Message #7 board "P_Metaphysical (Mag Articles)"
Date : 22-Jan-93 15:57
From : Simon Novali
To : All
Subj : Lanning (4 of 11)
children in a commune or cult constitute child abuse? Does the fact
that any acts in question were performed with parental permission
affect the nature of the crime? Many ritualistic acts, whether
satanic or not, are simply not crimes. To open the Pandora's box of
labeling child abuse as "ritualistic" simply because it involves a
spiritual belief system means to apply the definition to all acts by
all spiritual belief systems. The day may come when many in the
forefront of concern about ritual abuse will regret they opened the
box.
When a victim describes and investigation corroborates what sounds
like ritualistic activity. several possibilities must be considered.
The ritualistic activity may be part of the excessive religiosity of
mentally disturbed, even psychotic offenders. It may be a
misunderstood part of sexual ritual. The ritualistic activity may be
incidental to any real abuse. The offender may be involved in
ritualistic activity with a child and also may be abusing a child,
but one may have little or nothing to do with the other.
The offender may be deliberately engaging in ritualistic activity
with a child as part of child abuse and exploitation. The
motivation, however, may be not to indoctrinate the child into a
belief system, but to lower the inhibitions of, control, manipulate,
and/or confuse the child. In all the turmoil over this issue, it
would be very effective strategy for any child molester deliberately
to introduce ritualistic elements into his crime in order to confuse
the child and therefore the criminal justice system. This would,
however, make the activity M.O. and not ritual.
The ritualistic activity and the child abuse may be integral parts
of some spiritual belief system. In that case the greatest risk is
to the children of the practitioners. But this is true of all cults
and religions, not just satanic cults. A high potential of abuse
exists for any children raised in a group isolated from the
mainstream of society, especially if the group has a charismatic
leader whose orders are unquestioned and blindly obeyed by the
members. Sex, money, and power are often the main motivations of the
leaders of such cults.
-- c. WHAT MAKES A CRIME SATANIC, OCCULT, OR RITUALISTIC?
Some would answer that it is the offender's spiritual beliefs or
membership in a cult or church. If that is the criterion, why not
label the crimes committed by Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in
the same way? Are the atrocities of Jim Jones in Guyana Christian
crimes?
Some would answer that it is the presence of certain symbols in the
possession or home of the perpetrator. What does it mean then to
find a crucifix, Bible, or rosary in the possession or home of a
bank robber, embezzler, child molester, or murderer? If different
criminals possess the same symbols, are they necessarily part of one
big conspiracy?
Others would answer that it is the presence of certain symbols such
as pentagrams, inverted crosses, and 666 at the crime scene. What
does it mean then to find a cross spray painted on a wall or carved
into the body of a victim? What does it mean for a perpetrator, as
in one recent case profiled by my Unit, to leave a Bible tied to his
murder victim? What about the possibility that an offender
deliberately left such symbols to make it look like a "satanic"
crime?
Some would argue that it is the bizarreness or cruelness of the
crime: body mutilation, amputation, drinking of blood, eating of
flesh, use of urine or feces. Does this mean that all individuals
involved in lust murder, sadism, vampirism, cannibalism, urophilia,
and coprophilia are satanists or occult practitioners? What does
this say about the bizarre crimes of psychotic killers such as Ed
Gein or Richard Trenton Chase, both of whom mutilated their victims
as part of their psychotic delusions? Can a crime that is not
sexually deviant, bizarre, or exceptionally violent be satanic? Can
white collar crime be satanic?
A few might even answer that it is the fact that the crime was
committed on a date with satanic or occult significance (Halloween,
May Eve, etc.) or the fact that the perpetrator claims that Satan
told him to commit the crime. What does this mean for crimes
committed on Thanksgiving or Christmas? What does this say about
crimes committed by perpetrators who claim that God or Jesus told
them to do it? One note of interest is the fact that in handout and
reference material I have collected, the number of dates with
satanic or occult significance ranges from 8 to 110. This is
compounded by the fact that it is sometimes stated that satanists
can celebrate these holidays on several days on either side of the
official date or that the birthdays of practitioners can also be
holidays. The exact names and exact dates of the holidays and the
meaning of symbols listed may also vary depending on who prepared
the material The handout material is often distributed without
identifying the author or documenting the original source of the
information. It is then frequently photocopied by attendees and
passed on to other police officers with no one really knowing its
validity or origin.
Most, however, would probably answer that what makes a crime
satanic, occult, or ritualistic is the motivation for the crime. It
is a crime that is spiritually motivated by a religious belief
system. How then do we label the following true crimes?
-- Parents defy a court order and send their children to an
unlicensed Christian school.
-- Parents refuse to send their children to any school because they
are waiting for the second coming of Christ.
-- Parents beat their child to death because he or she will not
follow their Christian belief.
-- Parents violate child labor laws because they believe the Bible
requires such work.
-- Individuals bomb an abortion clinic or kidnap the doctor because
their religious belief system says abortion is murder.
-- A child molester reads the Bible to his victims in order to
justify his sex acts with them.
-- Parents refuse life-saving medical treatment for a child because
of their religious beliefs.
-- Parents starve and beat their child to death because their
minister said the child was possessed by demonic spirits.
Some people would argue that the Christians who committed the above
crimes misunderstood and distorted their religion while satanists
who commit crimes are following theirs. But who decides what
constitutes a misinterpretation of a religious belief system? The
individuals who committed the above-described crimes, however
misguided, believed that they were following their religion as they
understood it. Religion was and is used to justify such social
behavior as the Crusades, the Inquisition, Apartheid, segregation,
and recent violence in Northern Ireland, India, Lebanon and Nigeria.
