I am taking a course in Family Violence and abuse, and in the main textbook- Family Violence, Legal, Medical, and Social Perspectives.
http://www.amazon.com/Family-Violence-Me...01738073&sr=1-1
Chapter 6 talks about ritualistic abuse, and I just couldn't believe that this sort of thing was printed in a college textbook, especially in the late 2000's! I sent this letter to the e-mail included in t he foreward.
I did not speak as a Church of Satan member, only as a college student who wants to try to keep my education from being wasted.
________________________________________________________________
Dear Mr. Roberson,
I am a student in college working towards my Bachelor degree in science. Currently I am taking a course in Family Violence & Abuse, and am using the 5th edition of the book Family Violence by Harvey Wallace. Thumbing through the contents where the chapters are listed I was amazed to find a chapter on Ritualistic Child Abuse (Chapter 6).
I believe that printing this sort of thing fosters ignorance. Ritualistic abuse on a large scale has never been proven, it was proven however, that many children who were questioned were led to make false confessions. The Satanic Panic of the 80’s has been studied and discounted many times since the early 90’s.
While it is true that there are remarks made that say that this sort of thing was never quite proven to be true there are many other statements that would lead someone to believe otherwise. Lines between different belief systems were blurred, and equating fictitious initiations and Marine boot camp is highly irresponsible, as is comparing Satanic activity and ritualistic abuse with the Holocaust, we actually have evidence that the Holocaust happened.
In support of Ritualistic abuse, the evidence offered is that many people came forth and spoke of it. Many people have also admitted to being abducted by aliens, seeing Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness monster.
I am completely aware that there may have been some isolated instances where ritualistic abuse might have occurred, but as was said about drugs and alcohol causing child abuse is most likely a result of someone blaming the use of drugs as an excuse.
In the recent years there has been news coverage of priests in the Catholic Church who had abused some young boys. Here is a website that lists links to news articles regarding abuse committed in other religions such as, Catholicism, Scientology, Jehovah’s Witness, Hare Krishna and the Mormon faith.
Factnet-
http://www.factnet.org/CIF/child_abuse.htm?FACTNet#Catholic
The point I am making is this, these were not denigrated into being called “cult crimes”, since Satanism is a minority religion, more so than that of any one of the above listed religions, then chapter 6 in the textbook is overly critical as well as prejudicial in nature.
CSER Reports on Satanism by Shawn Carlson, PHD
http://www.arcane-archive.org/religion/satanism/cser-reports-on-satanism-1.php
1992 FBI Report --Satanic Ritual Abuse by Kenneth V. Lanning
http://www.skeptictank.org/fbi1992.htm
Giving the devil more than his due by David Alexander
http://www.smwane.dk/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=13
The Satanic Panic by Jeffrey Victor
http://www.amazon.com/Satanic-Panic-Creation-Contemporary-Legend/dp/081269192X
Chapter 6 of the textbook lacks substantiation, scholastic credibility and scientific analysis. I highly suggest that it be revised or removed altogether.
Sincerely,
XXXXXXXX

I am happy to see that you took action in advising people that the information presented was incomplete and not factual. Good job! I am also very surpised that this showed up in a college textbook.

HS!

Well done!

I somewhat remember the "Satanic Panic". I mostly remember seeing a few documentaries..(Rory Kennedy maybe?) one in particular almost completely debunking ritualistic abuse even occurring by picking apart the weirdly suggestive "hypnotic regression" sessions of certain preachers. Can't remember their names...what I do remember is this guy claiming he had an entire church full of victims of ritualistic abuse.

Story after story of sad, distressed family members followed, no longer able to talk to their children due to some yahoo convincing then that they were forced to eat beating goat hearts and stab babies or something.

I'm very glad you wrote that. Anything that slowly eats away the silliness

If I ever figure out how to convert scanned documents into editable text, I will post it here. Anybody know how to do that without special equipment?

You'd probably have to post it as an image, but you'd be most likely infringing on the copyrights of the book. I would not advise reproducing anything from a published book without written consent, even as a posting on a message board such as this.

Ritual abuse.. as if life wasn't twisted enough already

I wonder if dumping water and oil on a cold, crying little baby counts?

