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         MindNet Journal - Vol. 1, No. 48
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         V E R I C O M M / MindNet         "Quid veritas est?"
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    Notes:

    The following is reproduced here with the permission of
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    The views and opinions expressed below are not necessarily the
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    Editor: Mike Coyle

    Contributing Editors: Walter Bowart
                          Alex Constantine
                          Martin Cannon

    Assistant Editor: Rick Lawler

    Research: Darrell Bross

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    Cultural and Economic Barriers to Protecting Children from
    Ritual Abuse and Mind Control

    By Catherine Gould, Ph.D.

    Dec. 1995

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       How are we to understand the phenomenon of ritual abuse
    in the 1990's? Throughout the Western world, increasing numbers
    of therapists and other helping professionals are hearing
    accounts from children as young as two and adults ranging into
    the ninth decade of their lives describe mind-numbing accounts of
    abuses consisting of sexual sadism and pornography, physical
    torture, and highly sophisticated psychological manipulation
    which, taken together, we have come to refer to as ritual abuse.
       The evidence is rapidly accumulating that the problem of
    ritual abuse is considerable in scope, and extremely grave in its
    consequences. Among 2,709 members of the American Psychological
    Association who responded to a poll, 2,292 cases of ritual abuse
    were reported (Bottoms, Shaver, & Goodman, 1993). In 1992 alone,
    Childhelp USA logged 1,741 calls pertaining to ritual abuse,
    Monarch Resources of Los Angeles logged approximately 5,000, Real
    Active Survivors tallied nearly 3,600, Justus Unlimited of
    Colorado received almost 7,000, and Looking Up of Maine handled
    around 6,000. Even allowing for some of these calls to have been
    made by people who assist survivors but are not themselves
    survivors, and for some survivors to have called more that one
    helpline or made multiple calls to the same helpline, these
    numbers suggest that at a minimum there must be tens of thousands
    of survivors of ritual abuse in the United States.
       Evidence also continues to accumulate that the ritual
    abuse of children constitutes a child abuse problem of
    significant scope. In 1988, Finkelhor, Williams and Burns (1988)
    published the results of a nationwide study of substantiated
    reports of sexual abuse in day care involving 1,639 young child
    victims. Thirteen percent of these cases were found to involve
    ritual abuse. Other studies of ritually abused children have been
    relatively small. Kelly (1988; 1989; 1992a;  1992b; 1993)
    reported on 35 day care victims of ritual abuse, Waterman et al.
    (1993) reported on 82 children complaining of ritual abuse in
    preschool, Faller (1988; 1990) studied 18 children who had
    disclosed ritual abuse in their preschool, and Bybee and Mowbray
    (1993) from the Michigan State Department of Mental Health
    identified 62 children alleging ritual abuse in their preschool
    and 53 children who reported seeing others be ritually abused.
    Snow and Sorenson (1990) studied 39 children reporting ritual
    abuse in five neighborhoods in Utah, and Jonker and Jonker-Bakker
    (1991) reported on a total group of 98 children, at least 48 of
    whom were believed to be victims of ritual abuse. The latter case
    is the only one cited here which was conducted outside of the
    United States.
       Unfortunately, these statistics tell us little about the
    actual prevalence of child ritual abuse. Much more telling are
    the data these researchers have collected regarding the effects
    of ritual abuse on child victims. In Faller's (1994) review of
    the literature from which these studies are drawn, most of the
    studies which were selected included a control group of children
    with sexual abuse histories but no reports of ritual abuse. It is
    very telling that in every case in which the symptomatology of
    the ritually abused children was compared to the symptomatology
    of the sexually abused children, the ritually abused children
    showed considerably more symptoms of trauma.
       In the Finkelhor et al. (1988) study, ritually abused
    children showed significantly more symptoms of trauma than did
    sexually abused children. Kelly (1988; 1989; 1992a; 1992b; 1993)
    showed that ritually abused children had significantly higher
    scores on the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist than did
    sexually abused children, indicating more severe symptomatology
    on the part of the children who had been ritually abused.
    Waterman et al. (1993) found that both therapists and parents
    rated ritually abused children as showing more behavioral
    symptoms on the Achenbach than sexually abused children. Other
