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DateProcessResult
November 12, 2008Peer reviewReviewed

No mention of "the finders" and automatic dismissal of claims

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The information released in 2019 by the FBI about "the finders" group [30] clearly shows evidence of ritual abuse, CIA involvement or not.

Even the List of satanic ritual abuse allegations page says "Many but not all of those imprisoned have been released," implying that some are still in prison because they're actually guilty of the crimes.

Also, how this article is written seems to imply that not only was there not sufficient evidence of this type of abuse in the 1980's, but that it has never happened, cannot happen and that any possible allegation of this type of abuse is automatically false and logically part of the 80s' "moral panic" or the result of "false memories." JH2903 (talk) 19:43, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Order of the Nine Angles has performed Satanic child abuse, but they are a marginal fringe group among Satanists. Most Satanists don't believe it is wise to break the law. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:47, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
right, but this article says that it doesn't happen at all. that's the problem. JH2903 (talk) 20:53, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Mutatis mutandis, see rule 34. Most Satanists don't think that their purpose in life is to harm other people. But there are disturbed individuals who do think that. The Church of Satan does not teach them to harm other people, nor to break the law. But the problem with that church is that it is a money-making machine (for its leaders). tgeorgescu (talk) 00:19, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
None of that has anything to do with what you're replying to.
"Most Satanists don't think that their purpose in life is to harm other people." Yep, they leave such sadistic beliefs to the Christians. Dimadick (talk) 15:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It happens. This article insists it doesn't. JH2903 (talk) 13:25, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why not just use word "theistic" to imply that the satanic panic was indeed devil worship, but then clarify LaVeyan’s and Atheistic’s are not the perpetrators of the Satanic Panic? 2600:8800:3216:AA00:F484:CEEE:6473:58AB (talk) 14:30, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No it argues that all the major and most public cases were. It is about the moral panic. Slatersteven (talk) 13:29, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
if that was the case then all phrasings of "ritual abuse" wouldn't redirect to this page JH2903 (talk) 15:39, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then you need to make the case there, not here. Slatersteven (talk) 10:01, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

" implying that some are still in prison because they're actually guilty of the crimes." How does the topic of unfairly jailed people imply that they have committed any crimes? They were convenient scapegoats. Dimadick (talk) 15:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go again.
Look, no one is denying that child abuse happens. Sometimes, child abuse happens by members of a religion or a cult. But that's not what this article is about.
This article is about a phenomenon in the 80s-00s where people were making up wild accusations of ritualistic child abuse by nebulous "Satanists," not associated with any organized religion or cult. It was a moral panic, originated by false claims and perpetuated by improper coaching of children by the investigators so that they lied, believing that's what the adults wanted them to say. The entire point of the moral panic was that Satanists are everywhere, hiding in plain sight, in every town across the globe, abusing your children to gain magical powers. Which is patently bonkers.
We keep getting people wandering in here about cases where some group of teens killed another kid and everyone screamed "Satanism!" then demanding we call "Satanic ritual abuse" real. Or, in this case, an actual cult abusing its members (O9A), then conflating that with this broad conspiracy theory.
But the two points people keep missing are thus:
1. This conspiracy theory revolves around the idea that there is a global Satanic conspiracy that is dedicated to abusing children.
2. That the abuse is ritualistic, meaning the abuse serves a function of the religious beliefs by the perpetrators. (See also: Blood libel.)
Even 09A fails the meet the second criteria. Those kids were just plain abused, not for ritual purposes, not to "glorify Satan," or anything else the Satanic Panic claimed. O9A just thinks rape is a good way to undermine society and assert their dominance. It's not ritualistic, it's just cruel for cruelty's sake.
And now, most of the Blood Libel inspired conspiracy theories promoted by the Satanic Panic have morphed into Pizzagate and QAnon. It's the same moral panic, right down to the "global Satanist conspiracy to sexually abuse your children for ritualistic purposes." Just updated for modern politics.
So no, we don't need to alter the article. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 13:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
if this was just about a phenomenon in the 80s-00s and not general accusations of ritual abuse then phrasings of ritual abuse, satanic abuse etc wouldn't redirect here implying that any accusation is part of this specific moral panic.
as for your comments about the order of the nine angels, it says very clearly in that page that they're a satanist group so i don't know why you brought it up along with so called "blood libel" and didn't mention the main point i made about the finders. JH2903 (talk) 17:51, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That first point is just not going to fly. Having redirects to help people find the article does not imply every possible accusation is valid.
If you can't follow why I brought up blood libel, then you need to reread that article and then this one. The entire Satanic Panic is a rehash of blood libel in a new form. O9A is a "Satanist" group, and they abuse children. But it's not ritual abuse in a religious context, it's just child abuse, same as what Catholic priests have been found guilty of for decades. The children abused by Catholic priests aren't doing it for the glorification of God, they're just predators using their position of authority to target kids. There's no religious or ritual component to it. That is the key to the Satanic Panic: the idea that these children are abused as part of religious rituals for magical effects. And that's just classic blood libel, the same anti-Semitic accusation that Jews were abducting kids to drink their blood & gain magical powers through their ritual execution/abuse.
As to the Finders, I didn't engage with that topic because our article already handles it. They weren't even prosecuted because there's no actual evidence that would hold up in court. The kids may have been neglected, and the adults were weird, but there was no direct evidence of child abuse, much less ritual child abuse (aka a focal point of this article). The FBI just dumped everything they had on the group in 2019, and people did what they do, finding imagined patterns that fit their preconceived notions.
The problem here is you are conflating "a child was abused in this group" with "evidence the group as a whole abuses kids for religious/ritual effect." The two things are not equivalent. O9A is the closest you can get, and even that doesn't fit what the Satanic Panic claimed was happening. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:23, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
the implication that the rate of sexual abuse by catholic priests is particularly high compared to any other position isn't true
you wouldn't recognise SRA if you saw it in a room covered with inverted pentagrams and people drinking blood JH2903 (talk) 18:33, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So, yeah, you're just here to POV-push. Take your white knighting elsewhere. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:46, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"people drinking blood" Why are you changing the topic to the vampire lifestyle and the subculture's habitual hematophagy?Dimadick (talk) 03:51, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because he's literally repeating anti-Semitic blood libel claims. Never fails with these conspiracists, they always fall back on the classics. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 11:30, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Remember we are all bound by wp:npa, no matter how dodgy a claim is. Slatersteven (talk) 11:32, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The title is misleadind