Gotcha-good point.
Is it different with college textbooks though?

I believe this feeds the "silliness".

You can use an OCR program which converts scanned images into editable text.

It should state it somewhere in the first couple of pages (where the copyright information is located). I have some textbooks here that state any reproduction is prohibited. I just grabbed one at random and it's published by Prentice Hall and clearly states that any reproduction of any kind is not allowed without written permission.

It's funny they haven't changed the parts on "ritual abuse" to cover the Catholic Priest's behavior with young boys.

Edit.. Wait, you already mentioned that in your post. Never mind

I found it-can't post it, when I have time I will discuss some details.

Thank you! I won't be able to post it here, but I can definitely use this program as well as my stepfather who is blind! Thanks for sharing that!

How do they get away with printing lies like that?! In student material no less...

Nicely done though, DickSteele! I hope that you will hear from them soon, and that their response won't be in the form of profanities.

Hail Satan!

and ask for $46.20

They just fall back on the old line, "Well, you can't prove that it didn't happen."

Conspiracy theorists, of course! I had forgotten about them.
Reminds of these "Documentary's."

Satanic panic
and
Downright lies

I have written, flagged and complained on every part of the second documentary, as I find it positively repulsive.

Hail Satan!

Well done Warlock! I hope that you continue to follow up with the writer(s) of this book and continue to push for corrections. On a local level, did you question the instructor as well as refute the information in class? Don't allow your fellow students to be led astray by these misconceptions either. What better place to educate others on the truths of Satanism and the "Satanic Panic" than an academic institution.

~Storm

You have to admit that these stories are much more exciting than any bible story!

Excellent.. I am curious as to how they will respond to your letter.

Aye, and the script is better as well...

HDS!

I had a psychology class and the professor was lecturing about cognition. She was very stern that science has yet to find a way to enhance cognitive ability. during her office hours, I went and discussed a list of substances known to enhance memory. She spoke in a hushed tone to me as she said that yes she know about them but doesn't want students thinking that there's an easy way out.

That's a bit different than fiction about ritual abuse but it's just another sign that people have their own agendas.

Small portions of books can be reproduced for critical analysis and review. I THINK that's the fair use law regarding it and generally this is stated in the copyright notice. We are reviewing the text, so I think that's appicable and more than fair for one page of a book to be printed, especially since the guy is trying to help them make corrections to the text. If i'm not mistaken this is why amazon.com usually has a handful of pages that can be viewed for books. I could be wrong though, but i'm fairly sure that's the way it is.

You did good, Warlock Steele.

Y~

I figured it out-it was easier than I thought!
Microsoft Document Imaging!

Thanks for the positive reinforcement everyone!

Can you post an update when you hear back?

HS!

Most certainly.

Just out of curiosity, did you approach your professor about this? If so, how did s/he respond? I understand if you didn't or don't plan to, I enjoy anonymity amongst the herd. If you have, I would I love to hear about it.

I did e-mail my professor about it. I had her last semester for a course in human service ethics, we had talked about how ethics were violated very badly with the Satanic Panic. I haven't heard from her yet, but I think that she will have something good to say.

I recieved a reply from my professor, here it is!
_________________________________________________________________

Tim,
You continue to impress me! Have you ever considered entering into the world of politics? I think about how many people could benefit from someone like you who is not afraid to challenge otheres, or the system. But you do so with fact. I appreciate that very much! Let me know if you receive a response.

Joanne

Excellent! That's a great step in the right direction.

~Storm

Wonderful!
If you do not mind, keep us posted on your on your progress.
It will be nice to say, "I knew him when..."

That's an encouraging response from your professor! Maybe the next time she teaches the course she'll choose a different text, or she may have intentionally chosen this text (errors and all) hoping that students would take the initiative to challenge the errors and do a little fact-finding on their own. Either way, you came out looking like a star!

Bravo, dear!

HS!

