-Caveat Lector- An excerpt from: Other Altars - Roots and Realities of Cultic and Satanic Ritual Abuse and Multiple Personality Disorder Craig Lockwood©1993 CompCare Publishers 3850 Annapolis Lane, Suite 100 Minneapolis, MN 55441 612.559.4800/800.328.3330 ISBN 0-89638-363-6 255+pps — out-of-print/one edition. ----- A very interesting and excellent book. Om K --[1]-- Craig Lockwood is an award-winning California journalist. Since 1986, he has been editor/publisher of Beyond Survival magazine, a journal specializing in the literature, art, and psychotherapy of survival from traumatic abuse. Lockwood has investigated and written about the social and cultural issues surrounding traumatic and chronic sexual abuse, multiple personality, and dissociation. ===== INTRODUCTION Blood sacrifice in the name of spiritual belief is as old as humankind. We've called it by thousands of names, in thousands of languages, over thousands of years. Bound to humanity's search for spiritual knowledge and deeper meaning is our grim legacy of ritual murder. Much of religion's history has been written in blood and punctuated by the screams of the dying—dying animals, men, women, children. Today, the label "ritual abuse" is commonly applied to behaviors involving multioffender, multimotive sexual abuse, torture, programmed mind control, blood sacrifice, infanticide, or cannibalism, combined with symbols and artifacts of spiritual belief. Ritual abuse, a far from precise term, is subject to increasing discussion and dispute. Call it a frightening reality, a mystery, a rumor-panic, media hype, or a socially constructed group fantasy, ritual abuse goes beyond the acts that the nouns ritual and abuse denote. Ritual abuse, as a complex set of behaviors, remains ill-defined—a subject without consensus. Ritual abuse, as a description, has become a nom de guerre, a symbolic term or pseudonym, neither fully describing the often criminal phenomenon itself nor the sometimes religious context in which it occurs. Our language needs a new word that is clinically accurate to replace ritual abuse—a word that emphasizes the actual nature of the abuse, rather than its religious, ritualistic overtones. Ritual sacrifice is not an ancient, forgotten cultural custom. Religions that accept and practice ritual animal sacrifice thrive in the United States today, protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. Suggesting that the blood sacrifice of humans may be a component of certain modem religious behavior, however, often meets with stunned disbelief. And when evidence of such sacrifice surfaces, attempts are made to explain it as an aberration. Controversial subjects invite polarization, making objectivity difficult. Writers on the subject of ritual abuse have been accused of being either "believers" who overemphasize or dramatize scanty facts or "disbelievers" who minimize or ignore the same facts. Setting a compass course through two magnetic poles of conflicting claims and minimal data is chancy. Much of the information about sacrificial cults and their practices comes from those claiming to be survivors. Disbelievers are correct in saying that survivors are hardly objective sources. But believers challenge this argument by saying that it fails to explain the many stories and the similarities among them. Veterans, returning from war, encounter this same kind of disbelief when attempting to describe their combat experiences. People who haven't experienced savage and irrational human behavior are often skeptical of those who have and have lived to tell about it. First-hand knowledge of war's horrors is limited to combatants and refugees. But at least the public knows when a war is being fought. The media gathers news and reports it daily. Ritual abuse, however, has been reported only by the survivors. Since many of these people have been treated for psychological disorders, their credibility has been questioned. Credibility became the overriding issue. Who, and what, were we to believe? Disbelievers castigated believing mental-health professionals—lumping them in with wild-eyed conspiracy theorists who saw Satan's hand in everything from UFOs to the New World Order. Believers retaliated, branding well-meaning but hard-to-convince disbelievers as "cult surrogates." Lack of strong evidence supporting survivors' claims exacerbated the credibility issue. Those who cried "cult," like the boy who cried "wolf," cried it once too often. Disbelievers, finding what they considered inadequate evidence of "the cult," began questioning the believer- therapists' veracity. Sensing controversy, the media responded. In ritual abuse, events were not personally observable. And because editors wanted "story impact" and "emotional punch," journalists often selected the most dramatic or controversial parts of their available