Savile Row

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Satanic abuse is in the news again, and I aim to take a little peek under the covers and see what lies beneath.  Well, not really, how could I do that from my desk in a small French village?  But I can give a few comments and examine some precedents and hey, the topic was recently mentioned here on ye olde blogge.  This time the alleged Satanist is disgraced English icon Jimmy Savile.  But before we get to him, let's step back a few posts....

In a comment on my post Life imitates conspiracy theory as art...., LoS fellow traveler T.A.WILSON remarked:

Also I feel compelled to mention: you may be missing a lot of fun -- conspiracy-wise -- by sidestepping all the Monarch Programming/Imperial Conditioning angles

Well T.A., this Bud's for you!

What is Monarch programming? Author Cathy O'Brien claims that Project Monarch was a part of the CIA's MKULTRA and Project Artichoke.

In two books--Trance Formation of America (1995) and Access Denied: For Reasons of National Security (2004)--O'Brien has claimed:

to have a recollection of child abuse - of her and her daughter - by international pedophile rings, drug barons and satanists, as part of a sex slave aspect to her 'trauma based mind control programming'.

Independent research has produced no evidence of these claims nor that Project Monarch ever existed.  But it really doesn't have to.  As far as nefarious schemes go, MKULTRA and Artichoke were pretty detestable.  Mind control experiments were in fact part of these programs, which used techniques including hypnosis, the use of drugs, sensory deprivation, torture and sexual abuse.

O'Brien goes a bit farther than the historical record on these programs and implicates Gerald Ford, Dick Cheney, Bushes Sr. and Jr., Sen. Robert Byrd, Charley Pride, Tommy Lasorda, Nolan Ryan, Boxcar Willie, Jimmy Buffett, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton....

A bit beyond the already twisted reality of MKULTRA.

But O'Brien is not alone. Dig if you will Brice Taylor (pseudonym of Sue Ford). She has also written a couple of books detailing her life as a mind-control sex slave:

I am a ritual abuse, government mind control survivor, and I have spent since 1985 working to heal from that and documenting what I was involved with at the highest levels within our government and internationally as the people's leaders are invested in bringing in the New World Order. 

As with O'Brien, this is a family affair; with her parents cooperation, Taylor/Ford was ritually abused by Satanists in the military and government. 

A propos of nothing, I can't help but notice that the names Taylor and Ford are both associated with mass production: 

Fordism is "the eponymous manufacturing system designed to spew out standardized, low-cost goods and afford its workers decent enough wages to buy them" 

whereas with Taylorism: 

Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity.

Fordism and Taylorism would seem to be related, and they are; it appears, however, that each was developed independently of the other. This of course, doesn't relate to Satanic ritual abuse, of course, but one could make a case that both theories played an important role in the development of the global economy conspiracy theorists would describe as being part of the "master plan" to inaugurate the New World Order.

But what's up with this Satanic sex abuse stuff? It's such a widespread meme that sociologists have blessed it with an acronym: SRA, Satanic Ritual Abuse. It doesn't take a genius to see precedents for all this in medieval witch hunts, which contained strong overtones of sexual activity, witches' orgies and mating with the devil and all that, but also with Blood Libel, the medieval belief that Jews kidnapped Christian children to use as sacrificial victims.

I remember the 1980's very well, the great satanic panic, where conservative Christians were making accusations left, right and center.  But it wasn't just the fringe.  Geraldo Rivera made a TV special which supported the idea of a nationwide Satanic network, highly organized and underground, with a membership upwards of a million acolytes!  This wasn't some televangelist on an obscure Christian cable network, but a once-serious journalist on broadcast TV.  I don't recall the network, though. 

Rivera:

"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." 