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One does not understand exactly what the article is about. About the fear of some people when they hear about satanic rituals or about satanic rituals? The fact that this title is used, satanic panic, gives the impression that people have an irrational and unjustified fear of some things that do not exist and have not happened or can never happen. And precisely fear, irrational fear shows that the facts have no existed and does not exist. The title of the article "satanic panic" is as strange and appropriate for this article as the title "fear of rape" in an article about rape victims. The fact that there are people who are more or less afraid of a certain thing does not prove that the thing does not exist. Moreover, the fact that there is only one person who commits an act, which looks like a satanic ritual does not mean that satanism does not exist, on the contrary. Otherwise, I don't know what your motivation is with this article other than to convince people that these things don't exist when in fact victims existed and still exist. 86.126.133.250 (talk) 11:23, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NO its not, as rape is a real crime, the Satanic panics were not. In fact, they may have actually undermined real child abuse investigations. Slatersteven (talk) 11:26, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See Moral panic. It's a common term for when a group of people get whipped into a frenzy about something that isn't actually a threat. In this case, the moral panic was fear over Satanic cults somehow being widespread in society and harming children. Such a conspiracy did not exist, and was proven to be a hoax. There were no victims, the children were coerced into telling the investigators what they thought the adults wanted to hear.
Also see WP:COMMONNAME. Articles are titled by what they're best known as, even if said title is not as accurate as we'd like. This entire situation is known as the Satanic Panic in literature and reporting, so that's what we go by. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 13:23, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"people get whipped into a frenzy about something that isn't actually a threat" Not by themselves. Per the main article, a key agent in moral panics is that mass media produce exagerrated reports of "deviance and the deviants" to scare or anger the public. You can't have the people scared of the bogeyman of the day when they haven't even heard of him/her. Dimadick (talk) 23:39, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You don't need mass media to have a moral panic, ie Salem. But this is off-topic. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 14:06, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: College Composition II

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 January 2025 and 1 May 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lavender.Asteroids (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Lavender.Asteroids (talk) 01:10, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On the alleged number of 12,000 cases.

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I am not sure at all if this is the right place to write my question/problem. I hope it is, and if it is not, I'd like to know where I can write.

