study of traumatic stress has an interesting
history, characterized by what Herman (1992, p.
7) refers to as "episodic amnesia."
Periods of active investigation, scholarly research,
and sensitive intervention have alternated historically
with much longer periods of detraction, disregard,
With each reclamation,
however, the study of traumatic stress becomes
broader in scope. The narrow view of trauma as
"an individual-centered event bound to soma
or psyche" (Summerfield, 1995, p.18), is
being replaced by a broader view that sees trauma,
its experience, meaning, resolution, and remembrance
as continuously shaped by the sociocultural context
in which it occurs. This perspective encourages
an interdisciplinary approach, and invites sociologists
to participate in the community of scholars studying
In its most general
sense, sociology as a discipline focuses on the
structures, relations, systems, and processes
governing social phenomena and guiding social
change. The discipline's interest in collective
behavior has afforded it some insights into one
type of trauma and traumatic stress that, despite
over a decade of attention and activity, has remained
very controversial: satanic ritual abuse of children.
The term "satanic
ritual abuse" was coined fifteen years ago
to describe what is believed to be the widespread
sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of young
children in satanic cult ceremonies. The term
gave a name to disturbing reports that were cropping
up across the country. Children, as well as adults
who were recovering memories of childhood in therapy,
were alleging that they had been abused during
the course of rituals that also included such
horrific practices as torture, brainwashing, cannibalism,
and human sacrifices, conducted by satanic cultists
who were family members, day care providers, friends
and neighbors, and even prominent members of the
It is estimated
that 185 people were criminally charged in cases
alleging satanic ritual abuse between 1983 and
1995 in this country; 113 of them were convicted,
and over fifty of those people remain in
prison today (Nathan & Snedeker, 1995).
Similar cases were discovered in Canada, England,
Scotland, Holland, and New Zealand, generating
as much controversy as those in this country.
The failure of law enforcement agencies and government
task forces in this country and abroad to find
any convincing corroborating evidence supporting
these bizarre allegations has only served to heighten
the controversy (LaFontane, 1994; Lanning, 1992;
Rapport van werkgroep, 1994).
And so does the
long-awaited empirical study by Goodman, Qin,
Bottoms and Shaver (1994), funded by the National
Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. The researchers
surveyed 6,910 clinical psychologists, social
workers, and psychiatrists, and 4,655 agencies,
including departments of social services, county
district attorneys offices, and municipal law
enforcement agencies. Respondents reported 12,264
cases of suspected or alleged satanic ritual abuse
involving children and adults. Although the vast
majority of respondents believed that each case
they reported to the researchers was a "real"
case of satanic ritual abuse, they could offer
very little, if any, evidence corroborating their
belief. What evidence they could offer, such as
visible scars on the bodies of their clients,
could be accounted for with reasonable alternative
explanations, such as self-injury. The researchers
also found that there is little agreement between
the allegations made by children and the recovered
memories of adults; the former tended to talk
about such archetypically frightening acts such
as being confined in the dark with spiders and
snakes, while the latter disclosed the kinds of
horrific acts, like cannibalism, blood-drinking,
and human sacrifice, which have come to typify
the notion of satanic ritual abuse.
In the face of
these findings, the researchers raised serious
and disturbing questions about the nature and
process of recovering traumatic memories, and
about the suggestibility of children to repeated
and leading questioning by adults seeking confirmation
of their beliefs and fears. They also concluded
that a richer understanding of the persistence
of the belief in the reality of satanic ritual
abuse in the absence of corroborating evidence
will be found in a sociological analysis of this
The purpose of
this paper is to describe "three faces of
the Devil," that is, three interpretations
of satanic ritual abuse as a social, rather than
as a clinical, phenomenon, each grounded in the
discipline of sociology. The intention of this
necessarily brief discussion is to show how the
discipline of sociology can contribute to an understanding
of the interplay between trauma, its social meaning,
and its sociocultural context. While the paper
makes no pretenses about resolving the controversy
of satanic ritual abuse, it does seek to enter
these sociological views into the arena of professional
Ritual Abuse as Subversion Ideology
A subversion ideology
is a culturally constructed myth that gives shape
and form to feelings of anxiety and uncertainty
about the future that tend to be experienced during
periods of rapid and unpredictable social change.
