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Journal - Book Review - "Other Altars: Root
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The 'Rationalist' outlook. -- "It can't happen here. . ." (Frank Zappa).
The links are to try and purchase out-of-print books from Amazon.com
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Title:Other Altars: Roots and Realities of Cultic and Satanic Ritual
Abuse and Multiple Personality DisorderAuthor: Craig LockwoodPublisher:
CompCare Publishers, ©1994
CompCare Publishers
3850 Annapolis Lane, Suite 100
Minneapolis, MN 55447
(800) 328-3330
$17.00
Title:Stripped NakedAuthor: Lauren StratfordPublisher:Pelican Publishing
Company, Inc., ©1993
Pelican Publishing Company, Inc.
1101 Monroe Street
Gretna, LA 70053
(504) 368-1175
$10.95
Title:Satan's UndergroundAuthor: Lauren StratfordPublisher:Pelican
Publishing Company, Inc., ©1991 (First Published by Harvest House
Publishers, ©1988)
Pelican Publishing Company, Inc.
1101 Monroe Street
Gretna, LA 70053
(504) 368-1175
$9.95
These three books deal with claims that satanic, ritualistic abuse is
real and that there exists a widespread conspiracy of satan worshipers
who engage in human sacrifice, necromancy, soothsaying, witchcraft, and
orgiastic group sexual abuse. Each advances the claim that purported
survivors of these practices give accounts that are true, reliable, and
believable. Each acknowledges that there is widespread skepticism and
criticism of the claims. Each brands any skeptical view as denial and
presents any person who questions the facticity of their assertions as a
naive, reprehensible dolt at best and at wodren. The science leading to
skepticism cannot be attacked
so the persons are attacked. If the reader can be convinced that all the
skeptics are charlatans, the scientific data will be discounted.
Each attempts to support the truthfulness of their claims by referring
to the same limited group of trials, cases said to involve satanic
and/or ritualistic abuse allegations, and a small number of bizarre
homicides. The sources for these proofs are largely newspaper accounts
and, in the Stratford books, television talk shows. The proofs are
highly questionable, such as the tunnels under the McMartin Day School
building. Lockwood presents it as fact that the tunnels in which the
satanic, ritualistic abuse was said to be done were found and truly
existed. He includes one picture that is intended to prove their
existence.
A small number of older research reports are cited to support positions
about human memory and suggestibility that have been superseded by more
recent research. The controversial claims of a biological base for a
special kind of trauma memory are referred to somewhat casually. The
diagnoses of dissociative, multiple personality, and post-traumatic
stress disorders are used to bolster the claims and explain how putative
victims cope and survive the repeated violent and horrifying assaults.
However, the most important type of evidence is the clinical
observations and clinical data based on the experience of therapists.
Throughout all three books clinical observations are presented as equal
to scientific, empirical, quantified research. It is the ancient
argument used against Galileo, "Look, see, the sun moves and goes around
the earth."
Lockwood includes several chapters that appear to be historical reviews
of aspects of satanic, occult practices. These are on the level of
Sunday supplement journalistic treatment that simplifies, levels, and
reduces any questionable or speculative interpretations to facts.
Stratford's books tell a story that she says is what happened to her.
Both authors insist that the stories told by persons claiming to have
survived the satanic, ritualistic abuse are credible and must be
believed. Stratford allies herself with the National Center for the
Prosecution of Child Abuse and implies that they support the claims of
survivors. Both offer the same two basic proofs for the veracity of the
stories. Nobody would make up such stories because it is too painful.
The stories are similar and consistent across people.
While Lockwood mentions the association with a fundamentalist religious
approach, Stratford makes it definite and sure. The theological error is
the presentation of the devil as powerful and that successful resistance
to him is the responsibility of the individual. This amounts to denying
the orthodox, conservative Christian truth claim that Jesus rose from
the dead, vanquished the evil foe, and that salvation is by God's grace
and not by actions of humans that merit or wins eternal life. It is the
ancient heresy, condemned by the early Church, of semi-pelagianism.
These three books, and the volume edited by Sinason also reviewed in
this issue, represent the range of literature advanced to support claims
of satanic, ritualistic abuse. They are of interest and value only as
illustrations and examples of the extremity of the
