The Hard Facts about Satanic Ritual Abuse

Ph.Deities.

The fifth way true believers attempt to support the SRA conspiracy theory betrays a niave and inappropriate trust in authority, if not self-aggrandizement on the part of true believer therapists. Therapists do not have some sort of omnipotent visionary power to determine who is recounting reality and who is ascribing reality to fantasy. As one forensic psychologist joked to us, "they sound more like Ph.Deities than therapists!" It amazes us that Christians like Hal Lindsey and Johanna Michaelsen, who previously gave strong support to Christian psychotherapy critics like Dave Hunt, now tell us Christians can't necessarily discern truth regarding Satan, but secular psychotherapists using directive therapy can. Psychologists Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield point out the danger in placing blind trust in the discernment of therapists:

The believers in the satanic conspiracy who . . . see themselves as having the special power to discern abuse and reach into children and adults who deny being abused to discover the truth are, in fact, claiming a special, magical power and knowledge not available to the rest of us. The claim to esoteric knowledge not available to ordinary folk has been the hallmark of magical claims and cultic righteousness since the days of the Greek mystery religions and the early Christian heresy of Gnosticism.