    assessment instruments used in this study found ritually abused
    children to function less well at the time of termination from
    therapy than did sexually abused children. Faller (1990) found
    that more ritually abused children than sexually abused children
    suffered from sleep, emotional, and behavioral problems, as well
    as phobias and problems with sexual acting out.
       A great deal of literature has been amassed on the often
    extreme and debilitating effects of child sexual abuse on its
    victims, effects which may last a lifetime. To have four
    comparative studies as methodologically sound as the ones
    presented above all illustrating that ritual abuse causes even
    greater effects on child victims than does sexual abuse should
    give us as a nation serious pause. The data reflecting the grave
    consequences of ritual abuse on children has been coming in for
    over five years now. Yet we, a nation with mandated child abuse
    reporting and computerized accounts of numbers of children
    reported to have been sexually, physically, and emotionally
    abused each year, still have no systematic means of collecting
    data on numbers of children reported to have been ritually
    abused! We could, relatively easily and for minimal expense,
    obtain statistics on the number of cases of ritual child abuse
    being reported in the United States each year simply by adding
    one additional category on the child abuse reporting forms which
    mandated reporters must complete when they file a child abuse
    report.
       Given the accumulation of data illustrating not only that
    children reporting ritual abuse are profoundly negatively
    impacted by those experiences, but that they are even more
    severely impacted that are child victims of sexual abuse, how can
    we give any weight at all to the skeptical position that ritual
    abuse memories are no more that screen memories for incest
    experiences that are actually worse, suppressed from awareness
    and replaced by accounts of impossibly bizarre rituals? If
    children claiming to be ritually abused were in fact sexually
    abused only, then clearly their symptomatology should be similar
    to and no more serious than that of sexually abused children.
       The psychological condition of ritually abused children
    matches the accounts they give of what has been done to them not
    only in the severity of their symptomatology, but also in its
    particulars. That is to say, not only do ritually abused children
    appear more disturbed than sexually abused children on
    traditional instruments like the Achenbach, they also demonstrate
    symptoms which relate in direct and obvious ways to the abuse
    experiences they describe. For example, because ritual abuse
    usually involves traumatic confinement, ritually abused children
    often fear elevators, closets, and other small spaces. Because
    these children have often had urine and feces smeared on their
    bodies and put in their mouths, they may smear themselves or
    others with urine or feces, or develop phobias of the bathroom.
    Because many of these children have witnessed torture and
    killing, and have been threatened with death of themselves and
    their loved ones, they often fear that they or their family
    members will be killed. And so on. (See Gould, 1992 for a more
    complete account of the symptomatology that characterizes
    ritually abused children). The nature as well as the severity of
    ritually abused children's symptomatology gives eloquent and
    tragic testimony to the fact that ritual abuse does indeed exist,
    in all the horror described by its victims, both young and old.
       Perhaps no skeptic has done more to obfuscate the issue
    of ritual abuse than Kenneth Lanning of the FBI, who for years
    has maintained that no substantive evidence exists for the
    reality of ritual abuse (Lanning, 1991). (As investigative
    journalist Civia Tamarkin has noted, for decades the FBI also
    told the American public that the Mafia did not exist in the
    United States (1991)). "No bodies...No adult witnesses," as
    Parenting magazine put it so succinctly, and so erroneously in
    their March 1994 article "The Satanism Scare" (Ruben, 1994).
    And why do accounts like the ones given by the 37 ritually abused
    adults in the Young et al. (1991) study, and the 14 ritually
    abused families in the Kelly (1992a) study, of group sexual
    assaults, human sacrifice, forced cannibalism and the like not
    constitute eyewitness accounts to so-called experts like Lanning?
       I am personally aware of scores of adult survivors with
    memories of ritual crimes (contrary to the position of many
    skeptics, most of these memories were retrieved without hypnosis
    or chemical assistance; many were in fact retrieved outside of
    therapy) who have made concerted attempts to bring these crimes
    to the attention of law enforcement. The vast majority of these
    survivor accounts have been met with absolute indifference and
    inaction on the part of local law enforcement agencies, as well
    as the FBI, who might reasonably be expected to investigate the
