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Sunday 5 June 2011

Satan's Little Helpers Part II

Crossing over to Toronto, and memories of Canada’s longest child welfare trial. 

In January of 2006 Known as “Sharon Wells” from Ritual Abuse, the 1988 book about the trial she was a mother in need of a kidney donation from her own daughters. The only problem was that her daughters had accused their mother, of horrific abuse and satanic murders almost 20 years previously. The three young sisters were taken away from their mother by a judge who ruled she had sexually abused them in what was known as the infamous Cannibalism Case. Claims of sexual orgies, graveside satanic murders, pornography and bestiality were recounted. The videos were often filmed at their home or at a Hamilton TV station’s studio. 7-year-old Janis and 5-year-old Linda gave graphic descriptions of “midnight graveyard scenes with dancing and singing, of people with masks, of opening of graves and coffins together with gross sexual activities suggests cult activities,” …the murder of children as well as adults, of dismemberment, of cutting flesh from bones. ‘They have a camera,’ the foster mother quoted Janis telling her. At the end of the 18 month welfare hearing Wells always protested her innocence despite her own history of trauma from an abusive father. Their stepfather was alleged to have been an equal partner in the crimes. The police never fully believed the children’s stories and no charges were ever laid. However, Judge Thomas Beckett “was convinced that the children's ‘rich detail’ was evidence enough of deep trauma.12

Although a 1993 survey by the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and Family Law determined that 26 percent of prosecutors nationwide have handled cases involving ritualistic or sexual abuse, the cases that are genuine and not confused with what we may call “standard” sexual abuse, these seldom obtain prosecutions due to the disbelief of authorities and the possibility that severely traumatized children will be able to withstand cross-examination. Despite victims’ accounts indicating ritualistic abuse the clear categorization and focus is missing in most cases. There are some court cases that are dismissed or convictions overturned due to the tiniest of technicalities allowing the perpetrators to freely abuse again. The trauma for children testifying is another reason that predators often rely on so that they ultimately escape justice. Cases that stretch to two or three retrials due to the defence purposely using loopholes and technicalities to nullify the prosecutor’s case are a common tactic. They know that the parent’s love of their already traumatized children will not put them through a third trial. 

One thing is certain, when enough cases of satanic abuse are proved to be hoaxes or from highly subjective distortion on the part of authorities and an unnecessary muddying of sexual abuse with satanic components and themes, this allows a further and very effective buffer in society that equates all satanic abuse with disbelief and delusion. There are no shortages of cases that show the stigma of these associative factors. 

Satanic ritual abuse lends itself to what has been called “satanic panic” and not without good reason. Disbelief and over reaction has been made to work once again for the Establishment, while maximum pain and suffering of the public provides that aforementioned buffer. The result? Authentic forms of Satanism go unchallenged. The hysteria induced by the religious right and Christian fellowships further complicate the matter. If one believes in Satan, in God and “therefore ritual abuse”, it creates a potent triangle of doubt for those of a more secular persuasion. 

The infamous trails in Nottingham, Rochdale and the Orkney Islands in the United Kingdom which were akin to the Salem Witch trails of old, saw just such a tangled mess of paranoia and justified suspicion. While intra-generational abuse may have been a reality in the Nottingham cases, it was sidelined when satanic ritual abuse was brought into the brew. In fact, during the 1980s and 90s there were scores of high profile cases which saw many innocent persons spend a number of years in jail who were completely innocent. Sex abuse has often been thrown out when the more “risky” accusations of SRA surface. 

Since that time, there have been many less cases of Satanic networks of the kinds that were alleged to have been operating further suggesting signs of panic, a subsection of the wider “discourse of disbelief” that partly gave rise to the “moral panic” so easily induced in Judeo-Christian societies. Suggestive interrogation techniques used on children have added to the confusion causing many a case to be devolve into farce. Even if abuse was present, without physical evidence cases often start placing exclusive importance on child testimony which is perceived as less than reliable to the extent that a large quota of cases are dismissed. Understanding of the issues surrounding ritual abuse and SRA is so poor that many caught up in the wake of paranoia and belief that inevitably descend in a knowledge vacuum.

In 1994, Canadian Darren Koehn was baby-sitting his 3 year-old son Jeremy who was poorly. He had taken a nap and had awoken to the cries of his son needing “the puke bucket.” He instinctively hopped over the coffee table to attend to his son and no doubt retrieve the receptacle. In his haste to do so, he landed on Jeremy who had been lying on the floor. Koehn checked his son to see if he was unhurt. He appeared to be fine, a conclusion of negligence that would cost him and Jeremy dear. In fact, he had internal injuries in his abdominal area. A couple of hours after the accident, Jeremy has a convulsion and aspirated on his own vomit. When the paramedics arrived, Koehn and his neighbour were desperately trying to revive him but to no avail. By the time Darren and his son were at hospital in the emergency room, suspicions were being voiced from the doctor and emergency crews about the minor scrapes and bruises on Jeremy which “fit the profile” of potential abuse. Koehn was arrested at the hospital and charged with negligence. The charges were to become much more serious based on a catalogue of flawed evidence, subjective and biased belief from police, the courts, the pathologist and Koehn’s vindictive in-laws. According to one report:
The hand-picked pathologist was told her extraordinary testimony was needed to convict in a ‘satanic ritualistic crime’.  Her examination was therefore prejudicially conducted and poorly reported, as her conclusions were 'pre-decided'.  Her report was full of errors and distortions, including completely miss-stating ‘left’ instead of ‘right,’ and the lab returning her samples as unreadable due to ‘foreign matter’ contaminating the microscope slides.  Darren’s ultimate conviction is based on the false evidence of this pathologist ~ evidence that was not discovered as false until after the trial.

