Multiple Personality Disorder
- The existence within the person of two or more distinct personalities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self).
- At least two of these personalities or personality states recurrently take full control of the person’s behavior.” [DSM III-R 1987]
Kluft, in describing the kinds of events that trigger the creation of new personalities in children, delineates the following criteria:
- The childs fears for his own life;
- The child fears that an important attachment figure will die;
- The child’s physical inactness and/or clarity of consciousness is breached or impaired;
- The child is isolated with these fears; and
- The child is systematically misinformed or “brainwashed” about his or her situation. These criteria are certainly met in the events encountered by the ritually abused child. Many patients with multiple personality disorder have memories of severe ritual abuse in the context of a group that used satanic symbols and rituals. Some young children known to have been ritually abused show signs of multiple personality disorder.
It is important to remember that multiple personality disorder is not a thought disorder, and that although different personalities may be in touch with different pieces of memory and reality, they are not delusional. the memories they they express, however painful and frightening, should not be dismissed as hallucinatory fantasies.
Occultism
[from Latin “occultus”–covered over, concealed]Belief in the existence of mysterious, secret, or supernatural sources of power that can be known and/or communicated with by human beings. “Occult” is a general designation for various systems of belief, practices, and rituals based on knowledge of the world of spirits and/or unknown forces of the universe.
Pedophile
[from Greek “pedo” = child + “phile” = loving]An adult who has sexual relations with a child and receives primary sexual gratification through sexual contct with children. (Most research has focused on males, although recognition of the participation of women in the sexual abuse of children is growing.) Generally, men who molest children have been thought to fit into one of two categories–“fixated” abusers whose sexual desires have always been primarily for children, and “regressed” abusers who have had sexual relationships with adults, but who begin to sexually abuse children, usually as a result of traumatic or stressful circumstances. Fathers who have incestuous relations with their children have often been thought of as being in this second category. There is also evidence of a third category, that of “crossover” abusers, that is men who may be fathers, and have sexual relationships with adults, but whose primary sexual attraction is to children. Many in this group are in fact pedophiles who have abused children inside and outside their own homes.nd. Both during and after the abuse, most victims are in a state of terror.
Pedophiles were themselves often victims of sexual abuse as children. They have very poor self-esteem and fear the risk of rejection from an adult partner. They often do not think of themselves as harming children. They view their sexual activities as acts of love. It is important to them to believe tht the child enjoys the sexual contact as much as they do. They view the process of having sexual activity with a child as one of seduction and education rather than of force and power.
(cf. Perpetrator of Ritual Abuse)
Pentagram
A five pointed star. In satanism, used pointing downward, and sometimes enclosed within a circle.
Perpetrator of Ritual Abuse
Perpetrators of ritual abuse usually function in a group setting. Most victims report being abused by several perpetrators, often in conjunction with other victims. Women are reported to be perpetrators of ritual abuse as often as are men.
Little is know[n] with certainty about the perpetrators of ritual abuse, but it is important to note that they do not fit commonly held concepts of the motivation and psychological profile of the pedophile (cf. Pedophile). Ritual abusers are generally far more sadistic and cruel in their sexual abuse than are pedophiles. Victims report painful and frightening sexual acts, and humiliating practices involving, for example, the use of urine and feces. The perpetrators seem motivated by a desire to see the victims lose a sense of their own free will, identify with evil, and submit to the will of the group. Because of the apparent determination on the part of many ritual abusers to victimize and indoctrinate as many young children as possible, they frequently function together in groups in the operation of preschools, day-care services, and baby-sitting services, providing themselves access to children outside of their own families.
There is evidence that many of these perpetrators have been raised in groups with strong systems of belief or worship (usually satanic in content) and highly systematic practices of abuse that are passed on within families from one-generation to the next. [This is often referred to as “family-generational.”] Thus, many of the perpetrators of this abuse are in fact both victims and perpetrators within a family system of abuse. Those who have been victimized by ritual abuse in a family setting experience varying degrees of dissociation, including, in some cases, multiple personality disorder [now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder]. This may explain how it is possible for some perpetrators to function undetected in child care settings, to seem quite believable when the deny children’s complaints of abuse to experienced law enforcement investigators, and even to do quite well on polygraph examinations.