    charges of interstate trafficking of children and pornography
    which are commonly made by ritual abuse survivors.
       Not only do skeptics such as Lanning choose to ignore
    eyewitness/victim accounts of ritual criminal activity, they
    apparently also choose to overlook the significant number of
    cases of ritual abuse in which perpetrators have confessed to
    their crimes. In the Bottoms et al. (1991; 1993) study of 2,292
    cases of ritual abuse, perpetrators in 30% of the child cases
    confessed to abusing one or more children, and perpetrators in
    15% of adult cases confessed to perpetrating as well. In the case
    studied by Snow and Sorenson (1990), two adolescent perpetrators
    admitted to charges of abuse. Both of these sets of data require
    further analysis to determine which acts of ritual abuse were
    confessed to by what number of perpetrators.
       Corroboration and eyewitness accounts offered by children
    should also be given serious attention when therapists and
    investigators can demonstrate that no contamination of the
    children's disclosures has taken place. In the case studied by
    Jonker and Jonker-Bakker (1991), children from different schools
    and different locales gave accounts of perpetrators, abuse
    locations, and abusive acts that were mutually corroborating.
    Accounts of tunnels under the McMartin preschool given by
    children claiming to have been ritually abused at the school were
    fully corroborated when the existence and location of the tunnels
    were documented by a professional team of archaeologists (Summit,
    1994).
       If it were not enough to have a substantial amount of
    data from well-controlled studies demonstrating the grave
    psychological impact which ritual abuse has on children, to have
    eyewitness accounts of significant numbers of adult and child
    survivors, to have perpetrator confessions of ritual abuse
    crimes, and to have a whole variety of types of corroboration of
    children's accounts of ritual abuse, the number of ritual abuse
    cases in which criminal convictions have been obtained should
    certainly put to rest any remaining questions about the existence
    of ritual abuse. It has become fashionable in the last several
    years for the media to minimize and even dissemble about the data
    which so strongly support the existence of ritual abuse.
    Amazingly, this has happened even in relation to ritual abuse
    cases in which criminal convictions have been obtained. Parenting
    magazine (Ruben, 1994), for example, asserted that "far more
    cases (of ritual abuse) end in acquittal" than in conviction.
       In fact, 58% of the ritual abuse cases in the Finkelhor
    (1988) study that went to trial resulted in convictions. In the
    Kelly (1992b) study, convictions were obtained in 80% of the
    ritual and sexual abuse cases combined; since there were no
    significant differences between the rates of criminal conviction
    in these two groups, we can surmise that convictions were
    obtained in approximately 80% of the ritual abuse cases Kelly
    studied. Finally, and most significant given the thousands of
    cases studied, convictions were obtained in 11% of all ritual
    child abuse cases studied by Bottoms et al. (1991; 1993). All
    three sets of data need to be further analyzed to determine in
    which cases acts of ritual abuse other than child sexual abuse
    per se were entered into the court record, and on which charges
    the perpetrators were convicted.
       It is because ritual abuse cases are being seen in
    greater numbers in courtrooms across the United States, and
    convictions are being obtained, that one by one states are
    passing laws against crimes that occur virtually exclusively
    within the context of ritual abuse. In September of this year,
    California became the sixth state in the country to pass a law
    against specific acts of ritual abuse.
       How can it be that, with significant numbers of criminal
    convictions of perpetrators of ritual abuse and laws against
    ritual abuse on the books in a growing number of states, with the
    clinical data amassed by thousands of therapists in the United
    States and internationally, with physical evidence like the
    tunnels found under the McMartin preschool corroborating
    children's reports of abuse, that we cannot reach a consensus
    that ritual abuse constitutes a serious problem for us as a
    nation, and demands to be addressed? Why is it that media
    accounts of ritual abuse are often filled with so much
    obfuscation that the public is left wondering whether ritual
    abuse might not in fact be the "urban myth" or "mass hysteria"
    that certain skeptics have made a virtual career out of saying
    that it is?
       I propose that there are two major factors at work in
    this elaborate national dance of deception and denial. The first
    is economic, and the second sociocultural. The economic reasons
    for the denial and minimization of ritual abuse are in one sense
    obvious. Survivors of ritual abuse, especially those far enough
    along in their recoveries to have moved through the horrific
