'fringe' etc. Actually, what I read here is often a carbon-copy of the arguments advanced by Underwager and the like since the mid-1980s - an narrow and extremist definition of SRA which is blamed on 'fundamentalists', 'feminists' and 'moral panic'.

Research demonstrates that women and children are still presenting in small but significant numbers to healthcare providers with psychological and physical injuries inflicted on them by organised groups of perpetrators, and I've quoted some of that research here. There is more. Some of these women and children also dislcose severe ritual violence, sometimes with Satanic features. What this means is unclear, but certainly some of these claims have been substantiated upon investigation. It'd be nice if editors here could bring themselves to permit this information to be bought to the reader. --Biaothanatoi 01:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

One could also infer from the data that perhaps the numbers of reported cases fell from 1992 to 2000 due to the backlash, which discouraged people from reporting episodes of child abuse, due to the fact they were afraid they may not be believed.Abuse truth 22:51, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

one could infer many things, it is true, but my main point was about correlation of occultism and sexual abuse. No evidence has been shown that convictions of occultists for sexual abuse has a higher incidence than expected from their demographics. If there is such a statistic (i.e., "over 0.1% of cases of sexual abuse convictions concern occultists", this would provide significant support of your opinion and you should cite it). Just citing individual cases shows nothing: for every satanist convicted, you can easily point to hundreds of "Christian" offenders. --dab (𒁳) 12:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The fact that abuse has ritualistic or occult features does not mean that the perpetrators are card-carrying members of the Church of Satan. If you take a look at the Marc Dutroux scandal in Belgium, the adult survivors of the child sex ring stated that, when 'new' children were bought into the ring, they were subjected to a fake 'marriage' to 'Satan' in order to make the child submissive and obedient whilst being used in porn and prostitution. SRA may just be a technique used by organied groups of perpetrators to control children. Certainly, trafficked children from Ghana and Nigeria are reporting ritual abuse in their home countries and in Europe whilst they are being moved from brothel to brothel - the International Organisation of Migration noted this in 2001, as has ECPAT, the United Nations and a number of other international organisations.

As I said above, it's worth considering this debate as a whole rather then insisting on a narrow 'moral panic' interpretation. There is a lot of relevant and interesting information that could be added to this article to the benefit of the reader, if only editors holding the 'moral panic' POV could believe that those who disagree with them are acting in good faith. --Biaothanatoi 01:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The article currently reads as if it is suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder. Llajwa 03:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

unsourced changes to United States

I will be reverting this section back to its previous version.

the changes below were made without being sourced:

Further information: Day care sex abuse hysteria Cases of child molestation involving allegations of satanic rituals in the United States cluster in the early mid 1990s, growing out of 1980s cases of day care sex abuse hysteria without explicit connections to satanism.

Early cases were the Kern County child abuse cases of 1982-1984 (with the convictions overturned in 1996), and the McMartin preschool nursery case, initiated in 1983, with the trial lasting from 1987 to 1990 (when charges were dropped).Abuse truth 00:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

since you seem to be in agreement with "cluster in the 1980s and early 1990s", what part of "Early cases were the Kern County child abuse cases of 1982-1984 (with the convictions overturned in 1996), and the McMartin preschool nursery case, initiated in 1983, with the trial lasting from 1987 to 1990 (when charges were dropped)" is controversial? The links are, after all, to fully developed articles. --dab (𒁳) 17:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

There was no source provided or footnote to the information. In addition, the link to "Day care sex abuse hysteria" is already provided further down in the article under "see also."Abuse truth 01:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of changes to this section, it is interesting that the information on the Minnesota case has been quietly deleted. The case overview was amply footnoted and I can't see a basis for it's deletion whatsoever. I'll replace it later today. --Biaothanatoi 01:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The statements about the Kern County case are false - one of those convicted served a full sentence and was only released a few years ago. Sheesh. If skeptical editors want to contribute to the article, can you please try to avoid outright fabrications or misleading generalisations? --Biaothanatoi 05:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

......Y'all missed one of the more amusing US Cases, documented here http://members.aol.com/IngramOrg/ But really I think most of this talk is absurd~JS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.98.115.3 (talk) 01:21, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, "hysterical". Ingram's wife, daughters and son all accused him of sexual assault, Ingram confessed and went to jail, and his son showed up at his parole application in 1997 to reinforce that his father was a very dangerous man. But if Richard Ofshe says that he's innocent (even if Ofshe's argument was thrown of court) then it must be true! --Biaothanatoi 01:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

POV pushing in the Netherlands section

This section is a POV fork from the main article. From the outset, the author refers to MPD as a political movement rather then a recognized psychological disorder, and they claim that the (very few) allegations of SRA in the Netherlands were the product of a few workshops whose ideas “found their way” to the “conservative religious community”. The author goes on to infer that the Oude Pekala case can be attributed to the conservative religious media.

This argument is highly speculative and at times contrary to known facts. Meanwhile, the general thrust of the author's skeptical account of SRA is covered extensively elsewhere in the article, and does not bear repeating here.

The Oude Pekala incident has been exhaustively documented by the treating clinicians, Drs Jonker and Jonker-Bakker. They provided an overview of the case in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect in 1991, and they presented the results of a cohort study of the children who disclosed abuse in the same journal in 1997. I will be adding a summary of their work to this article, and deleting the POV editorializing. As it stands, the author is clearly pushing a specific POV that allegations of SRA in the Netherlands are unfounded. The facts of the case suggests that, at the very least, serious harm came to some children at Oude Pekala, and the article should reflect that.

It looks as though the author speaks Dutch and subsequently has access to newspaper articles that us monolinguists can't read. I've tried to keep as much info as I can from these sources. --Biaothanatoi 06:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Neutral stance toward satanic ritual abuse in the Netherlands

Several days ago I wrote a new chapter in the already existing article about satanic ritual abuse. It contains the discussion about satanic ritual abuse in the Netherlands. Today I found out that my chapter (which I have kept as neutral as possible, because I am very well aware that this discussion is very polarized) was almost entirely removed by someone who is not Dutch, who does not speak Dutch and who probably is not familiar at all with the discussion about satanic ritual abuse in the Netherlands. Since I follow the discussion about satanic ritual abuse in the Netherlands since 1994, I am very well informed about the ins and outs of this discussion. Furthermore, I am always prepared to answer your questions about the situation in the Netherlands. Criminologist1963 16:35, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't get the impression that you read my concerns on your section, posted directly above. No, I don't speak Dutch, and, yes, I am familiar with the situation in the Netherlands from the English-language writings and research of Jonker and Jonker-Bakker, as my changes make clear.

Your account was far from neutral. You referred to MPD as a political movement and posed a speculative 'epidemiological' framework for the notion of SRA - from your account, the reader is led to believe that the Netherlands was 'infected' with the idea of SRA by some American clinicians and that this idea spread like a disease to some 'religious communities' etc. That may be your POV, but it's an inherently pejorative position which treats Sachs et. al. as the diseased transmitters of a poisonous idea.

It is also demonstratably false in that it attributes the Oude Pekala incident to a 'moral panic' within the religious media, when the clinical experience and research of Jonker and Jonker-Bakker indicate that some of the children at Oude Pekala had physical and psychological signs of sexual assault, and that the incident was sparked by the disclosures of the children involved (and physical evidence of rape). Your account of Oude Pekala made no mention of this whatsoever, and so it seems to me that you are less familiar with the facts of the case then you might believe. --Biaothanatoi 00:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I am reverting your changes. Your speculation as to why there was concern over SRA in the Netherlands, how the idea came to the Netherlands, and how this differed from the situation in the States, is exactly that - speculation. If you have factual changes to make to this article, then feel free to do so. At the moment, you are pushing an agenda which ignores the evidence of sexual assault amongst the children at Oude Pekala and instead attributes their disclosures to 'moral panic' etc.

The 'moral panic' position has already been summarised more generally elsewhere in the article, and it does not require restatement for every country in which the argument has been advanced. --Biaothanatoi 00:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I would like to point about that Suzette Boon, Nel Draijer and Onno van der Hart, who are the leaders of the Dutch mpd movement, describe in their articles how they were informed for the first time about satanic ritual abuse by the leaders of the mpd movement in the United States. Boon, Suzette and Nel Draijer, Multiple Personality Disorder in the Netherlands: A Study on Reliability and Validity of the Diagnosis, Amsterdam/Lisse, Swets en Zeitlinger, 1993, p. 6; Boon, Suzette and Onno van der Hart, Dissociëren als overlevingsstrategie bij fysiek en seksueel geweld: Trauma en dissociatie 1, in: Maandblad Geestelijke volksgezondheid, Jrg. 43, Nr. 11, 1988, p. 1197-1207.

In the literature about Oude Pekela, critics have never said that there was a moral panic. Neither did I. They all said that Oude Pekela is a classic example of mass hysteria. Beetstra, Tjalling A., Massahysterie in de Verenigde Staten en Nederland: De affaire rond de McMartin Pre-School en het ontuchtschandaal in Oude Pekela, in: Peter Burger and Willem Koetsenruijter (Eds.), Mediahypes en moderne sagen: Sterke verhalen in het nieuws, Leiden, Stichting Neerlandistiek Leiden, 2004, p. 53-69; Crombag, Hans F.M. and Harald L.G.J. Merckelbach, Hervonden herinneringen en andere misverstanden, Amsterdam/Antwerpen, Contact, 1996, p. 182-186; Hicks, Robert D., In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and the Occult, Buffalo, NY, Prometheus Books, 1991, p. 341-348; Nathan, Debbie and Michael Snedeker, Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt, New York, NY, Basic Books, 1995, p. 115.

I am not pushing an agenda here. Therefore I have kept the chapter about the Netherlands as neutral and objective as possible.

Since the research of Fred Jonker and Ietje Jonker-Bakker is widely criticized both in the Netherlands and in the United States, their findings are far from objective and as I see you are a firm believer, I would like to ask you to not to make subjective alterations to the chapter about the Netherlands.

I am always prepared to answer your questions about the situation in the Netherlands. Criminologist1963 10:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

You continue to call MPD a "movement" as though it is a political movement, and you continue to an inference between the fact that a few Dutch psychiatrists attended a workshop to the emergence of claims of SRA in the Netherlands. Both of these arguments are characteristic of the False Memory Syndrome movement and you have clearly been influenced by this literature.

You are free to present skeptical literature here alongside the opposing view of Jonker and Jonker-Bakker. You are not free to claim that the skeptical literature's POV is true, and that of Jonker and Jonker-Bakker is not. This is against Wikipedia's policy of NPOV and balance.

I am reverting your changes. Any additions your make to this section should be statements of fact, not an endorsement of one opinion over another. The readers can decide for themselves. --Biaothanatoi 05:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Again I point out that Suzette Boon, Nel Draijer and Onno van der Hart, who are the leaders of the Dutch mpd movement, describe in their articles how they were informed for the first time about satanic ritual abuse by the leaders of the mpd movement in the United States. Boon, Suzette and Nel Draijer, Multiple Personality Disorder in the Netherlands: A Study on Reliability and Validity of the Diagnosis, Amsterdam/Lisse, Swets en Zeitlinger, 1993, p. 6; Boon, Suzette and Onno van der Hart, Dissociëren als overlevingsstrategie bij fysiek en seksueel geweld: Trauma en dissociatie 1, in: Maandblad Geestelijke volksgezondheid, Jrg. 43, Nr. 11, 1988, p. 1197-1207. Criminologist1963 10:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

And you have drawn a causal link between the fact that some psychs attended a workshop and the fact that a young boys presented with anal bleeding to a doctor and disclosed organised abuse, alongside almost 100 others.

You are not addressing any of my concerns here in good faith. You are just posting and re-posting a long, rambling, speculative piece about the situation in the Netherlands from your POV, and claiming some kind of authority because you speak Dutch.

Information on the Oude Pekala incident has been published in English and in peer-reviewed journals, and that information contains clinical accounts and research findings of serious harms being committed against some children in Oude Pekala. You are consistently blocking that information from inclusion in the article, and you aren't stating why.

I'm reverting your changes. --Biaothanatoi 05:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't yet have any view on the specifics of the situation but I would like to head off a full-scale revert war on this. Could Biaothanatoi and Criminologist each list the sources that they think could be used in this section, with a note on whether each is an academic journal, or other reason why they consider it reliable? Then, having established which sources will be used, it should be possible to summarise those sources and arrive at a comprehensive yet neutral section. I have no previous involvement in this page and came to it after Criminologist left a message on WikiProject Religion. Itsmejudith 07:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

As you know, the discussion about satanic ritual abuse is a very polarized one. In the chapter about the Netherlands, I have tried to show how the media, scientists and authorities have reacted to allegations of satanic ritual abuse. For this chapter I have used books and articles from mostly Dutch authors in Dutch literature and newspapers, as well as international publications of them. The reason that I have used these sources is obvious: since most people who look for information on the English Wikipedia don't speak Dutch, I found it a good idea to inform them about how the discussion in the Netherlands has developed. Therefore I have gone into the origin of the allegation in the Netherlands, what the media did with the allegations and how the authorities responded.

I have tried to present the facts in an objective and neutral way. Therefore I have used literature from both the mpd movement and believers and from critics and sceptics. The sources I have used are mentioned in the footnotes. If you like to have additional sources about satanic ritual abuse in the Netherlands or in the United States, I am always prepared to give them to you. Since the list of scientific literature, newspapers et cetera I have used during my research is more than 40 pages long, I would appreciate it if you could specify about what particular subject in the discussion of satanic ritual abuse you would like to have more information. Criminologist1963 15:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for this answer. However, what I meant exactly was to list the different sources that you have cited and whether each text is a peer-reviewed academic journal, a book for a specialist audience written by an academic in the field, a book for a wider audience, etc. From what I can see at the moment, most of the sources do seem to be of an academic nature, but that is only a first impression. They also seem to be rather out of date. Are there no books from the 21st century that mention allegations of satanic abuse? This topic must be covered, for instance, in textbooks used for training social workers, and I would think that they would give a good balanced overview that this article could draw on. Itsmejudith 21:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

You are right, I have mostly used academic books and articles from academic journals. The exceptions are the article from Loes de Fauwe in the Dutch newspaper Het Parool and the Aanh. Hand. II, 1992-1993, Nr. 770, which is a formal document of the Dutch parliament. It contains questions of members of parliament to the minister of Health and the answers of the minister. The questions were about an item on satanic ritual abuse by television newsmagazine Nova the day before. Tijdsein, published by the religious broadcasting company Evangelische Omroep, had already brought items on satanic ritual abuse in 1989, but it was in 1993 the first time that a secular newsmagazine covered it. The Nova broadcast lead for the first time to a discussion in religious ánd in secular media, by journalists, scientists and politicians. However this discussion lasted only three months. When the report of the Workgroup Ritual Abuse was published in April 1994 the discussion revived, but again it lasted for only a couple of months.

Apart from the mpd therapists, only few people in the Netherlands have seen satanic ritual abuse as a social problem. The majority of the scientists, the authorities and the secular part of the population (the Netherlands is a very secular country) see satanic ritual abuse as a psychological phenomenon that almost only worries the very small conservative religious part of the population.

Because the discussion about satanic ritual abuse in the Netherlands lasted only for some months, we did not have a hausse of publications as in the United States and some other countries. No handbooks for social workers, therapists, policemen or any other professionals and no books of cult survivors were published in the Netherlands. Therefore it is impossible for me to use any Dutch sources that were published in the 21st century. As I wrote in the chapter about the Netherlands, the most influential Dutch book on satanic ritual abuse is Hervonden herinneringen en andere misverstanden by Hans Crombag and Harald Merckelbach (two professors in psychology), which contains a chapter on that subject. However within a couple of months a comprehensive study on satanic ritual abuse will be published. This study of Tjalling Beetstra will be the first book in the Netherlands which goes entirely about satanic ritual abuse. Since this dissertation is not published yet, I cannot use it as a source. Criminologist1963 00:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I would like to draw the attention of editors here to the conflicts of interest that often arise in literature on ritual abuse. Dutch author Benjamin Rossen wrote extensively on the Oude Pekala incident in the early 1990s, and his argument feature in a book cited by Crim (Robert D. Hicks, In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and the Occult, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York, 1991). Crim's arguments are a carbon-copy of Rossen's e.g. the Oude Pekala allegations are the result of community hysteria and religious fundamentalism.

