Supplement to Jan 31 post: questions from a student

1. You have met many survivors through your work and have taken on their burdens. How do you deal psychologically with the details of believing and knowing that these type of crimes are happening right now? 
2. Are there more angles to approach the idea of why the "cult" mind set is happening  other than money, elite, and tradition? Or is my focus in the wrong area?
3. During your presentation you mentioned  law enforcement and the two officers you knew who died unexpectedly. You also mentioned that sometimes the law and law enforcement is of no help and may even try to block certain information. Do you believe police departments are seriously lacking in their ability to "prevent crime"? And are they more of a reaction force? Also, would you suggest that unregulated education in psychology and mental illness would better equip/prepare students for what is really happening? It almost seems like the more I age the more I notice how thoughts and feelings are being funneled.

I answered:

In 1996 when I discovered two ritual sites near home and couldn't get people to see it or deal with it, I went into clinical depression and sometimes thought I might be going crazy.  I know a few colleagues did.  It was my good fortune just to have been introduced to Bloomington's first rape counselor, a clinical social worker, who accepted me as her client.  She got me to journal my memories from year to year and read them out loud with her for a while.  She asked me how the little boy in me was feeling.  At the start of our ten years together, when she asked me how I felt, I was at a loss for words and said, "I don't know."  (This gave me considerable sympathy for young male "offenders" I did victim offender mediation with who had trouble talking.)  By now, in any circumstance, I can easily listen to pain and fear without either alarm or sense of urgency that something be done about the violence I now know in such detail.  And I am satisfied that I have done my share of "activism."  At this point, I am just grateful and heartened to share what I believe and share my "evidence" for anyone who asks for me to talk about it.  I stay in touch with some of my survivor friends.

There are as many angles to explaining ritual abuse as you and I have imagination for.  Jeanette is one of those who would tell you that it doesn't matter why they do it; getting people out of the life and offering them recognition, compassion and support is the same, the trauma and the threat is the same no matter what makes people raised in it decide to join it rather than to try to leave it.


Now that you mention it, I believe that police presence which is genuinely responsive and caring for victims in a community is both a deterrent to those who would otherwise exploit vulnerable people, children especially, and refuge from the violence.  Simply put, I on the whole prefer reactive policing with enforcement power as backup trumps proactive policing.  Notice that the vast vast bulk of arrests and prosecutions are for "non-Index" offenses, and I think recent police reports from big departments that murders are dropping are phony.  (Chris can help you find where I've written about how that is done.)  So the idea that police can prevent personal violence especially, most of which happens behind closed doors.

Feel free to share our exchange with the class and anyone else.  What do you (all) think?  Thanks again for asking--love and peace--hal