Satanic Ritual Abuse Is A Lie! Urban Legand Gone Wild

The Satanic cult legend One of the most tenacious hoax involves imaginary evil religious groups who engage in the ritual murder of children. This story describes an evil religious cult which is engaging in degenerate sexual orgies, kidnapping babies, conducting human sacrifices, drinking blood and eating the flesh of their victims. It has many points of similarities to Urban Folk Tales: many people believe it to be true, even though it is not. This tale differs somewhat from most urban folk tales, because: it has lasted for almost two millennia; the group blamed for the abuse changed continually through the centuries (from Christians in the late first century CE to Satanists today); it surfaces from time to time, typically in rural areas, and can trigger a Satanic panic - a mass hysteria in which a many adults fear that their children are in imminent danger.



History of the legend This belief is directly traceable back to the first few centuries CE when the early Christians were in conflict with the Roman authorities. The government created false rumors in order to facilitate persecution of the Church: They twisted elements of the Eucharist and said that the wine and wafer were really the blood and flesh of ritually killed babies. They noted that Christians often picked up newborns who had been abandoned to die of exposure. The Christians then placed the babies in loving families to be raised. The rumor implied that they were really collecting babies for human sacrifice.. They implied that the Agape (Love) Feasts were not group meals, but were really excuses to engage in sexual orgies, incest, sexual abuse of children etc. [There appears to be archeological evidence that Gnostic Christians did engage in ritual sex; they regarded semen as a sacred fluid and consecrated their status with it. But their rituals did not involve child abuse.]

Minicus Felix, a first century Roman writer wrote about the Christian groups:

"As for the initiation of new members, the details are as disgusting as they are well known. The novice himself, deceived by the coating of dough (covering a sacrificial infant), thinks the stabs are harmless. Then, it's horrible! They hungrily drink the blood and compete with one another as they divide his limbs. And the fact they all share knowledge of the crime pledges them all to silence. On the feast-day they foregather with all their children, sisters, mothers, people of either sex and all ages. Now, in the dark, so favorable to shameless behavior, they twine the bonds of unnamable passion, as chance decides. Precisely the secrecy of this evil religion proves that all these things, or practically all, are true."

The legend remained inactive for many centuries only to surface again shortly after the end of the first millennium. Many people had expected the end of the world would occur in 1000 CE and that Jesus would return in triumph. They were bitterly disillusioned when life continued as normal. Their anger was directed against the church, which retaliated by dusting off the Roman rumor. This time, it was directed against heretics and other dissenters, who were burned at the stake.

Between 1022 and 1792, the same lie was repeatedly applied against lepers, Jews, heretics, Cathars, Knights Templar, and Witches. The persecution of the Witches was particularly awful. It was directed at followers of the Old Religion, the Wiccan religion of the ancient Celts. The killings lasted over three hundred years and resulted in the torture and execution of hundreds of thousands of innocent people; most were women; most died by burning at the stake (in Roman Catholic lands) or by hanging (in Protestant countries). There were suggestions of the same rumor during the French Revolution, when the aristocracy was accused of kidnapping, killing and drinking the blood of poor children.

The legend remained relatively inactive during the 19th century, only to re-emerge in the 1930's when it was used by Nazi Germany against the Jews and Gypsies. The story remained unaltered; only the victimized group was changed. The lie was subsequently used by the USSR against the Jews.

It emerged in 1980 in North America with the publishing of the book Michelle Remembers, the first of the fraudulent Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) survivor stories. (This book was later investigated by three separate groups and found to be a hoax.) In 1994 the rumor was directed by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church against Evangelical Christian missionaries who were accused of eating babies for breakfast.



Future of the legend The long-running belief in SRA is believed to be more related to our fascination with evil, demonic activity rather than to any reality. Numerous government studies have concluded that no Satanic conspiracy exists. Hard evidence has never been found. However, belief in the legend continues. It is supported by: a widespread and increasing belief in the existence of the devil. In America, in has increased from 37% in 1964 to 60% in 1990. This is the highest percentage of any industrialized country other than Ireland. recurrent discussion of SRA on TV talk shows plenty of soft evidence, the memories of SRA survivors recovered during therapy (one author conservatively estimates 1 million Americans per year enter therapy and recover memories of childhood sexual abuse; this implies about 200,000 per year recover memories of SRA) horror movies which often have a Satanic theme projection of parents' guilt onto a scapegoated group promotion of SRA during seminars and in books by "survivors" and conservative Christians the need to have a new enemy to fear, after the fall of Communism general public anxiety over the anticipated end of the world circa 2000 CE

DEBATE: How did the satanic-panic get so far out of control?

AND

If there is a Satan, how come no one has seen him?

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