The hoax of Satanic Ritual Abuse... [View All]

A lot of people here seem to buy into the idea of satanic ritual abuse cults, in which children are kidnaped, raped and forced to partake in satanic rituals.

This was an idea that gained popularity in the 1980s. Dozens, if not hundreds, of lives were destroyed by these allegations.

Noreen Gosch is one of the women who insist these cults exist. Her son, Johnny Gosch, was kidnaped in 1982 and never heard from again (except for Noreen's claim that he showed up at her door in 1997, which her ex-husband, Johnny's father, discounts).

In the 80s, a number of such scandals were "exposed". People were tried and jailed for their participation. Sounds good, right? Well... consider this. It never happened.

A four-year study in the early 1990s found the allegations of satanic ritual abuse to be without merit. The study was conducted by University of California at Davis psychology professors Gail S. Goodman and Phillip R. Shaver, in conjunction with Jianjian Qin of UC Davis and Bette I. Bottoms of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Their study was supported by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. The researchers investigated more than 12,000 accusations and surveyed more than 11,000 psychiatric, social service, and law enforcement personnel. The researchers could find no unequivocal evidence for a single case of satanic cult ritual abuse.

http://skepdic.com/satanrit.html

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But Noreen Gosch has evidence right? No, she doesn't. Much of the argument in her favor relies on the testimony of Paul Bonacci.

Mr. Bonacci is mentally ill... severely so. He admits to having 14 separate personalities. He won a $200,000 judgment against his alleged abuser, Lawrence King. But how did he win it? Because Mr. King did not respond to the suit. It was a default judgment. No court ever decided the merits of Mr. Bonacci's allegations. In fact, one judge in the case wrote that Mr. Bonacci's claims had absolutely no evidence to support them.

In the same scandal, it's been claimed that a girl saw George H. W. Bush at a party for pedophiles, that she saw him exchange cash with Mr. King, and leave with a young black man. This same girl also said she saw a severed head at such a party. Her claims are similar to dozens of other claims made during the same time period - all of which have later been shown to be baseless.

There was a witch-hunt in the 80s. The lives of many people were ruined. Bad science and bad psychology were used in courts of law to destroy many innocent people, based on the implanted "memories" in children by law enforcement officers.

To the people who readily accept the idea that Gannongate is connected to the SRA scandals of the 80s, please read the links above and know that the REAL scandal was the fact that law enforcement was able to "implant" memories into vulnerable children and that such "memories" were non-existent. Look into the McMartin School trial - it was pure bullshit on the part of the police.

As for Noreen Gosch, I feel for her. She's suffered unimaginable loss. But she is a classic paranoid schizophrenic. Her reality is not real.

And also keep in mind that there is NO legitimate connection between the Jeff Gannon story and that of Johnny Gosch. The only connection that exists is because some people believe a gay prostitute MUST be either a victim or perpetrator of pedophilia. That is a bad assumption.