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Cleopatra7

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I've always thought that Satanic panic was a uniquely American phenomenon, but today I heard a true crime podcast on Ella Draper and learned that it exists in the UK as well:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ella_Draper

(not the best source, obviously, but the only one that explains everything in a brief manner)

This story is bonkers, even by Satanic Panic standards: Draper and "Papa Hemp" giving marijuana to the children while withholding food, lurid accusations of cannibalism and pedophilia on Youtube, Internet lynch mobs. Do any UK FJers have any insights on this case?

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1 hour ago, Cleopatra7 said:

I've always thought that Satanic panic was a uniquely American phenomenon, but today I heard a true crime podcast on Ella Draper and learned that it exists in the UK as well:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ella_Draper

(not the best source, obviously, but the only one that explains everything in a brief manner)

This story is bonkers, even by Satanic Panic standards: Draper and "Papa Hemp" giving marijuana to the children while withholding food, lurid accusations of cannibalism and pedophilia on Youtube, Internet lynch mobs. Do any UK FJers have any insights on this case?

Oh man, I remember seeing a few of these videos when they first came out. This was before the kid's faces were blurred too. There was a person spamming links to the videos all over non related reddit threads and people telling the spammer to piss off. I clicked and watched out of curiosity.

What is alarming is how many people are insisting it is all true just for the fact that the claims fell apart after further investigation because... 'cover up, hello wake up sheeple!' type mentality that truther conspiracy people use. I am not a fan of the Catholic church, or most churches really, but man all you have to do is make up any story with the catholic church as the bad guy and these people will believe it and make up their own logic to prove it's validity.

 

 

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One thing I find noteworthy about this story is that the children were so clearly coached with the intention of starting a Satanic Panic.

In most other cases I've read about, the parents may have been wildly misguided but they did seem genuinely afraid that harm was being done to their children and were trying to protect them, even though the method of the "protection" was highly problematic.

This, however, seems to have been very cynical and calculated on the part of the parents to 1.) obscure their own abuse of the children, and 2.) establish the type of sensational story that has led to panics in the past in the hopes of triggering another public crusade.

It seems like the concept of the Satanic Panic has become so culturally ingrained that it can now be used as a strategy, rather than in the past when it was more of a side effect of hysteria about stranger danger, concerns about the shifting roles of women leading to more moms outside the home, and an increased awareness of and openness about child abuse.

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6 hours ago, Mercer said:

One thing I find noteworthy about this story is that the children were so clearly coached with the intention of starting a Satanic Panic.

In most other cases I've read about, the parents may have been wildly misguided but they did seem genuinely afraid that harm was being done to their children and were trying to protect them, even though the method of the "protection" was highly problematic.

This, however, seems to have been very cynical and calculated on the part of the parents to 1.) obscure their own abuse of the children, and 2.) establish the type of sensational story that has led to panics in the past in the hopes of triggering another public crusade.

It seems like the concept of the Satanic Panic has become so culturally ingrained that it can now be used as a strategy, rather than in the past when it was more of a side effect of hysteria about stranger danger, concerns about the shifting roles of women leading to more moms outside the home, and an increased awareness of and openness about child abuse.

The podcast I listen to on this case, Sword and Scale, mentioned that the Jimmy Savile scandal, which implicated individuals and institutions at the highest levels of British society, primed the public into thinking that an Satanic ritual cult must have been responsible. Certainly the details of Savile's crimes, which include pedophilia and necrophilia, are such that it's probably easy for some people to assume he must have been a Satanist rather than face the reality that he was a psychopathic personality who pretended to be a charity minded Catholic and humanitarian in public and a vile predator in private.

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We had our share of Satanic Panic cases - it started in the USA and came here.  The most famous are the Orkney Island case, but there are some more here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satanic_ritual_abuse_allegations#United_Kingdom

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/real_story/4602302.stm

In this case, I translate it as she was doing something similar to Munchausen's by Proxy, wanting attention, and to destroy her ex, but it seems like it raised red flags from the start, except with the dodgy paediatrician, which I think it would in the UK, because of those cases.  Those poor kids.

ETA another piece about the Draper case:
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-hampstead-cult-that-wasnt-the-satanic-panic-revisited/16802#.WAPok9wWExc

I disagree that there's a widespread view of Savile as having anything to do with Satanic rituals or any kind of Cults - I think it's seen almost exclusively as being in the tradition of  "just" cases of high ranking men abusing children in care, that are nothing to do with religion/any kind of purpose, just "look what we can get away with" evil.

I think maybe in the USA that kind of thing is more likely to be tied to Satan, as it explains why people would do such an awful thing, and Satan made them do it, but the UK is more post-Christian, and a lot of Christians don't believe in the American-style Satan as a real figure who's tempting them to do appalling things.  (I know a load of people who believe in God and Jesus, for example, but see the Devil is figurative, and don't believe in Hell, except as as an absence of God, and not a punishment).