subjects' narratives. Pro vs. con battles make good stories, especially when one side claims the existence of conspiracies involving children, money, sex, and religion, and the other side claims bureaucratic and professional violations of civil rights. "Truth" becomes a matter of opinion—despite "facts." History provides numerous examples of how power groups manipulate facts. Disbelievers cite the Roman Catholic Inquisition in Europe and the Protestant witch-hunts in England and the colonies as primary examples. Thousands of people accused of heresy, witchcraft, and consorting with evil spirits were imprisoned and tortured until they admitted to committing impossible supernatural crimes. Greedy ecclesiastic and civil officials seized property. Most of those convicted as witches were sentenced to horrible deaths by men who believed themselves to be sincere servants of Christ. Reaction to the Inquisition's irrational use of Christian dogma and power left a healthy legacy of skepticism. Disbelief in the existence of witchcraft, as well as in cults of devil-worship, supplanted belief and became the norm. But religious beliefs possess a life of their own. Witchcraft survived. So did the false belief that Satan was somehow responsible for creating it. Today, no Inquisitors are needed to torture confessions from survivors. In a curious reversal of history, those claiming to be former cult participants have come forward with their stories and were instantly stigmatized as delusional. Sometime along the evolving cultural continuum, dogmatic disbelievers have replaced the militant Inquisitors. Denying that such cults and practices exist, disbelievers invoke postmodern ideology to rid society of the devilish claims promulgated by fundamentalist Christians. Meanwhile, fundamentalist Christians were busy performing exorcisms to remove satanic demons from the bodies of people who are actually suffering from diagnosable mental disorders or illnesses. Heresy has also been reversed. Heretics are those cult survivors who paint pictures of an activity that, if true, dabs another dark brushstroke on humanity's bloody canvas. Together, irrational disbelievers and believers march blindly backwards into the twenty-first century. We've learned nothing from the past, except that it makes good newspaper copy. Survivors' disclosures of trauma- structured mind control incorporate all the elements of horror films and are custom-made for sensationalized media presentation. Human sacrifice, cannibalism, drug- and sound-induced trance states, sadistic torture, mind control, various kinds of ritual sexual practices and perversions, along with political corruption in the highest offices-all these sell tabloids and talk-show airtime. Certain academics argue that these claims are a manifestation of age-old social anxieties, "mass hysteria," and "moral panics" caused by rapid social and economic change. Survivors' accounts are thus viewed as "myths," recast, rescripted, and brought up to date. Impressionable adolescents participate in "legend -trips," which become quickly recirculated as "contagious rumors." Examined in this light, ritual abuse is a series of dangerous claims, harboring the potential for legalistic reactionary repression of the rights of nontraditional ethnic and religious groups. Ritual abuse, nevertheless, remains a popular, if controversial subject, with bookstores carrying more titles each year. An author writing about it is faced with either reproducing earlier efforts or breaking a new trail-seeking new or overlooked material. What follows is a short trek through the cultural undergrowth of ambiguity, deceit, and denial—a superficial reconnaissance of complex, often puzzling events in a broad field. Certainty is not an expected destination. Provisions for the journey include survivors' accounts and skeptics' discounts. But a word of caution: skeptics enjoy a tactical advantage-they demand to be convinced. This means the burden of proof falls on survivors, who usually can offer only their already suspect memories and emotion-laden wounds. Those who categorize themselves as "believers" need to understand that survivors' claims, compelling as they may be, are not evidence. Survivors' claims are twice-told tales. Gauging their authenticity is a daunting task. Because survivors' accounts present a view of humanity irreconcilable with current social and religious ideals, the growing tendency is to disbelieve. But before dismissing their strange and often gory disclosures as "confabulations," as "therapist- induced memories," or as "supernatural," consider the following level of evidence. Survivors often exhibit a common psychological characteristic: dissociation. Strange, at times frightening, dissociation occurs naturally as an emotionally protective response to trauma, as often seen