Pandora's Box of SRA
Satanic ritual abuse is often hard to prove, but it may not matter
Agnieszka Tennant | posted 9/03/2001 12:00AM
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Certainty Among the Doubts
But even when verifiably false, the dire narratives can serve as metaphors that help people express the "intense internal conflict within their hearts, minds, and souls that makes it difficult for them to fit into their social world," says Kelley, who worked with cases of ritual abuse in the early 1990s.
One thing is for sure: self-described ritual abuse survivors are crying out for help.
"If someone is telling me something this horrible, something's going on with them," Mungadze says. "So I suspend this whole idea of saying I don't believe this. I just see someone in pain."
Crabb spoke of a woman who told him she was required to cut off penises of five newborn boys as part of a religious ritual when she was a child. "The issue is not so much what happened to her, as unbelievably monstrous as it was, but how she will choose to handle this trauma—in a way that doesn't require God or in a way that requires him."
The ray of hope in all this, Crabb says, is that "the love of Jesus that has touched the souls of people with SRA has survived all the evil they've endured."
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Related Elsewhere
See today's related articles on deliverance:
Possessed or Obsessed? | Many Christians say they are in need of deliverance but some may be giving demons more than their due.
Exorcism Therapy | An interview with Michael W. Cuneo, author of American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty
Alter Possession | Some "demons" are better left unexorcised.
Exorcism 101 | What we can learn from the way Jesus cast out demons?
Learning English From MTV | Inside Agnieszka Tennant's article on deliverance ministries.
The Apologetics Index and ReligiousTolerance.org have great resources on SRA.
Although out of print, Michelle Remembers is available used at Amazon.com.
The False Memory Syndrome Foundation site includes background on the foundation and a newsletter.
The False Memory Syndrome Facts site collects scientific analysis, media coverage, and lists various organizations.
A 1997 paper published by the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, Inc., examined the sociological views of satanic ritual abuse.
"Creating Repressed Memories: A Case Example" by Terrence W. Campbell is posted on the site of the Institute for Psychological Therapies. Another IPT article asks, "Why believe that for which there is no good evidence?"
Christian group Answers in Action has a collection of information on SRA that includes facts and a Journal of Psychology and Theology article on why Christians fall for lies.
Breaking Free is a SRA Survivor's group that says satanic ritual abuse "is very real indeed, although many people choose to believe that it is not."
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