    memories of group sexual assaults and bloody sacrifices, usually
    find that underneath those traumatic ritual memories is a
    previously dissociated knowledge of having served the
    cult/perpetrator group in ways that are unambiguously economic.
    For example, women survivors often discover that they have served
    as prostitutes for the cult, sometimes since childhood, and
    frequently for little or no financial compensation. Within the
    frame of the cult-created Multiple personality disorder
    (Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID, in the new diagnostic
    nomenclature) from which most ritual abuse victims suffer, the
    core personality in such a survivor usually knows nothing of her
    cult involvement or of her cult "job". In other words, her core
    personality does not wonder why her work as a prostitute never
    earns her any money, because she has no idea that she (or, more
    accurately, one of her alters) is prostituting. The alter who
    works as a prostitute does so because she has been programmed to
    function in this manner, usually from early childhood, with
    extreme torture, and knows no other way of life. (See Neswald,
    1991 and Gould & Cozolino, 1992 for a more complete description
    of how ritual abuse deliberately creates alters programmed to
    serve particular cult functions).
       Survivors of ritual abuse who I have treated, or on whose
    cases I have consulted, have also discovered that they have
    worked for the cult/perpetrator group as bookkeepers and money
    launderers, as drug dealers and couriers, as pornography
    subjects, as programmers/torturers of children, as computer
    programmers, as investment specialists, as legal advisers, and
    even as government agents, always outside the conscious awareness
    of their core personalities. Rarely has a case come to my
    attention in which the survivor was well paid for her
    contributions to the financial advancement of the
    cult/perpetrator group which she (unconsciously) served. Most
    often as the survivor accesses the memories that are buried under
    countless layers of torture trauma, she has to contend not only
    with the rude awakening that since birth she has lived a life of
    unspeakable pain and horror outside her conscious awareness, but
    also that she has been literally enslaved to a perpetrator group,
    since her activities have been dictated by others and enacted
    outside her own free will, with little or no financial
    remuneration. In fact, survivors who have generated sometimes
    millions of dollars for their perpetrator groups, often are
    virtually penniless when they come to therapy, and are treated
    for very low fees.
       When we understand the fact that ritual abuse is usually
    perpetrated by groups which are deeply involved in organized
    crime, the underlying incentives of these cult/perpetrator groups
    becomes clear. While ritual abuse is certainly an integral part
    of some kinds of satanism, it is  most likely that the deeper
    reason for the prevalence of ritual abuse is that, simply put, it
    reliably creates a group of people who function as unpaid slaves
    to the perpetrator group. Because their core personalities are
    amnestic to their cult activities, these ritual abuse victims
    pose little threat to their controllers. Without extensive
    therapeutic help, cult victims are usually unaware that they work
    for the cult/perpetrator group  and are therefore incapable of
    contemplating quitting their cult jobs. Neither can they turn
    higher-ups in to the authorities for their criminal activities,
    since they have little or no conscious access to information
    about what activities they or their superiors are involved in.
       Clearly, the groups who create these unpaid subjugates
    have considerable economic incentive to do so. How much money do
    these groups actually generate, and is it enough to impact the
    culture at the level of, say, media-created public opinion? This,
    of course, is the cloudy part of the economic argument for why
    ritual abuse is as widespread as it is, in families and in
    preschools, and why we as a society have been so slow to
    recognize and respond to the seriousness of this problem. It is
    by definition difficult to know who belongs to groups whose
    membership is highly secretive, especially when many of the
    membership themselves are amnestic to their involvement.
    Therefore, it is difficult to assess the degree to which members
    of these groups influence media accounts of ritual abuse, derail
    ritual abuse investigations by law enforcement, are instrumental
    in getting children complaining of intrafamilial ritual abuse
    sent back to an abusing parent, or hire officials to make public
    statements on behalf of a national law enforcement bureau to the
    effect that no substantial evidence of ritual abuse exists.
       No doubt it will take serious, well-coordinated efforts
    on the part of local and national law enforcement to gather the
    data that will be needed to know how powerful and deeply
    entrenched these ritually abusing, criminally involved groups
