What happens?
Fragments from a survivor’s story
Consequences
Parts (Alters)
The spiritual aspect
Demons
Christian perspective
Ritual abuse is an extremely sadistic form of abuse affecting children, adolescents, and adults. It consists of systematic physical, sexual, and psychological abuse carried out through the use of rituals.
These rituals are not necessarily satanic in nature, but many survivors report that they were ritually abused as part of satanic practices, with the aim of indoctrinating them into satanic beliefs and behaviours. Ritual abuse may also occur within other sadistic groups or cults.
I want to emphasise that ritual abuse is often accompanied by other forms of abuse. People who have been subjected to ritual abuse have frequently also experienced incest, other forms of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect – for example within the family environment.
What happens?
I have thought long and hard about whether or not to include this information. I have ultimately decided to do so because I believe it is important to bring these things into the light. That means naming them clearly and speaking about them openly, so they can be acknowledged and discussed. Above all, I hope that survivors may find recognition and validation here for what has been done to them.
Click here for an overview of experiences and patterns frequently reported by survivors – primarily Dutch text.
There are people who consider these accounts too extreme or too bizarre to believe. In doing so, they fail to do justice to survivors. It is important that the truth about these realities comes to light, and that we recognise that human beings are capable of such harm. Only then can we do justice to survivors and protect children.
Fragments from a survivor’s story
I have to drink. I cry because I don’t want to. He gets very angry, because I am not allowed to cry.
“You have to,” he says. I am scolded harshly, and then he forces my mouth open and tells me I must. I cannot swallow it and start to vomit. Now he becomes even angrier, because I am not allowed to vomit.
“You have to!” he shouts. When I finally swallow it, he leaves again. I don’t want to, but they say I have to.
Mama, mama, where are you? It hurts so much. Mama, please help me.
I curl up into a small ball and hide in a corner. Darkness surrounds me and presses heavily on me. I hear them laughing. Cruel laughter, like monsters.
© 2000 juniper art
Consequences
What are the possible consequences of experiencing such life-threatening events?
It will become clear that ritual abuse has extremely serious consequences. Below is an overview of possible effects:
- Extreme and overwhelming fear and panic
- Severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including:
Reliving traumatic experiences as if they are happening again- Anxiety and panic attacks
- Nightmares and flashbacks
- Emotional numbness
- Memory loss (amnesia)
- Physical memory (body-based trauma responses)
- Sleep disorders
- Eating disorders
- Hypervigilance
- Exaggerated startle responses
- Aggression toward oneself or others
- Depression
- Physical symptoms such as paralysis, numbness, headaches, tension pain, unexplained abdominal pain
- Self-harm
- Suicidal behaviour
- Sexual difficulties
- Anger and hostility
- Self-destructive behaviour and increased accident risk
- Distrust
- Isolation, alienation, deep loneliness
- Depersonalisation (feeling detached from oneself)
- Derealisation (feeling detached from reality)
- Apathy
- Difficulty feeling or expressing emotions
- Intense guilt and shame
- Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
- Other dissociative disorders (such as dissociative amnesia or depersonalisation)
- Survivor guilt (an intense feeling of guilt for having survived these experiences when others did not)
- Overwhelming inner pain and anger, expressed through self-harm or aggression (for example; cutting, scratching, burning) or on others (by, for example, abusing other people or animals)
- Suicidal urges or attempts
Specific effects may include:
- Fear of (or fixation on) certain colours (e.g. black, red, purple)
- Fear of certain objects or symbols (e.g. a cross or Star of David)
- Fear of church or the Bible
- Fear of (or fixation on) blood
- Fear of certain foods (e.g. red meat, tomatoes, red drinks)
- Fear of confined spaces
- Extreme fear of the police
- Fear of Jesus or resistance toward God
- Fear of babies
Parts (alters)
Here I will briefly explain what parts (also called “alters”) are.
Parts are aspects of a person’s personality that develop under the pressure of extreme trauma and neglect. These parts can form very early—even before birth—due to trauma experienced in the womb.
In such cases, a person does not develop as a single unified identity, because the trauma occurs before a stable sense of self can form. Survivors of ritual abuse often experience themselves as consisting of many parts, and may refer to themselves as “we.”
It is important to understand that these parts belong to the person—they develop internally as a way of coping.
Dissociation and the splitting into parts often become the primary way of dealing with life situations, and additional parts may form over time.
Each part has its own role within the system. There may also be multiple systems of parts, each containing many different parts.
In addition to parts that arise naturally from trauma, some groups deliberately attempt to create parts for specific purposes—for example through extreme abuse, conditioning, and training. These parts may be assigned specific roles or tasks within the group.
You can read more about this (in Dutch) on the pages about DID and trauma processing.
The spiritual aspect
Ritual abuse often takes place within a specific ideological framework. Perpetrators attempt to indoctrinate victims into this belief system. Many survivors report ritual abuse within satanic groups, although other groups may also be involved.
In this section I am going to go into more detail about the spiritual aspect of satanic ritual abuse.
Victims are often indoctrinated with satanic ideas from a very young age. In this, good and evil are reversed: good is presented as bad, and bad as good. They are taught that Satan is god, that the God of the Bible is weak, and that Satan defeated Jesus by having Him die on a cross, and that He is now dead. Satanists believe that Satan has all power, and that they themselves can receive power or favours from Satan if they do certain things, such as making sacrifices and carrying out rituals.
