[sigh]

Music: Pinback: Summer In Abandon I’ve been returning to some of my research on collective fantasy/group psychology, in particular, the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and early 1990s. Readers might recall a number of television programs devoted to the widespread belief there were murderous Satanists living among us back in the 80s, or perhaps the widespread fear that devil-worshipping rock stars were compelling suburban teens to sacrifice household pets and to commit suicide with backwards messages in their heavy metal music. In the early 90s, the belief that Satan had infiltrated suburbia in the form of cults run by “alters” or human robots was widespread and real. But returning to some of this media material—mostly a number of grainy videotapes of Oprah and Geraldo talk shows—I find myself laughing. The “recovered memories” of these “Satanic Ritual Abuse” (SRA) experts are so ludicrous it is simply astonishing that anyone in their right mind could believe them.

Then again, half the country voted for a presumed knight of Spiritual Warfare. I am wondering if Michael Gerson had anything to do with the SRA movement.

But there is a fine line to walk here between the humorous and the gravely serious. In a more somber tone, this past week I’ve been digging into the case of Fran’s Day Care Center, Austin’s claim to the rumor panic that consumed the popular imagination between 1985 and 1995.

As a result of the coaxed testimony of a very impressionable child (whose mother was just coming to terms with her own, real abuse), Frances and Daniel Keller were charged with child abuse and were sent to prison in 1992 for a 48 year sentence. Their accusers believed that the Keller’s were molesting, torturing, and killing children in Satanic rituals in their Oak Hill home. According to one reporter:

Three children made allegations of abuse that included references to being buried alive with animals, painting pictures with bones dipped in blood, being shot and resurrected, digging up a body in a cemetery and nailing it together, having giant germs implanted in their bodies, and making pornographic movies at gunpoint.

The accusations against the Kellers are almost identical to those levied against the defendants in similar cases nation-wide, such as the well-known McMartin preschool case—a case in which three preschool workers were falsely accused of running a Satanic child-prostitution ring. Notably, in almost every SRA case that resulted in someone’s (false) imprisonment, the “Satanic” rituals were filmed or taped in one fashion or another.

One would think that those trained in child psychology would put “two and two” together: as Rockwell sang so well (to the backing vocals of Michael Jackson, bygods!), “I always feel like somebody’s watchin’ meeeee . . . .” Isn’t it plausible that the gaze is a love object in both therapy and fantasies of SRA? Kids always feel like someone’s watching them, especially in a therapist’s office; of course the “recovered memories” would involve cameras—the desire for the desire of the Other.

The Kellers’ case was part of what was called the “Believe the Children Movement.” This movement is entirely premised on the literalization of the metaphor of memory-as-recording-machine. And abject stupidity, the ideology of de-sexualized children.

From what I have been able to determine, Fran was up for parole in 2003 and was denied; I believe Dan was up this year, and it would seem his parole was also denied.

Returning to this research, I’m reminded of the juridical power of rhetoric. Having returned from a national professional conference, it’s easy to get cynical about my work and the work of others: I watch paper after paper on this or that abstraction, political speech, or “dead white guy.” I write paper after paper on this or that abstraction, political speech, or “dead white guy” (lately Huey P. Long). But taking this project up again, I’m reminded of the sheer force of fantasy: people believe the Devil is literally causing people to eat feces and fetuses. It seems incredible, as there’s no credible evidence anything like the fantasies of 70s horror films ever occurred, but people are still in jail for it!

Heck, the president of our country has waged war on an abstract noun.

My God.

Derrida is more right than I can possibly understand.