Religious abuse

Human sacrifice (sometimes called ritual murder), has been practiced on a number of different occasions and in many different cultures. The various rationales behind human sacrifice are the same that motivate religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice is typically intended to bring good fortune and to pacify the gods. Fertility was another common theme in ancient religious sacrifices.

Human sacrifice may be a ritual practiced in a stable society, and may even be conducive to enhance societal unity (see: Sociology of religion), both by creating a bond unifying the sacrificing community, and in combining human sacrifice and capital punishment, by removing individuals that have a negative effect on societal stability (criminals, religious heretics, foreign slaves or prisoners of war). However, outside of civil religion, human sacrifice may also result in outbursts of blood frenzy and mass killings that destabilize society.

Archaeology has uncovered physical evidence of child sacrifice at several locations.[23] Some of the best attested examples are the diverse rites which were part of the religious practices in Mesoamerica and the Inca Empire.[24][25][26] Psychologists Alice Miller and Robert Godwin, psychohistorian Lloyd deMause and other advocates of children's rights have written about pre-Columbian sacrifice within the framework of child abuse.[27][28][29]

Plutarch (c.46–120 AD) mentions the Carthaginian's ritual burning of small children, as do Tertullian, Orosius, Diodorus Siculus and Philo. Livy and Polybius do not. The Hebrew Bible also mentions what appears to be child sacrifice practised at a place called the Tophet (roasting place) by the Canaanites, and by some Israelites.[30]

Children were thrown to the sharks in ancient Hawaii.[31]

Sacrificial victims were often infants. "The slaughtering of newborn babies may be considered a common event in many cultures" including the Eskimo, the Polynesians, the Ancient Egyptians, the Chinese, the Scandinavians, and various indigenous peoples of Africa, the Americas and Australia.[32]

Artificial deformation of the skull predates written history and dates back as far as 45,000 BCE, as evidenced by two Neanderthal skulls found in Shanidar Cave.[33] It was usually started just after birth and continued until the desired shape was achieved. It may have played a key role in Egyptian and Mayan societies.[34]

In China some boys were castrated, with both the penis and scrotum cut.[35] Other ritual actions have been described by anthropologists. Géza Róheim wrote about initiation rituals performed by Australian natives in which adolescent initiates were forced to drink blood.[36] Ritual rape of young virgins have been part of shamanistic practices.[37]

In the rituals of some tribes in Papua New Guinea, an elder "picks out a sharp stick of cane and sticks it deep inside a boy's nostrils until he bleeds profusely into the stream of a pool, an act greeted by loud war cries."[38] Afterwards, when boys are initiated into puberty and manhood, they are expected to perform fellatio on the elders. "Not all initiates will participate in this ceremonial homosexual activity but, about five days later, several will have to perform fellatio several times."[38]

Individual cases of ritual murder have been recorded in Brazil,[39] the United States,[40] and Singapore (See Toa Payoh ritual murders).

See also List of satanic ritual abuse allegations

To this day, witch hunts, trials and accusations are still a real danger in some parts of the world. Trials result in violence against men, women and children, including murder.[41] In The Gambia, about 1,000 people accused of being witches were locked in government detention centers in March 2009, being beaten, forced to drink an unknown hallucinogenic potion, and confess to witchcraft, according to Amnesty International.[42][43] In Tanzania thousands of elderly Tanzanian women have been strangled, knifed to death and burned alive over the last two decades after being denounced as witches.[44] Ritualistic abuse may also involve children accused of, and punished for, being purported witches in some Central African areas. A child may be blamed for the illness of a relative, for example.[45] Other examples include Ghana, where alleged witches were banished to refugee camps,[46] and the beating and isolation of children accused of being witches in Angola.[47][48][49]

A small number of academics subscribe to the theory of psychohistory and attribute the abusive rituals to the psychopathological projection of the perpetrators, especially the parents.[50][51]

This psychohistorical model claims that practices of tribal societies sometimes included incest and the sacrifice, mutilation, rape and torture of children, and that such activities were culturally acceptable.[52][53]

The term spiritual abuse was purportedly coined in the late twentieth century to refer to alleged abuse of authority by church leaders,[55] albeit some scholars and historians would dispute that claim, citing prior literary appearances of the term in literature on religion and psychology. Lambert defines spiritual abuse as "a type of psychological predomination that could be rightly termed—religious enslavement".[56] He further identifies "religious enslavement" as being a product of what is termed in the Bible "witchcraft" or "sorcery".[57]

