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Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) can be defined as the psychological, sexual, and/or physical assault forced on an unwilling human victim, and committed by one or more Satanists according to a prescribed ritual, the primary aim of which is to fulfill the need to worship the Christian devil, Satan.

Bob and Gretchen Pasantino, on the website http://answers.org/satan/sra.html

Give "The Hard Facts About Satanic Ritual Abuse"

They talk about an association with a widespread conspiracy who practice physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse on unwilling victims in a ritualistic manner, especially in connection with a commitment to Satan. This is distinguished from loner or isolated small group abuse.

This abuse includes emotional (terrifying threats, deliberate heightening of fear, etc.), physical (beating, cutting, etc.), sexual (incest, mutilation of sexual organs, etc.), and spiritual (threats that God won't forgive, Jesus is defeated, etc.).

The ritual elements of the abuse are always satanic or occultist. Common features of satanic ceremony folklore such as the black mass, human sacrifice, drinking of blood, and satanic symbols are common.

Diane Napolis has a website http://www.newsmakingnews.com/karencuriojonesarchive.htm

that contains an archive of Satanism and ritual abuse where there are cases which describe legal proceedings held in Juvenile, Family, Civil and Criminal Courts around the world where there have been allegations of Satanism or the use of Ritual to abuse others.

Satanic ritual abuse, or SRA, refers to the belief that an organized network of Satanists engages in brainwashing and abusing victims, especially children, throughout the United States or even the world. These claims remain controversial and law enforcement sources, criminologists, psychologists, and religious affairs commentors generally consider this belief false or at least grossly exaggerated. At present, press and media figures and much of the public treats claims of Satanic ritual abuse with great skepticism. Many sociologists class the public outcry in the 1980s concerning SRA as an example of a public moral panic. Nevertheless, claims of Satanic ritual abuse still appear and there remains a significant but unknown number of people in many countries who believe in the existence of organised communities perpetuating SRA.

So, where does that leave us, as the community of Psychosynthesists, who work daily with the public torment of the soul?

When I was still in my formative years of psychosynthesis, still a student with ‘bright eyes’ and an eagerness to ‘learn all that I can’, I came across a training weekend offered by Psychosynthesis Pathways of Montreal, and numerous practitioners with the experience necessary for working with this extreme therapeutic need. We were gently guided towards a learning that would change my life forever, crashing me out of my ‘rose coloured glasses’ and into a paradigm that shook me to my very foundation. Assagioli speaks to the polarities, instinctually within all of life. We all, at some level of understanding, can hold that truth that there can not be light if there is no contrast of the darkness, and yet, holding the truth of the darkness of humanity became a task that I had to grow into. Revulsion was followed by endorphin dissociation which was just a prelude to a deeper understanding of the truth of humanity in these times.

I have witnessed abreaction, and have came to understand that ‘the body remembers’. It is not just the mind that holds trauma, but also each cell of the body. The proof of the ‘holographic model’ can truly be found in the abreactions of people that have lived through extreme trauma, especially if that happened over a period of years and began at a very young age, before the formation of a linear mind. The usual pattern is that most adults who were abused as children have little recollection. The ‘front’ or ‘host’ keeps the unit stable and is disconnected from its past. Usually, the first memories come forward in the form of a dream. The unconscious, when it feels that the ego has the strength to begin to ‘hold the truth’ will allow pieces to come forward. The person feels like they are a jigsaw puzzle ‘in the making’. They may remember that their uncle created a situation of sexual abuse, followed by some abreaction, or release of emotions, which may be followed by a full blown abreaction where the person is back in the abuse of the past with all their senses. They lose touch with their present reality and can hear, see, touch, taste, and smell everything that occurred sometimes decades ago. Without a stable support system it is possible to enter into a psychosis that disallows present life. Swimming in the past the person needs to find some footing, a grounding that helps them to both identify with the reality of their past, and to disidentify with the past so that they can begin the healing process and can come more fully into their present. While the use of Energy Psychology, such as EMDR, EFT,TFT, as well as other modes of ‘faster therapy’ can hasten the healing process, I have found that until the person takes responsibility for their own healing and begins to own the trauma of their past, their move into a normalized understanding of life may not be as grounded. Denial is one of the biggest setbacks to the healing process. Imagine, if you can for a moment, that you have memories of a loving childhood. Suddenly, you see your parents, through a dreamlike state of past memoring, as abusers and ritualists in a religion which is exactly the opposite of what you remember your past as having been. This shakes the very core of your belief system, and you begin to wonder what is real, and what isn’t.

As therapists, we need to take into account that people that are beginning to emerge from this form of memory reawakening need a safe place. They need to know that they are believed, and that whatever form the memories come forward in, is their personal way of healing. There are no two survivors who move through their material in the same way. I truly belive that the ‘I’, in conjunction with the Higher Self, can orchestrate even this extreme of healing. One of the difficulties encountered along the way is the search for the ‘I’, especially in people who have had to form multiplicity in order to survive. They may find that they have many centers, or systems of centers, which need attention. In reality, even though I truly believe that every person, no matter how traumatic their background, can eventually found a center, unfortunately many will fall by the wayside on this journey, because they are unable to find safe guidance, or because their fear keeps them from ‘living their truth’. As people who ‘walk their talk’ and understand the multiplicity of ‘all there is’, we hold the tools to their healing. Psychosynthesis, with its model of subpersonalties and higher understanding, is an ideal model to aid in this walk of trauma.

John Firman and Ann Gila, in their book The Primal Wound: A Transpersoanl View of Trauma, Addiction, and Growth (State Univeristy of New York Press, 1997) remind us that before we can understand the dynamic of nonbeing we must first understand human and spritual development in order to recognize the great disruption that abuse can have on the personality and how a comprehensive approach can aid in psycholgical healing. While it is quite the norm in childhood wounding to split our experience of self into good and bad, a split from which we can reflect and act, the multiple splitting that ocurs from deep wounding over long periods of time creates amnesic areas that can only be accessed during the healing process.   Gradually the memories begin to surface, the personality has the option of ‘holding’ the information, acting on it, and continuing the journey, or remaining in the past and continuing, and continually fighting the demons. Where, at first the parts of the self, in altered states, can only communicate minimally if at all, the field of consciousness gradually opens and material from the past may begin to surface in greater and greater amounts. It is not uncommon for people who have been deeply abused to feel like the memories have taken over their present life and they find themselves in a place where they are unable to function in their everyday world. This is the time when community needs to gather together to provide support and safety, allowing the personality the time it needs to gather itself in whatever form it needs to take. This is not a time for ‘microwaving’, but rather a time for a holding of the space and allowing the process to occur in the way it needs to be present. We truly need to trust that the Higher Self knows the way and will guide us all to its place of wholeness.

Being a therapist, and being given the opportunity to be present to  someone else’s journey is truly a great gift. As I watch a human being emerge from their tempest, I too have tears of joy, pain, and love in my eyes. How can we not be touched by the beauty that is life? In this existence we all need to go through some sorrow in order to find the truth and beauty that is. We need to find compassion  and loving forgiveness for ourselves and others. I have found that those that have been the most deeply wounded are usually those that have learnt to love the most. There is something inherent in the deep wounding that creates an opening of love that is as deep

The tools for healing are trust, honesty, safety, love, compassion, and a genuine belief in life itself. If you can hold these as your truths, then we, as a planet, have come into and are truly living in the New Age.