Rossen is a contributer to the pro-paedophile journal Paidika (see here) and he has also contributed to publications by pro-incest advocate Ralph Underwager (see here). Rossen was closely associated with key figures of the pro-incest movement of the 1980s, and he has a clear conflict of interest in writing on matters relating to child sexual assault - however, Crim is attempting to reproduce Rossen's very dubious position here as fact.

I have drawn my information on Oude Pekala and the situation in the Netherlands from two researchers and medical practitioners who treated some of the children in the case for sexual assault, documented this clinical encounter in a peer-reviewed journal, and then conducted a follow-up survey on a cohort of 87 children over the decade following the case.

Jonker F, Jonker-Bakker P., Effects of ritual abuse: the results of three surveys in The Netherlands, Child Abuse and Neglect, 1997 Jun;21(6):541-56

Jonker, F.; Jonker-Bakker, P., Experiences with Ritualist Child Sexual Abuse: A Case Study from the Netherlands., Child Abuse and Neglect, v15 n3 p191-96 1991

You'll note that Crim is factually incorrect in stating that the first 'secular' report of SRA in the Netherlands occured in 1993. The peer-reviewed journal Child Abuse and Neglect reported the allegations in 1991. The rest of his 'explanation' is simply his understanding of the nature of SRA in the Netherlands, unsupported and unsourced. I see no reason why his POV should be enshrined as fact in a Wikipedia article.

He also continues to assert a causal relationship between the Oude Pekala allegations, religious media and three psychologists attending a training workshop some years prior, inferring that the allegations relate to a religious "moral panic". It is concerning that he continues to assert this argument although I have pointed him to clinical accounts of physical evidence of the repeated sexual assault of the first complainant child in the case, and a cohort study of 87 children in the town which found clear indications of physical, emotional and psychosocial trauma. Why does he object to this data being made available to readers of the article, and why is he reproducting as fact the arguments of Benjamin Rossen despite Rossen's dubious associations with the pro-incest movement? --Biaothanatoi 01:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Biao, this can only be resolved by concentrating on the quality of the sources. Can I summarise your post as saying that Rossen's book is not to be considered as a reliable source for WP? I would tend to agree, simply because it is not from an academic publisher. Other sources may be reliable though and we will need to discuss them. A source that is in general very reliable should, I think, be removed. That is Cohen's Folk Devils and Moral Panics which is not relevant to this topic. Itsmejudith 07:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

We can't assess the credibility of Crim's sources because they aren't in English. I'm concerned that he includes, amongst his sources, a book with a derivation of Rossen's account, and that Crim's version of Oude Pekela mirrors Rossen so closely.

We know that Crim's account of Oude Pekela is factually incorrect - Jonker and Jonker-Bakker's paper was published two years before Crim claims any publication on the matter in the 'secular' media, and the authors clearly state that the first complainant child was seen multiple times for sexual assault. Crim's refusal to acknowledge these facts should be cause for real concern here.

However, it seems that editors have a free reign to post any confabulation and falsehood as long as it reinforces a 'skeptics' view of SRA. --Biaothanatoi 02:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is some additional information about the Dutch sources I have used:

Maandblad Geestelijke volksgezondheid - a monthly journal for psychologists and psychiatrists. In the case of satanic ritual abuse mpd therapists and believers as well as critics and sceptics have published in this magazine. I used publications from the mpd movement as well as from critics and sceptics in the chapter about the Netherlands.

Multiple Personality Disorder in the Netherlands: A Study on Reliability and Validity of the Diagnosis - Suzette Boon and Nel Draijer conducted this study. It was also the dissertation of Boon.

Massahysterie in de Verenigde Staten en Nederland: De affaire rond de McMartin Pre-School en het ontuchtschandaal in Oude Pekela, in: Peter Burger and Willem Koetsenruijter (Eds.), Mediahypes en moderne sagen: Sterke verhalen in het nieuws, Leiden, Stichting Neerlandistiek Leiden, 2004 - a comparative analyses of the McMartin Pre-School case and the debauchery scandal in Oude Pekela by Tjalling Beetstra. The book contains the lectures that Beetstra and other experts gave at the University of Leiden at a congress about mediahypes.

Rapport van de Werkgroep Ritueel Misbruik - official report of the workgroup that was installed by the state secretary of Justice in reaction to the broadcast of the television newsmagazine Nova concerning satanic ritual abuse. I mentioned this broadcast in my last reaction.

If Biaothanatoi would play fair, he would also have given the link to the abstract of Frank Putnams critical analysis of the research of Fred Jonker and Ietje Jonker-Bakker. You find that abstract here: The Satanic Ritual Abuse Controversy

Criminologist1963 11:32, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not "playing" a game, Crim. If you have English-language sources that would facilitate our understanding here, then just let us know. You infer that I am wilfully withholding information from editors here and that is simply not the case. Meanwhile, you haven't addressed the factual inaccuracies in your own argument, such as the emergence of Jonker and Jonker-Bakker's account of Oude Pekala in an academic journal article two years before the date that you fix for such a secular account of the incident. This calls into question the basis of your argument, which is that such allegations where the fabrications of religious fundamentalists. --Biaothanatoi 02:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It looks like Crim's account of SRA in the Netherlands is just a translation job from the SRA article on the Dutch Wikipedia. As far as I can tell, he's pretty much reproduced it word for word in English here.

This section of the article is designed to highlight individual cases, not the overall history of SRA in each given country. Some of the information taken by Crim from this article is factually incorrect, some of it is derived from Rossen, and in other cases, he is reproducing as fact arguments that have been presented elsewhere in the article as a particular POV.

Don't see what any of this adds to the article, particularly when the information is demonstratably wrong. --Biaothanatoi 03:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

And, having reviewed Putnam's editorial, it was not a critical analysis of Jonker and Jonker-Bakker's research. It was a reflection on the challenges that SRA presents to clinicians as a whole.

Crim, did you actually read Putnam's article - or did you just find it via google, read the abstract, and claim you'd found a critical analysis on that basis? If this is how you support your "argument", it's just not good enough. --Biaothanatoi 03:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

For the first time I can agree with Biaothanatoi about what he alleges. Yes, my account about satanic ritual abuse in the Netherlands is, apart from a few omissions, a translating job of the Dutch Wikipedia page. The reason is very simple: I wrote both the Dutch text and the English text. As you can see, the Dutch text is written by Criminoloog1963 and the English text by Criminologist1963.

I do not like to say it, but I do not know how to make it otherwise clear to you Biaothanatoi: You may know a lot about the situation in your country Australia, but as far as the Netherlands are concerned, you have no idea at all about how the discussion in the Netherlands developed, who were the actores in that discussion and why the debate about satanic ritual abuse was very short and why it has never lead to disproportionate reactions (mass hysteria, moral panic) as e.g. in the United States.

I have not written the chapter on the Netherlands to highlight individual cases, but to give a brief report about the situation in the Netherlands. This is very relevant, because in the Netherlands the discussion about satanic ritual abuse took a totally different course as the discussion in the United States.

In the Oude Pekela case, satanic ritual abuse was never mentioned by the parents of Oude Pekela or by the general practioners Fred Jonker and Ietje Jonker-Bakker in the years 1987-1988. I have hundreds of Dutch newspaper articles to proof that! Only when television newsmagazine Tijdsein in 1989 covered the topic satanic ritual abuse, Jonker and Jonker-Bakker came up with the idea that the children of Oude Pekela were ritually abused by satanists. They hold a lecture about it at London University and that lecture formed the basis for their article in the International Journal on Child Abuse and Neglect.

After the broadcasts on satanic ritual abuse of Tijdsein, a bigger audience had become familiar with the concept. However, it took another two years before satanic ritual abuse was reported to the Dutch authorities for the first time in 1991. My source for that is an official document from the Dutch parliament: Aanh. Hand. II, 1992-1993, Nr. 770. It contains questions of members of parliament to the minister of Health and the answers of this minister.

Yes, I have read the article of Frank Putnam. On page 176 Putnam says about the article of Jonker and Jonker-Bakker: Throughout this paper, the authors express a firm and unwavering conviction that these acts did in fact happen and were accurately described by the children, although parents and police expressed disbelief and ultimately the case was closed for lack of evidence. (...) Repeatedly the Jonker and Jonker-Bakker paper implies that many or all of the children reported a similar experience, but never once actually gives the percentage of children responding positively or negatively. On page 177 Putnam adds: Nowhere is there a systematic analysis of the actual degree of similarity of these allegations. On page 178 Putnam continues: The most frightening image emerging from this paper is not the alleged satanic conspiracy, but the actual massive social disorder that occured in Oude Pekela. Jonker and Jonker-Bakker describe a community turned against itself, filled with fear, anger, and distrust. Ultimately the national government had to intervene to restore some measure of convidence in the local authorities. (...) The Jonker and Jonker-Bakker paper is particularly inflammatory in this regard, repeatedly stating or implying, without specifying and actual evidence, that the police were, at best, incompetent, unqualified, and neglectful. Therefore Putnam concludes on page 178: In the future, unsubstantiated charges of police or government incompetence or neglect in the handling of satanic ritual abuse investigations should not be published in professionals journals as they only serve to erode public and professional trust in the law enforcement community. Putnam, Frank W., The Satanic Ritual Abuse Controversy, in: International Journal on Child Abuse and Neglect, Vol. 15, Nr. 3, 1991, p. 175-179. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Criminologist1963 (talk • contribs) 13:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth: Translation of another Wikipedia is not a violation of any policy or guideline, provided that the sources are adequate, and those sources do not have to be in the English language. I can't see anything wrong Criminologist1963 may be doing, providing the (Dutch language) sources support what he's saying. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

For your information Biaothanatoi, Benjamin Rossen is not from the Netherlands but from Australia. He had received several bachelor degrees in Australia, before he went to the Netherlands. Since he did not completed a master study, his tutor Marten Brouwer (a professor in mass psychology at the Free University of Amsterdam) told him that he had to write an extensive final paper to compensate his lack in his education. That lead to his book Zedenangst: Het verhaal van Oude Pekela, Amsterdam/Lisse, Swets & Zeitlinger, 1989.

I see your remark that it seems that editors have a free reign to post any confabulation and falsehood as long as it reinforces a 'skeptics' view of SRA as an insult! You should be ashamed of yourself Biaothanatoi! Remember, you do not know a thing about the situation in the Netherlands! So, stop harrassing me and other editors of the satanic ritual abuse page and concentrate yourself on your study!

Criminologist1963 11:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The information you have provided about Rossen is not in the public domain, Crim. How interesting. --Biaothanatoi 04:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The information I have provided about Rossen is in the public domain! See e.g.: Schipper, Aldert, Als het even over seks gaat, slaat de politie zo weer op hol, in: Trouw, 7 March 1992. Trouw is a Dutch newspaper.

Criminologist1963 11:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Changes to opening para

The new statement about SRA as a 'conspiracy theory' within the 'anti-cult' movement makes no sense at all.

The shining lights of the anti-cult movement were Margaret Singer and Richard Ofshe, both of whom were avowed SRA skeptics and they sat on the board of the False Memory Syndrome Movement. In fact, the boards of the FMSF and the anti-cult orgs on the 1980s had a number of people in common.

Anyway, I'm deleting the sentence because it's (a) historically incorrect and (b) pushes the POV that claims of SRA were motivated by anti-cult activists. Actually, the opposite is true. Claims of False Memory Syndrome were motivated by anti-cult activists like Singer and Ofshe who felt that psychotherapy constituted a potentially coercive environment similar to cults. --Biaothanatoi 06:09, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm removing the line in the opening para to the effect that a number of people "have suggested that allegations of SRA are false or at least exaggerated" for the following reasons:

(a) In each of the disciplines cited, there are published authors and researchers who do not hold the view that "allegations of SRA are false or at least exaggerated".

(b) There is not a single citation for this statement to a source published in the last ten years. A number of sources are over 15 years old. The relevance of these sources to the debate in 2007 is extremely questionable.

(c) The statement regarding "day care sex abuse allegations" is demonstratably false. There were numerous 'substantiated' instances of multi-perpetrator abuse involving ritualistic elements in day-care centres. The definition of 'substantiation' in child protection interventions is whether investigators believe the abuse took place on a balance of probabilities (similar to the burden of proof in civil trials, lower then in criminal matters). This burden has been met numerous times around the world in relation to SRA in preschools and daycare centres in the 1980s, and these cases have been documented in the research literature.

(c)There is no text for the second citation, and citation for "religious commentators" goes to ReligiousTolerance.org - a website whose authors have no qualifications, professional experience, or academic expertise in any of the subjects that their website holds forth on, nor have they ever been published anywhere except their own website.

The sentence adds nothing to the article except to infer an interdisciplinary consensus that does not exist, and it actively misleads the reader in relation to sexual abuse in daycare centres. I've deleted it on this basis. --Biaothanatoi 02:37, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Can we separate, for purposes of discussion, the question of removing the sentence

The "Satanic ritual abuse panic" as a conspiracy theory or moral panic within the anti-cult movement is now studied as a religious phenomenon in its own right.

from the other removals from the lead?

It's not obvious what the anti-cult sentence is supposed to mean, but it seems to be (as Biaothanatoi shows) false. Llajwa 19:03, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

It is quite true that that a number of people "have suggested that allegations of SRA are false or at least exaggerated". Merely stated it's contraversial in the lead is inadequate. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

And a number of other people have suggested otherwise. All these positions are thoroughly documented in the article itself - offering a "he said/she said/they said" in the first paragraph adds nothing. In addition, you are factualy incorrect in your statements about sexual abuse in day-care centres. This factual error has been made clear to you and yet you continue to assert it. Please address the concerns that have been raised on this page regarding this statement before you act on the article - simply ignoring those concerns and reverting changes is not a demonstration of good faith. --Biaothanatoi 01:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Rubin, can you treat other editors here with some courtesy and respond to our concerns? You are making edits without trying to build consensus, and you are clearly pushing your own POV onto the article. We aren't trying to entrench one POV over another in the article - we are trying to find balance on a very sensitive issue. Ignoring everyone else and acting unilaterally achieves nothing.

Re: Sexual abuse in day-care. I understand that you may feel strongly about this matter, but that's no excuse for making statements in the article when it's been pointed out to you that they are false e.g. the issue of substantiation in day-care sexual abuse cases. As I said above, child protection services work on the same burden of proof as civil cases, which is a balance of probabilities, and this standard has been met numerous times in relation to allegations of organised and ritualistic child abuse in day-care centres. I can think of three preschools in Australia that have been shut down after allegations of SRA were found to be substantiated by child protection services. Similar American cases have been subject to rigorous analysis in two key books by Finkelhor and Kelly respectively, and their sample sizes were quite large. Faller and others have undertaken smaller-scale studies, both qualitative and quantitative, in relation to sexual abuse in daycare. I suggest you read this literature before jumping to conclusions. --Biaothanatoi 01:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

There a few errors in this discussion. I suppose the supporting of the controversy don't need to be in the lead, but the fact that a number of relevant professionals "have suggested stated that allegations of SRA are false" should be in the lead, with a correlative sentence that a number of relevant professionals believe there is more SRA than alleged. This could be supported in the body of the article.

The references in the disputed lead paragraph are not in the body of the article. As they are accurate, they should be.

The level of substantiation in day-care sexual abuse cases is low, if you can find a psychiatrist who will state that the children's symptoms (even if normal) are evidence of sexual abuse. (The following sentences constitute WP:OR, although common sense.) It's still not hard to find such psychiatrists. In fact, as one would expect those to be preferentially sought out by those attempting to "prove" sexual abuse, it would not be surprising if psychiatrists who honestly believe most children are sexually abused would be sought out by the State agencies. Courts do not appoint an advocate for the child until some time after the child is taken from the parents, so, even if that advocate actually wants what's best for the child, it may be difficult to determine what that option is.

