To the EO management and membership council,
Earlier, following the documentary "The Conspiracy", I had two e-mail exchanges with its makers. One about the use of images of me, against my explicit request and without permission of the maker (family 7) and one to call on you to immediately remove the sentence 'Jacqueline received the same treatment as Aline Terpstra's patients' (episode 3, min. 39.25) from this episode because it is unfounded libel. These e-mail exchanges are here read, I am not going to repeat its content here.
In this letter, I would like to express my deep disappointment with the entirety of the documentary broadcast by the EO. The final product aired is biased and suggestive. It omits very important facts which makes the whole thing paint a mendacious picture of the complex reality of satanic ritual abuse (srm). In doing so, the EO makes the lives of victims trying to break free from this even harder than their leaden process already is.
I urge you as the management and membership council of the Evangelical Broadcasting Corporation to take this documentary offline and rectify it on your website. Out of concern for one of the most vulnerable groups in our society and invoking Micah 6:8. Below I will substantiate this urgent appeal.
Damaging simplism
In your e-mail exchange with us, the investigative journalists wrote: 'If you don't want to or can't answer certain questions during the interview or are not happy with certain statements, you can of course always indicate this and we can discuss it. Especially on this last point, we would like to have that exploratory conversation, because we also understand how extremely sensitive it is. Obviously, we don't want you or the people you want to work for to get into trouble and/or make the situation worse, and we would like to take that into account.'
However, the entirety of your documentary sets up the image of hundreds of therapists in the Western world who have inflicted satanic ritual abuse on vulnerable people en masse in recent decades. You connect this with images of excesses in Christian circles, i.c. Benny Hinn who claims to exorcise demons by laying on of hands. Personally, I know of no therapist who deals with victims of srm involved in such excesses. Somewhere in your documentary, you make the clear statement 'it is silly to cast an entire profession in a bad light based on the behaviour of two psychiatrists'. Subsequently, that is exactly what you do. And it is much more than 'faint': it is immensely damaging not only to this group of helpers but also to the credibility of the survivors of srm, some of whom I see struggling very hard every day to dare to talk about the atrocities they often still suffer in the present.
By now you know as well as I do from making the documentary that practitioners for these tormented people are to be found with a light, see e.g. the standard of care for dissociative disorders, at 3.6.1. Psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists are certainly not eager to treat these complex issues. If you google on satanic ritual abuse as a practitioner, you come across discussions about it in the media and in the scientific world. In these, practitioners who have stuck their necks out for this for decades are repeatedly portrayed as quacks who put ritual abuse in their clients' mouths. As Sanne Terlingen - investigative journalist for Argos and also quoted in your docu - pithily put it: 'it's almost a journalistic suicide act to go on air about this subject, that's how it feels' . This also applies to practitioners. No one feels like that. Your documentary scares practitioners even further in this and thus makes it even harder for survivors to find a practitioner. Does that fit with your sentence: 'Of course we don't want you or the people you work for to get into trouble and/or make the situation worse (...)'?
The simplistic explanation you give in your documentary for the hundreds of testimonies of survivors of srm from all over the Western world (i.e. that therapists talk them into these memories) is old wine in new bags. Similarly, in the nineties, the many testimonies of survivors, adults and children, were nipped in the bud, partly due to rise of 'false memorymovement' in the US and in the Netherlands, among others, due to the objectionable contribution of the Landelijk Expertisebureau Bijzondere Zedenzaken (LEBZ), about which you can read on our site www.lichtopsrm.com read more, see, for example this letter. How can you morally justify, on the basis of two testimonies (about which more below), hundreds of therapists (see e.g. 'emperical and forensic evidence of ritual abuse')and thereby also cast victims in a bad light? Over the past decades, many testimonies of organised abuse - including satanic ritual abuse - have been heard from all parts of the Western world. Through all kinds of different channels such as youth services, psychologists and psychotherapists, social workers, media (such as the argos documentary), police and loved ones, so certainly not only through psychological or pastoral counsellors. You have interviewed two survivors, two 'retractors' (someone who retracts a previous testimony), and some 'experts' to make an 'analysis' on how such conspiracy thinking about srm could arise anyway. I suspect none of the 'experts' have ever spoken to a survivor.
Simplistic and baseless too, how you dismiss the stories of abuse of 70 children as nonsense stories. Can really none of the 140 parents and GPs of those 70 children discern whether their child is fantasising something or trying to tell something horrific in fear and panic? Hearsay is a basic journalistic principle in your code (see professional code of journalism, under 'fair' point 4). Of the 140 parents and 70 children, I heard none in your broadcast.
