Blasphemous Rumours: Is Satanic Ritual Abuse Fact or Fantasy? - An Investigation (Paperback)

In the late 1980s/early 1990s Britain witnessed a widespread panic that children were being sexually abused and sacrificed by Satanic-cults in their terrible rituals. Hundreds of infants were removed from their homes by police and social-workers, and similar panics occurred elsewhere, notably America, Holland and Australia. A Department of Health study The Extent and Nature of Organised and Ritual Abuse: Research Findings by Professor Jean La Fontaine (HMSO, 1994) however found no evidence of sexual abuse or sacrifice in any Satanic-cult's ritual. Why then, did the panic happen? One factor, Professor La Fontaine argues, was the evangelical Christian campaign against cults and new religious movements. The gist of this review is Blasphemous Rumours was central to this sham crusade.

Firstly, consider its sub-title: Is Satanic Ritual Abuse Fact or Fantasy? An Investigation, and Mr. Boyd's introductory claim (p.4), "on the question of objectivity, I declare an interest. I am partly Jewish by descent, Christian by conviction and liberal by temperament. I will accept no further epithets. This book is not a religious diatribe ... " All these suggest the book is based on honest, impartial research. However, the crucial fault of Blasphemous Rumours is its writer began with the premise that satanic ritual abuse is fact, not fantasy, and the book is little more than a portfolio of sound-bytes from others sharing that belief, punctuated by well-selected newspaper cuttings.

To illustrate, Chapter 2 summarises Andrew Boyd's indeterminate survey of "people handling ritual abuse cases", and their especial patrons are totted up to "well in excess of 900 victims". As no attempt is made at verifying their claims this figure is mere hearsay, and later checks confirm some cases are indeed bogus. For instance, the 'Kidscape' founder Michele Elliot is credited with "first hand experience" of two cases. Now, she says, "I just cannot believe there are covens of witches all over the country practicing satanic abuse and sacrificing babies" (Independent 2 May 1998). More noteworthy are Marshall Ronald (solicitor: 6 cases), Maureen Davies (nurse: 70 cases) and Revered Kevin Logan (vicar: 18 cases). These three believed grisly tales told by one Caroline "Hannah" Marchant, who also made the Sunday Mirror's front page under the self-explanatory headline: I SACRIFICED MY BABIES TO SATAN - From sex orgy to death at the hands of the Devil's disciples. Researchers established this case was certainly tragic, but there was no Satanic-cult and no crime. Rather Miss Marchant was an attention-seeking, self-mutilating depressive, and told tales of sex and sacrifice to elicit sympathy. Gullible church-folk believed and encouraged her to say more, but at the same time they could not cope with the strains of her mental illness, and she eventually committed suicide (Independent on Sunday 30 December 1990. For a similar case of church-implanted memories in Mr. Boyd's 'victim' see pages 230-232 of Killing for Culture by David Kerekes & David Slater (Creation Books, 1994)). As well as stating the obvious - better research by Mr. Boyd might have uncovered the truth, not to mention the begging question of how many more "victims" are disturbed but nonetheless unreliable witnesses - it is incontrovertible that these three were directly involved in this sad case. All uncritically believed the untrue allegations, sequentially Mr. Boyd uncritically believed them, who then overstated it as a "first hand experience". Furthermore, nothing rebuts the likelihood of him including this one case into all three's figures. How many more "900+ victims" are as shaky? Blasphemous Rumours provides no verifiable details.

One further criticism can be made concerning the same Kevin Logan. In an earlier feature, written by the same Andrew Boyd, he professed, "At least 30 murders committed in Britain were the direct result of witchcraft", and, "six children have died as the result of occult sacrifice in the past two years" (Prophecy Today/God's Word Now! July/August 1989). The point is not so much that, yet again, verifiable details are altogether absent, in Blasphemous Rumours Reverend Logan is credited with first hand knowledge of only eighteen cases. The begging question of what happened to the other 18+ is not raised. If Blasphemous Rumours is the objective work it claims to be, then it goes without saying Reverend Logan should be challenged as to why he has halved the number of his "first hand experiences". If Mr. Boyd did ask him he does not state the answer. Rather, I strongly suspect, he again uncritically believed the cleric, hoping readers will do the same.

When it comes down to it, then, Blasphemous Rumours is hard on gossip and blind faith, but contains zip hard evidence. True, some people do believe in satanic ritual abuse, but it is also fair to say some people believe the earth is flat. And a book advocating either hypothesis must do more than quote a few fellow-believer's opinions. Blasphemous Rumours utterly fails to achieve this. Clearly, readers deserve better, especially over such a serious criminal allegation.

Not only this, that Blasphemous Rumours masquerades as open-minded research when it is a Christian polemic is reprehensible of itself. Mr. Boyd omits to say he is a sub-editor of the fanatical magazine Prophecy Today that has stated ritual abuse (along with other "satanic" activity such as liberal theology, heavy metal music and Dungeons & Dragons) is evidence of Christ's Second Coming. Interested readers are invited to obtain any copy from a church bookshop and judge whether it expounds the liberal Judeo-Christian principles that Mr. Boyd ascribed to himself. The reader is also directed to Mr. Boyd's later Dangerous Obsessions: Teenagers and the Occult, a more blatant attack on non-Christian beliefs and practices, which is of course his true agenda.

This said I am not critiquing Blasphemous Rumours as an entire waste of space. However its value lies not in its own weight, rather as confirming Professor La Fontaine's analysis. Satanic ritual abuse exists only as a rumour, and one that began with religious zealots.

Peter Ward, Barrister & Lecturer in Law