Ritual abuse is done primarily within small groups. These consist of cults, quasi 'religious' or 'community' groups etc with a dogmatic leader/s. They are organized locally into regions. Each leader networks with other similar groups both nationally and internationally.

The groups consist of a small number of people. The numbers can range from four to four hundred or even larger. They are kept small for control. The numbers can also correspond to the general population size in an area. Eg in a small country town, they would be smaller. They vary also with the manipulative ability of the area. Eg working class suburbs are more easily manipulated by their lack of power. Groups can be broken up into smaller divisions if they expand.

They are hierarchial and each person has specific roles. These include: lower levels- cleaning, setting up the sites, etc; mid levels- brainwashing, keeping tabs on people, kidnapping, organizing prositution, etc; upper levels- controlling the sites, networking, administration, etc. They are basically small personal armies. Both public and private resources are abused. Eg. a member can work in a government dept and access information.

The aims of the organization are about abusive and dehumanizing power. The killings are concerned with supposed power over life. The orgies, prostitution, pornography and sexual assault by one or more members to others is concerned with rape, incest, humiliation and obtaining money. There is a pecking order and major competition within and between cults/organizations based on this abusive expression.

The leader/s of the cults/organizations obtain the most power. The money is directed mainly to them and they control the abuse. The leaders abuse further their necessary general powerful position in society. The cults/organizations could not exist unless there was some clout to cover up the activities and a large monetary base for the prostitution, pornography, human trade and networking.

Judging from the locations of survivors' reports, ritual abuse occurs in all western countries. Survivors from eastern countries are also now coming forward. It exists in all rural and metropolitan towns/cities and areas. It is difficult (and inconsequential) to describe the full extent of cult activity. Firstly, we are only beginning to map it, and secondly, survivors are not quantifiable statistics. Survivors come from all classes, ages, genders, sexualities, abilities and races/ethnicities.

We can presume that ritual abuse has been in existence for some time. Evidence from court cases and accounts of atrocities have described activity going back to the sixteenth century. Many survivors speak of coming from long term transgenerational families.

As mentioned, ritual abuse is that done within a secretive organization that practices major abuse such as organized killing. The list is: homicide- both singularly and collectively, and as preplanned; sexual assault as collective and individual within the ceremonies, organized pornography and prostitution, and within the homes; human trade industry- human production within compounds, kidnapping, illegal child adoption rings, prostitution slave trade and so called "snuff"- murder movies; drug production and trafficking; money laundering; and networking with other similar organizations such as the mafia and klu klux klan. The conditioning process is also very abuse, and consists of severe psychological and physical violence. Please see Indoctrination

It is called ritual abuse as when counsellors first started to believe us in the mid 80s, survivors recalled mainly the anti societal rituals involved. The organizations have calenders of abusive dates. Within satanic ritual abuse, major times are Halloween (October 31st), Beltane (May 1st), Easter and Christmas (with the last two reversed in their Christian rituals). (The organizations are now shifting ceremonies more to public holidays with growing public awareness of ritual abuse and traditional dates. A cover of, for example, a supposed Labour Day party is being abused.) Many survivors and supporters are questioning the term now as it is too broad. For example, child molestors as catholic priests are committing ritual abuse. They should not be confused with 'ritualistic abuse' (done in a ritualised manner such as beating a child daily). Nor is it or open and non abusive satanism, where worshipping satan within itself is not criminal. The emphasis should be totally on the criminality. We are also now starting to see the large extent of the organizations' abuse beyond the rituals. They are secretive highly abusive organizations similar to the mafia only with mainly cult structures.

The organizations are also within a continuum of societal abuse. Wars are organized killing; working and middle class workers are threatened by the army if they don't go to work; sexual assault is institutionalized and major; and there is much hype and sensationalism around morality and religion within the media. What is different is the secretiveness and possibly more gratuity.

As with all abusive organizations, ritual abuse groups have a process of indoctrination. The aim is to entrap the person into being totally submissive. It is concerned with instilling lies through violence. The lies are: supposed worthlessness without the group/cult; that perpetrators "love" you; the outside world eg counsellors and loving family and friends "hates and disbelieves you"; you will "always be alone"; you "enjoyed the violence"; etc. The violence is in all areas: physical eg beatings and deprivation; psychological eg abuse of mind altering drugs; emotional eg family deprivation; and sexual eg multiple and child rape.

The level of indoctrination corresponds to the level of abuse. As ritual abuse groups are very secretive and practise major criminality, the styles and degree of conditioning are therefore very surreptitious and heavy. There are specific and preplanned steps in the process. With transgenerational (long term family) survivors, this begins early and there is major concentration within the child's development. People indoctrinated from outside the family eg as wives, through kidnapping, as friends, etc also particularly experience heavy abuse in the early stages. The cult/organization could attempt to reproduce either conscious or nonconcious (unaware) survivors depending upon whether they feel they have achieved total control.

Indoctrination occurs within all aspects of cult life either in the home, other member's houses, the cult meeting places, the specific brainwashing areas, institutions (eg schools) if influenced by cult members, etc. Broadly, there are two main processes. These are the general and the specific. The general is done by cult members particularly those in the family. Eg a young boy can be raped in a cult ceremony. General indoctrination methods involve lies eg "mum will be killed', deceipt, threats eg "you will be tracked down if you escape", false promises eg "the cult will provide for you", false guilt eg "you owe the cult as it 'helped you'", "doing favours", etc.

The specific is done by trained indoctrinators called "trainers" or "programmers". The indoctrinators have very organized steps and styles that correspond to the levels and types of control. Eg a newly married and non cult background wife will be indoctrinated from the beginning. Tasks and roles will also be attempted to be instilled. Specific methods such as abusing psychological dissociation and organizing multiple personalities are done in this form. The specific indoctrination also involves lies, threats, false promises etc.

There are two main forms of specific indoctrination. For ease, they have been categorized as reproducing either single or mutliple personality systems.

The "multiple personality" system has been mainly abused since the 1950s/60s. It is a very sophisticated form of brainwashing or mind control. It is generally called "programming" because of its very technical nature. The cult obtained it from the military where it was originally developed. The aim is to create separate personalities through violence and trauma. It abuses trickery. For example, a person is put into into a drug induced state and is lacking coherence. He/she is fooled into thinking they were in a life and death scenario of supposed choice and lied to that "he/she killed their mother". In reality the mum was not there. It was a cult member acting as this and the person had no choice. The only thing the person wanted was not to be there in the first place. The cult also abuses threats (eg of being beaten or family killed); disorientation (eg abuse of spinning machinery where the person is literally spun around); deprivation of food, sleep, water, love etc; actual harm eg by obedient organization members in the family; confusion; etc. This psychological and physical violence forces people to dissociate, and after repeated trauma, forms separate personalities. These are then psychologically separated from the "host" person through more violence and threats. This supposedly enables more control through manouverability. The personalities are lied to that they "owe the cult", and therefore are also seemingly turned against the host person. Depending upon whether the cult thinks it has control, these personalities may be nonconscious to the person. The person is unaware or amnestic- suffering amnesia. The personalities are then organized into a system of roles, tasks, cues, etc. The programming system is then abused by the cult. For example, a person may hear a telephone ring only twice at home, then dissociate into a specific and conscious or non conscious personality, and ring a specific number for directions about cult/organization activities.

The single personality system was mainly abused before the 1950s although people after this time have been abused in this form. The aim is to reproduce a psychosis where the person as a whole "spaces out" and loses consciousness so as to be abused in cult activities. There is again heavy violent physical and psychological conditioning.