Pornography
Ritually abused children report being photographed nude in sexually provocative poses as well as during sexual and physical assault. Some of these photographs are circulated or sold for profit. [An extremely informative posting came out not too long ago about the investigation into the DC-based Finders cult and its connections to the CIA. Lots of pornographic material involving child members was found by initial investigators. The media has also carried a number of articles about investigations into “The Family” (f.k.a. “The Children of God”) and pornographic materials involving child members at some of their compounds.] The child victims also talk about the photographs being shown to them as part of an effort to make them feel humiliated, ashamed, and fearful of discovery by their parents. Children are often told that they will be arrested because of what the photographs show.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
A dissociative disorder triggered by the experience of profoundly traumatic events. The dissociation may be characterized by intrusion (intrusive thoughts, nightmares, hypervigilance), and by denial (inattention, amnesia, and constriction of thought process) [Horowitz, M. J. “Stress Response Syndromes, 1976].
Post-traumatic stress disorder in adults was first studied in returning war veterans who experienced amnesia and flashbacks of overwhelmingly traumatic events from their wartime experience. Studies have since been done of children exposed to violence or extreme fear who manifest post-traumatic stress disorder as a result. Sexual abuse has been shown to cause post-traumatic stress disorder among its victims. If left untreated, this condition often persists long after the abuse occurred.
Ritual abuse victims typically suffer from severe post-traumatic stress disorder. They often experience nightmares or intrusive thoughts containing elements of ritual violence, yet due to amnesia for the actual abuse, have no idea why they are troubled by such dreams and thoughts.
Sacrifice
[from Latin “sacrum” (holy) + “facere” (to make)]A religious rite in which an object is offered to a god in order to establish, restore, or maintain a right relationship of man to the sacred order. Blood sacrifices (killing with bloodshed) are based on the concept that the sacred life force of both man and animal resides in blood. Blood is particularly important in ritual sinvolving fertility, purification and atonement. Sacrifices in different cults are often required according to certain calendars of special days as well as for unique purposes on a given occasion. Burning is beieved to be another way that a sacrifice can be made directly available to a god. A third way in which a sacrifice is conveyed to a god is burial in the earth. In some belief systems sacrifice is also a means of obtaining supernatural powers or favors from the god.
Human Sacrifice. The offering of the life of a human being to a god [and/or goddess]. The occurrence of human sacrifice usually can be related to the belief that blood is the sacred life force in man. The killing of a human, or of an animal in its place, represents an attempt to affect communion with a god and participate in its life force. Sacrifices have been made in connection with fertility rites, although specific other uses for obtaining powers and favor are also common. Cannibalism is practiced as part of human sacrifice because of a belief that by ingesting human blood and flesh the individual is empowered and transformed by the life force contained therein.
Adults and children who have been ritually abused report being forced to participate in the killing of babies, children, and adults in ritual settings with the understanding that the purpose is to obtain certain magical powers. Ritual abuse survivors explain that the drinking of blood and the practices of cannibalism are ways to invest the worshipper/ perpetrator with the spiritual powers of the victim. [su_highlight]It is important to remember that such reports are given by victims who were brainwashed into believing these excuses for murder and desecration of bodies. The perpetrators/leaders in such cults are not likely to tell victims their true motives for their actions.[/su_highlight]
The practice of human sacrifice as it has been reported by victims of ritual abuse always raises extreme problems of credibility. Where have the victims come from? Where are the remains of these victims? Survivors have explained that victims come from within the cult membership (including babies “bred” for sacrifice), from the ranks of homeless people, and even represent some unknown portion of the large numbers of missing adults and children. Explanations for the absence of found remains including cannibalism, cult access to mortuaries and crematoria, frozen storage of body parts, and the retention by cult members of bones and body parts for further magical practices. [su_highlight]Some remains are also preserved in formaldehyde and sold to med students on the black market.[/su_highlight]
Satan
[from Hebrew = the adversary/accuser; NB equivalent in Gk “diabolos” = accuser/slanderer; hence “devil”]A spiritual being, opposed to God, supremely evil. According to Christian tradition an angelic being, once called Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12), created by God for good purposes, but who led a rebellion against God and was cast out of heaven. Satan is believed to be the Serpent in the Garden of Eden who tempted Eve to disobey God by saying, “You shall be like God” (Genesis 3:5). Satan is also called the Father of lies, and Lord of the Flies (Ba’alzebub). He is the ruler over demons and evil spirits who works to interfere with the relationship of God and man by provoking man to evil.