    actually are. In the meantime, we as a nation must examine how
    deep our commitment to child protection really is. Mothers
    Against Sexual Abuse (MASA), headquartered in Los Angeles,
    continues to find, despite vigorous efforts at change, that
    judges across the country are more likely to award custody to
    fathers than to mothers, even when the child has complained of
    abuse by the father and those complaints have been substantiated
    by psychological or medical findings. I am personally aware of
    dozens of cases across the United States in which a child has
    disclosed severe maltreatment in the form of ritual abuse in a
    preschool, and the case has never been properly investigated,
    other parents with children in attendance at the school have
    never been notified, the school has not been closed down, and no
    charges have been filed. Organizations like Believe The Children
    of Chicago are aware of cases like these numbering well into the
    hundreds.
       In both intrafamilial and extrafamilial child abuse cases
    like those described above, the more extreme and ritualized the
    abuse, the less likely the child is to be granted protection and
    the perpetrators are to be apprehended. Clearly this has to do
    exclusively with cultural bias, not what is in the best interests
    of the child, since, as the research makes amply clear, the
    negative impact of ritual abuse on the child is extremely grave.
       In my opinion, we in the United States deny the reality
    and seriousness of ritual abuse, especially as it impacts on
    children, in part because it threatens our images of ourselves as
    Americans. The thinking of the skeptic often goes something like
    this. Hideous crimes involving torture and mine control "don't
    happen here." They happen in third world countries, which do
    not have the freedoms "guaranteed" by our democratic form of
    government. There would be no purpose served by having a fascist
    type of group torture United States Citizens, as this kind of
    terrorization is designed to overthrow an existing government,
    and ours by its very design cannot be overthrown. And certainly
    there would be no purpose served in torturing children. Since
    they don't vote and don't form coalitions of any kind, extremist
    groups would have no interest in coercing them into
    socio-political compliance.
       What this argument misses is the fact that, when mind
    control is put into place with very young children, through the
    torturous programming that is the essence of ritual abuse, then
    reinforced and further developed as the child victims get older,
    by the time those children reach adolescence and adulthood they
    have become valuable resources for the perpetrator group to
    exploit. That exploitation may or may not be political, but it
    is certainly economic. To fully grasp this at a cultural level
    requires the general public to come to grips with a level of
    understanding of human nature still barely comprehended within
    the mental health community; that is, that the normative
    response to severe trauma, especially in early childhood, is
    dissociation and amnesia for the traumatic events, and that this
    response can be manipulated by sociopaths and programmed cult
    members to create individuals amnestic to both their traumatic
    histories and their behaviors in the world of abuse and
    criminality into which their alter personalities have been
    indoctrinated.
       Until law enforcement personnel, public policy makers,
    the judiciary, the child protection system and others who are
    involved with the protection of children and the betterment of
    society come to understand this new paradigm, ritual abuse is
    likely to continue to be minimized in both its scope, its
    impact, and the insidious way it has of multiplying when left
    unchecked. The paradigm shift which will need to take place in
    order to provide truly effective treatment for ritual abuse
    victims, and in order to successfully curb this extreme form of
    brutality in our culture is certain to be a difficult one to
    achieve. (See Gould & Graham-Costain (1994a; 1994b) for an
    account of treatment guidelines for ritually abused children). It
    calls into question not only the belief most Americans have that
    systematic brutality on a large scale does not and cannot exist
    in this country, but also our belief that we operate from our
    free will, and that that freedom of thought and action is
    inviolable.
       To become fully aware of just how vulnerable to utter
    violation and manipulation that free will really is when
    sociopaths and programmed cult victim members are allowed access
    to children demands that we put far greater efforts into
    safeguarding our children's welfare than we ever dreamed would be
    necessary. The price tag emotionally and financially for putting
    that awareness into practice will be very high indeed. But the
    price of ignoring or minimizing the impact of ritual abuse on our
    children and on our society will surely prove intolerable.