Observing the New-Age spiritual items and décor, this fit another profile for a “Satanic Crime.” Koehn and his mother were Wiccans, (Wicca is a Neopagan religion found in many different countries and with a generally benign history). With potential abuse already foremost in the investigating police officers’ minds, they arrived to investigate Koehn and his mother whom they had been living with since a custody battle with in-laws. It would be these in-laws, devastated by the loss of their nephew that would accuse Koehn of Satanism, adding further fuel to an already hysterical mob clamouring for blood. With grossly distorted forensic evidence which was not presented in court, Darren Koehn remains in prison with little chance for an appeal lawyer.13

The FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) statistics list only 16,504 total homicides reported to law enforcement in 2003 while the FBI officially believes a satanic conspiracy to be untenable, as do many academic institutions and organisations. In one sense, they may be right. In another sense, the very mechanics of standard corporatism must exist, then it is surely obvious that this rule of secrecy supplants the rule of law and is thus most effective at higher levels of the Establishment. However, where systematic abuse within the higher echelons of society occurs it appears that such Satanic ritualistic imagery may be a mask for the true nature of the networks that do use freemasonic and/or occult practices concealing a far more deeply-rooted and sophisticated form of “Satanic” control, beyond the parlour games of robes and candles. 

According to SRA Researcher James Quan “The internal consistency present in current reports of SRA is astounding.” This was from his own independent investigations which included Pamela Hudson’s research into child ritual abuse cases in the 1980s and spanning some 35 years of experience working in mental health, both in-patient and out-patient. In Quan’s words: “In 1988, she conducted a telephone survey of one set of parents from each of 10 day care cases and the non-offending parent of two brothers from a coven case - for a total of 12 children representing 11 locations - on the East Coast, Texas, and up and down the West Coast. No parent knew beforehand that she would be calling, and therefore no one had an opportunity to compare responses before her call. She spoke only to the parents, not the children.”14
  
37 Adults from 5 separate wards in 4 separate hospitals across the country were surveyed over the course of two years of treatment. There were extensive correlations and similarities between child survivors from 11 locations and adult survivors from 4 hospitals across the country, both  within each study and between the two studies.15

 In fact, it may be something more complex which is allowed to hide behind the perverse actions within society and its hierarchical institutions. But the systematic and organised networks of sexual abuse using Satanism as a convenient method of “masking” may not be fantasy. The mythos of evil Satanists taking over the world may well serve as a tool to mask a more systemic and organised form of sanctioned abuse. Or as Quan suggested, perhaps the “…consistent symptoms do reflect a sadistic reality of a self-perpetuating addiction to power through sexualized evil, in which there is a confirmed code of secrecy.” Indeed, this theatre of the occult seems to keep the investigations limited to minor pieces on the chessboard and to create doubt in the minds of victims. If cases do get to court, victims’ witness statements are muddled and outrageous enough not to be taken seriously. The rise of Christian Fundamentalism also plays the satanic card and positively delights in a new report of such activities. What better why to sensationalise the other? As any good propagandist knows, the way to keep your particular activity pristine and operational is to create many divisions and opposing sides within the focus groups neither of whom will which have the whole picture. 

The creation and fostering of SRA in families and communities, is an excellent way for those deeply involved at a higher level to simply pull the ladder up and allow the law to prosecute only those on the lowest rungs. It can be likened to a honeycomb structure. If one outer cell is discovered it can merely re-emerge somewhere else within the overall hive depending on its usefulness and with the integrity of the structure maintained. If a community practice of generational abuse is discovered, then such a cell can be discarded, though it is much more likely that a resource can be utilised within a national framework and as such, protected.

Various strains of Existentialism and Kabbalistic cross-overs can all be blended into forms of Satanism. It might be said to have become a generic term for the ideological and religio-occult practice of extreme individualism where anything is allowed, anything goes. Can we not label capitalism, communism and other political or social practices which induce large-scale horror as “Satanic”? Dictionary definitions characterise Satan as: “extremely wicked; devil-like; diabolical” with “Satan” sourced from “Abrahamic origins… traditionally applied to an angel, demon, or minor god in many belief systems.” The manifestations of Satanism can be seen clearly enough, it matters little what labels are used. Satanism is awash in the institutions of our World. Yet if we are looking for more overt examples we need only follow the recent history of the military industrial complex. 

A Nazi heritage forms the background of much of the roots of Neo-Conservativism and the US military. It should be no surprise that one of the tenets of Satanism is “the end justifies the means.” This is strangely similar to the Straussian doctrine so enamoured by Neo-Conservatives. Indeed, the much lauded geo-political sop of pre-emption has already been taken to new heights of megalomania and serves the “greater good” as they perceive it. Satanism is much the same. Could it be that satanic rituals practiced by the SS and high ranking officers of the Third Reich continue under the auspices of NATO and the US military? 

It may not be as far-fetched as it sounds.


Notes

12 Daughters asked to donate kidney to ailing mother they accused of horrific sexual abuse, By Michele Mandel, Toronto Sun, January 29, 2006.
13 For more information about Darren Koehn visit the website freedarrenkoehn.com The website links to an Online Petition demanding attention to the appeal and the case reopened.
14 ‘A Consolidation of SRA and False Memory Data.’ By James Quan, November 1996. (various websites).
15 ‘Ritual child abuse: A survey of symptoms and allegations,’ by Pamela Hudson, Journal Of Child and Youth Care, Special Issue, 27-53. 
An updated version of the series can be found here: http://infrakshun.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/satans-little-helpers-i/

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