I'm not familiar with the Australian schools, but, due to the above phenomenon, actual "scientific" studies are impossible. The prejudices (not intended as pejorative) of the investigators will dominate the facts every time.

That being said, I don't think any of the editors here are being dishonest, so, if you will assure me that the references and points that were in the lead are now in the Skepticism section, I'll concede the point that they don't need to be in the lead. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

You are more then welcome to add the references to a relevant section (e.g. "Skepticism) if you think they are important. Be brave. However, if your text implicitly endorses one sources position over any other (and there are a diversity of opinions on SRA amongst the skeptics, let alone amongst everyone else) then changes may be made to restore balance.

You may object to the level of substantiation in child protection cases, but it's the same burden of proof as in a civil trial. You may think this burden of proof is too low, but that's your POV, and it places you in opposition to our civil trial system. The fact is that SRA has been substantiated by child protection services in daycare, and any statement to the contrary is wrong. Where datasets on substantiated cases of daycare centre abuse have been gathered, they have resulted in complementary research findings, indicating that the method by which this abuse has been substantiated is far from arbitrary.

Your unsourced speculations about widespread incompetence and unprofessionalism within child protection services indicates a profound bias. You have no evidence for such wild suppositions and no basis from which to question the validity of research findings, undertaken by well-respected academics, on the basis of child protection investigations. You are, of course, free to hold such a POV, but I see no reason why your prejudice should be entrenched in the article. --Biaothanatoi 03:28, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I though my phrasing was quite clear; I'm proposing that the state agencies has an institutional bias toward taking children out of the home (Child Services) and finding ritual abuse (law enforcement and prosecution), as that's one of the measures of the agency's effectiveness at budget time; that employees may have a bias (conscious or unconscious) toward that goal, and would seek out professionals (psychiatrists, in this case) who have the same bias, conscious or unconscious. It's not necessary that there be any malice or unprofessional conduct to have an unprofessional result. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Only if the child care agency has an office of "parent advocate", with an explict mandate toward keeping children in the home, can this institutional bias be reduced. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Rubin, with all due respect, I see no reasonable basis for entrenching your personal POV in the article in the manner that you have. --Biaothanatoi 02:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I have been. "Entrenching" the POV that allegations of SRA are considered crticially by State agencies, regardless of the facts, is what I would like to see excised from the article. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

External links

I trimmed the external links again. I removed the following:

• Child abuse and neglect
  • This isn't about SRA, it's about child abuse
• Conviction List: Ritual Child Abuse at Believe The Children
  • This is a personal webpage to sourced, yet not linked entries, to US-only crimes. The next entry features world-wide reports and seems more useful
• Lucifer's Lodge: Satanic Ritual Abuse in the Catholic Church
  • This is just a link to a book, it's spam. The book could be a reference but the page should not be an EL
• Documented Cases of Satanic Ritual Abuse at a Tripod page
  • This is just a personal webpage with linked sources. It's better than the conviction list, but it's full of this person's interpretations and linking of facts
• Entry in Skeptic's Dictionary
  • Skeptic's dictionary is already linked as a reference.
• Geraldo Rivera's Influence on the Satanic Ritual Abuse and Recovered Memory Hoaxes at Religious Tolerance
  • I just don't see the need. The page is SRA, not a single public figure's role in SRA. Further, it appears to be mostly the page author's (BA Robinson) interpretation of things, and there's only six references.

I am adding back the link : Conviction List: Ritual Child Abuse at Believe The Children because it is not a personal page,

and it adds balance to the page. "Balance - When reputable sources contradict one another, the core of the NPOV policy is to let competing approaches exist on the same page: work for balance, that is: describe the opposing viewpoints according to reputability of the sources, and give precedence to those sources that have been the most successful in presenting facts in an equally balanced manner. This link was also previously discussed on this talk page here.

I agree the Geraldo link above should be deleted. It appears to still be there, so I will delete it.Abuse truth 02:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I question the reliablility of the Ritual Child Abuse site listed above. I don't think that site is reputable, under our definitions. Also see #Attack site removal below. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

In addition, the newsmakingnews.com site discusses incidents around the world rather than the US-centric focus of the ra-info.org site. It should presumably cover incidents that are of world-wide importance, rather than just a single country. WLU 13:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Attack site removal

It was an ArbComm decision which was apparently blanked and reopened. It's clear that any site which violates the privacy of ANY editor can be banned. There was a finding, that any site which has the primary purpose of "outing" individuals could be banned from external links, but that's been reversed. I think the site in question is also unreliable to the point of the information being more-likely-than not incorrect, but I'll need to research that. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to hear your reasoning. The site in question contains a bibliography of hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles pertaining to ritual child sexual abuse dating from 1980 to the present day. The webmaster has clearly demonstrated a concern about verifiability and accuracy. On what basis do you claim that the list of convictions has been falsified? --Biaothanatoi 05:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

well, this is an article about fringe activism. We do link to activist sites on Anti-cult movement without endorsing them. We do link to stormfront.org at Stormfront (website), naturally without endorsement. So I don't quite see why we sholdn't link to "Satanism panic!" sites from this article, naturally pointing them out for what they are. --dab (𒁳) 09:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I do not see how the site [8] violates the privacy of any editor. The site has never been proven to be inaccurate. It describes court decisions with full citations. It appears to be more factual in nature than Satanic Media Watch and News Exchange http://www.smwane.dk/ which remains on the page. I will be restoring the link to the page. Abuse truth 01:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Dab and Rubin, the list of convictions contains information that is verifiable and in the public domain. If you feel that is has been falsified, then please do some research and show us where. Rubin's "suspicions" about the site and Dab's ad hominem attacks are not justification for the removal of the link. --Biaothanatoi 05:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Literature section

I've added a heap of material to the literature section ... basically the old section was a mash-up of refences to The X Files and Dungeons and Dragons, with any citations to books about SRA followed with a pejorative comment of some kind.

If anyone wants to see some of the deleted sources back in the page, please just insert it, but can you bear in mind that the skeptical literature is comprehensively covered with it's own section. --Biaothanatoi 06:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The critical sources you removed should, at the least, be added to the "skeptical literature" section. Since you know what you did, it would be easier for you to do it than for another editor. If I were to do it, I'd have to start with the revision of a few days ago and work forward. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

All sources are already in the skeptical literature section. --Biaothanatoi 05:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps all the sources are in the "skeptical" section as references (although I'm not fully convinced), but not as sources. WP:UNDUE requires that that skeptical literature be given at least coverage paralleling the popularity and respectablility of that work. I think it may be necessary to revert those sections a few days. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If you feel that this hasn't taken place, Rubin, then please show me where. I'm not a mindreader and I can't act on your suspicions. I would point out to you that I have detailed the diversity of skeptical opinions on SRA to a far greater extent then any previous editor, and I've substantially expanded the number of references to skeptical sources.

And while we are throwing Wikipedia policy around, then please remember that Wikipedia asks you to presume that other editors are acting in good faith. I've found that presumption somewhat thin on the ground from you. --Biaothanatoi 01:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the point of that section. It wasn't an opportunity to plug a particular book on SRA which you think we should read, or to summarize pro-SRA-belief studies from the late 80s and early 90s (interestingly, I seem to remember you dismissing the 1992 Lanning FBI report on the basis that it was over 15 years old and therefore irrelevant...). It was attempting to discuss the phenomenon of SRA in popular culture. I don't mind an expansion of whatever "survivor" literature written for a general audience, but the section should be about popular literature, popular media, and popular culture generally. <eleland/talkedits> 18:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not up to you to dictate to any editor here the "purpose" of a section, Eleland.

The subject of "SRA in popular culture" has nothing to do with a "literature" section, and as it stands, the "popular culture" references were random snippets of the The X Files, Dungeons and Dragons and Jack Chick. I don't see what value this adds to the article whatsoever. The literature that I've added here is a comprehensive and balanced overview of 20 years worth of publications on the subject of SRA rather then a compendium of TV shows that mentioned the subject in passing. Some research was undertaken in the early 1990s, but I've included many references until the present day.

The previous section paid great attention to certain books over others - in particular, Pazder and Statford - and so I see no disjunction in highlighting Scott's work, which is the most recent and comprehensive book on the subject.

Sadly, given your history on this page, it's no leap of logic to suggest that your objection to the mention of Scott's research has nothing to do with a concern about the balance of the article, and everything to do with the fact that her findings directly contradict your entrenched and long-standing POV on this matter. --Biaothanatoi 05:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a literature section is appropriate to an encyclopedia entry, since the whole article should be derived from the relevant literature. The material in that section is, to my quick reading, sound, and it should be moved to the front of the article and given a different section title. Itsmejudith 08:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Let me try again. The new "Literature" section plugs The Politics and Experience of Ritual Abuse: Beyond Disbelief on the basis that it is, "the only qualitative study of the life histories of survivors of ritual abuse". Besides the verifiability problem inherent there (the "only study" claim is cited to the book itself), there is absolutely no reason to believe this book is notable or significant in comparison to others. Its Amazon ranking is #5,145,305. Compare this to Satanic Panic (#317,874 paperback, #1,260,481 hardcover), Michelle Remembers (#166,010 paperback, #503,765 in highest of various hardcover editions), The Myth of Repressed Memory (#82,962), etc.

In other words, it seems like you've read the book, found it persuasive and useful, and want to share it with us. Well, that's OK, but that's not what a section on literature and popular culture should be doing. Such a section should be surveying the most influential and impactful works on the subject - and yes, that includes the ramblings of Jack Chick, Patricia Pulling, et al. Wikipedia is meant to cover all aspects of a subject, not just those which someone considers "serious". I've noticed that over the past weeks that almost every reference to unbelievable claims, such as thousands of satanic murders a month, has been expunged from the piece. Those claims strike me as a highly notable aspect of the SRA phenomenon, even if serious and straight-laced academics no longer discuss them. I don't believe they should be removed, and I'm concerned that removing them not only deprives the reader of relevant information, it has the effect of puffing up SRA's plausibility by downplaying a chapter in the SRA movement's history that most would prefer to forget. <eleland/talkedits> 16:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Eleland, you have a clear interest in trivialising the matter of SRA. For example, much has been written about the HIV virus, including vast conspiracy theories as well as claims that it does not exist, and the virus has been mentioned innumerable times in popular culture. There has been a clear "moral panic" around HIV as well, driven by homophobia, stigma and discrimination. A balanced article on the HIV virus, however, would focus on the virus itself and the harms that it causes.

By comparison, you have consistently advocated for an article in which SRA is discussed solely in terms of moral panic, conspiracy theories, and that time you watched the X-Files in 1996 and Scully said something about ritual abuse. Your attempts to assess sources that contradict your POV are so specious it's ridiculous - Amazon ranking? Are you serious? And as for Scott's book, it is the only qualitative study on the life histories of ritual abuse survivors. If you can find another, please let me know, because I would be very interested.

Your "literature" section was pretty light on literature, but you've made it clear that you aren't interested in reading particularly widely on this subject. However, where you did manage to mention a book, you paid particular attention to particular books - when it suited your POV. Now, you've taken the position that any emphasis on any book is POV, whilst the importance of all research findings are now (apparently) assessed by the oracle that is Amazon.com.

Encounters with adults and children disclosing a history of ritualistic abuse is a clinical reality for many pracitioners today - medical, social or psychological. This article should be a resource for them, not just a playground for junk skeptics who like to beat up straw men. --Biaothanatoi 01:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

In case people haven't figured it out yet, I'm separating the references into individual citations rather than clumping them together. Citations can be contested and disputed individually now, and it's just more in keeping with normal wikipedia style. WLU 01:31, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

<undent>The section is shaping up now. I've commented out the following statement and references:

These findings are commensurate with other studies that have surveyed the characteristics and experiences of adults who claim to be survivors of ritual abuse. <ref>e.g. Driscoll, L. and C. Wright (1991). "Survivors of Childhood Ritual Abuse: Multi-Generational Satanic Cult Involvement." Treating Abuse Today 1(4): 5 – 13, Smith, M. (1993). Ritual Abuse: What it is, why it happens, how to help. New York, HarperCollins Publishing, Young, W. C., R. G. Sachs, B. G. Braun and R. T. Watkins (1991). "Patients Reporting Ritual Abuse in Childhood: A Clinical Syndrome. Report of 37 Cases." Child Abuse and Neglect 15: 181 - 9.</ref>

This comment is OR without a citation, a violation of WP:SYNTH by my reading. If these ideas belong together, someone else must have said it, not us. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. We can't engage in original research by adding an e.g. when we feel that the sources support our ideas. Given that, the statement:

Studies of children and adults with a history of SRA have found that intrafamilial abusers were strongly implicated in experiences of organised and ritualistic abuse, and participants reported serious physical, sexual and psychological abuse, including being bound, drugged, deprived of food, forced to ingest waste, blood and semen, and being forced into sex with adults, children and animals. Research participants typically demonstrated severe post-traumatic symptoms and associated dissociative states.

also lacks a citation (what studies? What measures were used to assess PTSD and DID? Did any studies actually say this?) and can not just be assumed. This is a controversial topic, so the important thing is to find sources and cite them. Also, while I'm on the topic of sources, the Journal of Psychohistory pops up a lot, but is sporadic on pubmed. Some sort of citation database link would be nice; paper sources are acceptable, but better on controversial pages is sources people can read themselves.

Finally, I removed the section:

Sara Scott’s book The Politics and Experience of Ritual Abuse: Beyond Disbelief<ref>{{cite book |author=Scott, Sara |title=The politics and experience of ritual abuse: beyond disbelief |publisher=Open University |location=Milton Keynes |year=2001 |pages= |isbn=0-335-20419-8 |oclc= |doi=}}</ref> synthesizes research on ritual abuse and other forms of organised abuse as well as qualitatively analysing the experiences of several survivors. Scott explored how their accounts of ritualistic abuse and self-identity were enmeshed within histories of family violence, abuse and neglect, as well as networks of perpetrators engaged in sadistic sexual practices with children, and child pornography and prostitution. Her findings challenge many of the presumptions of the ritual abuse literature, as well as it’s detractors, by suggesting that that the harmful and traumatic experiences of ritually abused children are driven by routine power-and-control relationships, such as those between a parent and a child, and that ritualistic and “occult” experiences of abuse should be seen in relation to a wider picture of severe family dysfunction, psychopathology and isolation.

(note that this is post-trim, I'd already modified and trimmed the paragraph before deciding to paste it) and am placing it here fore discussion. This is such a lengthy description for a single book and author who diesn't have a wikipedia page, it seems to me that it places undue weight on the book and it's methods, interpretations and conclusions. It's one book. It should be a single reference to a single sentence (or multiple spread throughout the page) rather than an entire paragraph in an already lengthy section.

Speaking of which, are 37 citations really needed for this section? Going through amazon, for the books I kept seeing the same books popping up in the 'customers who liked this book also liked..." section, that I'm wondering if this is another example of wp:undue. Could it just be reduced to the most relevant books that ideally are from reputable press, major publishers, or most ideally, scientific/university press? I'm guessing there's at least a couple self-published or vanity press books in the list. The whole article seems like it could use a third opinion or RFC, given the ever-burgeoning talk page.