I am predicitng that I won't hear from the person I e-mailed. The author is dead I believe but the person whose e-mail is in the book helped revise it. He probably won't get in touch with me, and if he does he probably won't admit that it is wrong. Somewhere along these lines...
http://www.satannet.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showthreaded&Number=303356#Post303356

Here is a reaction paper I wrote about the chapter.
________________________________________________________________
Family Violence
Chapter 6 Summary

Chapter 6 was definitely my least favorite. The fact of this matter is that there are many abuse situations encountered in many different religions. “Cult” is always an attention getter. The very word “cult” is misunderstood by many people. My basic understanding of a cult is- a minority religion that has no political power. Christianity was once considered a cult, however now it is not at least in America, In the Middle East it may be considered as such. The other facts that would make a religion a “cult” is that the group is run by a centralized figure that demands loyalty to him and controls every aspect of their lives as well as having the followers relinquish all personal possessions to them. Then it moves away from the definition of a cult and definitely becomes something else.
This chapter moves from talking about ritualistic abuse to examples of Hollywood movies. This is not scientific at all, nor is it productive. The historical background was somewhat factual but left much out. While it was mentioned that the Church of Satan does not condone ritualistic abuse, it failed to mention that they are the first formal religion of Satanism and consider them the only authority on Satanism. There has been a numerous amount of copycat “churches” that tried to ride on Anton LaVey’s ideas since the formation of the Church of Satan. It must be known that even with considering all of these splinter sects; Satanism is still a minority religion. It takes a huge effort to torture and kill people on the scale that the “ritualistic abuse” was said to have happened. It must also be know that ritual is not specific to the religion of Satanism.
“On October 25, 1988, millions of people across the United States watched a primetime Geraldo Rivera special on NBC”. This fed the panic and Geraldo should have been held accountable for his actions that are the equal of yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theater.
This was not fair to anyone involved. It is perfectly understandable that if there was word of something like this happening that it would most certainly be investigated but it got carried away. It wasn’t fair to adherents of the religion but it was doubly not fair to innocent people and the children dragged through court cases that were based on fallacies.
“It is therefore imperative that professionals in the field have a general understanding of ritualistic abuse”. This is called in the legal arena “fruit of the poisonous tree”, meaning that someone cannot be charged and sentenced for a crime they didn’t commit in the first place. I wouldn’t be surprised if this book had been written in the eighties but the first printing was in 1996, well after the panic was discounted as being hysteria. I am slightly amused by the so called symbols listed as being Satanic. The hexagram is one which is in fact a star of david which represents the Jewish religion. In a focus box it mentions the movie The Serpent and the Rainbow, which may have been based on some voodoo and Santeria rituals but those are definitely not Satanism at all and is a Hollywood movie not fact.
The two tables that are listed as research into ritualistic abuse had only 37 subjects, which is an extremely small sample group, it did not mention what the control group was, and each patient had been treated for dissociative disorder. If you stop a few people in Wal-Mart and ask them if they like shopping there then chances are they will say yes, of course if you fail to mention that it is the only place in town to shop it will only make the numbers seem more impressive.
From a psychological standpoint it is clear that many people were frightened or coerced into fearing, and others were just trying to get attention.
This chapter is not scientific at all, and is in my opinion highly irresponsible. Fortunately, I know better.
Here is an excerpt from a 1992 FBI report from Kenneth Lanning concerning ritualistic abuse.
“Lanning began working in the field in 1981. Allegations of ritual abuse began to surface circa 1983. At first, he tended to believe that the abuse really occurred. He reported:
But the number of alleged cases began to grow and grow. We now have hundreds of victims alleging that thousands of offenders are abusing and even murdering tens of thousands of people as part of organized satanic cults, and there is little or no corroborative evidence. The very reason many "experts" cite for believing these allegations (i.e. many victims, who never met each other, reporting the same events), is the primary reason I began to question at least some aspects of these allegations.”
I rest my case.

Excellent job, Warlock DickSteele! It's great that they appreciate your efforts and are taking you seriously.

You continue to impress me too! Not that I am as important as your professor.

You are doing the Devil's work, Warlock. Many applauds to you. I left this thread until now, and just recently read through the entire thing. Misinformation should be minimized in a school setting as often as possible, so not only are you standing up for The Church of Satan, but for proper education itself as well.

HS!