BOOK REVIEWS

I would call "nonproductive" directions, in that he tries to explain one mystery PHILOSOPHICAL An Excursion into with another mystery. This simply will INTERACTIONS not do, as it does not really "explain" WITH anything. Prices new mystery is called 'ARAPSYCHOLOGY the Unnecessary by him the "psychic ether" hypothesis. GORDON STEIN Hie Mjjoi VC'iiiuigi Although many scientists (at least those of H.H. riicc II n [Wipiychologr with a knowledge of science history) Phibsophical Interactions with Parapsychology: The Major Writings of and Suivivil would wince at this revival of a discred- H. H. Price on Parapsychology and Survival. Edited by Frank B. rorrvDivnuNKB own Dillcy. St. Martins Press, New York, 1995. ISBN 0-333-59838-5. ited word (ether). Price tries to define it 294 pp. Hardcover, $59-95. as follows: It is a state intermediate between "mind" and "matter." Price hilosophical Interactions with the real threat to the religious outlook. points out that in Eastern philosophy, Parapsychology is a collection of The phenomena of parapsychology, if there is indeed such an intermediate P journal articles, lectures, and they are real, require a modification (or state, and the dichotomy felt in the West book reviews by the British philosopher even a discarding) of the materialist out- between the two is really more of a con- H . H. Price (1894-1984). Price, at look, thus freeing religion to have its tinuum. He gives as an example the Oxford, was quite interested in deriving "phenomena" without fear that they will memory we have (the image) of a a philosophical explanation or system be disparaged by the holders of a scientific friend's face after the friend is no longer that would be consistent with the exis- oudook as not fitting into the real world. in our presence. There is a sort of an tence of parapsychological phenomena. 1 think that Price is correct about rhis. image present and Price claims that this He accepted as real and demonstrated Here we have rhe heart of the matter "Ether of Images" has both mental and telepathy, hauntings, telekinesis, survival in another way, as well. Perhaps a num- material properties. of death, precognition, clairvoyance, ber of people (scientists included) are My response would be that all and mediumship. He tried to explain anxious to "jump the gun" in their theo- "thoughts" fit into this category, but how these could occur in a world gov- rizing about the paranormal because they they may be only the brain's response to erned by logic and scientific explana- are troubled by the limitations of the chemical or electrical stimuli. Price has tions that did not seem to allow these materialist outlook when it comes to reli- added an additional layer of explanation phenomena, as described. gion. Motivations other than a search for to something that may be satisfactorily Price, it seems, has gotten off on the the truth of how the universe functions explained without it. This then becomes (no matter how idealistic this sounds) wrong foot. He has felt the necessity to an Occam's razor problem, in which we should be suspect. We would all like the explain phenomena that may not yet are guided to accept the simpler, ade- universe to function in a way that makes need an explanation. If the phenomena quate explanation of two offered. In us feel comfortable, but that may very are not real, then no explanation is short, this book is an interesting excur- well not be the way it really works. needed. Price was, it now seems reason- sion by a brilliant mind into the realm of able to say, a bit premature in his accep- Prices theorizing leads him into what the unnecessary. tance of the definitiveness of these phe- nomena. Anecdotal evidence and some of the not-quite-convincing experimen- tal evidence are not adequate to confirm The Silence of the that any of the phenomena actually exist. They may, but there is still no need Co develop a philosophical system until Persecuting Prosecutors this has been established. Otherwise, we ROBERT A. BAKER are simply exercising our imaginations. Price hits upon rhe aspect of parapsy- Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and The Making of a Modern American chology that lies at its heart. He says the Witch Hunt. By and Michael Snedeker. Basic Books, materialist outlook, which underlies New York. 1995, ISBN 0-465-07180-5. 317 pp. Hardcover, $25. much (if not all) of scientific thought, is nyone fortunate enough to dis- American tragedy of childhood sexual cover and read Debbie Nathan molestation. Not specifically the sexual Gordon Stein is a physiologist, editor of The Aand Michael Snedeker's Satan's molestation of children—which is Enclydopedia of the Paranormal, and Silence will quickly realize this is the best indeed a serious problem—but the per- director of the Center for Inquiry Libraries. book yet written about the current secution, prosecution, and conviction of