If undue weight is being given to anything, it seems like editors here have a lot of faith in the oracular powers of Amazon.com to assess the credibility of books that editors have never read. --Biaothanatoi 01:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Final comment - within the references there are a distressing number of comments that say 'e.g./see/example/'. A reference either justifies the comment or it does not. Providing examples, in most cases, is a synthesis, and violation of WP:OR in my mind. Whoever adds them, please review the policy, as the refs should be clean and supporting the sentence, not a justification for soapboxing, or as part of a synthesis of information or conclusion on a previous point. If it's notable for inclusion, it'll be documented in a reliable source. If the reference is clean and does justify the point, it does not need to be an example, it is a citation. WLU 02:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

WLU, I appreciate any edits and suggestions in the name of balance, since the various ins-and-outs of WP policy can get a little esoteric at times. However, it seems to me a pity that such scrutiny was not applied to the previous article given it's many unsourced and factually incorrect statements, and citations to authors of dubious reputation. --Biaothanatoi 01:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the lack of reply, this is a very labour-intensive article to keep tabs on. What previous article are you referring to? It's not Amazon that I'm relying no for credibility, it's the publishers - if my research has turned up that the publisher is incredibly tiny, vanity press or otherwise completely lacking oversight, I am inclined to remove it. If the reference is one of many (as was the case of the literature section, which was grossly over-referenced, almost spammy) I had no qualms about trimming it down - 117 references is a lot for one article, particularly when they aren't really justifying anything that needed to be referenced. By corollary, if the book was from a reliable publisher or a university press, I am more inclined to leave it in. Amazon I mostly used to find the ISBN, which I used to generate the citation template. I don't believe I've removed any references that were floaters, just the ones where there were 6-10 references to books after a single statement. WLU 16:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Archive

I archived the pages for discussions that ended on or before September 30th, since the page was getting stupid-long. It's still pretty long. WLU 14:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Article Issues

"Criticisms"

Unfortunately, even though the skeptical view of SRA is the mainstream view, the article is currently written to confine skeptical views to a "skepticism" ghetto (where they are presented in a misleading, mocking fashion by rapid-fire listing various explanations, giving the impression that skeptics are just randomly stabbing in the dark at explaining the SRA phenomenon). This is out-of-line with both style and NPOV practice.

Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion that the skeptical view of SRA is the mainstream view? Or is this an unsourced statement? Abuse truth 20:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

For starters, try Google News: "satanic ritual abuse" since 1997. <eleland/talkedits> 22:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Eleland, if you'd like to see the 'skepticism' section or incorporated more generally into the article, then feel free to do so in a way that is balanced and NPOV. In the past, you've preferred to entrench your own beliefs about SRA within the article as fact, so it'd be nice to see you take a different tact this time. --Biaothanatoi 01:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

"Citecheck"

Given past editing history, I have a tough time believing that all of the citations here are interpreted properly. Wikipedia is required to fairly summarize the findings of its sources, rather than taking an a lá carte approach where a series of unrelated sources are scoured for information which "proves" a certain point. If a study says, "85% of doctors have encountered patients describing SRA, but we think it's ridiculous", we can't use that to state "a study found that 85% of doctors have treated patients with a life history of ritualistic abuse".

Do you have any evidence that any of the above citations have been interpreted improperly, or is this just another unsourced statment? Abuse truth 20:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

How am I expected to "source" a statement like this? We already know that an editor has copied-and-pasted the ramblings of a delusional maniac, citing it to sources he probably didn't read (and has never even said that he read), as well as selectively quoting a study in almost exactly the way I describe in my example. It's linked on the FTN posting. <eleland/talkedits> 22:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Let me add furthermore that, as WLU points out above, many statements here are cited in a way which makes it clear that they don't verify the text. For instance, we have lines saying things like, "the most valuable study on the prevalence of SRA is X", and the only citation is to... X. Even if study X says it's the most valuable study, which is doubtful, we cannot make such a claim without independent sources. This entire piece is written in the tone of a persuasive essay, constantly making overt editorial statements about how to interpret some work or datum. Virtually none of these statements are sourced, and many of them, being inherently opinions, are by definition unverifiable. That's bad. <eleland/talkedits> 03:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Eleland, you've a longstanding history here of ad hominem attacks and an outright refusal to presume good faith.

Much of your previous take on this article came from two people who manufactured child pornography - shall we all view all your edits in this light? After all, we've already established that much of what you wrote in your previous article was factually incorrect. --Biaothanatoi 01:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

"Unbalanced"

This really ties into the "criticisms" section above. It is simply not appropriate to write this article to the "SRA is real!" view, when this is demonstrably not a majority view. It appears that reliable sources almost all conclude that either SRA is total bunk, or SRA is a relatively rare phenomenon which was seized on and exaggerated far beyond recognition during the late 1980s / early 1990s. The article should be written to these views.

A number of reliable sources have been listed in the article stating that SRA has occurred with some frequency. What "reliable sources" state otherwise? And are they reliable or simply pushing their own POV? Abuse truth 20:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

<eleland/talkedits> 16:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

"Abuse truth", there is simply no way you can push your minority position within Wikipedia policy. You'll need to either accept that, or find another forum to air your convictions. dab (𒁳) 18:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)\

I don't believe that somebody's point of view becomes a "minority position" simply because that person disagrees with you, Dab. Please try to assess people's arguments in good faith - these ad hominem attacks reveal nothing except the paucity of your argument. --Biaothanatoi 01:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV

"The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting verifiable perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources. The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being judged as "the truth", in order that the various significant published viewpoints are made accessible to the reader, not just the most popular one. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view, or some sort of intermediate view among the different views, is the correct one to the extent that other views are mentioned only pejoratively. Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions." Abuse truth 02:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Dab -- evidence please that Abuse truth is pushing a "minority position". West world 04:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Eleland's criticisms

It is notable that Eleland has yet to establish that a single fact added to this article, over the last month, has been incorrect. In contrast, much of the information contained in his previous version was demonstratably wrong or misleading.

His criticisms are almost entirely ad hominem, aimed either at other editors or at authors of sources that conflict with his POV. He has consistently sought to characterise those, like myself, who have a different POV to him as people prone to lying, conspiracy and misrepresentation. He points to apparent breaches of WP policy or style, not in order to correct the article, but rather as 'evidence' as to why editors who disagree with him cannot be trusted.

If Eleland is going to continue his campaign of bullying and harrasment then I see no other option then to go to mediation or arbitration. What do other editors think? --Biaothanatoi 06:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I won't reply to this screed, other than to note that "my previous version" is a stub article from September 2002 of dubious relevance to the current dispute. I made minor edits twice in 2003, adding brief mentions of specific cases or allegations (Martensville, and some crap from Scott Peterson's lawyers). In the intervening four years I haven't touched this piece, and I don't know why Biao insists on treating me as its sole legitimate representative. Oh, and of course I'd be amenable to mediation, either through the informal "Cabal" or the formal "Committee". <eleland/talkedits> 07:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm treating you as the main author of this article, because your user page states "I created Winnipeg General Strike, Squamish Five, Satanic ritual abuse, Cluster bomb, and Domino theory among others". Is this statement true or not? --Biaothanatoi 04:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Alien abductions

The Alien abduction section looked like a violation of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR, so I removed it. WLU 02:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

One sentence in Intro

There seems to be an ongoing edit war over the Intro, but could we please separate out this sentence?

"The "Satanic ritual abuse panic" as a conspiracy theory or moral panic within the anti-cult movement is now studied as a religious phenomenon in its own right."

I removed it once, and User:Dbachmann restored it as part of the larger paragraph. But it doesn't make any sense! Whatever you think of those who believe SRA is widespread, they really have no connection to the anti-cult movement except by analogy. Can you please address this before restoring it? Llajwa 18:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

that's a valid info, so long as the reference specifically cites SRA as an example. Whoever has the reference or added it should be able to clarify. WLU 00:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

At the very least it needs clarification. What about just removing "within the anti-cult movement"? This question seems separate from the larger SRA-is-a-real-threat / SRA-is-all-in-your-mind debate roiling this article. The anti-cult movement just seems like a red herring here. Llajwa 01:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Really, we can't say or do much without knowing what the original citation says. WLU 01:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

We've established elsewhere on this page that the statements about the "anti-cult movement" and the "daycare sexual abuse hysteria" are factually incorrect. I've stated why this is the case and received no reasoned answer in reply, and yet here the statement is again.

I'm finding that editors here are circumventing reasoned debate on this page, pushing ahead with a clear agenda to entrench their POV in the article, and accusing anyone who disagrees witih them of being a "conspiracy theorist". At times, their behaviour has been tantamount to bullying and harrasment.

Meanwhile, any source which provides a view on SRA other then "moral panic" is being struck down by the most specious and abritrary tests. Neutral editors here are also clearly having a difficulty assessing the credibility of sources and the accuracy of the context in which they are being quoted.

Do we need to move to mediation? --Biaothanatoi 02:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You may want to try a WP:RFC first. Unfortunately I can't really give an opinion since I've only done purely superficial copyedits to the page without touching content. WLU 19:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Sources

I'm going through the sources to try to justify them and provide better ones. Some are tough, particularly my last edit - these really need citations to independant sources. When I google them, I come up with wikipedia as the first hit, and many others that cite them as urban legends and 'stuff I heard' on fora and non-reliable sources. They need pubmed id, ISBNs, doi #s, anything to link them to a concrete source. This proves they exist, and allows them to be found so we can read through them and see if they back up the citations. It also adds much-needed credibility to a really rough article. Finally, the paragraph I commented out in Evidence looked a lot like original research - without the source saying 'Satanic ritual abuse', to call these SRA because it's in daycares, involved multiple perpetrators and had ritual elements (what kind of rituals? Hindu? Freemasonic? Shriner? Coronation?) seems way out of line. This whole page is begging for a RFC or something else to comb out the sections. WLU 21:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Self-Confessed Satanist?

Why the negative connotation?

Would you brand somebody a "Self-confessed Christian, or a self-confessed Jew?

Modern day satanism, the only true form of this religion, embraces children as sacred beings, hence SRA is just silly it should be called FRA, for fuckwit ritual abuse.

I wish a minority of imbeciles would discontinue ruining a logical, self-improving religion for the rest of us.

Being tarred with the same brush as a bunch of kid rapers is bullshit, I'd kill all of the bastard kiddy-fiddlers before I touched a kid myself.

Proud Laveyan Satanist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.178.157.127 (talk) 12:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh my god

Ok, I'm going through the citations for the article, trying to get some standard and have them all with citation templates. I have to say, what the hell? Every single citation within the United Kingdom section was to say the accusations and whatnot were baseless. In the Rochdale case, the citation was used to support the existence of a SRA case, when the citation was about the 'victims' (i.e. the children) suing the council for wrongfully removing them from their homes. In other words, it was used to support the exact opposite of what the article actually said. I'm thinking the section should be removed completely, were it not for the fact that it basically guts the SRA case overall, in the UK at least. Also:

• the newsmakingnews.com article, which is where many of the citations for the US appeared to have come from, appears to be citing non-existant newspapers; the Orlando Sentinal Tribune doesn't appear to exist. Despite this, many 'references' appear to be culled from this site; I've commented out any entries where I can't find anything to support the reference. I really think it should be removed as an external link as it appears to be extremely unreliable.
• There appear to be references where the SRA aspects are incredibly minor; having 'cultishness' appearing in a newspaper article isn't really helpful on a page like this.
• When the words 'though no unambiguous evidence linking the girl's death to SRA was ever found' are attached to a reference, on a page about SRA, that's a reason to remove the reference, and accompanying text from the page.
• Michelle Remembers? It's been called fictional. Though this is the most reliable source I can find to date. Still, I've put in a more explicit discussion of it's 'alleged' (i.e. fictional) nature. WLU 19:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm going through the 'literature' section and removing the least reliable books I can - in part because they're not reliable (self-publications) and in part because we don't need 8 examples of survivor's publications. I'm also taking out references to the journal of psychohistory, it has an editor (Lloyd deMause) but no peer review board that I could find. Also, the sections with JoPh tend to have multiple references, many of which are peer-reviewed journals which are much more reliable sources. WLU 19:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with the removal of the Journal of Psychohistory, as it does not seem to be an academic journal of the usual type. This is such a sensitive topic that the article should be written up entirely from journal articles, academic books, training manuals for professionals, mainstream news sources and other such top-quality sources. Itsmejudith 21:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The mention of the Cynthia Owen case from Ireland is at present pretty incomprehensible. It is referenced to news sources, which can be taken as accurate for statements made in court. One of these reports a clinical psychologist stating that she was told by Cynthia Owen of ritual sexual abuse over many years and that she believed what she had been told. This is notable and should be in the article, but summarised in that way. The rest is probably not relevant. Itsmejudith 09:24, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll see if I have the patience to go through the rest of that section today or in the near future. WLU 11:07, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

WLU, I appreciate any changes made in the name of clarity, but the fact that Owen's family was poly-incestuous (that is, with incestuous abuse both within and between generations in the family), two of her siblings committed suicide and her baby was found to have been fathered by her father and murdered by her mother is clearly relevant in assessing the credibility of her disclosures of SRA.

In a debate where I keep hearing "there is no evidence", Owen's case is an example of a substantiated life history in of chronic neglect, polyabuse, murder and suicide, consonant with her disclosures of SRA. --Biaothanatoi 04:15, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

<undent>I haven't looked at Ireland yet, all I did there was reduce multiple references to a single one using a <ref name> tag. Hopefully I'll get to it at some point, but as I've said before, this is not exactly a labour of love, it's more like just labour. However, one problem I've run into in the article is an extensive disclosure of horrific abuse in specific cases, but when I look for the satanic ritual aspects, there's a single mention of dubious merit (i.e. had victim drink blood from a cup/mentioned the devil/sodomy with a cross/whatever). I don't know if this is the case or not with Ireland, but if the news articles and other sources do indeed mention SRA, I will be sure to include it, to the degree that it is emphasized in the source. It's not fair to portray something as SRA if there are six news articles about it and only one of them mention some sort of Christian devil-type thing. SRA is specific in things like Michelle Remembers (organized, conspiratorial group of people torturing and killing babies for the devil) but much more elusive in the sources for the page (some fucked up people conflate sex and God then it gets mentioned as a salacious tidbit in a news story). I'll keep your comments in mind when/if I tackle Ireland - if this is one case of explicit evidence, I'll certainly try to reflect that in the text. Source checking is tiring! WLU 17:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

RFC: Article tone POV, and sourcing

RFCsoc

Recently a conflict has arisen as to the relative weight given to various POVs on this issue, and to the quality of sourcing. What conclusions should this article draw about the real / mythic nature of SRA, which sources should it use, and are the current sources accurately represented? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eleland (talk • contribs) 21:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks like enough eyes are on the page now to deal with this. If problems continue, somebody else can open the RfC. <eleland/talkedits> 02:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Sources

In this edit, I commented out the newest source added. The reference is not to B, S & G, which I have still failed to find, but to Faller, in the APSAC Advisor, a news journal, not a scientific journal. I doubt that a news publication did a survey of 2300 clients, and if they did, I am reluctant to endorse it until I've seen their methods. Also, the wording discussed the BSG reference. This looks like a case of a book citing a news article which cited a journal article, a third-hand reference at best. I can't find a version of the original BSG article, so I'd rather the information were not in the page until at minimum a reliable source can be found for the existence of the study itself. Before references are added to the page, can we be sure they exist through a reliable source, ideally a pubmed citation, doi or google scholar citation? The only place I can find many of these sources is in web forums, personal webpages and other dubious places, it looks like the references are getting pasted and passed around in a variety of unofficial websites, which isn't helping their credibility or that of the page. WLU 16:21, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Will try and get the original article. Hope that all sources in the article are held to this high a standard. Abuse truth 02:15, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

For anything that's a scholarly article, it's generally not a big deal to get some sort of confirmation that it exists, if not a link to an abstract or even full text. Also, since they're generally the most reliable articles and useful for providing proof (ie you can make the firmest statements and conclusions based on them) it's nice to have confirmation that it exists and ideally some sort of summary or link to the actual content. Many of the sources on this page are quite problematic for their dubious reliability, I'm trying to be evenhanded, but it's an enormous undertaking and exhausting to try to track down 160-odd references. Let me know if I'm removing things that you think should remain and we can discuss. WLU 16:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Biaothanatoi - is there any on-line source for the info you just added to Australia or are you referencing from hard-copy press clippings? I'd like to see the original source and it's always handy to have some sort of weblink for readers, but the article will survive without one. Unfortunately The Age doesn't have an archive that goes back further than 12 months. And have a look at citation templates - it's an easy way to standardize the formatting of references and makes it easier to track down the original sources; there's one there for news articles as well. WLU 17:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The articles that I've listed are available online, but they aren't authorised republications and so they breach copyright. Not much we can do about that - some sources are over fifteen years old. --Biaothanatoi 04:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposing the removal of the second and third tags at the top of the article

I am proposing this because it appears both of these issues have been addressed by the editors. Comments are welcome. Abuse truth 23:32, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Though I think the page is getting better, I've still seen enough problems with citations and text that until I've been through all the sections I'm reluctant to endorse the tags being removed. The unbalanced tag I'm not so sure about, and I don't really have an opinion either way. WLU 03:22, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

This article is improving greatly — thanks for the salutary work, WLU! The citations are still very problematic. Many sections contain assertions which are not made in the sources which superficially appear to verify them. Many sections contradict their sources outright, or cherry-pick their sources for claims favorable to the SRA believers while ignoring skepticism.