That's some serious shit, eh?  Problem is, it's entirely unfounded.  And dig this retraction from 1995: 

"I want to announce publicly that as a firm believer of the 'Believe The Children' movement of the 1980's, that started with the McMartin trials in CA, but NOW I am convinced that I was terribly wrong... and many innocent people were convicted and went to prison as a result....AND I am equally positive [that the] 'Repressed Memory Therapy Movement' is also a bunch of CRAP..." 

Too late for Genesis P-Orridge.  Genesis may not be known to you, but s/he is a legend in the underground scene.  A lesser person would have been destroyed by what happened in 1992: 

On the 15th Feb. 1992, 23 officers of the Obscene Publications Squad entered the Brighton home of Genesis P-Orridge, artist, musician and founder of Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth [TOPY]....The police were acting on evidence of organised ritual child abuse consisting of a video and the testimony of a witness who claimed to have been involved in the making of the video. In the next few days the Observer carried a piece on the "first evidence of ritual abuse" and Channel Four's Dispatches aired edited highlights of the video and interviews with a woman who claimed she had sacrificed her daughter and undergone an abortion for the sake of a Psychick Youth Ritual.

 ....Within one week the origins of the video were exposed in the press. It was, in fact, part of a film, commissioned by Channel Four in 1980, featuring Derek Jarman, and designed to explore the power of editing the visual image. The female witness was exposed as a "professional victim", born again Xtian, and ex-member of a charismatic Xtian sect. She had no conscious memory of the ritual events, the murders and abortions, they had been conveyed to her, (from her subconscious memory I presume), by one of the Fundamentalists. Her testimony was shown to be factually incorrect. The programme makers were a Xtian company, the presenter had just published a book exposing the Satanic network in Britain.... 

So this nonsense isn't limited to America.  Genesis has lost an extensive selection of his archives, including unique avant-garde film and literature, lost his home and lost his country.  In Tibet feeding lepers and refugees at the time of the raid, he chose exile in the US as opposed to returning to the UK, facing possible jail time and the certain loss of his children, to foster homes, at least in the short term. 

Now, I'm an open-minded cat, but even among the underground, Gen is an odd duck, so way out that s/he makes an easy target.  But if you read up on the case, you an see the "evidence" is a sham.  "Travesty of justice" comes to mind.  In photos of Gen s/he's usually grim-faced and dour, almost hostile.  But there's one photo of Gen with both daughters, and s/he looks positively radiant, the joy of being a parent.  There's something to that, I think.

But where are we at with Satanic panic these days?  Surely we've evolved since 1992, no?  (wink)  No.  Enter Jimmy Savile.  Sir James Wilson Vincent "Jimmy" Savile OBE is an English icon:  DJ, TV presenter and philanthropist.  In this latter capacity he chose hospitalized children to be the beneficiaries of his largesse.  But like the Penn State pedophile Jerry Sandusky, his charity work allowed him to molest and abuse children for years.  In Savile's case, hundreds have come forward and it seems pretty unlikely all these people are in cahoots to libel the once-beloved icon.  In short, he was a pedophile who abused the trust and the bodies of hundreds of kids.  For this, he is a motherfucker of the highest order.  He was also an establishment darling.  So: outlaw artist gets raided and robbed of civil liberties, banal media figure and intimate of the royal family gets a free pass, despite rumors and investigations that were shelved for "lack of evidence."  In Gen's case, the lack was even more flagrant, but then again, s/he was a "freaky dude."  (BTW, for an explanation of why I use s/he for P-Orridge, begin here).

But what started this post off was the following headline: Jimmy Savile Was Part Of Satanic Ring.  Howzat?  Yes indeed, all the familiar elements are here: 

The girl kept her torment hidden for nearly 20 years before finally opening up to therapist Valerie Sinason.

Dr Sinason told the Sunday Express she first spoke to the victim in 1992. “She had been a patient at Stoke Mandeville in 1975 when Savile was a regular visitor." 