Satanism
Worship of Satan, Satanists seek to obtain power to manipulate the world around them for their own gain by calling upon the powers of Satan in certain prescribed rituals. They oppose the traditional values of Judeo- Christian tradition and adhere instead to a system of personal power and control over the world around them. [su_highlight]“Anyone who claims to be interested in magic or the occult for reasons other than gaining personal power is the worst kind of hypocrite.”–Anton LaVey in the “Satanic Bible”[/su_highlight]. Many young children who are victims of ritual abuse describe rituals that appear to use the accouterments of satanic ritual, e.g., black and red robes, hoods, altars, pentagrams, daggers, candles, sacrifice, etc. Many adult survivors describe being ritually abused on an ongoing basis from early childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood. They state that their abuse was part of a system of satanic worship and describe satanic invocations and rituals.
Satanic Alphabet
Letters of the alphabet written backwards, upside down, or sideways. A magical practice stemming from a system which values reversing anything which is the norm. Some children who attended ritually abusive pre-schools report having been taught to copy the satanic alphabet [there are many versions]. Other occult alphabets may consist of magical symbols and runes.
Satanic Calendar
There exist many versions of so-called satanic calendars, each of which includes a variety of holidays on which certain rituals must be performed. There are apparently many individual differences among groups that would call themselves satanists regarding which holidays are celebrated. Some groups simply do rituals whenever they please.
The birthday of the individual, Halloween (October 31) and, some cases, Beltane (April 30) [running into the next day, May 1st or “May Day”] appear to be the holidays celebrated by most satanic groups. Many individuals who have been ritually abused and have participated in rituals on satanic holidays experience particular difficulty at these times of the year. (Common Halloween celebrations, for example, regarded by most people as innocent make believe and child’s play, are extremely traumatic for ritual victims who think of them as satanic holidays, and as the occasion of ritual celebrations often including human sacrifice.) On these holidays and on anniversary dates victims may become emotionally overwhelmed, terrified that cult members will come to kidnap or kill them. Some are overcome by horrifying flashbacks of the abuse. Some feel compelled to commit suicide or self-injury. [Psychiatric hospital units specializing in aiding ritual abuse survivors are usually full during occult holidays.] Others feel a deep compulsion to return to the cult.
Trance State
A dissociative state one enters when hypnotized in which memory and perception are altered. The dissociative effects of the trance state can also be induced by other conditions such as physical or mental exhaustion, terror, repetitive chanting, rituals or drugs. Not all individuals are equally susceptible to trance or to dissociation. Research has shown that those people who show a high degree of susceptibility to hypnosis are likely to possess some apparently biological predisposition to it. They are also more likely to have been victims of abuse as children.
Some states of trance seem to be self-induced and function as a defense against experiencing the overwhelmingly painful stimuli of an abusive environment. For some individuals, the use of self-induced trance and dissociative states in the face of severe abuse can be associated with the development of multiple personality disorder [su_highlight]now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder[/su_highlight].
Trances also can be induced by another person who functions as a hypnotist. The hypnotist can give post-hypnotic suggestions to the individual in trance to carry out certain carefully defined actions or to experience certain emotions or physical sensations after the trance state is over. These actions or emotions are usually triggered by certain discrete cues that have been suggested to the subject while s/he was in a trance. The mind control from which manyritual abuse victims suffer is in part a result of having been put into trance states repeatedly and given an complicated series of post-hypnotic suggestions [su_highlight]reminiscent of Manchurian Candidate style mind-control programming.[/su_highlight] (see Ritual Abuse and the Use of Mind Control).