4 2 May/June 1996 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER BOOK REVIEWS

innocent adults wrongly accused of rit- of sodomizing her son. This accusation Michigan; Spencer Township, Ohio; ual sexual crimes against children they launched a veritable fear-storm of social Sacramento, California; Maiden, did not commit. panic and paranoia that not only Massachusetts; West Point, New York; To believe for a moment that the infected much of Los Angeles County and Miami, Florida. In the latter case, Salem witch-trial hotror of 1692 could but quickly spread across the country. two immigrants were accused of molest- ever be repeated even once in an In regard to the McMartin case, ing eight children in a home-based, enlightened and civilized society seems Nathan and Snedeker note, "The social baby-sitting service. A few months later, unthinkable, but to realize that it has hysteria that McMartin incited upped a 19-year-old day care teacher's aide in happened here in the United States more than a dozen times within the past 'The medical and psychotherapeutic communities aided decade borders on the bizatte and unbe- lievable. How can a supposedly edu- and abetted this stupidity by encouraging the use of cated and informed populace allow such hypnosis, guided imagery, and other New Age non- flagrant miscarriages of justice to occut and, then, once the truth is known, fail sense to implant suggestions of early childhood sexual to take swift and firm action to free and abuse into the minds of believing and trusting people." exonerate the innocent?

Nathan and Snedeker's work covers ritual abuse cases to another level. While Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was accused of each sordid instance of satanic panic: at first they were products of delusional molesting preschoolers and threatening from the Bakersfield (Kern County), individuals by 1984 whole social sys- to kill their parents. He was quickly California, fiasco in 1980, in which four tems had been set up to justify and tried, convicted, and sentenced to sev- innocent adults were sentenced to a develop accusations and prosecutions" eral life terms in prison on the flimsiest total of more than 240 yean of impris- (p. 93). imaginable evidence. onment for crimes they did not commit By 1984 die media were promoting In early 1985, the ritual sacrifice of based on the testimony of Mary Ann the idea that ritual sex-abuse was com- children was alleged in Fort Bragg, Barbour, who was known to be suffering mon and pervasive. In January 1984, 60 California; and in Clarkesville, Mary- from a schizoaffective disorder; to the million people watched die ABC-TV land, where a kindergarten teacher was 1992 Litde Rascals Day Care Center drama "Something About Amelia," accused of assaulting her preschoolers horror in Edentown, Norm Carolina; dealing with a handsome, affluent lather with a screwdriver. Then in New and the 1995 outrages in East who sexually abused his teenaged Braintree, Massachusetts, day care Wenatchee, Washington. daughter. The movie implied such cases workers were charged with defecating The Kern County tragedy was but a were common. on their charges and photographing precursor to the much better-known In die spring of 1984, 24 people in them nude. Late in 1985, Kelly witch-hunt involving Judy Johnson and Jordan, Minnesota, were charged with Michaels at the Wee Care Day Nursery the McMartin Preschool case in operating a child-pornography and sex in Maplewood, New Jersey, was Manhattan Beach, California. This stain ring that included their own sons and arrested, charged with incredibly on American jurisprudence lasted from daughters as victims. In April, janitors obscene and impossible acts, con- 1983 to 1990. and teachers at a day care center in victed, and sentenced to prison where In the McMartin case, die accused, Chicago were accused of abusing chil- she served for five years before an Peggy and Ray Buckey, spent five years dren in satanic rituals and making them investigative reporter for the Wall in jail before being released on $ 1.5 mil- eat boiled babies. In May, workers at a Street Journal, , lion bail, then underwent a trial lasting Montessori school in Reno, Nevada, managed to convince the authorities to 28 months—the longest criminal pro- were charged with ritually abusing 26 free her. ceeding in American history—before all children; and in June, a middle-aged In summary, between late 1983 and charges were finally dismissed. Judy teacher's aide in Memphis was accused 1987, wild and baseless allegations trig- Johnson, who said she believed she had of sexually assaulting 19 children in her gered intensive investigations in more divine powers, and who the courts charge and engaging in satanic rituals. than 100 American communities. Even described as a psychotic alcoholic, trig- By die end of the summer, cases sur- today, in 1996, these witch-hunts con- gered die case by accusing Ray Buckey faced of ritualistic sex-abuse, pornogra- tinue. phy production, and sacrifice of animals How and why did this mass panic Robert A. Baker is professor emeritus of and humans in 14 day care centers in occur? What is most valuable about psychology at the University of Kentucky, New York; dozens more in Southern Satan's Silence is its careful and detailed and author o/"Hidden Memories. California; and individual cases in Niles, account of die historical and social