How many aid workers like me like to close their eyes to srm
I myself was working as an independent psychologist for several years when a client of mine started talking about ritual abuse. I knew virtually nothing about it, but after googling it for a while, I knew that from the perspective of the scientific world of psychology, I had entered a minefield. And I also knew that I had no desire to delve into or specialise in this. I stayed away from suggestive questions, as any trained psychologist usually does. I did not attend any conferences on the subject - there were none at all then, by the way. But this did not change what personality parts of my client told bit by bit about horribly sadistic, violent child abuse, including child sacrifice and extremely cunning manipulation techniques to silence her.
Many years later, Esther reported to me, seeking help for a past history of satanic ritual abuse. In the phone conversation with her, I was touched by her suffering. I also knew that as a free-licensed GZ psychologist, I did not want to be her practitioner, but did seek appropriate treatment with her for three months, to no avail. Based on James 2:14-17, I still offered her a 3-month trial treatment, how that went on is here to read.
Against my will, I became a practitioner of survivors of satanic ritual abuse. A completely different story from what your documentary outlines: counsellors who, under the influence of the hype of the day, are only too happy to hear about satanic rituals and put it in the mouths of their vulnerable clients. I know several social workers who have become involved with a survivor in similar ways to mine. And many more social workers who - like myself earlier - want nothing to do with this target group.
Sociological explanation not valid
Your suggestion that therapists talk clients into srm is complemented in your documentary by a 'roadmap': knowledge about srm passes from the head of a therapist in the US via a congress to the head of a Dutch therapist who then talks his or her Dutch client into a whole history of satanic ritual abuse. This allegedly happened on a large scale, through many treatment providers. This is a fabricated hypothesis that should be scientifically tested before being presented in a documentary as a factual analysis based on 2 cases (N=2). Based on common sense, it is much more obvious for therapists to go to a congress after they have spoken to clients who tell of satanic ritual abuse. After all, it's the same in other professions: GPs attend conferences on red tape because they get stuck in it, and human resources advisers attend a mediation course because they get stuck mediating labour disputes, and so on. For me personally, I had already heard a lot from clients before attending a congress on the subject. Moreover, the horrors and practices I heard from my clients were many times worse than what I heard about this at a congress.
Satanic ritual abuse only diagnosed in extreme Christian circles?
The entirety of the documentary suggests that satanic ritual abuse is instigated by counsellors from extreme Christian circles. Anyone who googles for a while will discover that most organisations and counsellors working for survivors of sadistic and satanic abuse have this not do from a Christian philosophy of life. Not in the Netherlands, and, as far as I know, not outside. Surely we must assume that these documentary makers have done their homework, and discovered this fact. Why then still present the image that satanic ritual abuse is instigated by counsellors from extreme Christian circles?
'Alleged' ritual abuse, 'retractors' and withdrawal of testimony under pressure
Your documentary features 2 women who, over a long period of their lives, told of satanic ritual abuse in their past and/or present. Both later retracted these testimonies and tell in your documentary that it was the therapist(s) and pastoral workers who put the testimonies about srm in their mouths in all sorts of suggestive ways. The case of 'Jacqueline' lacks any kind of rebuttal from the therapist/pastoral workers. What is also missing is a reflection on the theme of 'withdrawal of a previously given testimony of ritual abuse'. If in incest families children are already pressurised not to reveal the truth at all costs, how high will the pressure be on children and adults abused in organised contexts for, among other things, the most disgusting torture porn in which survivors say many high-ranking people are also involved?
We also hear from survivors who gradually deny their entire story out of fear during their trial, sometimes despite injuries and other supporting evidence. But who later come back to this and tell us that they withdrew their story out of fear, because of the horrific consequences if they refused to do so. This may include forcibly discrediting or suing their therapist.
This means that the testimony of someone who retracts a previously told testimony cannot simply be taken as true. In the article 'we have a few more pictures of you' an example of this is described. Your documentary unilaterally assumes that if someone retracts a previous statement made on srm, the latter statement is then the correct one. This may indeed be the case in this situation, but it is also possible that it is different. In any case, hearing from the therapist(s) is essential to form a beginning opinion on one or the other. One of the 'retractors' in your documentary completely lacked this.
Unfortunately, I myself know of some situations in which a history of ritual abuse was suggested in vulnerable people through repeated and persistent suggestive questioning. These situations did not involve trained psychologists or psychiatrists, but pastoral helpers attached to a Christian organisation, without the supervision of a psychologist, psychotherapist or psychiatrist. On the other hand, I know more than 10 times as many victims well enough to know that in these situations there was no question of incitement. And that in some situations I have seen and experienced supporting evidence that powerfully substantiates their story.
