Satanic ritual abuse

Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organised abuse, sadistic ritual abuse and other variants) was the subject of a moral panic that originated in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout the country and eventually to many parts of the world, before mostly diminishing in the late 1990s. Allegations of SRA involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. In its most extreme form, SRA involved a supposed worldwide conspiracy involving the wealthy and powerful of the world elite in which children were abducted or bred for sacrifices, pornography and prostitution.

Nearly every aspect of SRA was controversial, including its definition, the source of the allegations and proof thereof, testimonials of alleged victims, and court cases involving the allegations and criminal investigations. The panic affected lawyers', therapists', and social workers' handling of allegations of child sexual abuse. Allegations initially brought together widely dissimilar groups, including religious fundamentalists, police investigators, child advocates, therapists and clients in psychotherapy. The movement gradually secularized, dropping or deprecating the "satanic" aspects of the allegations in favor of names that were less overtly religious such as "sadistic" or simply "ritual abuse" and becoming more associated with dissociative identity disorder and anti-government conspiracy theories.

Ritual

A ritual "is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence." Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance.

Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, school "rush" traditions and graduations, club meetings, sporting events, Halloween parties, veterans parades, Christmas shopping and more. Many activities that are ostensibly performed for concrete purposes, such as jury trials, execution of criminals, and scientific symposia, are loaded with purely symbolic actions prescribed by regulations or tradition, and thus partly ritualistic in nature. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying hello may be termed rituals.

The Carlyle Group

The Carlyle Group is an American multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation. As one of the largest private equity and alternative investment firms in the world, Carlyle specializes in four key business areas: corporate private equity, real assets, global market strategies, and investment solutions.

Carlyle's corporate private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyout transactions over the last decade, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate. Since its inception, Carlyle has completed investments in companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton, Dex Media, Dunkin' Brands, Freescale Semiconductor, Getty Images, HCR Manor Care, Hertz, Kinder Morgan, Nielsen, and United Defense.

Carlyle was founded in 1987 in Washington D.C. by William E. Conway, Jr., Daniel A. D'Aniello, and David Rubenstein and currently operates with more than 1,700 professionals across 35 offices in North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia. Over the course of two decades, Carlyle has amassed a portfolio of $193 billion in assets under management across 130 funds and 156 fund of fund vehicles and has made investments in more than 200 companies and more than 250 real estate investments. In 2012, Carlyle completed a $700 million initial public offering and began trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange on May 3, 2012. In aggregate, Carlyle’s portfolio companies employ more than 675,000 people worldwide and the firm has more than 1,650 limited partners in 78 countries.

Satanic

Satanic may refer to:

Abuse

Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of an entity, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices; crimes, or other types of aggression.

Types and contexts of abuse

Abuse of authority

Abuse of authority, in the form of political corruption, is the use of legislated or otherwise authorised powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by private persons or corporations not directly involved with the government. An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if the act is directly related to their official duties.

Abuse of authority is separated from abuse of power in that the act is originally condoned, but is extended beyond that initially conceived and is in not all cases