Oct. 11, 2013

“Holocaust deniers have managed to receive, in recent years, a respectful hearing on college campuses and elsewhere, despite the existence of mountains of firsthand and corroborated traumatic memories of the Holocaust provided by many thousands of survivors – memories that don’t have to be recovered because they are all too vividly, and all too persistently, remembered.

“Holocaust deniers began to achieve their victory over memory even before efforts were made to establish the new category of ‘recovered memory.’ If recovered memory remains unchallenged as a new form of memory, then one can only guess how much more vulnerable to doubt and manipulation legitimate memory will become.”

– From “The Monster In the Mists” by Walter Reich in the New York Times (May 15, 1994)

recoveredmemorytherapy.blogspot.com

Jean La Fontaine

Dec. 8, 2015

“It is over 20 years since the rash of allegation that rituals of devil worship, including the sexual abuse of children, the sacrifice, and (sometimes) eating, of animals, children and even babies as well as other extreme acts of depravity were being conducted across the U.K. In 1994 I reported to the Department of Health that in the 84 cases in England and Wales that were the basis of my research, I could find no supporting evidence for the existence of such a satanic cult.

“The allegations have not stopped however, although they no longer get the publicity they used to have as, officially, satanic or ritual abuse no longer exists. It is not mentioned in guidance to social workers on the subject of abuse of children. However, a particularly unpleasant case that occurred in Hampstead in 2014 has recently been widely reported in the press….

“The persistence of these allegations into the 21st century repeats the questions that I thought I had answered at the end of the 20th! This is, first: how is it that ‘victims’ can tell stories of gruesome experiences that they never had? Secondly: how is it that adults, many of them sensible, educated people, believe these stories?….”

– From “Jean La Fontaine on Satanic Ritual Abuse Panic” at the British False Memory Society (Nov. 19)

Oct. 24, 2012

“Indeed, at a time when the (Los Angeles County) Board of Supervisors has been meeting just five floors below the (Ritual Abuse) task force to dismantle county health care programs, lay off part-time employees and cut all other services because of a severe budget shortfall, some are questioning whether the group – and particularly its obsession with poisoning – is not just a little frivolous.

“One county employee suggested that the task force has not been disbanded because it is ‘one of the few that actually make money.’ Since 1989, the task force – made up of therapists, alleged victims and religious leaders – has sold a handbook that outlines the telltale signs of ritual abuse. More than 17,000 copies of the handbook have been sold at $1 apiece, more than enough to offset the costs of the task force.”

– From the Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1992

Early on, the task force handbook –“Ritual Abuse: Definitions, Glossary and the Use of Mind Control” – played a significant role in inflaming fear of ritual abuse.

By 1992, however, the last charges in the McMartin case had been dropped, and skepticism about ritual abuse was finding its voice. (But not among Little Rascals prosecutors – Bob Kelly had just been convicted and Dawn Wilson was being tried.)

Today the Los Angeles County Commission for Women website makes no mention of its onetime task force.

Dec. 12, 2011

“(In 1989) when the Breezy Point Day School in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, was subjected to an elaborate skein of charges of satanic and ritualistic sex abuse (District Attorney Alan) Rubenstein mounted an immediate, aggressive investigation of the evidence supporting each allegation.

“He took up the rug at the school where rabbits were alleged to have been ritually sacrificed and sent it to (an independent toxicology) lab for analysis; no rabbit blood was found.

“He sifted the school sandbox for evidence of allegedly sacrificed and mutilated animals; no traces were found.

“He had the children alleged to have been raped and beaten interviewed apart from their frenzied parents and without the assistance of the ubiquitous (Roland) Summit-trained ‘sex therapists;’ none were found to have been abused.

“One of the child ‘victims,’ whose videotaped ‘disclosure’ was key to the original allegations, actually objected to being transferred to another school, claiming she ‘liked Breezy Point.’

“Rubenstein firmly resisted hysterical parents and the public clamor for arrests. As a result of his courage and integrity, and his thorough, timely and scientific investigations, all charges of abuse at Breezy Point quickly evaporated.”

– From “Sexual Liberation: The Scandal of Christendom” by Raymond J. Lawrence (2007)

Striking, isn’t it, to see the prosecutor in a day-care abuse case say “Wait just a minute, let’s check this out” rather than falling all over himself to round up a coffle of suspects.

Later this week I’ll be checking in with Doug Wiik, owner of Breezy Point and a key member of the Committee for Support of the Edenton Seven, and with former District Attorney Rubenstein.