However, hypnosis and trance states also have an important role to play in treating ritual abuse victims. In trance employed in a therapeutic environment, victims are often able to retrieve memories which have been dissociated from their conscious awareness. This process constitutes a very significant aspect of the ritual abuse victim’s recovery.
Victims of Ritual Abuse — Young Children
Young children who are victims of ritual abuse usually fall into one of two categories: those whose families are perpetrators, and those who are abused without the parents’ knowledge. Ritual abuse within families (intrafamilial) can be particularly destructive because of the continual physical presence of the perpetrators and the lack of any safe environment for the child. Intrafamilial abuse usually includes the extended family and is multigenerational. In cases of intrafamilial ritual abuse, the abuse and indoctrination are incessant. Children are generally raised to perform a given role within the group and are continuously being trained to fulfill that role. The child feels him or herself to be identified as a member of the abusive group because of the biological relationship with the offending parents and because of the group’s indoctrination about the inevitability of the child’s continued participation. Dissociation is the result of such abuse and in some cases will manifest in the emergence of multiple personality disorder. Therapy for victims’ intrafamilial ritual abuse usually is not sought until adulthood, if ever.
Children who are abused outside their home (extrafamilial) generally have a better prognosis because of the rpesence in their lives of loving adults who protect them from known sources of harm. Unfortunately, the parents of many young victims are unable to believe that their children have been ritually abused, and refuse to acknowledge that they have a problem or to seek help. Their children often have been made to believe that their parents were willing co-conspirators with the abusers, leaving the children very confused, with feelings of dread and distrust toward their own parents.
The extreme severity of the abuse, and the systematic attempts to indoctrinate the child into the cult’s belief system, make the recovery process quite difficult and protracted even with the help of skilled therapists. Children who are not treated are likely to face very poor outcomes.
Witchcraft
A system of human actions believed to influence human or natural events through supernatural powers. Witchcrft includes:
- Use of certain prescribed rituals or systems of formal gestures;
- Use of objects or substances that have symbolic significance;
- Utterance of certain words or spells;
- A particular role and status withink a hierarchy of witches.
Witchcraft is an ancient and widespread practice, especially in small pre-literate communities in which witches function as a means of social control. European witchcraft has generally been associated with an opposition to Christianity and, in some cases, with satanism.
Contemporary practitioners make a distinction between “white” witchcraft in which magical powers are only used to do what the witch regards as good and “black” witchcraft in which those powers are used to do harm.
Groups Identified With Satanism
“Church of the Final Judgment”–also known as “The Process”
“Church of Satan” (founded by Anton La Vey)
“Ordo Templis Orientalis” (once headed by Aleister Crowley) “Temple of Set” [su_highlight]now reportedly “Temple of Power”[/su_highlight] (led by Lt. Col. Michael Aquino, U.S. Army) [su_highlight]Note: Michael was also directly involved in the development of Psychological Warfare in the Army. After his arrest for child molestation, Michael lost favor with the Army.[/su_highlight]
“Worldwide Church of Satanic Liberation” (led by Paul Valentine–recruits teens)
When survivors of ritual abuse and/or mind-control first began to “wake up,” oftentimes in hospital settings, they were usually told that they were delusional, schizophrenic, and/or deliberately fabricating. As more therapist and law enforcement officials paid attention to the stories of these formerly amnestic victims and exchanged notes with other interested professionals, a new awareness began. Survivors from different parts of the country were “squawking” about the exact same mind-control techniques. How could they have known? Detractors began to attack the writers of books, particularly such as “The Courage to Heal” and “Suffer the Child” for somehow implanting such information in survivors’ minds. One outspoken psychiatrist, a firm supporter of FMSF, even went so far as to suggest that survivors were “psychically” receiving mental images and suggestions from therapists and others.
When that line of attack wore off, and the survivors continued to stand firm, some offering documented proofs, the detractors drew a new line in the sand. “False memories” implanted by the therapists and law enforcement investigators, themselves. This offense isn’t going to last much longer, as survivors still stand firm. Therapists are learning not to use hypnosis and to not suggest or lead the patients. Still, the memories are coming. The tide can no longer be stemmed nor stopped.
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