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER May/June 1996 43 BOOK REVIEWS background of a nation awash in a nationwide crusade conducted by Cases of multiple personality disor- social workers, therapists, physicians, number of political and cultural der (due of course to satanic-ritual victimology researchers, police, crim- changes—including changes in gender inal prosecutors, fundamentalist abuse), alien abduction, parental alien- relations and sexual experimentation— Christians, ambitious politicians, ation syndrome, and other dissociative- that unsetded thousands of law-and- antipornography activists, feminists, identity disorders grew like weeds and and the media. It was a powerful order conservatives and Christian fun- furnished daily grist for die television effort that did not come together damentalists. Among the latter group in overnight. But as it slowly took shape talk-show mills. particular, hostility toward women in a veritable industry developed around When the tide finally turned against the workplace, abortion, and public the effort to demonstrate the exis- these abuses of intelligence and reason tence of ritual abuse. child-care; fear of sexuality in general; with the birth of organized resistance and deep belief in an active, ever-pre- In the absence of conventional groups such as VOCAL (Victims of sent and living Satan converged in a evidence, the proof became words Child Abuse Laws) and the False obtained via suggestion and coercion number of conspiracies widely publi- and the most ambiguous of behav- Memory Syndrome Foundation cized in the Christian media. Livestock iors from both youngsters and the (FMSF) one would assume a diminu- slaughter by Satanists, devil-worship- accused. Verbal "disclosures" about tion in unfounded charges would ping corporate executives, rock musi- evenis that never happened were result. Sadly, instead of owning up to obtained from children using inter- cians whose songs were filled with view Techniques that cognitive psy- "its history of sordid involvement in demonic subliminal messages, ritual chologists have, subsequently, dis- fomenting ritual-abuse panic, the sex-abuse orgies, and Satanic cabals credited as dangerously coercive and child-protection profession remains officially silent on the issue." The rea- To believe for a moment that the Salem witch-trial sons for this are many, but the primary reason is that most of the leading fig- horror of 1692 could ever be repeated ... seems ures had their public image and reputa- unthinkable, but to realize that it has happened here in tions on the line and if they dared cor- rect themselves they feared public the United States more than a dozen times within the humiliation. past decade borders on the bizarre and unbelievable." As Nathan and Snedeker note, peo- ple continue to push discredited dissoci- behind every tree and under every rock suggestive. Additionally, prosecutors ation and repression dieories of trau- were the topics for hundreds of Sunday introduced new fotms of therapeuti- matic amnesia and, while admitting that sermons. Feminists specifically bore the cally induced "evidence"—such as their professions past mistakes are at preschool-age children's play with brunt of wild, sex-abuse conspiracy the- least pardy to blame for current criti- toys and dolls that have genitals, ories and were seen as die primary their vague scribbles and drawings cism, they have source of widespread mistreatment and and parents' retrospective accounts abuse of children. of their children's nightmares and never yet made any effort to publicly masturbation—to show that the review those mistakes in particular Nathan and Snedeker make crystal youngsters had been traumatized by cases—to reexamine the transcripts clear exacdy how these fear-motivated abuse (p. 5). of Kee McFarlane's child interviews urban legends coalesced around the in the McMartin cases, for belief in ritual abuse and aroused com- instance—or to take concrete steps to overturn convictions based on such munities to the point that hundreds of Nathan and Snedeker also show tJiat errors. Instead, they dismiss public innocent people were persecuted, tried, in the name of "saving the children," concerns about false charges as a convicted, and sent to prison where diey jurists and prosecutors have exploited political backlash against feminism remain to this day. Even more remark- popular anxieties about sex to carry out and efforts to ensure children's wel- fare. able is the fact that so few people character assassinations on defendants, protested and that so little was done to accusing them of promiscuity, homosex- defend the innocent. In Nathan and uality, and drug use. The medical and Satan's Silence is well written, care- Snedeker's words: psychodierapeutic communities aided fully researched and annotated, and and abetted this stupidity by encourag- effective in showing die individual and In a culture as heterogeneous as ours, ing die use of hypnosis, guided imagery, social mechanisms of panic and hysteria; so extensive a can be and odier New Age nonsense to implant the precise manner in which paranoid achieved only by concerted efforts at institutionalizing it. Indeed, this is suggestions of early childhood sexual thinking is aroused and developed; and exacdy the way in which belief in rit- abuse into die minds of believing and die way in which ignorance, fear, and ual abuse spread: via an impassioned trusting people. religious convictions combine to create