You've made these claims numerous times, Eleland, but you haven't provided a single example. Instead, you've spent the last few months trading in pejorative generalisations against editors and sources that contradict your entrenched POV.

It's hard to take you seriously when you can't be bothered to read the sources you criticise out of hand. --Biaothanatoi 05:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

(For example, the "Belgium" section makes no mention of the prosecution's theory that Dutroux was spamming the police with nonsense allegations against "bigger fish" to try and save his own skin.) Some of the sources are seemingly unreliable, especially given the rather extraordinary nature of the claims made. Some of the cases listed have no apparent evidence to support their categorization as "satanic" or "ritualistic" in nature; they're just awful cases of intense, long-term abuse. (It is true that some SRA believers, like Summitt, advocate extremely broad definitions of ritual abuse, which complicates matters.) The "unbalanced" tag is probably best replaced with something more specific; perhaps we should use "exampefarm" which says "This article or section may contain poor or irrelevant examples. Articles should only contain pertinent examples." I don't know if the "multipleissues" template currently supports it though. <eleland/talkedits> 04:22, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Note that I believe WP:REDFLAG supports the notion of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary sources. If the Belgian thing is a stretch, there's no reason to include it. The page, given it's length and referencing, should include references that explicitly discuss SRA, and ideally it should be more than just 'and Bob Abuser mentioned Satan once while beating his kids'. The page is of sufficient depth and non-stubby that it should discuss the best examples. WLU 14:08, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, there really was a national scandal over the thing, and conspiracy theories abounded which were apparently given credence by some, but not most, credible journalists (Olenka Frenkiel had a investigative report / advocacy piece for the BBC.) Basically, Dutroux painted himself as just a procurer for a massive ritual-rape-'n-murder ring, and the victims' families believed him. They began campaigning publicly for this theory, and the investigating judge (it's an inquisitorial system in Belgium) showed up at a fund-raising event for their campaign, for which he was promptly sacked. This gave rise to a large, but brief, public outcry. During the publicity storm, some previously unknown people (the "X witnesses") came forward with stories of their knowledge of the alleged abuse ring, especially someone named Regina Louf. She was originally announced by police to have produced corroborated accounts, ie giving details of murders which were not publicly available. Later, police said that the original investigators had badly botched the interrogations, basically leading her on to give these details and then announcing them as corroborating proof. Finally parliament set up a commission which found that the entire investigation had been a terrible botch, and the police and judges were hugely incompetent. As for evidence of corruption and protection? "On the question of protection we didn't discover much, unless you count the best protection that Dutroux could have had and that's the incompetence of Belgium's police and judicial system." The scandal died a natural death, although the usual true-believer claims continue to survive, in this case by an unusual number of people who should know better. Still, the majority view is clearly the Hanlon's razor explanation, which even the true-believer sources make clear, if they're reliable. I think we should keep the Belgium section, mind you, because it involved allegations of ritualistic abuse conspiracy by high-level government and business VIPs, in line with the panics of the US in the late 1980s and early 1990s. We just need to write it to the majority viewpoint, while accommodating minority claims fairly and proportionally. <eleland/talkedits> 16:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a manifestly inadequate and biased summary of the Belgium case.

Eleland falsely claims that the X Witnesses came forward during the "publicity storm". In fact, the police force made a public request for witnesses to approach them at that time. For some reason, Eleland wants to characterise the X Witnesses as publicity seekers and fabricators, when they were simply responding to a request by the police.

Numerous journalists and politicans have noted that Dutroux's investigation and prosecution was characterised by ineptitude and conflicts of interest. Countless articles and books have documented Dutroux's activities in a child sex ring since at least the mid-1980s. When I type "Dutroux" and "corruption" into Factiva, I get 623 articles from the last 10 years. Searching for "Dutroux" and "satanic" brings up 51 articles regarding Dutroux's connections to a "satanic cult".

Eleland falsely (but characteristically) claims that his preferred take on the case is the 'majority view'. 300 000 Belgians took to the streets in 1996 to protest against the conduct of the investigation and in support of the victim's families, whose concerns Eleland callously dismisses in his passage above. His summary runs against the known facts of the case, which points again to his ongoing and zealous interest in discrediting any case in which SRA is substantiated. --Biaothanatoi 05:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Another Archive

This page was getting extremely long, so I've archived another big chunk of it. I tried to keep any discussions that were active less than a week on here. If you want to continue any of the archived topics, create a new topic here. Please do not edit the archive. -- Kesh 21:28, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

new book section

I've added a book section to the page. Please feel free to add appropriate selections.Abuse truth 00:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted your addition, as all of the books listed ascribe a single POV. All parts of an article need to present a neutral point-of-view, including See Also sections and Recommended Reading sections. Presenting only books from one view on this subject is not compatible with Wikipedia's goals or policies. However, once I've found some more selections, I will come back to this list to try and put together a balanced "Recommended Reading" section. -- Kesh 01:08, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. "Further reading" is more usual than "recommended reading". It's not up to us to recommend. Itsmejudith 15:19, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Eh, six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. "Further reading" sections are recommendations of books on the subject, but it's a semantic debate that's not worth getting into. :) -- Kesh 16:38, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I will wait a week on this. Hopefully by then a NPOV selection can be added. If not, I'll restore the edit, and others can add more books. Abuse truth 22:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see the need for a books/rec. reading section at all - there are already a multitude of books referenced in the main body, and it's not like there's a single, or even several books that can definitively describe Satanic Ritual Abuse, discuss it rationally, or even prove that systemic SRA exists. What worth would such a section serve? What's our criteria for including books? I'd prefer books were discussed on the talk pages before a) building such a section b) adding more if said section is included in the page. WLU 23:23, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe a reading section would help readers find more information on this controversial topic. There are several books that do definitively define SRA and discuss it rationally.Abuse truth 21:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

My experience on controversial pages is that it is essential first to trawl through all the books and articles that might be relevant in order to add something from them to the article. Then at the end if there are sources that are not referred to but are still relevant then they form the Further reading section. For example, a source might be a good one for someone who wants an overview of the subject but is not referenced because it is a summary of material found in other sources that are referenced. It may be that this article is not yet ready for a Further reading section but it may become necessary later. Itsmejudith 21:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with the above - further, if a book can't be used in the article, but still adds something valuable, then discuss it on the talk page before creating the section and adding it. When it's something as uncertain as SRA, I don't think you can unambiguously put up a book without discussing it first. WLU 19:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I will list a few books below that might be good to add. Please feel free to make comments about them. Of course, they need to be balanced with the other side of the issue.

• Sinason, Valerie (1994). Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10542-0.
• Sakheim, David K.; Devine, Susan E. (1992). Out of Darkness - Exploring Satanism and Ritual Abuse. New York: Lexington Books. ISBN 0-669-26962-X.
• Raschke, Carl A. (1990). Painted Black. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-104080-0.
• Johnston, Jerry (1989). The Edge of Evil - The Rise of Satanism in North America. Dallas: Word Publishing. ISBN 0-8499-0668-7.Abuse truth 04:07, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Of these, the Sinason book is from a top scholarly publisher. Sinason is a qualified psychologist. This is a good source for the viewpoint that SRA is a real phenomenon, and can be drawn on extensively in the article. The others I would say are not scholarly and therefore not suitable sources at all. However, we could discuss further. Would you like to quote the qualifications of any of the authors? Itsmejudith 07:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

<undent>The Sinason book is a good source for the page, but I don't see it as a 'further reading' candidate - it's about treating SRA, not SRA per se. Further reading should be for explicit discussion of the phenomena itself, not how to treat it. I'd love to see the reference list for the first chapter (which I assume discusses the phenomena in general). Incidentally, an NPOV section in my mind would contain both a 'SRA is real and here's the proof', and 'SRA is bunk and here's the lack fo proof'. Not to charicature the two sides or anything ... :) WLU 17:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

That's why I initially removed the section when it was added. From the descriptions, all the books in the list were of the "SRA is real and here's how to treat it/eliminate it from society" variety. Entirely one-sided. I have to agree with the above, we need a mix of both for a NPOV selection, and they need to be about the phenomenon, not about treatment methods. -- Kesh 18:39, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The last three books are about SRA per se. Maybe they could be added with three balancing books.Abuse truth 03:04, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be in favour of that. We should only be using scholarly sources. Since there is a disagreement between experts we must aim for balance, but that means balance between scholarly/expert views. Itsmejudith 14:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The phenomenon has notability in popular culture, so I don't think it would be out of place to link popular or non-scholarly works as long as we're careful and circumspect about it. I think the same guideline for external links would apply - it's acceptable to link to biased, nonreliable sources, as long as they have some kind of useful information. Michelle Remembers, for example, is absolutely worthless as a source of factual information, but the book itself became part of the SRA story, so reading it would help understand the phenomenon better. This being said, there's no shortage of popular, non-academic skeptical books on the subject, especially from pagan/Satanist/new-religious-movement sources and secular Skeptics. So I think a light smattering of each would be appropriate, although of course factual and academic sources are preferred. <eleland/talkedits> 17:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Much like see also, I don't see much point in duplicating the books referenced in the body text; if the section is called 'Further reading' so I'd say it should have texts not already on the page. Specific to MR, it's dealt with at relative lenght, including a wikilink, so no need for it in the section. WLU 18:35, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there's no need to duplicate. I was just using MR as an example. <eleland/talkedits> 18:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

<undent>Sure. To summarize, a further reading section could be added, provided its contents are reviewed on the talk page first, should contain key texts of both a skeptical and 'believer' (somewhat pejorative, I can't think of a better term) sides, should not duplicate the books used as a reference in the body text, should deal with the reality of SRA, rather than how to treat or otherwise deal with it, and should be the most reliable available. Does that sound reasonable? WLU 19:10, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the above. Abuse truth 04:18, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Lewis case

Both The Guardian and the Sunday Herald can be regarded as reliable sources, for news facts at least. I'm disappointed to see Biaothanatoi describe my summary of a Guardian article as biased and inaccurate in an edit summary. It may well be that both articles need to be included.

Please may we avoid the words "disclosed" and "disclosure" as they imply that we endorse allegations that are usually not proven. I'm aware that they are widely used by psychologists but they are avoided by legal professionals. We should use the most neutral language available. Itsmejudith 12:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Your summary was biased and inadequate in that you gave such undue weight to the recantation of single adult witness as to infer that all the charges were based on her allegations. You failed to note that an extensive social work investigation had found that the three complainant children had been abused in a sadistic and organised manner by at least four adults on the Isle. Of the 220 seperate incidences of abuse substantiated by investigators, some involved Satanic rituals.

In short, your summary led the reader to beleive that the charges against the defendants were based on a single lying witness, and were thus without substance. This runs counter to the known facts.

I disagree that the word 'disclosure' is used in a different way by either lawyers and psychologists. The word 'disclosure' is inherently nuetral in that it does not make a value judgement on the truth value of a child's statement about abuse. In contrast, using the term 'allegation' to characterise a child's disclosure of abuse is inherently problematic, in that it confuses the child's disclosure with a formal legal allegation.

Using legal terminology to characterise children's disclosures of abuse is profoundly biased, in that it immediately raises the question of the legal burden of proof, which can rarely be met in sexual abuse cases. --Biaothanatoi 23:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I have noted that the Guardian is still being used as a reference. But there are still problems in how this case is currently written up. The Sunday Herald article makes no reference to allegations of child prostitution being upheld. The Guardian makes reference to the police focusing on satanic abuse for unknown reasons. In summary, no allegations of abuse of a satanic nature reached court. The whole case collapsed. A witness who had made such allegations withdrew her statements entirely. An investigation found evidence of serious sexual abuse but nothing of a satanic nature. It's debatable whether this case should appear in the article at all. The Orkney case should be mentioned. Itsmejudith 12:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The Sunday Herald article refers to people paying the complainant children's parents to have sex with them. That is called "child prostitution". The Scotsman article refers to Satanic rituals being amongst the 220 seperate incidences of abuse substantiated by investigators.

You have no basis for your statement that the single recanting witness was the basis for the Satanic allegations. That is apparently your presumption, since it is not stated in the article itself. --Biaothanatoi 23:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

In my reviews and re-workings of some of the sections, I noticed a tendency for the inclusion of entries in which the 'satanic' aspects were tenuous, or an extremely minor note in the news articles themselves. I'm inclined to say leave out entries when the 'satanic ritual' elements are not extremely significant, if not central to the cases. A father abusing his child and mentioning satan once isn't really SRA in my mind. WLU 15:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

In this case the original allegations were full of satanic ritual elements and the police investigation also seems to have concentrated on those elements. But all the satanic ritual allegations were withdrawn, while an official investigation found tht there was substantial abuse of a non-satanic nature. Itsmejudith 16:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Blech. Re-wrote it. The 'satanic' nature of the lewis investigation is really glosssed over in the news articles in favour of the incompetence or inappropriate focus of the investigators. I've tried to focus on this, rather than the 'satanic' nature, since the SRA aspects really are essentially discarded. The Scotsman reference didn't seem to justify anything, and certainly not the statement a police spokesperson stressed that there numerous other witnesses and complainants in the case (acutal quote from the article - "Extremely serious allegations were made in this difficult and complex case, by a number of witnesses. It was necessary for such serious allegations, involving children under the age of 16, to be thoroughly investigated." I've commented it out, but if there is consensus that it needs to be changed, go ahead. The word satan/satanic appears about once in each article, and then is quietly dropped. WLU 17:35, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Where is the disjunction between my summary of the spokesperson's statement and the spokesperson's statement? She refers to multiple witnesses and complainants in fairly strong terms. Provide a direct quote if you object, but I can't see grounds for your criticism.

WLU states that including the police response to the witness's accusation of coercion is "apologist" when I would have presumed that presenting both sides of an argument lends balance to the article. Why should the witness' claim be considered relevant if the police counter-claim is not?--Biaothanatoi 23:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

<undent>The references really don't support the idea that there was a satanic ring on the island or in Lewis - a bunch of predators, yes, people abusing their kids, yes, but the Satanic elements really don't seem justified. From The Observer, Angela Stretton, whose evidence was vital in bringing a case of satanic sex abuse against eight people on the island of Lewis, has written to police confessing that some of the allegations she made were false. Especially considering the entire thing has essentially been discarded, to have an extensive discussion based on discarded allegations of abuse in which the 'satanic' aspects are glossed over or barely mentioned seems undue. We could take it to a RFC, really the whole page needs a RFC. Anyway, the situation was full of allegations, none of which were proven. Anyway, the whole thing screams for more sources, so here, here, here (original source preferred), WLU 00:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, you are relying on the emphasis given to the Satanic rituals in a single solitary article regarding the recantation of one witness, but I've pointed you to other sources which indicate that Satanic rituals were amongst the 220 abusive incidences substantiated by investigators.

It seems that undue weight is being given to the recantation of one witness, such as to infer that all charges were based on her testimony. In fact, the govt report indicated that the three children at the centre of the case were the primary complainants and witnesses, and the primary source of the Satanic allegations.

