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Forensic Considerations in Ritual Trauma Cases (Part 2) - Page 10

© Sylvia Gillotte, attorney

Drugs, many of which are specially designed and concocted by individual cults, serve a variety of functions:

1) They make a child more compliant and manageable 2) They function as pain control and permit a child to experience the trauma without losing consciousness 3) They facilitate manipulation of the ritual itself by altering the child’s cognitive awareness 4) They facilitate removal of psychological barriers 5) They make it more difficult for the child to maintain defenses and a strong connection to reality 6) They promote dissociation 7) They impact the child’s memory and perception of the experience

Even prior to being abused in a ritualistic setting, young children and infants are “assaulted” by perpetrators in a variety of ways that are intended to induce dissociation and condition the victim to more severe trauma. These include tactile, auditory, visual, olfactory, and gustatory deprivation and/or overload, as well as manipulation and exploitation of the infant/child’s maturing nerve and physiological reflex system. Techniques that are commonly associated with “prisoner interrogation,” such as lengthy isolation and confinement, as well as sleep and sensory deprivation, are also used with great success.

When a child is repeatedly held underwater to the point of panic, he or she will naturally learn to dissociate from the experience. If the child reacts poorly during a ritual or programming, he or she may be “punished” through the use of electroshock or a cattle prod until there is total compliance via an “internal” retreat via dissociation. If the child is confined in a small dark space (e.g., a small closet or a coffin-like box) along with various spiders, insects, and other creepy crawlers of which the child is terrified, it will not be long before dissociation is seen as the only means of “escape.” It is important to note that none of these terrorizing and dissociation-inducing techniques produce any external signs of abuse – only long term emotional and psychological damage.

Cult leaders are usually extremely intelligent. They are also very knowledgeable about methods of inducing pain and torture that do not leave marks or physical evidence (e.g., the use of pins, needles, electroshock, etc.), and typically have hundreds of years of practiced trauma technique “under their belts.” Furthermore, they understand the legal and judicial process and carefully design their rituals so that children who might disclose will be discredited. Finally, cults know that the activity in which they are engaged is so outrageous as to be “unbelievable” to the average person. Given the experience of victims of the Holocaust, such thinking is not without merit.

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