I think we're used to the 1960s/70s/80s paedophile rings that targeted children's homes, for able-bodied and disabled children and boarding schools, that have been investigated and made public over the last 30 years, where it's "just" exploiting vulnerable children and young people for sex, sadism and more, enjoying the power of knowing no one would believe them and they'd never be caught, with no props of religiosity.  He did it because he could do it.  See also the stuff around Elm Guest House and  Dolphin Square, but of course, trigger warnings apply.

TL;DR: so few people in the UK believe in a Fundy-style Satan, that those stories don't get as much cultural sway here, especially with the warnings from the 1980s case - all this JMO of course.

 

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17 hours ago, Lurky said:

We had our share of Satanic Panic cases - it started in the USA and came here.  The most famous are the Orkney Island case, but there are some more here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satanic_ritual_abuse_allegations#United_Kingdom

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/real_story/4602302.stm

In this case, I translate it as she was doing something similar to Munchausen's by Proxy, wanting attention, and to destroy her ex, but it seems like it raised red flags from the start, except with the dodgy paediatrician, which I think it would in the UK, because of those cases.  Those poor kids.

ETA another piece about the Draper case:
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-hampstead-cult-that-wasnt-the-satanic-panic-revisited/16802#.WAPok9wWExc

I disagree that there's a widespread view of Savile as having anything to do with Satanic rituals or any kind of Cults - I think it's seen almost exclusively as being in the tradition of  "just" cases of high ranking men abusing children in care, that are nothing to do with religion/any kind of purpose, just "look what we can get away with" evil.

I think maybe in the USA that kind of thing is more likely to be tied to Satan, as it explains why people would do such an awful thing, and Satan made them do it, but the UK is more post-Christian, and a lot of Christians don't believe in the American-style Satan as a real figure who's tempting them to do appalling things.  (I know a load of people who believe in God and Jesus, for example, but see the Devil is figurative, and don't believe in Hell, except as as an absence of God, and not a punishment).

I think we're used to the 1960s/70s/80s paedophile rings that targeted children's homes, for able-bodied and disabled children and boarding schools, that have been investigated and made public over the last 30 years, where it's "just" exploiting vulnerable children and young people for sex, sadism and more, enjoying the power of knowing no one would believe them and they'd never be caught, with no props of religiosity.  He did it because he could do it.  See also the stuff around Elm Guest House and  Dolphin Square, but of course, trigger warnings apply.

TL;DR: so few people in the UK believe in a Fundy-style Satan, that those stories don't get as much cultural sway here, especially with the warnings from the 1980s case - all this JMO of course.

 

Interesting. My question is that if Satan is considered a non-entity in the UK, then why did this video go viral and why did so many people believe the claims in the video to the point of stalking and sending death threats to the individuals and institutions mentioned the in the video? I guess with ritual Satanic abuse you don't have to believe in a literal Satan, just in people who are out there committing horrible acts against children.

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2 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Interesting. My question is that if Satan is considered a non-entity in the UK, then why did this video go viral and why did so many people believe the claims in the video to the point of stalking and sending death threats to the individuals and institutions mentioned the in the video? I guess with ritual Satanic abuse you don't have to believe in a literal Satan, just in people who are out there committing horrible acts against children.

There's not a Satanic Panic here at the moment, but there IS a paedophile panic, on one hand - and on the other hand, it's easier to believe that someone is an evil Satanist parent, than an evil lying parent who'd not only do this to their kids, but put it on the internet too.  It's the least less-unlikely scenario out of the two, and I guess this is the downside of "believe the victim", that this will happen.

As to people death threats, I would guess that it's people feeling so angry that children are being abused and hurt, in general, and responding not just to this, but to the big public cases.  I know I feel really disgusted and horrified, and totally helpless, but I donate to Barnardo's, who do great work.  And we've seen very rare people crossing lines on FJ, just in terms of getting close to stalking eg the Duggars, so if people were furious, and felt nothing was being done, they'd go further. 

But bottom line, there's hysteria in some quarters re paedophilia (The paediatrician driven from her home because people were too stupid to know what her job title was).  I always think of the episode of Brass Eye (the Chris Morris slightly surreal satirical news programme which critiqued the media's response to the early 2000s Paedophile Panic (ETA and is still relevant today)

ETA:  the video is full of celebrities who said ridiculous things about paedophilia, thinking they were real, because they didn't question what they were saying, which was a feature of Brass Eye, though now super-common (as with all things Chris Morris, he ramped it up 5 levels)

As I say, that's all JMO - it's a response to paedophilia, not a response to Satanism.

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Satanic Panic in the United States is not really a current thing either. It was mainly a product of the late 80's and early 90's when there was a lot of emphasis on stranger danger, there were very mixed feelings about more women in the workforce and childcare being entrusted to non-family caretakers such as daycare workers, and increased awareness of child abuse which was beginning to be talked about rather than swept under the rug.

That's not to say you never hear rumors of cults or Satanists or whatnot, but the type of Satanic Panic that put people in jail and held parents in fear is much more of a cultural artifact of a certain time period than a modern issue. 

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