There is a lot of supposition going on amongst editors in this case, and too much reliance on a single article, without considering the facts proferred by all media coverage on this case. --Biaothanatoi 00:14, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Which sources do you think indicate that the investigators substantiated instances of Satanic rituals? I think we are agreed, aren't we, that the police investigation was mishandled. We should look at the terms of reference of the subsequent enquiry, and see if we can find the report itself. Itsmejudith 21:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, the newspaper reports hardly portray a damning indication of active Satanists on Lewis. The SRA aspects appear to be mentioned simply because they were mentioned earlier. Given the news articles, you can't really say much about the SRA aspects because the articles don't say much about the SRA aspects. Needs more sources! By my reading, there's two soures saying the investigation was inconclusive, two saying an important witness recounted her testimony, and two saying the procedures followed were bogus. The 2005 investigation did find extensive evidence of abuse, but I don't recall mention of extensive evidence of Satanic abuse. WLU 21:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The enquiry report is online at http://www.swia.gov.uk/swia/files/An%20inspection%20into%20the%20care%20and%20protection%20of%20children%20in%20Eilean%20Siar.pdf. It documents in great detail a history of abuse within families, in which children's symptoms went unnoticed and their statements were ignored. It uses both the terms "disclosure" and "allegation". It makes no mention at all of any satanic dimension to the abuse. It mentions "ritual" only in the following context:

"In all interviews Mrs A was accompanied by an appropriate adult. She described in detail severe and prolonged abuse of her children by a number of adults. She was interviewed over a period of seven months. Towards the end of the period she described abuse of her children and others as part of various rituals conducted by numbers of adults. She was eventually advised by her appropriate adult to stop describing abuse. In her precognition statement she retracted her allegations against two of the former accused. We found no record of Mrs A being assessed by a psychologist as to her ability to be a witness. The impact of her learning disability appears never to have been determined."

My interpretation of this is that the report authors were concerned that this witness may have begun to exaggerate or invent material about rituals after prolonged questioning by police, questioning that took no account of her learning disability. This is the witness that is mentioned in the newspaper accounts as having retracted her statement - she was also involved in the neglect and abuse of her own children. I'm not suggesting that my interpretation should go into the article. What I'm wondering now is whether this case belongs in the article at all. This report is a highly reliable source and it does not only not say that SRA took place, it does not raise the question at all, it does not discuss whether the police investigation considered it, it does not say that the child witnesses mentioned it (even though it goes into great detail about what the children did say at different times). I cannot find mention either of children selling sex, although it may be somewhere in the report - it may not be relevant anyway. Would others like to read the report and discuss? Itsmejudith 23:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The report is very specific that Mrs A retracted her allegations against "two of the former accused". It does not state that she retracted all her allegations, or her allegations regarding the ritual abuse, nor does it state that she was the sole complainant in relation to the ritual abuse. A number of editors here have sought to make that inference here, but it is not supported by the report and it should not be made in the article.

Disclosures of child prostitution come from p 102: "Caitlin and Alice were also interviewed on separate occasions. They described sexual abuse by male and female adults including family members. They described money changing hands between adults after they were abused."

The media has made much of the disclosures regarding Satanic activity, but the social work report has not, although it does note it in the passage you provide. The fact that the Satanic allegations were widely publicised, the fact that the ritualistic activity is noted in the social work report, the fact that these allegations remain on the public record, and the fact that the organised abuse of the complainant children has been substantiated - all of these facts suggest to me that this case is relevant to the debate on SRA as a whole.

It is also worth noting that the previously misleading material on this case was not challenged here as long as it inferred that the abuse allegations had no basis in fact. Now that this has been corrected, we find the relevance of the case to the article as a whole is challenged - a repeated pattern on this page in relation to organised abuse cases that include SRA allegations.

Why does false and misleading material on SRA cases go unchallenged here as long as it supports the view that the case is fabricated?--Biaothanatoi (talk) 04:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Please assume good faith Biaothanatoi. These are complex cases that are difficult to summarise. I haven't left anything unchallenged but as and when I have time (and I am editing other articles such as solar energy), reading the reliable sources to which I have easy access and trying to make sure that they are accurately reflected in the article. As a point of fact the enquiry report did not "note ritualistic activity" as you say above. It only mentioned in passing that one witness's statements, taken in circumstances of which it was highly critical, mentioned that element. All the reports in the serious press keep separate a) the idea that there was child abuse in one family or a group of families on Orkney and b) the idea that some of that abuse was ritualistic in nature. a) is not proven in law but was found by the social work inspectors, b) was apparently suggested by one or more witnesses, but has never been investigated except in a way that ignored the vulnerability of the witnesses and destroyed the chance of the case ever coming to court. We also must keep these ideas separate. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Abuse was found to span more then one family, and ritualitsic abuse was a feature of some disclosures in the case. Those are two facts established by the social work report.

Much of your commentary is based on your own supposition and finds no support in the report e.g. The social work report does not make an assessment of the nature of the policy inquiry into the ritualistic allegations, and yet you appear to claim otherwise.

I agree that cases of organised abuse are very complex, which is why we should resist the urge to "fill in the blanks" on a situation that we don't have all the information on. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 01:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Preview header

<undent>The PDF provided by IMJ is by far the most reliable source we've got on this case. In it, 'satan' is not mentioned at all, and 'ritual' is mentioned once, as noted above. What kind of rituals were they? Satanic? Voodoo? Puja? There's no clarification. If the Satanic aspects were widely publicised, we must find those public sources and cite them, because the ones we have right now don't say much. The document does not support the idea that SRA occurred in Lewis, though it does support the fact that allegations were made (then withdrawn) for a variety of types of abuse, one of which was SRA. Some paraphilias involve extremely detailed rituals, that does not make them satanic. In this case, there is no indication of a supernatural, religious or occult basis to any allegations.

With the sources we have right now, all we can say is that allegations of SRA have occurred, at least one witness has recanted them, and the investigators were criticized for botching things. It's not a matter of 'the case being fabricated or not', it's a matter of summarizing what the sources give us, and that's not much. Wikipedia will not, and can not due to policy, prove that SRA is real or not, in this case or any others; sources attempt to do that. The sources have minimal mention of stanic abuse in them - the Herald mentions it once:

1. Allegations soon emerged of ritual abuse - a Satanic paedophile ring with echoes of similar allegations uncovered in Orkney and Cleveland

The Guardian thrice:

1. Headline - Satanic abuse key witness says: I lied
2. Angela Stretton, whose evidence was vital in bringing a case of satanic sex abuse against eight people on the island of Lewis, has written to police confessing that some of the allegations she made were false.
3. For reasons which have never been explained, the authorities instead focused their inquiries on allegations of an island-wide satanic abuse ring.

Other relevant sections:

1. 1. The developments have raised critical questions about the handling of the investigation and whether lessons have been learnt by the police and social workers following false allegations of ritual child abuse in the Orkney, Rochdale and Cleveland scandals.
   2. In Lewis, eight people, including a 75- year-old grandmother, appeared in court accused of raping and otherwise sexually abusing children in black magic rituals. The court was told of wife-swapping orgies and the sacrifices of cats and chickens whose blood was drunk. [paragraph break] The case made international news. Yet it was quietly dropped nine months later with no explanation...

The Scotsman thrice:

1. Headline - Police deny pressuring 'satanic abuse' witness
2. POLICE yesterday rejected claims they put undue pressure on a key witness in a satanic abuse investigation on the Isle of Lewis, after she admitted lying to detectives following days of intense questioning.
3. Despite that, social work inspectors found more than 220 incidents of abuse between 1990 and 2000 - including allegations of satanic rituals - involving at least four adults.

The SWIA report mentions 'ritual' once:

1. Towards the end of the period she described abuse of her children and others as part of various rituals conducted by numbers of adults.

That is what we have to work with so lets build the Lewis section out of this. The rest of the articles' and the report's contents discuss abuse, but do not single out SRA. They do case doubt on the testimony as a witness. I've underlined the points which I believe demonstrate that an interpretation of 'a SRA ring existed on Lewis' does not belong in the article. Again, all of the Satanic aspects are cited as 'allegations', not proof. For better or worse, this is what we have to work with. I think we should try to get the article up to a higher standard, then ask for a RFC on the whole thing. WLU (talk) 15:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

This report may be helpful [9] although there is a slight contradiction with the Guardian article, in that the Guardian states that allegations of satanic ritual were made in court whereas the Scotland on Sunday article implies that they were not, but only contained in reports which they had been shown by the police. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The key line for me from that article is "A police report on the Lewis case, seen by Scotland on Sunday, appears to show that there was some evidence of abuse not related to Satanism, including inappropriate touching and indecent pictures of juveniles kept on a computer. " The only thing I think we can say about Lewis is that allegations were made, a witness retracted them, and the case has been dismissed. WLU (talk) 21:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

That is an inadequate summary of the facts, WLU. What we can say is that the children's allegations of organised abuse over a ten year period were substantiated and this included abuse inside and outside the family by male and female perpetrators. One adult witness who corroborated the children's accounts has since retracted a portion of her statement.

At no point does the social work report state that Miss A was the sole witness in relation to the ritualistic activity, or that Miss A specifically retracted the portion of her statement related to the ritualistic activity.

As for your statement that the case has been 'dismissed' - what does this mean, WLU? Dismissed by who, and when? It seems to me that the case has been subject to a government investigation, which found the children's complaints to have been true. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 01:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Organized abuse does not equal SRA. A pedophile ring aren't satanists (unless they're satanic pedophiles). The social work report also does not help include the idea of SRA being in the article; satan's not mentioned. I'm not arguing that the children's complaints of abuse are not true, I'm arguing that the complaints of satanic abuse are tenuous. This page is about satanic ritual abuse, there are other pages discussing other types of abuse. We should be focussing on the satanic aspects (oh, if my mother could see what I'm typing now...), not whether the abuse overall happened. To portray it as 'abuse happened therefore the SRA happened' would be original research in my mind, a synthesis that is not allowed. WLU (talk) 22:11, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy to see this article reflect the ambiguities of this case - in fact, it would be constructive and informative for the reader if it did so. For instance, it would be accurate to state that sadistic and organised abuse has been substantiated, and that ritualistic forms of abuse were alleged, however these claims have not been contested in a court of law - or words to that effect.

I'm not claiming that SRA occured because organised abuse occurred. What I'm saying is that it is significant that the children's disclosures of organised abuse were substantiated, even whilst claims regarding satanic or ritualistic features remain uncertain. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 22:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Well-researched?

An Empirical Look at the Ritual Abuse Controversy has so many misspelled words, that I would question the research. It's possible that it's ra-info.org's fault, rather than the researcher's, so it's not enough to remove the link, but you might want to let them know. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 03:51, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing in this internet paper that reassures us that it is a good source. If the author is a researcher in the field then he will have published papers in peer-reviewed journals that can be cited instead. Otherwise, I don't think the source should stand. Itsmejudith 21:17, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It appears to be well-referenced. And if this one http://www.smwane.dk/ is allowed to be on the page, then the ra-info one IMO appears to be better researched and more reputable.Abuse truth 03:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I removed both, and the conviction list, which I still fail to see the point of. Sure it's got references, but to what? It's a listing of newspaper clipping summaries, in which the ritual and satanic aspects are sometimes very dubious (child pornography and cannibalism are indeed horrific, but are not satanic in and of themselves). Anwyay, we can discuss. The Empirical Look paper should have been an inline citation linked to the conference abstract rather than an external link. I've sent Noblitt an e-mail to see if he can provide us something actually citable - right now it's verging on a personal webpage, and its eligibility for inclusion in the article at all is questionable. WLU 16:35, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I've added back Conviction List: Ritual Child Abuse for now. IMO, it is important to show that these kinds of cases have occurred in the legal system and this appears to be the best list available. It also adds balance to the article. Abuse truth (talk) 23:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, I think it unbalances the article. WP:EL, by my understanding, actually calls for a higher standard than WP:RS, but at minimum, a link should be a reliable source if it's asserting information. I don't think it's useful and previous approval doesn't make it permanent. As always, there's the option of a WP:RFC to settle it. WLU (talk) 02:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EL#Avoid_undue_weight_on_particular_points_of_view

it states - Avoid undue weight on particular points of view

On articles with multiple points of view, the number of links dedicated to one point of view should not overwhelm the number dedicated to other equal points of view, nor give undue weight to minority views. Add comments to these links informing the reader of their point of view. If one point of view dominates informed opinion, that should be represented first. For more information, see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view—in particular, Wikipedia's guidelines on undue weight

Having the Lanning link alone definitely gives undue weight to a POV. It is from religioustolerance.org, IMO a POV site. Lanning has also been criticized for ignoring certain cases and not doing sufficient or any investigative work on the subject. I will be adding the ra-info site back for now. Abuse truth (talk) 23:36, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

<undent>The actual guideline from WP:UNDUE states that minority viewpoints should be given less coverage than the mainstream ones. Currently, the mainstream view by my reading is that SRA is greatly blown out of proportion, and the extreme view (that there's widespread cults dedicated towards ritual sex and murder that are dedicated to 'Satanic worship') is pretty much bogus. Ergo, that should be reflected in the page and the links Please don't add the link back until the discussion is complete and consensus is reached. I'd say the report on SRA is definitely notable, the RT.org site is the resource. The other link is, as I've said before, a collection of news reports, some of which are extremely tenuously related to actual SRA, and there's no weblinks to the source articles themselves. I don't think it's a good link. It's a summary of news reports, verging on a personal website that happens to collect summaries of said articles, with no way of knowing if the summaries are accurate. WLU (talk) 00:46, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Even if you are right, less coverage however doesn't mean no coverage. Having only one POV link does not accurately reflect the media coverage or journal articles. The page deleted does not take an extreme viewpoint. If Lanning did ignore certain cases, than how do we know if his work is credible. IMO, the Lanning link either needs to be balanced or the entire section deleted. Abuse truth (talk) 23:50, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

If you want to include a 'pro' link, find a reliable one. Lanning's is published by the FBI accademy. It's credible because its attributable to a person and it's published by a government publishing house. I think it should stay because it is too lengthy to quote or include in the article, yet contains the thought process of an investigator who worked in this area for over 10 years, who is employed in a national training academy for law enforcement. The other was a summary and combination of newspaper articles from all over the world, that did not have links to the articles themselves, ergo no way to check they're accurate, containing doubtful (in my mind) conflation of specific cases of abuse with SRA based on dubious evidence. The 'conviction list' also states at the top "The ritualistic aspects of the crimes often are not presented in court but are clearly indicated in the victims' accounts." At the bottom of the second page it states "Granting an appeal for a new trial does not constitute a ruling that the crime for which the defendant was originally tried could not have been committed." In my mind, the page assumes the individuals are guilty, then conflates any mention of possible 'indicators' of SRA to assume abuse, all without giving original context. I think it's out, due to this section, point 2. WLU (talk) 15:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's my understanding that Lanning's report was not published or endorsed by the FBI. It was simply a paper that the Lanning wrote and disseminated himself. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 01:07, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe that Biaothanatoi is correct. The article was first printed in "Out of darkness: Exploring satanism and ritual abuse." (Sakheim, David K. and Devine, Susan, Eds.) (1992) Lexington Books/Macmillan: NY, NY. Lanning, Kenneth V. "A law-enforcement perspective on allegations of ritual abuse." pp. 109-146. I have the book. There is no mention that the article was ever published by "the FBI accademy." To me, the article looks like it is simply his opinion with a few sources thrown in at the end.

As WLU stated on a different talk page:

"The figures and claims should be backed by the most reliable sources available - if not a peer-reviewed journal, then a peer-reviewed book or book published by a university press or other publisher with oversight on the contents of books" and "publication in a lay-book bypasses the peer review process, but publication in a valid publisher with oversight and review over the contents would be valid. If they're quoting a journal publication, that should be the source, not the book, and include the pubmed ID or other abstract-available weblink."

If we hold all sources up to these guidelines, then Lanning's article does not hold up.

I am also confused that this link :

http://www.ra-info.org/library/programming/noblitt.shtml An Empirical Look at the Ritual Abuse Controversy was previously rejected by the same editors at this page. Yet it contains "the thought process of an investigator who worked in this area for over" 20 years and one that is well-published in the field. This article, unlike the Lanning one, footnotes every statement. If we lower our standards for the Lanning article, then other articles from a different POV should be allowed to stand as well.Abuse truth (talk) 03:11, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The quality of a source should not be judged by whether we think there is adequate footnoting or not. There are only two points to consider in relation to the Lanning article:

1) Is Lexington Books/Macmillan an academic/reputable publisher? If it is part of Macmillan, then it would seem yes.