in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) of Vietnam vets. Dissociation can also be created artificially. Responding to severe trauma, survivors dissociate—walling-off traumatic events with a nearly impenetrable barrier of amnesia. They survive, as attested to in the literature of PTSD, without much, if any, conscious recollection. Some survivors create, or report having created for them, other "parts" or personality fragments. What these people are describing is not new. Tribal shamans, in the distant past, discovered that certain ritualized activities could produce a form of dissociation. This protopsychological technology proved to be a valuable diagnostic and healing tool. However, it could be used with negative effects, which were soon mastered by tribal sorcerers. While shamans were left behind as cultural relics, relegated to traditional societies, sorcerers' malicious skills seemed always to be in demand. Herein lies the real mystery of survivors' stories. Not that people in robes stand around in circles worshipping religiously unpopular evil deities and commit animal and human sacrifice. That's been going on for thousands of years. As you will read in the pages that follow, we have well-documented examples in many contemporary societies. Of far more interest scientifically, ethically, morally, and legally are the apparent advances using the technology of MPD and dissociation. This form of trauma-structured dissociation isn't applied just in the service of spiritual belief, but as a potentially powerful tool of social control. This book delves into the origins, nature, and contemporary use of such trauma-structured dissociation—a long-overlooked psychological phenomenon. Consider this inquiry one journalist's effort to understand and grasp dissociation's complex modern connection to the ancient and most mysterious of all human-induced trauma—ritual abuse. ===== Part I TWICE-TOLD TALES "A specific practice or belief ... never represents a direct psychological response of individuals to some aspect of the outer world . . . The source of their beliefs and practices is ... the historic tradition. -A. I. Hallowell, 1926 NOTE to READERS Readers are advised that it is important to note that lexicological differences exist in works of scholarship, just as in popular nonfiction. Literary fashions and cultural emphases dictate that certain words and phrases come into and go out of use. It is the author's understanding that contemporary Western Wiccan practice is an earth-based, healing religion. Wicca distinguishes itself by calling its practice the "Craft." The loosely used popular terms witch and witchcraft, even in the language of anthropologists and other scholars, may have very different meanings. Many cultures and societies engage in practices that some Western scholars define as witchcraft, using it as a term of convenience. Wicca, in its contemporary forms, has nothing whatsoever to do with sorcery, black magic, or Satanism. It is the author's intent to make it clear that he, if not everyone he quotes, understands this distinction. No religion or set of positive spiritual beliefs, however, from Adventism, Baptism, and Catholicism all the way to Zen or Zoroasterism, is immune from being manipulated or perverted by persons with negative intent. Acts by individuals must never be assumed to be the fault of a well-intended, wholesome spiritual practice or organized religion. Chapter 1 TWICE-TOLD TALES "Many people seem to believe that if you can disprove one part of a victim's story then the entire story is false. -Kenneth V. Lanning, 1992 Something was going on. Frightened, near-hysterical children reported being sexually abused in ceremonies with overtones of satanic ritual. Somewhere in Europe, 1484? No. McMartin Pre-School in sunny Manhattan Beach, California, 1984. Sex perversion in preschool seems incompatible with palm trees, expensive houses with ocean views, chic restaurants and shops, executives in Porsches, and sidewalk surfers on skateboards. But incongruity always surrounds allegations of this nature. Virginia McMartin, the preschool's grandmotherly founder, her daughter, Peggy McMartin Buckey, Peggy's college-dropout son, Raymond, and members of the staff of the preschool soon came under indictment. Allegations were substantial: hundreds of children sexually molested over a period of years under circumstances best described as bizarre. The children's testimony described events involving ritual, religious symbols, sex acts with animals, sodomy, forced eating of feces, viewing corpses, and the mutilation and death of animals. About this time, the terms ritualistic abuse, ritualized abuse, and eventually ritual abuse came into use. Preliminary hearings took eighteen months and cost $4 million. Five defendants were finally freed. Raymond Buckey's lawyer told a reporter for