4 4 May/June 1996 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER BOOK REVIEWS

cognitive dissonance. It also reveals the posedly credible because they commu- ments from the other side. Yet Ian subde workings of otJier psychological nicate commonly held fears and anxi- Stevenson, perhaps the strongest principles such as mass sociogenic illness eties. Satan's Silence is a work of specific "respectable" pro-reincarnarionist, gets by proxy, social desirability, and sec- value to students in sociology, and in most of his viewpoints presented with- ondary gain. clinical, forensic, and social psychology out rebuttal. Where there is rebuttal, it is It should be required reading for programs. in the form of a couple of snide com- anyone concerned with the negative The book is also a splendid example ments that can hardly be taken as serious effects of social movements. For exam- of what die best efforts of investigative rebuttal. ple, Nathan and Snedeker's discussion reporters can do; it is certainly worthy of On the subject of spontaneous of memorates, the process by which an Pulitzer Prize consideration. It will also human combustion, perhaps the major individual uses popular legends to be of great value to any and all activists work on the subject (actually, a semi- explain an ambiguous or puzzling expe- like Dorothy Rabinowitz and Elizabeth credulous book) is omitted, and all the rience (such as a perceived contact with Loftus whose current efforts to free the critical literature and authorities are not the supernatural), shows how the unjustly imprisoned need all the sup- cited or discussed. Several different phe- believers could share their emotional port they can get. This book also sup- nomena involving fire are all lumped terrors in socially acceptable ways with- plies a telling and forceful response to all together, even though they may have out stigmatizing themselves as being the apologists for die supernatural who unrelated causes. disturbed or deviant. For example, continually ask the skeptics, "What pos- We come now to the layout and memorates of satanic cults, UFO sible harm can belief in the paranormal design of the book. It is a superb piece abductions, and Elvis sightings are sup- do?" D of popular printing. Nearly every page contains a color photo, or other color printing. This is especially amazing when it comes to the two "Cottingley Fairy" photographs depicted. They are in color! Color photography, of course, Flaws and Fiction was not invented when the photos were made, yet someone has hand colored GORDON STEIN them. Why, it is difficult to say. There are many quotes and still photographs The X-Files Book of the Unexplained. By Jane Goldman. Simon and from "The X-Files" television show. Schuster, London, 1995. ISBN 0-684-81633-4. 331 pp. There is a list of all of the programs Hardcover, £16. themes and topics. It is almost as if this book were designed specifically for fans e can learn much from The amazing because she acknowledges the of the show, as a promotion or "col- X-Files Book of the Unex- help of the Committee for the Scientific lectible," and not as a serious examina- Wplained. We can learn that Investigation of Claims of the tion of the topics included. That, if it is journalists can rarely be jacks of all Paranormal, James Randi, and assorted indeed the case, could well explain the trades. The author of this book is a other skeptics, several of whom have really sloppy job of "research" that has journalist, but she has no real experi- told me that they had little or no con- been done. ence with the paranormal. She also tact with her, which may explain why, seems to have had no real experience even though citing a number of skepti- It should be noted that this is a with science. The result is a piece of cal sources in her bibliography, she does British publication, although from an journalism that reads well, but seems not seem to have learned anything from American publisher, Simon and incapable of properly evaluating the them. Schuster. A call to the New York office often conflicting evidence for or against These are serious charges, and I fully revealed that the book was not yet the paranormal. Just as a layperson intend to document rhem with a couple scheduled for American publication. often cannot evaluate the reported of examples. Take reincarnation. Gold- This was in spite of the fact that a results of medical or scientific research, man thanks Paul Edwards, who has handwritten note that accompanied the Goldman seems to be unable to sort the written extensively on reincarnation review copy stated that U.S. publica- wheat from the chaff in almost every from a critical point of view. Yet tion would be simultaneous. Perhaps someone at the U.S. office (probably area she covers. While admitting that Goldman's article on this subject has too good to be true) realized the flaws "The X-Files" television program \s fic- only three short quotes that sound like in this book and cancelled American tion, she fails to realize that much of her they might be from Edwards, and they publication. book is also fiction. This is all the mote are immediately countered by argu-

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER May/June 1996 45