2) Is the online version an accurate representation of the original book chapter? I don't know that and would be interested to read editors' opinions.

There is no need to compare one book with many footnotes and another without. Lanning is/was a top professional in his field and may write from his professional experience. Another writer may make a review of academic literature. Both are relevant and should if possible be reflected in the article. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I e-mailed Noblitt, he said it was a conference abstract part of a self-published book, as well as part of another book. I've asked him if it was ever peer-reviewed before any of the publications, if I get a reply that's documentable, I'll post a link. Though I could not find reference to this publication by Lanning on the FBI reports site, there were numerous other mentions of Lanning on the site, and the report itself appears to be referenced many times in reliable sources. If Lanning's report was published in full by Lexington Books (a university press? Is there editorial oversight?), that does make it a reliable source, and the religious tolerance website is just a convenient way of citing it. Depending on other concerns, Lanning's report may not be eligible for being an EL, I don't have time to comment right now. It's already an in-line citation, but I think there's merit in it being an EL as well as. We'll have to discuss, but it'd be a case of WP:IAR. Apologies, I've got to be running. WLU (talk) 22:07, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Lanning's paper was not published or endorsed by the FBI, although many people erroneously believe it to be so. Lanning wrote and circulated it himself. You might note that Lanning's paper does not follow a standard report format - there is no literature review, no overview of his methodology, and no attempt to explain to his readers how he came to his conclusions. In effect, it is simply Lanning's personal reflections on his experiences investigating child abuse, in relation to claims in the sensationalist media relating to a "Satanic conspiracy" etc.

Lanning's chapter in Out Of Darkness is not a reprinting of his report - in fact, he states explicitly in Out Of Darknes that ritualistic and satanic forms of abuse do occur in sexually abusive groups, but he challenges the notion that the ritualistic abuse is a "religious" or "cult" activity.

ReligiousTolerance.org is not a reliable source for a number of obvious reasons. The authors have no experience or credentials in any of the matters that they write about, they have never been published anywhere else except on their own website, and they claim to be "Consultants" but I've never seen any evidence that they've ever been paid for what they do e.g. Their claim to be "consultants" is actually false, and they are nothing of the kind. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 22:26, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

As far as WP:IAR goes, we should include both Noblitt's and the ra-info court case article. Both can be helpful to readers in seeing different sides of the issue. "When reputable sources contradict one another, the core of the NPOV policy is to let competing approaches exist on the same page."Abuse truth (talk) 04:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

<undent>WP:IAR means there is no 'should', it means we discuss until we decide what rules to ignore. Noblitt could be used as an in-line citation, it's short enough for that. Lanning's article is included as an EL because it is so long, it can't really be used as simply a soure, or more accurately, it's a good, lengthy discourse on the subject. The RA court cases are not reliable sources in any way by my reading. I think IAR could apply for Lanning because it's cited many times in actual scientific literature but it's not published itself in a form I can find. It's used as a reliable source by reliable sources, giving it credibility, and it's written by an expert in the area (Lanning is indeed an employee of the FBI). Thus I venture to IAR because even though a strict interpretation of WP:RS and WP:EL would bar Lanning from being included as an EL, it's sufficiently material, of such length, and used in such a way elsewhere (i.e. as if it were a RS), that it's worth keeping. Noblitt isn't lengthy and could easily be an inline citation. The court cases are not reliable, the are the interpretation of whoever posts to the website (and I don't know who maintains it, so it's not attributable) and I find their interpretations suspect in more than one instance. It is useful as a source of sources (and apparently has been used as such, because I notice the news articles it cites have appeared quite frequently on the SRA page proper several times), but should not itself be cited or appear as an external link. Bring all three up at Talk:WP:EL, WP:RS and WP:IAR if you'd like, or as a RFC, or ask some admins for their opinion, be sure to post a link to the discussion here. WLU (talk) 18:05, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

As per WLU's suggestion, have made Noblitt article a citation. Have added another EL that adds NPOV to EL section.Abuse truth (talk) 04:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The current use of the Noblitt article doesn't really say anything, and I don't know about putting it in the lead, but it's better than as an EL. The second link, going by its description, shouldn't be an EL - the description stated it was a poll about how many people in Utah believe in SRA. That's not a good EL, though the contents may be more appropriate. If you've a reference and you're not sure where to put it, the EL section is not a good place to go. It does look like a near-ideal source for the body text. It'd be nice if we could get it right from the Utah government site if possible. Report of Utah State Task Force on Ritual Abuse - May 1992 WLU (talk) 12:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Have added the Utah link instead as a reference.Abuse truth (talk) 20:06, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The Netherlands section

Given the scrutiny being paid to the Lewis case, do editors also want to read the Netherlands section and make a call regarding the relevance of much of the material to the article in general?

I've voiced some concern in the past that the material is speculative, POV, and largely reproduces the arguments of pro-incest advocate Benjamin Rossen's coverage of the case. Many of the quoted sources are too general to apply specifically to the Netherlands or SRA (e.g. Stanley Cohen's "Moral Panic", published in the 60s), or else they are in Dutch and we can't assess their credibility, or whether they are being quoting them accurately. Much of his account is speculative in relation to the cause of claims of SRA in the Netherlands or why there have been relatively few of them in comparison to the States. What relevance does this have to the article as a whole? It is clearly one person's POV.

His account of Oude Pekala contains a number of ambiguities. For instance, he notes that the psychiatrist and the two doctors who examined the children, have stated that they informed the police that the children disclosed ritualistic abuse, and that the parents of the children have also claimed that they informed the police of their children's ritualistic disclosures. The editor then states that the authorities "would have denied" being told of these allegations. This statement is unclear - have the authorities denied such a thing? Or is the editor postulating that they "would" deny being told if they were asked?

The attendant physicians in the Oude Pekala case, Jonker and Jonker-Bakker, have published their medical findings in English, peer-reviewed journals, where they indicate that there were clear findings of psychological and physical harm amongst the complainant children in the Oude Pekala. The editor in question has blocked a summary of their research findings, stating instead that these findings have been "heavily criticised" - but he does not tell us on what grounds or why. Putnam may feel that their research is "inflammatory" but he does not question the methodology of the research.

I'd like to see some balance from editors here in terms of the scrutiny that they apply to cases of SRA. The Netherlands material is long, rambling, and clearly POV. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 01:58, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this needs reviewing. The Cohen book, outstanding sociology though it is, is not relevant here. The trouble is, few of us read Dutch. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

We don't need to read Dutch to correct this section. There are numerous factual inaccuracies and unsupported (and unsupportable) POV assertions throughout the article. I'm also concerned that the editor in question who wrote this material knew intimate details about the life of Benjamin Rossen that are not, to my knowledge, in the public domain. Given Rossen's writings for the pro-paedophile Journal of Paedophilia, editors here should be concerned about the possibility that someone friendly with Rossen is writing on child abuse for Wikipedia. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 22:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Much of the speculative analysis here is attributed to "Tjalling Beetstra", a doctoral candidate writing in the Netherlands on satanic ritual abuse. Is this editor the same person, and is he referencing himself? --Biaothanatoi (talk) 23:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Just checked over Beetstra's biography, and he was born in 1963. Interesting, because the editor responsible for this section on the Netherlands is called Criminologist1963. Seems like Beetstra is using Wikipedia as his own little self-promotion vehicle.

What is the appropriate course of action here? --Biaothanatoi (talk) 23:08, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Recent changes

I'm trying to figure out who removed recent research findings from the section on DID, and posted instead a fifteen-year-old paper by Richard Ofshe on the Paul Ingram case.

Ofshe is a founder of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, and his theories on the Paul Ingram case (on which the new source is based) were thrown out of court by the trial judge as unscientific and bizarre. Please read this overview of the case for more information on the methodological and logical flaws in Ofshe's account.

It is difficult to understand why recent research findings on memory and trauma were deleted in favour of a fifteen-year-old paper on a falsified case study by a founding member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 22:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Probably me, in this edit. The Ofshe paper I just threw in because I found it on pubmed. I've no problem with taking that clause out. There's a bunch of commented out stuff in that paragraph, I have some concerns about the resources being used either inappropriately or as a synthesis. Unless the article about PTSD mentions SRA or DID in a very specific context, I can't see a reason to include it. WLU (talk) 23:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd frankly be happy to delete the entire section on DID - it's only there as a hang-over from the previous article.

Can you please substantiate your concerns about 'synthesis' before acting on them? It is not good faith to delete material on the basis of a suspicion if you have no actual grounds to do so. I'm hearing consistent concerns about 'synthesis' in relation to my material, but editors have yet to demonstrate - just once - where this has taken place.

It would also be appreciated if you could hold your own editing to the standards that you set for others. You deleted recent research findings in favour of an old (and falsified) case study to make a generalisation about the nature of memory. A case study is an inadequate source for such a generalisation, particularly when it is fifteen years old and contradicted by recent research.

In this particular case, the author is a founding member of a fringe activist group constituted of people accused of sexual abuse, and his paper advanced an argument that was thrown out of court by a judge as unscientific and bizarre. The subject of the article, Paul Ingram, was not only found guilty and went to jail, but he confessed to his involvement in SRA, and his son requesteed in 1997 that his father be denied parole, since he was a 'dangerous' man.

Please show more care before you delete relevant material and "throw in" a random article that you stumble across. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 23:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Criminologist1963, Tjalling Beetstra, and self-promotion

The Netherlands section is a cut-and-paste job from the Duth Wiki site by an editor called Criminologist1963, and you'll note that much of the article is cited to a Duth PhD candidate called Tjalling Beetstra. There are some interesting similarities between Criminologist1963 and Tjalling Beetstra that I'd like to raise here. They are both Dutch, they both study "Satanic Ritual Abuse", they both claim to be criminologists, and they were both born in 1963.

Criminologist1963 cites Beetstra as an authoritative source no less then three times, then mentions Beetstra as an expert in the article itself, and provides a link to Beetstra's website, which advertises his services as an 'expert' on SRA. It seems likely to me that Crim1963 is Beetstra, and this raises issues regarding Beetstra's use of Wikipedia to promote himself, and his conflict of interest in editing this article.

Criminologist1963 has consistently rejected attempts to change this article, even though factual inaccuracies have been established in his account. Looking back over the changes that he blocked, they were all changes that deleted Beetstra's name or the link to his commercial website. It seems that Crim1963 has a financial interest in maintaining this portion of the SRA website and preventing other editors from contributing, even where his information has been established as factually incorrect.

I think this is a clear-cut case of self-promotion and conflict of interest. What do other editors think? --Biaothanatoi (talk) 23:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not concerned about possible COI without direct evidence, but the weblink doesn't work for me. If the references support the statements, it should stay (though it does appear to be quite long considering it's a single incident). Irrespective, Beetstra's name should be removed (no reason to put up a non-notable name) and if the reference is just a webpage and not a peer-reviewed source, the whole section it justifies should be removed. Really, the webpage is irrelevant, without a book, book chapter or journal, the section should be removed. I'm working on it now. WLU (talk) 23:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I would have presumed that this is a prima faci case of COI - it is reasonable to presume that Crim1963 and Beetstra are the same person (Dutch, 'criminologists', specialise in SRA from a skeptical POV, born in 1963), therefore Beetstra added himself to the article without declaring himself as the author, included a link to a website where he advertises his commercial services, and then ridiculed other editors if they attempted to delete the reference to him without making it clear that he had a financial interest in those links. Biaothanatoi (talk) 00:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I re-worked it, as you suspected, it deserved to be a much shorter section and there's no reason to mention Beetstra. The report itself does sound interesting as a source though. WLU (talk) 00:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Cheers. Agreed that the report sounds interesting - we had a similar report published in Australia in 1994, although it concluded that SRA did exist.

I'll take a look at the article and include some material about Jonker and Jonker-Bakker - they published four articles that I know of documenting their experiences of the Oude Pekela incident, including findings of medical, psychosocial and pscyhological harm drawn from a ten year cohort study of the complainant children. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 00:06, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

<undent>If you reference them make sure you use the <ref name> template, [18] is Jonker/Jonker Bakker (1991). Otherwise, have a go at finding it on pubmed and using the citation generators - they're incredibly easy and incredibly handy. I think there's already a ref name template - <ref name = Jonker1991/>. WLU (talk) 02:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Reworking looks good, thanks WLU. Are we sure all the remaining sources are scholarly? Itsmejudith (talk) 20:57, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Jonker-Bakker and Putnam are genuine, they're in peer-reviewed journals with PUBMED numbers. The Tijdsein ref with Beetstra as an author I have no idea (can't read Dutch and haven't looked for it due to time constraints; I could ask User:Jfdwolff to look into it - he's an admin and speaks Dutch) but I'm agf-ing that it's genuine. Pretty much the exact same comment goes for the Werkgroep reference, but I'd love to get my hands on a translated copy. Werkgroep is not scholarly, but it's reliable and appropriate for for the citations used (assuming the background is correct, it's a government publication on SRA in the Netherlands). Non-scholarly sources are OK, as long as they're reliable. WLU (talk) 22:09, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Since Fred Jonker and Ietje Jonker-Bakker are still seen as the experts on satanic ritual abuse by you and it seems that your conviction is only based on the fact that they published articles in the International Journal on Child Abuse and Neglect, please read the article of Frank Putnam that was published in the same journal. On page 176 Putnam says about the article of Jonker and Jonker-Bakker: Throughout this paper, the authors express a firm and unwavering conviction that these acts did in fact happen and were accurately described by the children, although parents and police expressed disbelief and ultimately the case was closed for lack of evidence. (...) Repeatedly the Jonker and Jonker-Bakker paper implies that many or all of the children reported a similar experience, but never once actually gives the percentage of children responding positively or negatively. On page 177 Putnam adds: Nowhere is there a systematic analysis of the actual degree of similarity of these allegations. On page 178 Putnam continues: The most frightening image emerging from this paper is not the alleged satanic conspiracy, but the actual massive social disorder that occured in Oude Pekela. Jonker and Jonker-Bakker describe a community turned against itself, filled with fear, anger, and distrust. Ultimately the national government had to intervene to restore some measure of convidence in the local authorities. (...) The Jonker and Jonker-Bakker paper is particularly inflammatory in this regard, repeatedly stating or implying, without specifying and actual evidence, that the police were, at best, incompetent, unqualified, and neglectful. Therefore Putnam concludes on page 178: In the future, unsubstantiated charges of police or government incompetence or neglect in the handling of satanic ritual abuse investigations should not be published in professionals journals as they only serve to erode public and professional trust in the law enforcement community. Putnam, Frank W., The Satanic Ritual Abuse Controversy, in: International Journal on Child Abuse and Neglect, Vol. 15, Nr. 3, 1991, p. 175-179. Finally I want to point out that in the Netherlands Jonker and Jonker-Bakker are not and have never been seen as the experts on satanic ritual abuse.

Jonker and Jonker-Bakker have never claimed to be experts on satanic ritual abuse. Their articles refer specifically to their clinical experiences of the Oude Pekela case and the cohort study of children that developed from that case.

What you are highlighting between Putnam and Jonker/Jonker-Bakker is a differing point of view, not a criticism of their methodology or analysis. Putnam's own stance on satanic ritual abuse has been criticised elsewhere. That is simply the nature of academic debate, particularly on contentious issues like this.

Wikipedia asks us to maintance balance, and so it is necessary to report on Jonker and Jonker-Bakker's findings, since they are of significance to the case. What you have attempted to do, instead, is suppress Jonker and Jonker-Bakker's findings - and we have established here that you had an undisclosed commercial and professional interest in doing so, Beetstra. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 23:43, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is some additional information about the Dutch sources I have used in the section about the Netherlands:

Aanh. Hand. II, 1992-1993, Nr. 770 - an official document from the Dutch parliament: It contains questions of members of parliament to the minister of Health and the answers of this minister.

Maandblad Geestelijke volksgezondheid - a monthly journal for psychologists and psychiatrists. In the case of satanic ritual abuse mpd therapists and believers as well as critics and sceptics have published in this magazine. I used publications from the mpd movement as well as from critics and sceptics in the chapter about the Netherlands.