I have a big problem for the number of 12,000 given by the New York Times. It seems totally made-up. Now, the article does not give a precise reference to the survey that should have computed that number, but Mary de Young did, and here is the report: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/154415NCJRS.pdf. Mary de Young actually wrote that there were 12,264 putative satanic ritual abuse cases here: https://www.aaets.org/traumatic-stress-library/sociological-views-on-the-controversial-issue-of-satanic-ritual-abuse-three-faces-of-the-devil. Now, feel free to check yourself, but there is no mention at all of that number in the actual report. Given that the report speaks for itself, I think it should trump second-hand sources that talk about it, and hence that the 2 mentions of 12,000 cases in the intro should be removed. Rerotempis (talk) 12:54, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We do not do [wp:or]]. Slatersteven (talk) 12:57, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What? We are talking about a published report from the government which is literally used on the page. Rerotempis (talk) 14:20, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
No we are talking about you asking us to evaluate what it says. Slatersteven (talk) 14:27, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Surely, you are joking.
Here's the conversation we are having: "Report say X." "No, the report does not say X, see the report: *link to the report*." "You are asking us to use material for which no reliable, published source exists."
I am pretty confident that using a published report R to refer to what the report R is saying is using published material which is reliable. Rerotempis (talk) 14:41, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
IS 12,264, not over 12,000? Slatersteven (talk) 14:54, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and that is irrelevant to my initial point which is that the report does not talk about 12,000 or more alleged case of ritual abuse. Rerotempis (talk) 15:14, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It is also not a survey "In a survey of more than 11,000 psychiatric and police workers throughout the country". Slatersteven (talk) 15:27, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What? Rerotempis (talk) 15:52, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
How do you know its the saem survey? Slatersteven (talk) 12:42, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Because other credible source according to the page itself, Mary de Young, says it. Because every other point about the survey excepting the number of putative ritual abuse is exactly in the survey. Rerotempis (talk) 17:34, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Quote for where they say this is the source used by the NTY for this ? Slatersteven (talk) 17:36, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I already gave all the evidence needed. The burden of proof is on you at this point. Rerotempis (talk) 18:44, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You have offered an opinion, not proof, this is what we mean by wp:or, and the fact you refuse to provide one quote where she identifies this as the NTY sources means there is no such quote. So untill you provide a quote I am out of here with a no change. Slatersteven (talk) 18:47, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong. I did not offer an opinion, but gave evidence-based fact from a reliable source. Hence, it is not at all an original search, not sure how this confusion could emerge in your mind. What rather happened is that you stubbornly refused to read the evidence given, and accusing me of not providing it to you. Given the manifest confusion you showed, I do think it is best, at least for me, to not pursue our conversation further. Rerotempis (talk) 19:32, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Probably a good idea. Between Slatersteven and I, we have 40 years of Wikipedia experience, and we know Wikipedia policy regarding original research quite well. If you wish to challenge our no original research policy, this is not the place to do it. We have an excellent reliable source backing the "more than 12,000"; you have your own analysis of a primary source. There's no particular reason to continue this discussion if your intent is to go counter to WP policy. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 19:54, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It is not my own analysis, but an objecting plain reading of the primary source.
Whether or not you have 40 years of Wikipedia experience, the fact is that there is a made-up number on this page since nearly two decades. Rerotempis (talk) 20:48, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Is it the same thing, as your source is not a survey. Slatersteven (talk) 11:50, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You did not read the report: it is a survey. To be even more precise, it is many surveys.
‘The survey included 6,910 psychiatrists, psychologists and clinical social workers, and 4,655 district attorneys, police departments and social service agencies."
Those exact numbers? They're literally in the report. Rerotempis (talk) 12:05, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
"In a survey of more than 11,000 psychiatric and police workers throughout the country, conducted for the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect," No mention of clinical social workers or DA's. So is it the same survey? Slatersteven (talk) 12:11, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What? Rerotempis (talk) 12:39, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Is it the same source as the one used by the NTY, or are they using a different one? Slatersteven (talk) 17:37, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Rerotempis (talk) 18:44, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
So the de Young paper seems to be extrapolating or calculating from the data that's presented in the Goodman paper, which (at least at that link) doesn't present the raw data to support either its own numbers or de Young's. Something's missing, or, at least, de Young doesn't explain her arithmetic. 12,264 is an oddly precise number. My guess is it comes from the paragraph starting, "A total of 2136 questionnaires". But none of this matters. We prefer secondary sources to primary sources for this very reason. We don't analyze the survey; we present a secondary analysis of the survey. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 16:42, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That paragraph does mention a number, but which is far below the 12,000-ish one: 387+674=1061 case of child and adult ritual abuse cases.
Wikipedia etiquette may prefer secondary to primary sources, but that's clearly a bad limitation: it means made-up numbers are fair game as long as an academic says it in a well-accepted journal, even if the primary sources that are used do not say that all. I'd hardly say it does not matters. Rerotempis (talk) 17:19, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Then feel free to challenge Wikipedia policy; it's not etiquette, and unless you have a reliable source that says otherwise, it's not made-up numbers. WP:PRIMARY explains this pretty well. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 02:44, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Whether policy or etiquette, it is still a bad limitation, though.
And the reliable source is the primary source itself: they are numbers given, which are not remotely close to 12,264. Relative to the questions asked to clinicians, the authors say that there is 387 cases of child ritual abuse and 674 cases of adult ones. Relative to the questions asked to law-related agencies, there was 421 cases of ritual abuses. Now, even assuming all theses were independent, we have a total of 387+674+421=1482. Not even close to 12,264, hence why this last number is made-up. It is not a matter of analysing, evaluating, interpreting or synthesising material found in a primary source: that's just plain reading. Rerotempis (talk) 10:50, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
So basically, you're using your own research to accuse Mary de Young of academic fraud. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 15:58, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all. I am merely pointing to the primary source which clearly shows that a secondary source made up numbers about its content. You’re the one talking about academic fraud, not me. Rerotempis (talk) 17:30, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You're saying the number she has in her published work is invented. That's academic fraud. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 19:04, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you're the one mentioning academic fraud, not me. Moreover, even if there is some academic fraud as you are saying, it does not mean that she's responsible for it. And lastly, the main point is that I am not using my own research, but pointing to a reliable, public source: the published results themselves. Rerotempis (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]