    References

    Bottoms, B., Shaver, P., & Goodman, G. (1991). Profile of
    ritualistic and religion-related abuse allegations in the United
    States. Paper presented at the ninety-ninth annual convention of
    the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, August.

    Bottoms, B., Shaver, P., & Goodman, G. (1993). Profile of
    ritualistic and religion-related abuse allegations in the United
    States. Updated findings provide via personal communication from
    B. Bottoms. Cited in  K.C. Faller (1994). Ritual Abuse: A Review
    of the Research. The American Professional Society on the Abuse
    of Children Advisor. 7(1).

    Bybee, D. & Mowbray, C. (1993). An analysis of allegations of
    sexual abuse in a multi-victim day-care center case. Child Abuse
    and Neglect. 17(6): 767-783.

    Faller, K.C. (1988). The spectrum of sexual abuse in day care.
    Journal of Family Violence. 3(4): 283-298.

    Faller, K.C. (1990). Sexual abuse of children in cults: A medical
    health perspective. Roundtable. 2(2).

    Faller, K.C. (1994). Ritual Abuse: A Review of the Research. The
    American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children Advisor.
    7(1).

    Finkelhor, D., Williams, L., & Burns, N. (1988). Nursery
    Crimes: Sexual abuse in day care. Newbury Park, CA.: Sage
    Publications.

    Gould, C., & Graham-Costain, V. (1994a). Play Therapy With
    Ritually Abused Children, Part 1. Treating Abuse Today. 4(2):
    4-10.

    Gould, C., & Graham-Costain, V. (1994b). Play Therapy With
    Ritually Abused Children, Part 2. Treating Abuse Today. 4(3):
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    Gould, C. (1992). Diagnosis and Treatment of Ritually Abused
    Children. In D.K. Sakheim & S.E. Devine, (Eds.), Out of
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    Books. 207-248.

    Gould, C., & Cozolino, L. (1992). Ritual Abuse, Multiplicity,
    and Mind-Control. Journal of Psychology and Theology. 20(3):
    194-196

    Jonker, F., & Jonker-Bakker, P. (1991). Experiences with
    ritualistic child sexual abuse: A case study from the
    Netherlands. Child Abuse and Neglect. 15: 191-196.

    Kelly, S. (1988). Ritualistic abuse of children: Dynamics and
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    Kelly, S. (1989). Stress responses of children to sexual abuse
    and ritualistic abuse in day care centers. Journal of
    Interpersonal Violence. 4(4): 502-513.

    Kelly, S. (1992a). Ritualistic abuse: Recognition, impact, and
    current controversy. Paper presented at the San Diego Conference
    on Responding to Child Maltreatment, San Diego, CA.

    Kelly, S. (1992b). Stress responses of children and parents to
    sexual abuse and ritualistic abuse in day care centers. In A.W.
    Burgess, (Ed.), Child trauma I: Issues and research. New York:
    Garland Publishing Co., Inc.

    Kelly, S. (1993). Ritualistic abuse of children in day care
    centers. In M. Langone (Ed.), Recovery from cults. New York:
    Norton. 340-351.

    Lanning, K. (1991) Ritual Abuse: A law enforcement view or
    perspective. Child Abuse and Neglect. 15: 171-173.

    Neswald, D., Gould, C., & Graham-Costain, V. (1991). Common
    "Programs" Observed in Survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse. The
    California Therapist. September/October: 47-50.

    Snow, B. & Sorenson, T. (1990) Ritualistic child abuse in a
    neighborhood setting. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 5(4):
    474-487.

    Summit, R.C. (1994). The Dark Tunnels of McMartin. The Journal of
    Psychohistory. 21(4): 397-416.

    Tamarkin,  C. (1991). Critical Issues in the Diagnosis and
    Treatment of Ritual Abuse. Workshop presented at the Eighth
    International Conference on Multiple Personality / Dissociative
    States. Chicago,  IL.

    Waterman, J., Kelly, R., Oliveri, M.K., & McCord, J. (1993).
    Behind the playground walls: Sexual abuse in preschools. New
    York: The Guliford Press.

    Young, W. Sachs, R., Braun, B., & Watkins, R. (1991).
    Patients reporting ritual abuse in childhood: A clinical
    syndrome. Report of 37 cases. Child Abuse and Neglect. 15:
    181-189.

    Ruben, D. (1994). The Satanism Scare. Parenting. March: 87-91.

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