She recalled being led into a room that was filled with candles on the lowest level of the hospital, somewhere that was not regularly used by staff. Several adults were there, including Jimmy Savile who, like the others, was wearing a robe and a mask.
 ....
"She was molested, raped and beaten and heard words that sounded like ‘Ave Satanas’, a Latin­ised version of ‘Hail Satan’, being chanted. There was no mention of any other child being there and she cannot remember how long the attack lasted but she was left extremely frightened and shaken.” 

But that's not all.  A second victim came forward, according to the same therapist: 

Five years after the hospital attack, he abused a second victim during another black mass ceremony held at a house in a wealthy London street.

The woman was 21 at the time and was made to attend an orgy, which later took on a darker twist.

Dr Sinason, director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in London, said: “A second victim approached me in 1993. She said she had been ‘lent out’ as a supposedly consenting prostituted woman at a party in a London house in 1980.

"The first part of the evening started off with an orgy but half-way through some of the participants left.

“Along with other young women, the victim was shepherded to wait in another room before being brought back to find Savile in a master of ceremonies kind of role with a group wearing robes and masks. She too heard Latin chanting and instantly recognised satanist regalia. Although the girl was a young adult, who was above the age of consent, she had suffered a history of sexual abuse and was extremely vulnerable.”

Both victims contacted Dr Sinason, who is president of the Institute of Psychotherapy and Disability, while she was involved in a Department of Health-funded study into sexual abuse committed during rituals and religious ceremonies. She said: “Both these witnesses did speak to police at the time but were vulnerable witnesses and on encountering any surprise or shock did not dare to give all the details.” 

According to Sinason: 

“Neither girl knew one another, they lived in different parts of the country and contacted me a year apart yet their experiences are very similar. Whether Savile was a practising Satanist or merely enjoyed dressing up to scare his victims even more will perhaps never be known but he left those two girls mentally scarred.”

At least Sinason puts in the caveat, but it still seems pretty fishy to me.  Hundreds of potential victims and two come up with the Satanic element, with the same therapist.  20 years after the fact?

Wikipedia has an interesting entry on Sinason: 

Valerie Sinason is a British poet, writer, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist who is known for promoting the ideas that the people with developmental disability can benefit from psychoanalysis and that satanic ritual abuse is widely practiced in the UK. 

Furthermore: 

In 1994, Sinason edited a collection of essays entitled Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse that claimed satanic ritual abuse existed in the United Kingdom and that she had treated victims. Satanic ritual abuse is now considered to be a moral panic. Despite this and a three-year Department of Health inquiry by the anthropologist Prof Jean La Fontaine into 84 alleged cases of ritual abuse that found no evidence to support such claims, Sinason claimed in 2001 and 2002 she had clinical evidence for the widespread practice of satanic ritual abuse in the United Kingdom. Her own report on the topic, prepared with colleague Dr Robert Hale, was funded as a pilot study by the Department of Health. It was never released to the public, and the Department of Health stated in response to an inquiry by a reporter that they do not believe the unreleased Sinason-Hale report rendered LaFontaine's published report invalid. LaFontaine commented on the story saying "It is not surprising to me that patients who are having treatment by Valerie Sinason would produce stories that echo such topical issues as the recent trial for receiving internet pornography and the publicity for the film Hannibal. There is good research that shows the "memories" of abuse are produced in and by the therapy." 

From The Telegraph (March 22, 2012): 

Miss Sinason, the main speaker yesterday, is on the record as saying that Satanists are breeding babies for ritual murder, a practice she described to the Catholic Herald as "an Auschwitz in peacetime".  Until now, not one body has surfaced to corroborate this theory.... 

The event at which Sinason spoke was organized in part by one Wilfred Wong, an evangelical and confirmed believer in SRA.

Another blog has a revealing post called Valerie Sinason's credibility takes a dive which is worth looking into. Perhaps the best line from the post is the following quote from a review of her book: 

'useful for anyone who needs a startling, clear demonstration of the amazing ability of 20th century human beings to persuade themselves firmly to believe in utter claptrap and nonsense.’