Furthermore, many things from the Bible are mocked, such as the communion. This is ridiculed in black masses, for example by drinking blood and eating human or animal flesh. The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus is also mocked, for example through the use of an inverted cross, or even by fastening people to a cross. Sometimes it is said that Jesus is also present during the rituals and approves of them. The aim is to ridicule the gospel of Jesus Christ and to spread evil on earth.
By indoctrinating victims with these ideas, perpetrators seek to prepare them to cooperate with this aim.
One of the things I repeatedly encounter in survivors’ stories is that their own will has been taken away from them within the sect. Through all the indoctrination and abuse, the victim’s will is broken, so that they no longer feel they have a will of their own or are able to make their own choices. The conscience is also suppressed.
The victim must be made to feel that he or she has been chosen by Satan, and that this is something good and desirable.
Within satanic sects, there is a hierarchy. There are different positions. But to reach a higher position, one must first endure pain and undergo torture. If this is endured successfully, one is considered special and rises within the hierarchy. And then one is allowed to do to others what was done to them. This creates a sense of power.
A child who survives a certain form of abuse is told that this is because they are special to Satan and that they now belong. For example, a child may be forced to kill an animal because the perpetrators hold the child’s hands and kill the animal in this way. The child is then told that they did this, and that they are now also bad, just like the perpetrators. Now they belong. If a child is programmed to feel inferior, and is then told that they belong to the sect and nowhere else, the child develops a false sense of “belonging.” Every child longs to belong somewhere, and perpetrators exploit this.
- Victims are programmed to believe that they belong nowhere and will never be allowed to belong anywhere except within the sect. That is their home. Isolation programming takes many forms. The victim must remain isolated for the sake of the sect.
- Victims are programmed to keep secrecy, for example by being made to believe that if they tell what they have experienced or seen, they must kill themselves.
- Victims may be programmed to kill others, for example those who try to help them leave the sect.
- Victims may be programmed to sabotage what is good.
- Victims may be programmed into sexual behaviour, engaging in sexual contact “on automatic pilot.”
- Fear is instilled in victims through threats—that they will go insane, that no one will believe them, that someone they love will die if they speak, or that people they form relationships or friendships with will die.
- Victims are programmed to feel inferior, so that they are inclined to seek power over others, which can then be used by the sect.
- Victims are at the same time made into perpetrators, so that there is no way out and they will not speak about what they have experienced, because they themselves were made to participate.
- Children may be made so afraid of the police that they believe they will be arrested if they tell anything. Perpetrators make children believe that they are also perpetrators and that what happened is their fault.
- Victims may be programmed to return to the sect as adults, or to carry out tasks for the sect, such as recruiting new victims.
Indoctrination and programming take place through, among other things, abuse, torture, shining bright lights into the face while a message is repeatedly spoken, administering electroshocks, confinement, deprivation of food and sleep, inducing fear by forcing victims to witness the torture of others, forcing them to witness the killing of “traitors,” the use of drugs, and similar methods.
Programming is also aimed at creating dissociation and the development of DID. In this way, victims become more usable for the sect and more easily influenced, because perpetrators have created or programmed certain parts (alters) for specific purposes or tasks. The perpetrators’ control over the victim becomes even greater, because due to the dissociative disorder, these things are often outside the victim’s conscious awareness.
Demons
Satanists believe in the spiritual world of Satan and his followers, the demons. Demons can give them power to achieve Satan’s purposes. For this reason, there are specific rituals in which they call upon demons to enter them and give them strength.
Children can also be subjected to this and involved in rituals in which demons are said to enter them. In this way, victims may become possessed by demons. For many victims, this is a very real experience.
Click here to read more about the difference between parts (alters) and demons. This section is primarily in Dutch at the moment.
Christian perspective
As a Christian, I also believe in the reality of a spiritual world. I believe survivors of satanic ritual abuse. I also believe that the Lord Jesus is stronger than Satan.
Within satanism, the struggle between God and Satan is reduced to a battle on equal terms, which Satan is said to have won. But the reality is different. God is the Creator, and He is the Most High. Satan is a created being who rebelled against God, but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, defeated him when He died on the cross and rose from the dead. Satan has never recovered from this defeat and cannot bear it. That is why he seeks to deceive people into believing his lies.
It is clear that victims can later experience significant spiritual difficulties as a result of indoctrination with satanic ideas.
Many survivors are afraid of the Lord Jesus, afraid to go to church—afraid because they feel so bad about themselves, afraid that they are not allowed to come to God.
Furthermore, survivors of ritual abuse often trust no one, and are frequently programmed to think and feel that they do not belong anywhere, certainly not in a church where people believe in the Lord Jesus.
Yet there are many survivors of satanic ritual abuse who come to faith in the Lord Jesus, precisely because they come to see that the power of Jesus is greater than that of Satan.
However, they are then also confronted with the commands and programming that have been placed within them. This is where the struggle begins to break free from these.
A struggle that can certainly be won, with the help and guidance of knowledgeable people, and above all with a safe place where survivors can go to process their past. They need people who believe them and take them seriously.
I want to emphasise that God created human beings with a will. Knowing this is essential for survivors. They have been given a will by God. Through ritual abuse, they may feel as though they no longer have a will, and that they are no longer able to choose to say “no” to the commands in their minds. But the truth is that they can rediscover their will and reclaim the ability to choose—to “will”—again, perhaps for the first time. We can help survivors by helping them become aware of their will again, and by working together to strengthen it.
On the Trauma Processing page, (in Dutch) I will go into more detail about counselling, pastoral care, and the process of working through these overwhelming traumatic experiences.