Aug. 20, 2012<\/p>\n
Endlessly fascinating \u2013 and baffling \u2013 is how some experts fell headlong for \u201csatanic ritual abuse,\u201d while others managed to keep their wits. This is from an April 25, 1989, Associated Press story:<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid G. Bromley, a sociologist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., sees not an increase in satanic crime, but a \u2018cult scare\u2019 that has more to do with urban legends and modern psychology than with criminology.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018I think it\u2019s all a hoax,\u2019 says Bromley, who investigated allegations of cult \u2018brainwashing\u2019 in the 1970s that were never proven.<\/p>\n
\u201cBromley says rumors about rings of adults who start day care centers to find children to abuse in satanic rituals are \u2018sheer fantasy\u2019 \u2013 but fantasy fed by reports of real child abuse and by today\u2019s parents\u2019 guilt and fears of entrusting their children to strangers.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018It is not coincidental that allegations of satanic conspiracies are centered on day care centers,\u2019 he says.\u201d<\/p>\n
April 25, 1989! Bob Kelly was attending his probable cause hearing. The first McMartin trial was still ongoing. Stephen Ceci and Maggie Bruck were six years from publishing their landmark \u201cJeopardy in the Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Children\u2019s Testimony.\u201d So how was David Bromley able to see through the fog?<\/p>\n
\u201cThis kind of \u2018subversion episode\u2019 is not new,\u201d he told me recently. \u201cThere has been one every few decades in American history. The focus has changed but not the phenomenon. Indian captivity tales, Salem witch trials, drug scares, communist scares, immigrant scares, UFO scares.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has always been some group or coalition that has found social insecurities a way of advancing its own status. In this case police and therapists made careers out of the episode.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe story was only plausible for a limited period, and these kinds of events tend to implode eventually. But there are a lot of casualties in the meantime.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will happen again, I am sorry to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
And when it does\u2026?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aug. 20, 2012 Endlessly fascinating \u2013 and baffling \u2013 is how some experts fell headlong for \u201csatanic ritual abuse,\u201d while others managed to keep their wits. This is from an April 25, 1989, Associated Press story: \u201cDavid G. Bromley, a sociologist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., sees not an increase in satanic crime, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}