Back in the USA: 

A psychologist accused of hypnotizing a woman into believing she possessed multiple personalities and participated in satanic rituals may be sued by several others who say they were also told they had been a part of a satanic cult, according to a Missouri attorney.
....
The complaint alleges Nasseff's therapist, Mark Schwartz, "carelessly and negligently hypnotized [Nasseff]" while she was under the influence of "various psychotropic medications" to treat depression and anxiety. The hypnosis allegedly created false memories, including the belief that she was "a member of a satanic cult and that she was involved in or perpetrated various criminal and horrific acts of abuse."

One of those acts included participating "in a ritualistic eating of babies," according to Vuylsteke. 

As of Nov. 12, 2012, four lawsuits have been brought against Castlewood, accusing the staff of "brainwashing" and implanting memories. In a bit of the old name game, it's innarestin' to note that Schwartz is: currently the consulting clinical director for Castlewood and the Clinical CO-Director for Monarch Cove Treatment Center for Eating Disorders.

Monarch, eh? Schwartz, like Sinason, has an impressive CV. Unlike Sinason, I can't find any indication Schwartz is an evangelical; Sinason may or may not be, but she doesn't seem to have any qualms about speaking at their conferences (as above) or joining forces with evangelical activists to expose the alleged Satanic underground. One of these cohorts is a guy named Andrew Boyd. Boyd once produced a video called Beyond Belief.....the very same video used to launch a police raid on Genesis P-Orridge and TOPY! 

Boyd, despite his Christianity, appears to be rather ethically challenged: 

Beyond Belief....sought to prove that Satanic Ritual Abuse existed by portraying a piece of TOPY performance art as actual footage of the birth of a baby bred for sacrifice! Boyd admitted in the debate that he knew the TOPY performance art video connection before broadcast but went ahead anyway. 

And in the process totally fucked up P-Orridge's life!  Asshole.

And that's the problem.  This SRA BS is predicated on discredited therapeutic practices.  Recovered memory, repressed memory etc.  Most reasonable psychologists dismiss it out of hand as the worst form of snake oil with a large potential for harm to patients.

Not to mention artist/occultists.  The Religious Tolerance website gives an overview of Satanic Panic in the late 80's/early 90's, as well as a brief resurgence in 2002-2003.  Sinason was knee-deep in it, as mentioned, enabled by notorious Christian bigot Lord Acton.  At the meeting mentioned above featuring Sinason as key speaker, there was a lot of talk about hooded, chanting Satanists sexually abusing children in a Black Mass. 

Apparently, things haven't changed much in the interim. Sinason has come up with two more victims who attest to the very same tropes. Much of the same pops up in the work of Cathy O'Brien and Brice Taylor and even James Shelby Downard, whose Carnivals of Life and Death details the sex and death obsessions of the power elite. Satanism in this case is replaced by the KKK and/or Freemasons, but hey, what the heck, in the eyes of the believers, they're all heads of the hydra, n'est-ce pas? 

Dr. Richard B. Spence writes of Carnivals:  "I’ll confess that Carnivals was probably the only book I’ve actually thrown against a wall out of sheer disgust that anyone would expect me to swallow such a pile of horseshit." 

My sentiments exactly.  It seems to me that these allegations stem from the perverse need of (some) evangelical Christians to find evidence that Satan is conspiring all around them, perhaps to assuage the cognitive dissonance of being an establishment religion predicated upon being a persecuted minority.  What better than to insist that the real elite is Satanic and that Christians are still fighting the good fight?  Aided and abetted by a few dubious therapists and a scandal-hungry media, they succeed in inducing moral panic.  Which I suppose would be funny if it weren't for all the ruined lives left in their wake.  This goes beyond P-Orridge.  The accusers and the accused are all victims here, as well as the general public at large.  Dozens have been arrested and charged with ritual abuse and in each case the defendants had these charges dropped.  Meanwhile we all foot the bill in both economic terms and the price of a dumbed-down credulous public with no capacity for critical thinking.  Just Google "Jimmy Savile, satanist" and see how many people accept this as, well, gospel. 