the Torrance Daily Breeze: "I believe there were some children who were molested." Buckey, he quickly added, wasn't responsible. Raymond Buckey and Peggy McMartin Buckey still faced ninety-nine counts of molestation and one count of conspiracy. Death Ranch In June 1985 a grisly news story broke in Calaveras County, California. A tip led a local sheriff to investigate claims of kidnap, torture, and sexual murder on a remote ranch. Two men, Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, were apprehended. While not prosecuted as ritual abuse, the Lake and Ng case had several mysterious elements. Evidence included multiple victims, videotaping of torture and ritualized murder, and use of cremation. Leonard Lake's jail-cell suicide added a macabre touch. Ng escaped to Canada days later. His eventual capture led to a long legal battle for his extradition. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the body count kept mounting-twelve bodies were eventually found; more were suspected. Persistent rumors of Lake and Ng's shadowy connection to a secret "brotherhood" that stretched across the country and the presence of a strange man claiming to he an "author" added bizarre twists to the case. A reporter who covered the case described the mysterious author as "looking like a street person," but having valuable inside information. Ng's trial was slated for late 1993. A Different Drummer Breaking step about the same time was a certain Lt. Col. Michael A. Aquino, founder and high priest of the Temple of Set, a high-visibility satanic group. Aquino was also a prior associate of Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan. Former Eagle Scout Aquino had risen to the rank of Magister IV in LaVey's church-just below that of LaVey himself-before the pair had a falling out. Charles Wilbourn, a retired U.S. Army major, served with Aquino at Fort MacArthur in a special warfare unit and confirmed during consecutive taped interviews that Aquino's military background was in psychological warfare. Wilbourn stated that when Aquino had briefed Wilbourn's. unit, Aquino said that in Vietnam he used his propensity for elaborate theatrics, dressing up like a ghost with his tactical unit to, in effect, "scare the natives." Aquino was identified during an investigation of Gary Hambright by the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and the United States Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID). According to newspaper accounts in the October 31, 1987, San Francisco Chronicle, Hambright was a Southern Baptist minister, besides being an employee at the child development center at the Presidio Army Base in San Francisco. Army captain Larry Adams-Thompson called San Francisco police on August 12, 1987, to report that his three-year-old daughter, who attended the center in 1986 during the period of Hambright's alleged crimes, reacted with visible fear upon seeing Lt. Col. Aquino and his wife at the Presidio's PX.[1] Calling him "Mikey" and her "Shamby," the child identified them to the FBI in subsequent interviews as participants in group molestations at "Mr. Gary's house." The investigation was expanded to include Aquino and his wife. San Francisco police dropped their investigation in 1988, for lack of sufficient evidence. Army CID, however, continued, issuing a report describing the investigation of the child abuse and accompanying criminal offenses. The report was titled and admitted to the record. Aquino promptly sued the Army. He was "seeking to amend the Army's criminal investigation report and recover damages." He contended that decisions "were tainted by consideration of the irrelevant factor of his Satanist religious beliefs." His main interest seemed to be in acquiring access to the investigator's files through the Privacy Act. Aquino's motions to amend his files were denied, however. The court concluded that "there was sufficient evidence from which the Army decision-maker could determine that probable cause existed to believe that [Aquino] committed the offenses." Lawyers for Aquino then pointed to a letter sent by an aide for Republican Senator Jesse Helms. Dated October 26, 1986, the letter expressed "distress that Satanists, and Aquino in particular, were members of the Army Reserves." Late in November of 1988, "certain high-level officers" discussed Aquino's case. On January 9, 1989, Sen. Helms himself sent a follow-up letter "arguing strongly for removing Aquino from the Army." CID refused to "amend the report of investigation of charges that Reserve Officer Aquino had sexually molested children" and that his files were criminal investigation records "exempt by virtue of Army rule." Aquino appealed. Three judges ruled against him. In 1990 a continuation board of the Army Reserve reviewed Michael A. Aquino's case. They "recommended discontinuing