Who decides exactly what "satanists" believe? In this country, we
cannot even agree on what Christians believe. At many law
enforcement conferences The _Satanic Bible_ is used for this, and it
is often contrasted or compared with the Judeo-Christian Bible. The
_Satanic Bible_ is, in essence, a short paperback book written by
one man, Anton LaVey, in 1969. To compare it to a book written by
multiple authors over a period of thousands of years is ridiculous,
even ignoring the possibility of Divine revelation in the Bible.
What satanists believe certainly isn't limited to other people's
interpretation of a few books. More importantly it is subject to
some degree of interpretation by individual believers just as
Christianity is. Many admitted "satanists" claim they do not even
believe in God, the devil, or any supreme deity. The criminal
behavior of one person claiming belief in a religion does not
necessarily imply guilt or blame to others sharing that belief. In
addition, simply claiming membership in a religion does not
necessarily make you a member.
The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed
by zealots in the name of God, Jesus, Mohammed, and other mainstream
religion than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many
people, including myself, don't like that statement, but the truth
of it is undeniable.
Although defining a crime as satanic, occult, or ritualistic would
probably involve a combination of the criteria set forth above, I
have been unable to clearly define such a crime. Each potential
definition presents a different set of problems when measured
against an objective, rational, and constitutional perspective. In a
crime with multiple subjects, each offender may have a different
motivation for the same crime. Whose motivation determines the label
for the crime? It is difficult to count or track something you
cannot even define.
I have discovered, however, that the facts of so-called "satanic
crimes" are often significantly different from what is described st
training conferences or in the media. The actual involvement of
satanism or the occult in these cases usually turns out to be
secondary, insignificant, or nonexistent. Occult or ritual crime
surveys done by the states of Michigan (1990) and Virginia (1991)
have only confirmed this "discovery". Some law enforcement officers,
unable to find serious "satanic" crime in their communities, assume
they are just lucky or vigilant and the serious problems must be in
other jurisdictions. The officers in the other jurisdictions, also
unable find it, assume the same.
5. MULTlDlMENSlONAL CHILD SEX RINGS
Sometime in early 1983 I was first contacted by a law enforcement
agency for guidance in what was then thought to be an unusual case.
The exact date of the contact is unknown because its significance
was not recognized at the time. In the months and years that
followed, I received more and more inquiries about "these kinds of
cases". The requests for assistance came (and continue to come) from
all over the United States. Many of the aspects of these cases
varied, but there were also some commonalties. Early on, however,
one particularly difficult and potentially significant issue began
to emerge.
These cases involved and continue to involve unsubstantiated
allegations of bizarre activity that are difficult either to prove
or disprove. Many of the unsubstantiated allegations, however, do
not seem to have occurred or even be possible. These cases seem to
call into question the credibility of victims of child sexual abuse
and exploitation. These are the most polarizing, frustrating, and
baffling cases I have encountered in more than 18 years of studying
the criminal aspects of deviant sexual behavior. I privately sought
answers, but said nothing publicly about those cases until 1985.
In October 1984 the problems in investigating and prosecuting one of
these cases in Jordan, Minnesota became publicly known. In February
1985, at the FBI Academy, the FBI sponsored and I coordinated the
first national seminar held to study "these kinds of cases". Later
in 1985, similar conferences sponsored by other organizations were
held in Washington, D.C.; Sacramento, California; and Chicago,
Illinois. These cases have also been discussed at many recent
regional and national conferences dealing with the sexual
victimization of children and Multiple Personality Disorder. Few
answers have come from these conferences. I continue to be contacted
on these cases on a regular basis. Inquiries have been received from
law enforcement officers, prosecutors, therapists, victims, families
of victims, and the media from all over the United States and now
foreign countries. I do not claim to understand completely all the
dynamics of these cases. I continue to keep an open mind and to
search for answers to the questions and solutions to the problems
they pose. This discussion is based on my analysis of the several
hundred of "these kinds of cases" on which I have consulted since
1983.
-- a. DYNAMICS OF CASES.
What are "these kinds of cases"? They were and continue to be
difficult to define. They all involve allegations of what sounds
like child sexual abuse, but with a combination of some atypical
dynamics. These cases seem to have the following four dynamics in
common: (1) multiple young victims, (2) multiple offenders, (3) fear
as the controlling tactic, and (4) bizarre or ritualistic activity.
---- (1) MULTIPLE YOUNG VICTIMS.
In almost all the cases the sexual abuse was alleged to have taken
place or at least begun when the victims were between the ages of
birth and six. This very young age may be an important key to
understanding these cases. In addition the victims all described
multiple children being abused. The numbers ranged from three or
four to as many as several hundred victims.
---- (2) MULTIPLE OFFENDERS.
In almost all the cases the victims reported numerous offenders. The
numbers ranged from two or three all the way up to dozens of
offenders. In one recent case the victims alleged 400-500 offenders
were involved. Interestingly many of the offenders (perhaps as many
as 40-50 percent) were reported to be females. The multiple
offenders were often family members and were described as being part
of a cult, occult, or satanic group.
---- (3) FEAR AS CONTROLLING TACTIC.
Child molesters in general are able to maintain control and ensure
the secrecy of their victims in a variety of ways. These include
