The Occult Debate: Issue #4 Perpetrators of Ritualistic Abuse: Actions of True Believers or True Criminals? While most law enforcers, therapists and actual victims of ritual abuse can agree upon a description of ritualistic abuse, many do not agree upon the perpetrator's motive. On the one hand, perpetrators are clearly perceived as true believers whose spiritual beliefs require them to commit such crimes. On the other hand, perpetrators are described as true criminals who ritually abuse primarily for sexual, economic, psychological, and/or social reasons, not necessarily for spiritual reasons; their so-called commitment to any occult or cult belief system is used to rationalize their ritualistic criminal Involvement. Hypothesis: Perpetrators are true believers. These advocates define ritualistic abuse as repetitive sexual, physical and psychological actions perpetrated against children and / or adults because they are Satanists and are performing the crime as part of a Satanic ritual. In other words, the motivation is one directly tied to the perpetrators belief in Satanic theology. For example: Dr. Lawrence Pazder defines ritualistic abuse of children as "repeated physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual assaults combined with a systematic use of symbols and secret ceremonies designed to turn a child against itself, family, society, and God... The sexual assault has ritualistic meaning and is not for sexual gratification." (Pazder, 1980.) Susan J. Kelley, Ph.D. from the Boston College School of Nursing calls ritualistic abuse "repetitive and systematic sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of children by adults as part of cult or satanic worship." (Kelley, 1988:228.) Hypothesis: Perpetrators are True Criminals. Proponents of the true criminal theory feel that the vast majority of people who actually do commit crimes related to the occult do so for certain social, economic, sexual, physical and psychological reasons. They use their so-called commitment to the occult, especially Satanism, as a way to justify or rationalize their criminal behavior. For example: Kenneth Lanning, a Special Agent with the FBI, feels the term ritualistic abuse is "confusing, misleading, and counterproductive" for law enforcement purposes. He states that "not all spiritually motivated ritualistic activity is satanic... In fact, most spiritually or religiously-based abuse of children has nothing to do with Satanism. Most child abuse that could be termed ritualistic by various definitions is more likely to be physical and psychological rather than sexual in nature." (Lanning, 1989:11-13.) Shawn Carison, a physicist at the UC Berkeley Lawrence Laboratory and director of a two-year study conducted by the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion found that perpetrators of Satanic crimes committed over the past five years were largely mentally ill. Their spiritual motivations, in most cases, had very little to do with the commission of crime. (Carison interview, October 1989.) Inspector Earl Sanders of the San Francisco Police Department notes that SFPD's homicide division is seeing more occult-related crime, "but most of the perpetrators are really 'crazies' who also practice Satanism. We can't really tell how committed they are because of their psychopathic behavior." (Sanders Interview, May 10, 1989.)