Aquino's service in the Reserve, and he was processed out of the Army." Aquino, who had marched to a decidedly different drummer, was drummed out of the Army. Harvest of Doubt During the thirty-three -month, $13 million McMartin PreSchool trial-the longest, most expensive, and arguably the most emotional criminal trial in United States history-the seeds of belief and doubt were simultaneously planted. Seizing on assertions by McMartin defense attorneys that claims of ritual abuse were a contemporary version of the Salem witch-hunts, and reminiscent of Senator Joseph McCarthy's 1950s-era House Un-American Activities Committee, some members of the press and certain academic sociologists began critically examining the information. By their measure, they found it wanting. On the street, however, perspectives differed from those on campus. Public mental-health and child-protection workers, law-enforcement officers, and journalists familiar with the subject, recalling the Supreme Court judge who once remarked about pornography, "know it when they see it." But was "it" a crime? A bad memory? A good story? Was it even a phenomenon-an observable fact or event? Lack of consensus and definition reflected the social confusion surrounding the issue. Over four hundred children were examined before the McMartin trial. Their examiners, under the direction of Kee MacFarlane of the Children's Institute International, were loudly criticized by the defense attorneys, and pro-McMartin organizations such as NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association) a group identified with pedophiles, and VOCAL (Victims of Child Abuse Legislation), a nonprofit group formed in Minnesota in 1984 during the notorious Jordan, Minnesota, mass child abuse case to support the defendants accused—allegedly falsely—of abusing children. Pandora's Box >From across the United States, Canada, and Europe, allegations, stories, investigations, and, in some cases, evidence of traumatic abuse occurring in religious or quasi-religious ceremonies were accumulating. Therapists reported patients' descriptions of rituals incorporating animal or human sacrifices-rituals echoing elements of the "black mass," a travesty of the Roman Catholic Mass as part of the reputed observance of Satanism. Pandora's box had been opened. Psychiatrist Lee Coleman, a keynote speaker at VOCAL's Second National Conference, who had been hired by the McMartin defense as an expert witness, argued that psychotherapists and social workers had no business making determinations about child survivors' claims. Coleman had a curious association with a group called the New England Association of Scientologists for Reform. In 1980 Coleman was listed as a member of the National Advisory Board of the Citizens' Commission of Human Rights, a Hollywoodbased organization associated with the Church of Scientology. Dr. Coleman had never treated a case of child sexual abuse. As a defense witness, he declared himself expert in critiquing interviewing techniques. In all the cases that he had examined, it seems the interviewers showed "the same kind of manipulative, leading bias techniques."[2] Washington State judge John F. Wilson stated in 1989, during a child abuse hearing involving the State of Washington vs. David Werlin, that Coleman's credentials as an expert witness made him "not a clinical expert or an academic expert; but a litigation expert." Ralph Underwager, a Lutheran pastor and sometime-psychologist/director of a Northfield, Minnesota, organization called the Institute for Psychological Therapies, a selfproclaimed expert on Communist brainwashing, as well as on children's memories and child sexual abuse, and an outspoken VOCAL supporter, supported Coleman's contentions. Dr. Underwager, given to sarcasm, anger, and sweeping pronouncements, was far less skillful than Coleman. Underwager's credentials as an expert on children's memories and child sexual abuse were called into question during the deposition stage of another case. He didn't testify at the trial.[3] Nationwide, an organized backlash against the young survivors' stories marked the next stage of the unfolding drama. Backlashers chose to focus on three vulnerable areas: lack of expertise on the part of police and social workers who initially investigate sexual abuse claims; therapists' qualifications as key witnesses in family and criminal courts; and lastly, the difficulty of medically proving charges of sexual abuse. Well-cultivated media-connected groups such as VOCAL waged an effective campaign. Other "experts" soon appeared with their carpetbag credentials for sale to the highest legal bidder. Using simple tactics, the experts played on a jury's inclination to find adult survivors' claims of ritual abuse incomprehensible. Phrases like "fiction," "fantasy," "urban legend," "patients