Sad that "stories of baby sacrifice borrowed from 19th-century anti-Catholic propaganda" and "anti-Semitic blood libel" are still being used today to whip up fury at the devil-worshippers that want your children, for sex or for dinner, sadder still that the tabloid press uncritically "reports" these stories.  Saddest of all is that people will continue to believe it.  They haven't looked at the history of an obsessed quack like Sinason.  That she is still permitted to treat people seems criminal.

She should probably be locked away in a convent, left to dream and pleasure herself with the sado-masochistic Satan fantasies she seems so eager to inflict upon the public.  More appropriate than being allowed to babble on in public like Leo Taxil! 

As for Jimmy Savile, the only pity is that his status and proximity to power protected him in life.  Now that he's dead, we can only piss on his memory; in life, the bastard molested and abused hundreds of kids....and got away with it.  If evil exists, I suppose that would qualify, but these SRA fanatics aren't talking in metaphors.  Meanwhile, Sinason will go on, every ten years or so making another attempt to link everything to, could it be....SATAN!?

As for the Monarch angles of SRA, Apocalypse Culture II is where I first read about O'Brien and Taylor in an essay by Robert Sterling entitled Uncle Ronnie's Sex Slaves.  Let me quote from his conclusion: 

Perhaps the NWO sex slave books are too kinky for tastes outside of Christian fundamentalism, but they certainly belong to high-quotient porno literature. The tales have many of the qualities commonly found in sado-masochistic bondage fantasies, which regularly depict women helpless as sexual perversions are committed upon them. 
.... 
It should be obvious to everybody that the NWO sex slave genre is nothing more than thinly veiled porno disguised as parapolitics. The most avid readers of these books are fundamentalist Christians, who cite the O’Brien/Taylor tales as proof that the New World Order is a Satanic plot. That the tales told in these books seem in so many ways inaccurate appears of little concern to these readers, who often repeat the many unsubstantiated allegations as fact.
....
As Freud would remind us, that which we vociferously condemn as deviant is also what we often secretly crave. The more something becomes a taboo, the more attractive it becomes. It is no surprise that many people will happily wallow in perversion if given an excuse to do so. Is the promotion of these sex slave tales in the conservative Christian community a way to subliminally revel in filth? Few dare call it conspiracy, but even fewer dare call it pornography.

On a final note, I went to one of my links to verify a quote and visited a link to The Process weblog. The "open letter" to Dr. Phil makes it clear the genre lives on. Apparently the bald TV shrink was planning to air an interview with the author of a book entitled 22 Faces that includes the following: 

Twenty-Two Faces describes that Jenny Hill was oppressed by an unlikely Jewish Nazi who worshipped Satan and was brought to the US from Germany under CIA sponsorship. Ludicrous as this alone is, Byington explains that this over-dramatized villain is careful to conceal his antics from Jenny Hill’s parents — returning her home on-time for supper, making sure her chores are finished before compelling her to return — yet we also learn later that Hill’s parents were in on the whole thing throughout. 

The whole gamut is represented:  repressed and recovered memories, SRA, government involvement, complicity of parents, etc.

Author Doug Mesner concludes: 

....Judy Byington herself makes clear that she considers Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder synonymous with Satanic Ritual Abuse, and you can hardly talk to her about one without addressing the other. To be clear, when Judy Byington talks of multiplicity and dissociative trauma, she is talking about a debunked conspiracy theory of satanic mind-control plots. That you should give such hysterical claims air-time — allowing a conspiracy theory to be presented as a diagnosis — on your widely viewed show is beyond irresponsible. It makes you a menace to the public mental health.

 Hear! hear! Doug.