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James Randall Noblitt and Cult and Ritual Abuse
James Randall Noblitt, author of Cult and Ritual Abuse, is a known contributor to the Satanic Panic, and has shown a willingness to endorse conspiracy theories, spread misinformation, and act unethically, leading to lives being destroyed.
Noblitt served as an "expert witness" for the prosecution in the Oakhill Satanic Ritual Abuse trial. Fran and Dan Keller, a married couple that ran a small daycare, were falsely accused of having abused the kids who attended their daycare as part of Satanic rituals, which included chopping up babies, stealing a gorilla from a park, defecating on the children's heads, taking them on plane trips to Mexico to film CSEM, baptizing the children with blood, and digging graves in a local cemetery to hide human and animal corpses , among other stange and extreme crimes (the only physical evidence ever found of any of these crimes was the testimony of Dr. Michael Mouw, who stated that the appearance of one of the children's hymen suggested she was sexually abused. Mouw has recanted his claims, saying he was "mistaken" and his conclusion was based on inexperience, and was "not scientifically or medically valid"). As a result of the accusations against them, the two spent over two decades in prison before they were released in 2013,, were exonerated in 2017 after being declared "actually innocent," and have been paid $3.4 million in wrongful conviction money.
Their wrongful conviction was in part, the result of Noblitt's testimony as an expert witness. Despite having never interviewed Christy (the toddler responsible for making the initial accusations against the Kellers) himself, Noblitt testified under oath that he was certain she was a victim of Satanic ritual abuse. Noblitt attempting to diagnose a patient he's never examined is blatantly irresponsible and a violation of the APA's ethical code, which sates that "it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination." Christy later recanted the accusations against the Kellers in court, telling Assistant District Attorney Judy Shipway "no, it didn't happen" when asked if any abuse had occured. Noblitt also testified that the strange claims of airplane flights, murders, dismemberments, and other accusations of the Keller's crimes were "typical" of ritual abuse cases, despite the fact there was no evidence found showing these things had occured, it would be impossible for these crimes to have gone completely unnoticed for years and leave no trace. The rest of Noblitt's claims are similarly unsubstantiated, misleading, and preposterous. For example, he accused Keller of having attempting to mind control the jury because the man's fingers briefly looked like a letter "C." Noblitt also falsely claims during the trial that his descriptions of widespread ritual abuse comitted by Satanic cults is uncontroversial, when in the reality the opposite is true... Noblitt's concept of SRA was widely criticized in the psychological field and debunked by FBI agent Kenneth Lanning, who wrote a report stating that despite extensive investigation, there was "little to no evidence" for "large-scale baby breeding, human sacrifice, and organized satanic conspiracies." Noblitt's unethical, untruthful, innacurate, and wildly irresponsible testimony led to the imprisonment of two innocent people, and the traumatizing of the children forced to testify about Satanic abuse that never occured. Noblitt's behavior in relation to this case shows he is absolutely not a trustworthy source regarding ritual abuse. In fact, Fran Keller's lawyer, Keith Hampton, has referred to Noblitt as a "quack," and Evan Harrington, a psychology professor, alongside fourty social and behavioral scientists, signed a letter stating that Noblitt's views regarding ritual abuse are "deeply problematic."
Additionally, Noblitt's book "Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America" contains misinformation and conspiracy theories. For example, in his book he claims that excavations to the McMartin preschool "revealed the presence of underground tunnels the children had reported to authorities as the site of some of their abuse." The reality is that an investigating geologist concluded that "the results of [his] examinations were negative insofar as proving the existence of a tunnel," and firm that conducted a Ground Penetrating Radar survey concluded that there was "No evidence was found to support the existence of filled-in, below-ground tunnels," and an analysis of the archaeologist's report found that the supposed "tunnels" Noblitt is referring to were actually just "the filled-in remains of a rural family’s trash pit that pre-dated construction of the school." Not to mention, the McMartin preschool trial is famously known to be part of Satanic Panic hysteria, and despite it being an extremely long and expensive trial, "nobody was ever convicted of a single act of wrongdoing," making it even more appalling that Noblitt would attempt to argue the legitimacy of the unsubstantiated allegations of SRA occuring there.
Another similarly appalling instance is Noblitt's claim that Michelle Smith, author of "Michelle Remembers," was a "ritual abuse survivor." I cannot be bothered to explain the extent to which the story in Michelle Smith's book about her supposed ritual abuse is blatantly innacurate, and how unreliable her memories of these supposed ritual abuse events are (which were recovered during long hours of hypnosis sessions with her unethical therapist who later married her) when you can find years of thorough explanations of as much with a Google search. Finally, in the beginning of Noblitt's book he credits other conspiracy theorists, such as Alison Miller and Ellen Lacter, both of whom have pages about their misconduct on SSCT that you can read for yourself. All of this just further supports the fact that Noblitt and his works are unreliable sources for education about RAMCOA.