Multiple Personality Disorder in the Netherlands: A Study on Reliability and Validity of the Diagnosis - Suzette Boon and Nel Draijer conducted this study. It was also the dissertation of Boon.

Massahysterie in de Verenigde Staten en Nederland: De affaire rond de McMartin Pre-School en het ontuchtschandaal in Oude Pekela, in: Peter Burger and Willem Koetsenruijter (Eds.), Mediahypes en moderne sagen: Sterke verhalen in het nieuws, Leiden, Stichting Neerlandistiek Leiden, 2004 - a comparative analyses of the McMartin Pre-School case and the debauchery scandal in Oude Pekela by Tjalling Beetstra. The book contains the lectures of a congress about mediahypes at the University of Leiden.

Rapport van de Werkgroep Ritueel Misbruik - official report of the workgroup that was installed by the state secretary of Justice in reaction to the broadcast of the television newsmagazine Nova concerning satanic ritual abuse.

Tijdsein is a television newsmagazine.

My account about satanic ritual abuse in the Netherlands is, apart from a few omissions, a translating job of the Dutch Wikipedia page. The reason is very simple: I wrote both the Dutch text and the English text. As you can see, the Dutch text is written by Criminoloog1963 and the English text by Criminologist1963. Translation of my own Dutch text on Wikipedia is not a violation of any policy or guideline of Wikipedia. Criminologist1963 (talk) 19:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

It is a violation of Wikipedia guidelines to use this site to promote a commercial service, Beetstra. In this case, you have attempted to use WP to promote your services as a self-appointed "expert" in satanic ritual abuse, which is why your edits have been removed. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 23:43, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I removed the massive dump of information to the Netherlands section - the whole thing was far too detailed considering what it was - the sources ultimately stated that the allegations were bogus. It's therefore unnecessary in my mind to have a multi-paragraph discussion of what is described (by its own author) as a tempest in a teapot. If it's nothing, it gets the same mention as other nothing incidents - short, referenced discussion. If the Netherlands involvement in the SRA phenomenon is of sufficient interest and detail, it can be spun off in its own article with a {{main}} in this one. Further, if Beetstra's work is ever published in a reliable source, it can be quoted. The inclusion of a link to a personal webpage is clearly out per WP:RS. The fact that it doesn't even link to a research portion of the page (not that any research reported there would be eligible for inclusion in the page) makes it look like spam. I don't care if it's self-promotion or other-promotion, it's spam and is not suitable for inclusion in the page. If Beetstra can't get published in journals, he certainly can't get published here. WLU (talk) 15:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

New source

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/garyhughes/index.php/theaustralian/comments/ritual_abuse_real_or_not/ - it's a blog, so there needs be some digging to see if they could be considered a reliable source. It is a blog of a senior writer of a national newspaper I believe. WLU 01:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Trying to find Bottoms, Shaver and Goodman. Found this and this and this and this and this and this one available as pdf and this, the only ref I found to B, S & G 1993 on google scholar was to a conference ( Repressed memory and allegations of ritual and religion-related child abuse; GS Goodman, J Qin, BL Bottoms, PR Shaver - Clark Conference on Memories of Trauma, Worchester, MA, 1993). Does anyone have an actual citation that would let us see the original work? WLU 01:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

this, this. Also, if the B, S & G is cited in the book, but the book does not contain the full article, the better thing to do is provide the full citation, perhaps with an 'as cited in' and then the book citation. WLU 01:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The citation has been fixed. Abuse truth 02:10, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Lurvely. Have a gander at WP:TALK, it'll help standardize your talk page comments so they look like everyone else's - makes it easier to read. WLU 02:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

General comments on references

I'm again slogging through the article attempting to standardize the referencing. When adding or reorganizaing material, please consider using citation templates. They are extremely easy to generate, using the following tools:

• [10] - generates a {{cite journal}} template requiring only a search term, usually the article title works
• pubmed/isbn template generator - generates a citation template for books and journals using ISBN or PUBMED ID numbers. I prefer this one, because it automatically results in a link to the pubmed abstract in the template.

Regards general formatting, I believe the preference is for punctuation to precede the reference, and there should not be spaces, punctuation or other breaks between citations. Also, no spaces between words/phrases/sentences and the citation - all these leave gaps or hanging punctuation which look odd to my eye.

Also, for any newspaper references, please attempt to find some sort of link to the article through google or the individual newspaper archives. I've managed to find a fair number, but it's extremely tedious to do so for dozens of articles in a row. If the page is taken for a RFC (as is my intention), these are things that will be pointed out.

For repeated references, please use the <ref name = name/> tag, it means fewer endnotes in an already very long list.

Finally, please do not use e.g., see, for example, etc. in references justifying statements (unless it's things like 'numerous books were written'). Either the reference justifies the statement, or it doesn't. To provide examples and say this demonstrates the point, without said example explicitly demonstrating said point, is original research and to be avoided. Links are vital in these cases, so readers can determine if the example is justified, and so editors can tweak the phrasing to accurately represent the article.

If anyone has questions about formatting, citation templates or other wikification stuff, I'm happy to answer questions (but leave me a note on my talk page to get my attention). A RFC will definitely work to improve the page, but there's no point getting dinged for minor stuff that's easy to correct first. WLU (talk) 21:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Orkney

Orkney needs much better referencing. There's only one linkable reference, it mentions ritual abuse twice (and satanic abuse once, see below). I can't find the text of the Lord Clyde report, surely it must have been published on-line somewhere? Considering there's two references, it's an awfully long section. Also, the one link that is present, to The Scotsman, contains the immortal line 'In 1994, a government report based on three years of research said there was no foundation to the plethora of satanic child abuse claims.' So basically we have five short paragraphs, of maybe 20 sentences (far longer than the Lewis section, with three references, each one linked multiple times to specific statements), with two references, one of which basically appears to say there is no actual connection to SRA. Seems a bit odd... WLU (talk) 01:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Re-worked. Still needs better references. WLU (talk) 02:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

WLU, should La Fontaine's report be included specifically under the Orkney section, or in the section on the UK in general? Also, if La Fontaine's report is aired here, we should also mention a subsequent govt-funded report in 2000 written by Hale and Sinason which contradicted La Fontaine and stated that SRA was occuring in the UK.

We need to be careful about maintaining balance here. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 02:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

No idea, I'd have to see the report to give an opinion. I assume La Fontaine is Lord Clyde? Find the sources, post them, then they can be reviewed. I can't give an opinion blind, and if you've got a weblink, it's easier than me tracking it down. I hate slogging through google to find obscure references. WLU (talk) 11:55, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Nope, Clyde was the author of the Orkney-specific review, La Fontaine is an anthropologist who published a govt-funded report in the mid-90s stating that SRA was not occuring in the UK. Sinanson and Hale released another govt-funded report in 2000 stating otherwise, but my understanding is that this report was never made public.

Not at my desk at the moment, but will dig up references ASAP. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 23:52, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, and I hope you'll be able to clarify what you mean by a report that was "released" but not "made public". I'm going to do a trawl for scholarly articles by the people you mention. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that Hale and Sinason were engaged by the health department to write a report on SRA, and they wrote and submitted ("released") this report to the health dept, although the dept decided not to make this report public e.g. circulate it or release it to the media.

Authorities may decide not to make a report public for any number of reasons. For instance, in Victoria, Australia, the police ombudsman submitted a report to the premier in 2004 which raised concerns about police improprieties in relation to investigations into allegations of organised abuse, including SRA. Under pressure from the police union, which threatened to go on strike, the premier chose not to table this report in parliament, which meant that the report is not in the public domain. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 22:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

<undent>Basically if anyone else is going to add information to the page based on the article, we need access to it - otherwise we're limited by the wording placed on the page by the person who added the info in the first place. Essentially, links to any and all possible and actual references are useful. I dislike paper references for the obvious reasons that a) I can't read it to see if its accurate and b) I can't mine it for further information to expand or modify the page. If you've got weblinks to Clyde, La Fontaine or Sinanson & Hale, please post 'em as they could be germane to multiple sections. WLU (talk) 15:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it would be very nice to have weblinks to all the potentially good sources, but it ain't necessarily gonna happen. Much of the relevant material comes from the 1990s when it wasn't routine to put reports online. I did my academic paper trawl and while there are papers by La Fontaine and Sinason, I didn't find any relating to SRA. The Clyde Report and La Fontaine report are in principle accessible, at least if you can get to a good academic library in the UK. The Clyde Report should be available to purchase from HMSO. The Sinason and Hale report was not published. It seems that the research was funded by the UK Department of Health but then the report did not pass peer review and was buried. Sinason does not list it among her publications on her website. As far as I can see her only publication related to SRA is the book "Treating Survivors of SRA". There are some extremely critical reviews of it around online but I would have to check to see which of any of them if any are by academics in the field. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with WLU, who is essentially advocating that the scope of this article be limited solely to online sources. I can't imagine a less systematic approach, or one more likely to exclude reliable and peer-reviewed material in favor of questionable "free" material e.g. religioustolerance.org or Underwager's IPT. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 22:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't advocate online-only sources, they are just far more convenient. Off-line sources are a completely unknown quantity for all except the person with the source unless they're scanned or transcribed. Ideally I'd rather have the entire page based on peer-reviewed journals, but that's never going to be the reality. Another advantage is on-line sources tend to be more recent. But I've consistently tried to AGF - as long as I can find evidence that even the paper exists, if it's the only source I've left it in. I think that's reasonable. WLU (talk) 02:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, if the report hasn't been released into the public domain, what's our source? How did anyone get a hold of it? Is it therefore reliable? Are any of these concerns documented anywhere? It just makes it difficult to work with the information and opens the door to 'counter sources', also not available, that discuss problems with the other sources. I think the page isn't doing too badly considering the nature of the topic and the polarization of the skeptics and believers. WLU (talk) 03:04, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

In Sinason's case, the suppression of her report was widely reported in the print media.

Agreed that the page is doing pretty well. I've been trying to see some reform here for a few years, and this is the most reasonable collection of editors I've come across so far.

I understand that online sources are easier to access, but in my experience of this field, there is a massive divide between the online and offline sources on SRA. In particular, the online debate has been captured by "False Memory" activists and armchair "skeptics", whilst there is a suprising amount of nuanced and evidenced-based debate in the academic press - but people have to care enough about this subject to go to a library and read some books first! --Biaothanatoi 23:47, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

UK section

The lead-in to the UK section starts with The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children affirmed the reality of ritual abuse in 1990, with the publication of survey findings that, of 66 child protection teams in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 14 teams had received reports of ritual abuse from children and seven of them were working directly with children who had been ritually abused, sometimes in groups of 20. [98] Reference 98 is to "Libby Jukes adn Richard Duce, NSPCC says ritual child abuse is rife, The Times, 13 March 1990", of which I can't find an on-line citation (brief search though). However, this article seems to cast some doubt on the NSPCC report, and makes me wonder if the section should a) lead in with this information given the tenuousness of the source (the actual NSPCC report would be much better than an unlinked article to a 17-year-old news story - cite the source rather than the news story!) and b) state it as strongly as it does if it's moved elsewhere. From my reading and re-working of the SRA claims in the UK, it looks like a history of allegations, withdrawn charges, failed court cases and negative government reports (on the satanic ritual aspects, not the abuse - again, this is the SRA page, not the child abuse page). WLU (talk) 02:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

WLU, please consider that media coverage may not be the whole story. There is twenty years of research in the United Kingdom regarding the role of ritualistic activity in child sex rings, and I'm happy to point you to it. Prof. Liz Kelly, Sara Scott, Catherine Itzen, Peter Bibby and many others have undertaken empirical research in substantiated cases of organised abuse, and found ritualistic activity is associated with the worst forms of child maltreatment. The vast majority of cases of child abuse never go to the court (whether the abuse was 'mundane' or organised/ritualistic) and the prosecution rate is very low. It's not suprising that allegations of SRA faired badly in court - most allegations of sexual abuse do.

Cleveland, the Orkneys, and the other "high profile" UK cases got media attention because the accused abusers engaged journalists and tried to use the media to contest the charges against them, whereas child protection workers were unable to contradict the media coverage because they were bound by professional codes of confidentiality. Consequently, media coverage was profoundly skewed towards the parents, who gave sympathetic interviews, showed journalists through their homes, etc etc etc.

We now know that the parents lied to the media in these cases. In the Cleveland case, the accused parents already had children in care for horrific sexual abuse, and they went to the media when one of mothers fell pregnant and they knew that social services would remove the child. The parents withheld that information from journalists and painted a picture of a 'perfect family', which the media bought wholesale. In the Orkneys case, several of the accused already had convictions for child sexual abuse, and they had all moved (en masse) from mainland England to the Orkneys to escape social services. They withheld this information from journalists, and they lied when they claimed that the children were abducted in "dawn raids".

You can't just type these cases into Google and expect to glean all the information you need. The info I've provided above comes from social research undertaken by sociologists, criminologists and social workers who published in the academic press. If you don't do this kind of in-depth research, and rely instead on two or three archived newspaper articles (or "Spiked Online", whatever that is) then you can be easily mislead. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 03:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Please do give us as many pointers towards relevant academic literature as you can, and as soon as you can. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Rather than posting long discussions on the topic, can you provide the references? The page is written on the basis of reliable sources with discussion playing a second fiddle. Right now I've got a source telling me that SRA in the UK is bullshit, and you telling me it's not. I'll find a source far more convincing than any discussion, and every source I've seen leads me to the conclusion that 'satanic panic'-style SRA (organized, with a primary goal of pleasing satan rather than sexual gratification, sacrificing thousands of children a year, which helps practitioners fly and summon demons) does not exist. You've got a source saying parents milked the press? Post it. WLU (talk) 12:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The info I provided is summarised in Jenny Kitzinger, "Framing Abuse: Media Influence and Public Understanding of Sexual Violence Against Children", Pluto Press, 2004. The reason why I have posted the "long discussion" above is because Wiki editors on this page have often challenged footnotes to off-line sources, particularly books, since they can't access the info immidiately via Google.

Kitzinger is the Professor of Media and Communication Studies at the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University, and, in the book I've quoted, she undertook focus group testing with groups of people in the UK regarding their recall of media coverage of ritual abuse cases. She also discussed the manner in which media coverage of those cases was distorted by the differential capacity of parents to engage with journalists, whilst child protection workers were constrained from doing so by professional codes of ethics (e.g. they can't publicly discuss active cases with the media, but the parents can).--Biaothanatoi (talk) 22:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

This Guardian article, based on an interview with the Orkney child (now adult) who is intending to sue, replaces "dawn raids" with "snatching" from class, then reverts to "dawn raids" in its backstory section. I suggest the whole mention should stay out for now as not directly relevant to the SRA question. Re the Kitzinger source above, it is scholarly and can be cited so long as a) it is made clear that it is a view of the media, not a view of SRA per se, and b) contrasting scholarly views can also be cited, as Kitzinger has a marked viewpoint in her scholarship (radical feminist). Itsmejudith (talk) 08:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Contrasting views are crucial to maintaining balance on all matters, not just those where a feminist may be writing. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 03:29, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think we both understand WP policy on this. There are of course many topics covered in WP on which there is little or no disagreement between scholars, or where there is a mainstream view that only a few scholars dissent from. This isn't one of those topics, in fact it is hotly contested between experts of different kinds. We can only show the contrast of views when we have good sources for each side, though. You mentioned a number of academic writers but I haven't so far tracked down any books or papers that any of them have written that mention SRA. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

<undent>I see no need for a criticism of the methods used to extract children, as it's not relevant to the satanic aspects. Again, this page is about satanic ritual abuse, so all references and text should focus on that aspect. WLU (talk) 20:22, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

It's relevant in relation to consistent media misrepresentation and misreporting on SRA. The claim of "dawn raids" was one of the most prominent features in media coverage on Orkney, but these claims were planted by the accused parents and promulgated by journalists who colluded in the smearing of child protection services. --Biaothanatoi 23:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)