"A lot of it was having a spiritual vacuum, created by the fact that the 1960s promise of this cosmic, spiritual consciousness didn't really pan out. Then you had this 1970s uptick of paranormal investigations, ESP, an interest in UFOs, really climaxing with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But the aliens never actually landed, you know?
I think it led to a cynicism that led to kind of a cultural paranoia: there is no meaning. There was already an uptick in fundamentalist Christianity. The Reagan Right had begun to dominate politics. And it was the beginning of a cultural war; that's when the Parents Music Resource Center started to put labels on album covers to warn against profanity or even references to the occult. It was a perfectly ripe stew for [Satanic Panic.] In a way, believing that Satan is running the world is still [offering] a kind of order to things, in a world that can feel very disorderly."
In the wake of all this paranoia came a slew of high-profile cases involving day-care workers, which were a perfect storm of paranoia about Satanism, cutting-edge psychotherapy that claimed to recover the children's repressed memories, and a gathering awareness of the problem of child sexual abuse. It's important to remember that the 1980s didn't just see unfounded dread about Satanists. Prior to the late 1970s, law enforcement did very little to prosecute sexual abuse of children. But in the 1980s, the Department of Justice stepped up its fight against child pornography, with measurable success, and laws revolving around the reporting of child abuse were revamped, with an eye toward protecting innocent victims.
A lot of the interest in patients claiming to have recovered buried memories of Satanic ritual abuse began with a 1980 book entitled Michelle Remembers, written by psychiatrist Lawrence Pazer and his patient (and later, wife) Michelle Smith, says Pamela Freyd, PhD, the executive director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, a nonprofit (met with some varying opinions in the scientific community) that mostly works with parents who have been accused of childhood abuse by their now-adult children.
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[–] [deleted] 1 point 28 points 29 points (+29|-1) ago
[–] 21089662? [S] 0 points 19 points 19 points (+19|-0) ago (edited ago)
same thing with the Franklin Scandal where the victims were the ones who got prison time...
Warren Buffett ran 2 of 3 papers in Omaha that conspired with the FBI to destroy the victims
[–] 21090479? 0 points 11 points 11 points (+11|-0) ago
Did you check out the FBI records vault drop from yesterday in The Finders? They had a document in there about the McMartin Preschool tunnels. Details and measurements, I couldn't believe it
[–] 21090770? 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago
Could you provide some more detail? Assume I'm someone that doesn't know anything about McMartin Preschool and surmise that part as to why you think it's important so I can review later to check details on when I can sit down and read it - I would greatly appreciate that. Just the thousand foot level.
[–] 21091502? 0 points 7 points 7 points (+7|-0) ago
Michelle Remembers happened in my hometown. One story in the book was about a young couple who ran from a meeting at a notorious occult place in town to a church. That happened to be the church I grew up in. I think they may have been targeted because they had potential to be successful in a field that is useful to powerful people. It turns out they were very successful they just decided to play for the other side.
I worked briefly with someone from a large city who said her father was in a position of power within those circles. He was highly successful financially in a field you might not initially think was useful to them. Anyway, she said she'd never step foot in a church because her dad used to go to various churches and preach. That seemed to completely break her trust of organized religion.
With all the craziness that goes on in the world I don't know why people find in so difficult to believe others might have a spirituality that is untethered to morals. Then again, there's people that don't believe powerful people/families/organizations might band together to gather more money and power to themselves.
[–] 21093061? ago
Elite wealthy people working together to maintain wealth and power, preposterous!
[–] 21089884? 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Then you are a blessing.