The subversion ideology may be transmitted informally
by word of mouth, but has more plausibility if
transmitted formally through the mass media, networks
of professionals, and individuals identified as
experts (Bromley, 1991).
A subversion ideology
posits the existence of a conspiratorial group,
organization, race, religion or cult that preys
on the innocent, especially young children. Subversives
are depicted as quintessentially evil. Separated
from mainstream society by their bizarre beliefs
and practices which are inversions of the sacred,
they nonetheless also play legitimate roles that
are well integrated into society. That allows
them to corrupt, influence, manipulate and endanger
the unsuspecting. In the history of this country
subversion ideologies variously have targeted
witches, Indians, Jews, Catholics, Mormons, Communists,
and religious cultists. Now, according to this
sociological view, it is targeting satanists.
But why satanists?
The content and narrative of any subversion ideology
is shaped by the confluence of social, cultural,
political, religious, professional and ideological
forces that is unique to that particular moment
in history. Therefore any understanding of why
this contemporary subversion ideology targets
satanists requires a thorough analysis of those
forces. That task is only just now being undertaken
by sociologists. Victor (1994), for example, analyzes
the roles that religious fundamentalism and the
anti-cult movement play in shaping this subversion
narrative; Richardson (in press) examines, among
other things, the impact of feminism and the burgeoning
child protection movement; Mulhern (1994) looks
at changes within the profession of psychotherapy
and the influence of the diagnoses of posttraumatic
stress disorder and multiple personality disorder
on therapists' beliefs about the experience and
meaning of trauma; and deYoung (1996) considers
the role that apocalyptic thinking at the end
of the millennium has on the content and narrative
of this subversion ideology.
view, then, suggests that a satanic subversion
ideology gives shape to contemporary anxieties
and fears that arise from rapid social change.
It functions, as all other subversion ideologies
have historically, to create a metaphor for this
diffuse cultural anxiety by naming the problem,
giving it a human cause, and locating it outside
of mainstream society. In doing so, this subversion
ideology might very well have a curiously stabilizing
effect on the culture: by drawing attention to
evil subversives, it allows the culture a temporary
respite from recognizing and dealing with the
more widespread, albeit prosaic, forms of child
maltreatment that are so deeply embedded in the
routinized and culturally sanctioned patterns
of interaction between males and females, and
parents and children.
Ritual Abuse as Rumor Panic
A rumor panic,
sometimes also referred to as a moral panic, is
a "collective stress reaction in response
to a belief in stories about immediately threatening
circumstances" (Victor, 1993, p. 59). It
tends to be triggered by unusual, disturbing rumors
about which factual information is lacking, incomplete,
or disputed. In trying to find an explanation
for these stories people exchange ideas, try out
assumptions, and speculate freely within the parameters
of their own world view. The rumors they collectively
share may or may not be true, in the objectivist
sense of that term. They will be believed to be
at least plausible, however, if they are consonant
with belief systems, resonate well with prevailing
cultural themes, or simply are repeated often
enough by those with credibility and authority.
to be plausible, some people will act as if the
rumor is true. That action is the defining characteristic
of a rumor panic. A wide range of fear-provoked
behaviors from fight-flight responses, to the
agitated and uncritical seeking and sharing of
more information characterizes a rumor panic.
analysis of a rumor panic about cult-related ritual
abuse of children in the small community of Oude
Pekela, Netherlands illustrates this process.
The cycle of that rumor panic began with people's
growing sensitivity to the idea that cults pose
a risk to social order and cherished values. The
danger they represent was then typified through
widely circulated atrocity stories that were presented
as typical of the cults' practices. Those stories
produced such incredulity, outrage and fear that
people began uncritically seeking and sharing
information, ideas, speculations and assumptions
in order to better explain what was happening.