Ronald Enroth in Churches That Abuse identifies five categories:

1. Authority and power: abuse arises when leaders of a group arrogate to themselves power and authority that lacks the dynamics of open accountability and the capacity to question or challenge decisions made by leaders. The shift entails moving from general respect for an office bearer to one where members loyally submit without any right to dissent.
2. Manipulation and control: abusive groups are characterized by social dynamics where fear, guilt or threats are routinely used to produce unquestioning obedience, group conformity or stringent tests of loyalty. The leader-disciple relationship may become one in which the leader's decisions control and usurp the disciple's right or capacity to make choices.
3. Elitism and persecution: abusive groups depict themselves as unique and have a strong organizational tendency to be separate from other bodies and institutions. The social dynamism of the group involves being independent or separate, with diminishing possibilities for internal correction or reflection, whilst outside criticism.
4. Life-style and experience: abusive groups foster rigidity in behavior and belief that requires conformity to the group's ideals.
5. Dissent and discipline: abusive groups tend to suppress any kind of internal challenge to decisions made by leaders.

Agnes and John Lawless argue in The Drift into Deception that there are eight characteristics of spiritual abuse, and some of these clearly overlap with Enroth's criteria. They list the eight marks of spiritual abuse as comprising:

1. Charisma and pride
2. Anger and intimidation
3. Greed and fraud
4. Immorality
5. Enslaving authoritarian structure
6. Exclusivity
7. Demanding loyalty and honor
8. New revelation

The author of Charismatic Captivation, Steven Lambert, in a post on the book's website delineates "33 Signs of Spiritual Abuse",[58] including:

1. Apotheosis or de facto deification of the leadership.
2. Absolute authority of the leadership.
3. Pervasive abuse and misuse of authority in personal dealings with members to coerce submission.
4. Paranoia, inordinate egotism or narcissism, and insecurity by the leaders.
5. Abuse and inordinate incidence of "church discipline" particularly in matters not expressly considered to be church discipline issues.
6. Inordinate attention to maintaining the public image of the ministry and lambasting of all "critics".
7. Constant indoctrination with a "group" or "family" mentality that impels members to exalt the corporate "life" and goals of the church-group over their personal goals, callings, objectives or relationships.
8. Members are psychologically traumatized, terrorized and indoctrinated with numerous fears aimed at creating an over-dependence or codependence on their leaders and the corporate group.
9. Members may be required to obtain the approval (or witness) of their leader(s) for decisions regarding personal matters.
10. Frequent preaching from the pulpit discouraging leaving the religion or disobeying the leaderships' dictates.
11. Members departing without the blessing of the leadership do so under a cloud of suspicion, shame, or slander.
12. Departing members often suffer from psychological problems and display the symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Flavil Yeakley's team of researchers conducted field-tests with members of the Boston Church of Christ using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. In The Discipling Dilemma Yeakley reports that the members tested "showed a high level of change in psychological type scores", with a "clear pattern of convergence in a single type".[59] The same tests were conducted on five mainline denominations and with six groups that are popularly labeled as cults or manipulative sects. Yeakley's test results showed that the pattern in the Boston Church "was not found among other churches of Christ or among members of five mainline denominations, but that it was found in studies of six manipulative sects."[59] The research did not show that the Boston Church was "attracting people with a psychological need for high levels of control", but Yeakley concluded that "they are producing conformity in psychological type" which he deemed to be "unnatural, unhealthy and dangerous."[60]

This was not a longitudinal study and relied on asking participants to answer the survey three times; once as they imagined they might answer five years prior, once as their present selves and once as they imagined they might answer after five years of influence in the sect. The author insists that despite this, "any significant changes in the pattern of these perceptions would indicate some kind of group pressure. A high degree of change and a convergence in a single type would be convincing proof that the Boston Church of Christ has some kind of group dynamic operating that tends to produce conformity to the group norm." However it could instead indicate a desire on the part of the respondents to change in the direction indicated. To determine actual changes in MBTI results would require a longitudinal study, since the methodology here was inherently suggestive of its conclusion. This is also amply borne out in its instructions: "The instructions stated clearly that no one was telling them that their answers ought to change. The instructions said that the purpose of the study was simply to find out if there were any changes and, if so, what those changes might indicate."[61]