Satanic Ritual Hoax-part 2

GERALDO RIVERA'S INFLUENCE ON THE SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE AND RECOVERED MEMORY HOAXES

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Many talk show hosts, including Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, Oprah Winfrey, and Sally Jesse Raphael have featured episodes which dealt with allegations of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) and discussions of memories formed during Recovered Memory Therapy. Of these, Geraldo is unique, because: his programs probably had the greatest influence over public opinion, and he was courageous enough to issue a retraction and an apology for the damage that his programs had done to innocent people.

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"Satanic Cults and Children.", 1987-NOV-19 Prior to 1985, Geraldo Rivera worked for ABC News. Subsequently, he hosted a number of national TV special programs which, as one reporter wrote, (1) explored "the twilight zones of American society." One such special discussed the alleged ritual abuse of children by Satanic cults. He stated: "Estimates are that there are over 1 million Satanists in this country...The majority of them are linked in a highly organized, very secretive network. From small towns to large cities, they have attracted police and FBI attention to their Satanic ritual child abuse, child pornography and grisly Satanic murders. The odds are that this is happening in your town."

A more accurate estimate of Satanic activity in the US is probably:

10,000 adult members of religious Satanic churches, temples and grottos 10,000 adult solitary practitioners of Satanism probably in excess of 100,000 transitory teenage dabblers in Satanism There is no evidence that any adult Satanist has committed a criminal act related to his religious belief. However, teenagers dabblers have been shown to engage in minor crimes. These include defacing buildings and tombstones with graffiti. Rarely, they have been known to kill small animals. His mention of FBI involvement probably referred to the work of Kenneth V. Lanning, a Supervisory Special Agent in the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI Academy in Virginia. He had combated the sexual victimization of children since 1981. Initially, he believed that Satanic ritual abuse was really happening. But he reported in 1992: "...the number of alleged cases began to grow and grow. We now have hundreds of victims alleging that thousands of offenders are abusing and even murdering tens of thousands of people as part of organized satanic cults, and there is little or no corroborative evidence."

Shortly after the Geraldo special, a rumor began to spread through Jamestown NY. It was typical of the type of "Satanic Panic" described in a book by the same name. (2) It might have been triggered by the TV program, or its timing might have been an unusual coincidence. People started to believe that some teenagers had held a Satanic "Black Mass" in an abandoned warehouse on Halloween. The humane society started receiving calls about dogs and cats that had been ritually killed. A Fundamentalist Christian minister wrote letters to the newspaper about the sudden increase in Satanic activity in the area. Some of the teens that were believed to be involved received threatening phone calls. Groups of young thugs started to roam around town, searching for people that they believed to be Satanists, in order to beat them up.

In reality, there was no Satanic activity. Some teens wearing dark clothes and offbeat haircuts had simply held a harmless Halloween party. No dead pets were ever found.

The stories escalated several months later. The police began receiving dozens of calls warning about the upcoming Friday the 13th (1998-MAY-13). They predicted that a Satanic cult would kidnapped a young blue-eyed, blond, virgin woman and ritually sacrifice her. The day came, and passed uneventfully.

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"Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground", 1988-OCT-25 Geraldo hosted a special during prime time on 25-OCT, just before Halloween in 1988. (3) The phrase Satan's Underground presumably refers to the book of the same name by Lauren Stratford. Cornerstone Magazine, an Evangelical Christian periodical, exposed the book as a hoax in their Dec/Jan 1989/90 issue. We believe that there were a number of authors of anti-Satanic books on the show: Mike Warnke, Michelle and/or Dr. Lawrence Pazder, and Lauren Stratford. All have been exposed as frauds by various Christian, Neopagan and secular groups. Geraldo's program lasted through two hours of prime time, and reached an enormous TV audience. He discussed Satanism, which was described as "this force that exalts evil and darkness." The episode included discussions of: butchered infants, breeding of babies for later sacrifice during Satanic rituals, ritual sexual abuse of children, mutilation of infants, drinking of blood, dismembered corpses, cannibal cults and sex orgies. There were "gruesome rituals," and "gruesome memories," and "gruesome allegations," and "brutally violent, horrible crimes," and acts "so incredibly outrageous, so incredibly unbelievable," that he was reluctant to describe them. "The most gruesome scenes are left out," Rivera commented.

Throughout the show, Rivera kept telling his viewers that the program was not suitable for young children to watch. He said near the start: "The very young and impressionable should definitely not be watching this program tonight...This is not a Halloween fable." At various times, he said: Get them away from the TV during the next report." or "I am begging you...Please get them out of the room, or change the station!" Unfortunately, such disclaimers often serve to increase the number of child viewers. And the timing of the show during prime time just before Halloween has moved some skeptics to wonder about Geraldo's sincerity.

He showed a film clip of Charles Manson of "The Family" fame, who he introduced as "today's top Satanic celebrity...That man is so repugnant...All these Satanic murderers are." Nobody questioned whether these alleged crimes actually happened. There was no discussion of the total lack of evidence of secret, criminal, abusive Satanic cults. Nobody talked about the reality of Satanism: that no criminal act motivated by Satan worship has ever been shown to have happened, with the exception of minor crimes by teenage dabblers.

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