A dramatic moral imbalance was created through
role amplification--the deviants became more evil,
the victims more innocent, the heroes more virtuous--in
the telling and retelling of these rumors. Deviants
so corrupt, so quintessentially evil, then were
imagined as being capable of all kinds of associated
evils. In the case of Oude Pekela, rumors of ritual
child abuse soon ballooned into rumors about child
pornography, drug abuse, and sacrificial murder.
Incredulity then was replaced with certainty,
outrage with imposition, and fear with resolve.
A call to public action was sounded and all kinds
of social control activities occurred in response.
That rumor panic finally reached resolution. It
dissipated for lack of sustaining hard evidence,
but resolution also may be reached when a rumor
panic evolves into a different rumor, moves geographically
to another community, or continues in some variant
suggests that the concern about satanic ritual
abuse may constitute a rumor panic. The rumor
originated in the collectively shared anxieties
and ambiguities about the protection of children,
and was shaped through the process of collective
sharing among professionals, the public, and between
professionals and identified survivors. The rumor's
persistence over the last fifteen years is not
because it is supported by incontrovertible and
objective evidence, but because it is consistent
with the belief system of many professionals,
resonates with prevailing cultural themes, and
has been repeated so often that it has taken on
the blush of truth.
Ritual Abuse as Contemporary Legend
Like both a subversion
ideology and a rumor panic, a contemporary or
urban legend, as it often is referred to, tends
to arise during periods of social strain when
traditional and sacred values and customs are
in such jeopardy that the future seems uncertain.
Functioning as a collective metaphor, a contemporary
legend is a tale that expresses a group's or a
society's anxiety about the future.
often are the theme of contemporary legends. The
threat posed to unsuspecting young trick-or-treaters
from Halloween sadists who fill their bags with
poisoned candy or apples with razor blades (Best
& Horiuchi, 1985), and from diabolical white
slavers lying in wait in shopping mall restrooms
(Odean, 1985), are familiar and oft-told tales.
Children represent the future, therefore in a
contemporary legend they become a metaphor for
the future. Thus, people's anxiety about the future,
which often is diffuse and nebulous, can be expressed
with more certainty and parsimony as a concern
about the safety of children. The narrative structure
of the contemporary legend provides in deviant
individuals and groups a clear, discernible target
for that concern, and the clarity of the target
suggests manageable strategies for intervention
(Best, 1990). The contemporary legend, then, encapsulates
anxieties about the future, externalizes the threat,
and suggests methods of response, thereby restoring
for groups or societies what often is an illusory
sense of order and control in troubled and troubling
come and go, but it is precisely that they do
that they are often so believable. When a contemporary
legend disappears from one community only to reappear
in another, the experience of the first community
validates that of the other; when it arises one
year and then again a decade later, the previous
experience with it validates the current experience.
And when a contemporary legend becomes institutionalized,
that is, when it becomes part of popular culture
and professional discourse, it can become not
just plausible, but compellingly and seductively
experience with similar contemporary legends about
endangered children creates a perceptual readiness
to accept satanic ritual abuse of children as
plausible. Popular culture representations of
this social problem make it believable; professional
discourse about it makes it real. And action taken
about and against it makes the contemporary legend
of satanic ritual abuse of children true, if only
in its consequences.
The purpose of
this brief paper was to describe and analyze "three
faces of the Devil," that is, three interpretations,
grounded in the discipline of sociology, of satanic
ritual abuse as a social, as opposed to a clinical,
phenomenon. While it does not resolve the controversy
over what is true and who, and what, should be
believed, the paper does attempt to explain the
sociocultural context in which the allegations
arose, were given meaning and credence, were sustained
in the absence of evidence, and were acted upon.
not require the kind of controversy and mystery
posed by the notion of satanic ritual abuse to
make a contribution to the study of traumatic
stress. Every trauma is experienced, understood,
resolved, and remembered within a larger sociocultural
context. An appreciation of that interplay between
culture, trauma, and memory may be the most significant
contribution sociologists can make to the study
of traumatic stress.
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