confabulating claims to garner sympathy and therapeutic attention" became part of their rhetoric. While VOCAL seems to be more interested in protecting perpetrators than children, its efforts at exposing "incompetence" on the part of social workers, therapists, and investigators have proven strangely beneficial. Agencies and investigators today demand higher standards of investigation and reporting. Skillful investigations now make indicting the innocent less probable and punishing the guilty more probable. Notes from the Underground Amid claims, controversy, and recrimination, the McMartin trial was reduced to another media event. Months turned into years. The school was sold and permits for its razing were taken out. Plaintiffs, seeking a still-smoking gun, some kind of incontrovertible hard evidence, reminded the prosecution of the children's reports of underground "tunnels." Lack of response to these reports angered the parents, who petitioned the property's new owner to let them take a final look. He agreed, and called off the bulldozers for several weeks. Raising money, the parent's group hired archeologist Gary Stickle, noted for using a forensic field approach. They were joined in their efforts by Ted Gunderson, the recently retired FBI regional office head for Los Angeles. Assembling his team, Dr. Stickle began excavation to locate the tunnels. "We discovered a tunnel." Dr. Stickle stated in an interview for Beyond Survival magazine. "It looked like there may have been an entrance under the side of classroom four. "Material found within the feature (the area under excavation) was introduced to the site and used as fill for the tunnel." This included tarpaper and plywood that seemed to have been part of a roof, as well as other kinds of debris used to backfill the tunnel. Dr. Stickle believes his findings speak for themselves: "In my opinion we did find a tunnel. I can't say who made it, and I can't say who used it ... But it's a tunnel. I think it's interesting that the kids said 'there's a tunnel down there,' and there was." Artifacts foreign to the site had been brought in and used as part of the fill. Each was classified and documented. Conclusion: the tunnel had been filled in. Aftermath Remaining McMartin defendants, Ray Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, were eventually acquitted at a staggering cost to Los Angeles County taxpayers. A puzzled jury declared they were certain "something had happened," but were not sure what or who had been responsible. Each side gave various reasons: bungled early investigations by the Manhattan Beach Police, interviewers at the Children's Institute asking leading questions, too many agencies involved, loss of evidence due to what amounted to a warning by the police to the Buckeys that they were under suspicion, insubstantial evidence, evidence overlooked by the Sheriff's Department, inconsistency of testimony by the many children put on the stand, loss of prosecutorial interest due to L.A. prosecutor Ira Reiner's political ambitions, cleverness of the defense under Attorney Walter Urban-and finally, a rush to judgment by the press. Notwithstanding, other cases continued to accumulate. Some, including Florida's 1985 Country Walk case, ramrodded by United States Attorney General Janet Reno-then a Florida prosecutor-were successfully pursued.[4] Others, like the Jordan, Minnesota, case were so ineptly investigated and prosecuted that they would later be blamed for the backlash.[5] While psychotherapists from different states reported hearing similar stories involving preschools, patients were making other more ominous reports. Survivors also claimed that people in key positions of political power, law enforcement, government, finance, and industry were involved. Were all their stories fabrications ?[6] Disregarding abundant anecdotal evidence, the skeptics continued to claim that if a few cases proved fictitious, all were fictitious. Unaccounted for was the sheer volume of complex, detailed information generated from nontherapists that has accumulated here and abroad. Something was going on. Pps. vi-xii;1-10 --[notes]-- Chapter 1 1. West Publishing, West's Federal Reporter, vol. 957 F.2d (St. Paul: West Publishing, 1992), 139-141. 2. D. Hechler, The Battle and the Backlash (Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1988). 3. BW. Dziech and C. B. Schudson, On Trial: America's Courts and Their Treatment of Sexually Abused Children (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991). 4. J. Hollingsworth, Unspeakable Acts (New York: Congdon and Weed, 1986). 5. Hechler, The Battle and the Backlash. 6. J. DeCamp, The Franklin Cover-up: Child Abuse, Satanism and Murder in Nebraska (Omaha: ATW, 1992). --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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