Dissociative identity disorder (DIS) included in international DSM-V for decades
Another criticism of your documentary is that it gives the impression that DID (formerly: Multiple Personality Disorder) is a fringe phenomenon in circles that believe in satanic ritual abuse. You fail to mention that dissociative identity disorder has been included in the DSM-V, the internationally recognised manual of psychiatrists, for decades. This means that all over the world this disorder is observed by hundreds or thousands of therapists, most certainly not only by therapists working with survivors of satanic ritual abuse. In the Netherlands, a special standard of care has been developed for people with this 'disorder', which I mentioned earlier in this letter. The omission of such facts in your documentary falsely suggests to an unsuspecting and not otherwise informed viewer, that therapists working with survivors of srm are the only group of therapists encountering this disorder.
Argos broadcasts cast in bad light
You have the TBKK - special unit of police around vice cases - talking about the Argos documentary. I have had experience with the TBKK myself, which you here can read, but that aside. The documentary says that everything that could be investigated was investigated by this unit of the police. Nowhere does it specify what was investigated.
There is also no mention of what has not been investigated with a high degree of probability: the striking similarities in many witness statements when it comes to locations, modus operandi and specific personal details of specifically named perpetrators.
For example, where multiple victims in the Argos investigation managed to tell (including intimate) details about the same alleged perpetrators (and matched them), how did they prove that this would not be true? As many as 40 perpetrators were described by multiple victims (see argos documentary 'glass shards and dark rituals - still to be seen via youtube - from minute 38.30), where overlap was found . In the case of known perpetrators, overlap was only assumed if several people mentioned them in connection with the same location and with the same bizarre specific sexual preference. This did not involve something like 'sexual preference for boys' but bizarre preferences like 'likes to put aubergines in the vagina' (fictitious example). Have these highly remarkable overlaps been investigated by the TBKK? Have the victims and these alleged perpetrators in whom there was such remarkable overlap in witness statements been heard by the police/justice?
Precisely to investigate this further, a motion was passed in 2020 to conduct an independent investigation into organised sadistic child abuse. Because this enquiry was hung under Justice and because the enquiry committee decided in advance not to engage in truth-telling (see Hendriks committee report, introduction), the Argos documentary is the best we have so far on Dutch soil around recent investigations into organised sadistic (child) abuse. The Argos journalists were not allowed to investigate further, an interview they had planned with me - in response to threatening emails from the perpetrator network that I was then beginning to receive - was called off. The national government investigation was set up in such a way that it was doomed to failure in advance (see, e.g. this letter). If the Netherlands had pushed hard for truly independent investigations, where many victims had actually dared to talk, we would now - 5 years after the Argos documentary - be at a different point around truth-telling about satanic ritual abuse, among other things.
It is shocking that a documentary as poorly substantiated as 'The Conspiracy' should so unsubstantiate a brave, well-researched and honourable piece of investigative journalism by Argos. Argos had contact with 200 survivors of organised violence, 140 of whom spoke about ritualistic features. Argos also spoke to many practitioners. The EO spoke to 2 survivors, 2 'retractors' and 1 practitioner of a 'retractor'. That's at least 35 times fewer sources of information than Argos had!
What have you done to protect survivors?
You wrote to me: 'Of course, we don't want you or the people you are working for to get into trouble and/or make the situation worse and we would like to take that into account.' That sounded nice. What have you done to give hands and feet to your intention in this? Did you have a panel of a sufficient number of survivors and therapists watch and think with you to see if this could work to their disadvantage? And did you carefully consider and incorporate that feedback?
Had you done so, survivors might have told you that within the satanic cult they are frequently confronted with symbols that also appear in the 'ordinary world'. Then someone might have pointed out to you that by the method of filming a building in the Bodegraven cemetery, you can see an inverted white cross (it is actually the flagpole I suspect with something behind it) with an illuminated window on the left (to the viewer) and an unlit window on the other side. You already know that an inverted cross is a trigger for survivors, it is also mentioned in your documentary. If you had consulted panel of survivors, you might have heard that there are survivors who get the message 'this documentary is under our control' from the symbols of an inverted cross and one light source on the left ('one eye').
Finally, I would again urge you as the management and membership council of the Evangelical Broadcasting Corporation to take this documentary offline and rectify it on your website. Out of concern for one of the most vulnerable groups in our society and with an appeal to Micah 6:8, which says: 'The LORD has told you what is good, man, what He requires of you: He wants nothing but for you to do justice, to respect faithfulness and to walk humbly with your God.'
On behalf of the board of the Friends of Esthers Foundation,
Aline Terpstra,
GZ-psychologist
English (UK) 
Nederlands