We're all hunters in my family, you know. Deer, ducks_damsels.

Our conscious self is what we admit to being. Our unconscious shadow is the part of us that we attempt to suppress, the part of us that our family, friends, employers, coworkers, associates, clients, neighbors, and society tells us to discard. Our shadow emerges from the unspeakable things that we discover about the world and ourselves. Both the magnificent as well as the bizarre residue of prior experiences lies buried and unconfessed in the fissures of our unconscious mind. The less a person__ shadow is embodied in a person__ conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.

Denial returned, like a nagging cough you can never quite shake. Actually, it was always close at hand, and even though "satanic ritual abuse" did describe what had happened to me when I was a child. the concept was so foreign and so horrific that some part of me still wanted to stay in denial.Devil worship dominated my childhood. That was undeniable, even if it was still nearly impossible to contemplate. Both of my parents and any number of their friends, as well as "respected" members of our community, had worshipped Satan.I pushed the notion aside with all the power I could muster. I kept thinking to myself that it was ridiculous and impossible.p157

I drag my eyes away from his sexy hands and my gaze collides with his. His penetrating blue gaze holds mine. He knows. He knows what I am thinking.He knows that I would rather have him fucking me senseless than sitting in the midst of everyone trying to make small talk, pretending that his mere presence hasn__ almost driven me to my wits_ end. Feeling overwhelmingly aroused, heat creeps up my neck and into my cheeks. My pulse is racing. My heart is pounding so hard.Awareness crackles between us. His eyes hold mine with a frightening intensity like he can devour me with one touch.

People are rarely diabolic or bent enthusiastically on evil. As a rule, they are only weak; they cannot resist temptation and thus give way to their evil drives.

For its survival, the satanic cult demanded secrecy and obedience while it made brutality, even killing, appropriate. Denial and disavowal were inevitable responses to required behaviors so bizarre as to seem unreal, even to those who enacted them. What they could not deny or disavow, they could distort. They could blame the victims, who deserved to die for fighting or crying or for failing to fight or cry. They found encouragement for such a stance in a general culture accustomed to blaming victims for their misfortunes, and in specific contact with child victims eager to blame themselves. By believing that victims had a choice when there was none, they could see victims as culpable. They could even see the deaths as right and purposeful in the nobility of sacrifice.