Guidelines for research

by **chiggerbit** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 11:42 pm

OK, is there some sort of operational definition of "research" that all of you are using? Just curious.

by **biaothanatoi** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 11:59 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr> OK, is there some sort of operational definition of "research" that all of you are using? Just curious.<hr></blockquote> Me? Probably the same as everyone elses - what might be different is my definition of "rigorous research". We might spend $150 000 over three years on a research process, with one or two people working on it full-time, and others rotating through the project as needed. The findings are solid enough that they go towards an evidence base that can be used by govt depts in making policy, or by non-govt orgs in lobbying for funding/change/etc. So I don't really consider a journo doing some background checks, connecting some dots, and writing a book/article, to be "rigorous research". With few exceptions, even a good piece of journalism doesn't provide enough leverage for change - it just creates a short-term PR problem for a politician/police dept/etc that quickly blows over. And, in my experience, journalists make for crappy researchers any way you look at it. They rarely have the training to understand the fields they blunder in and out of.

by **Dreams End** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:59 am

Okay bio, I give up. It can't be researched. Too bad, I thought exposing these crimes might be helpful...glad I didn't waste my time on crappy research. I'll pass the note on to Pan so he can cancel his Ponchatoula project. Thanks for the tip.

by **biaothanatoi** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 1:34 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Okay bio, I give up. It can't be researched.<hr></blockquote> You may be missing the point. I was responding to your post in which you talked about "REAL research" being the act of investigating places, dates, times, and "compassion" the act of listening to someone's life and considering "the facts" in that context. I don't mind saying, point blank, that you are wrong, and I'm saying that both as a researcher and as someone whose RA narrative has been put under the positivist scalpel often enough to have observed the deficiencies in the method you prescribe.

by **Dreams End** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 2:43 am

Oh, so now it is so complex that laypeople couldn't understand it AND so expensive only well funded researchers can do it. I guess we really are spinning our wheels on this issue. Too bad us regular folks can't help out on this one.

by **Gouda** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:36 am

Bio wrote: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>The findings are solid enough that they go towards an evidence base that can be used by govt depts in making policy, or by non-govt orgs in lobbying for funding/change/etc.<hr></blockquote>And there is the limitation on your social research center. Our corrupt Governments affecting real change by tailoring policy around a wide variety of research results and interests (some of them competing)? OK, such is government and the long hard process of progress, but that is an institutional top down inside out approach to change, which is not without its own problems and limitations. The people gotta gain some awareness from somewhere (and hopefully be thus inclined to change the way politics works, and the governments they elect.) Journalism and your research centers are essential in the multi-front effort required to tackle this monster. I totally agree that most journalists can do more damage than good, and blunder in and out of areas they are not ready for - I have experienced this first-hand working in the Balkans. But “training” itself can have its drawbacks, no? I would advocate serious rigorous journalists to consider working for awhile, undercover in a way, within an institutional context (governmental, NGO etc) before writing about the subject. And nothing is stopping research-center insiders from jumping out of their boxes to do some journalism. Or to at least assist friendly journalists such as Pan and DE. Group effort. Bottoms up.

by **blanc** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:55 am

just to respond to your request for more info, by saying I'll try to think how I could possibly put the stories out in a way which would be intelligible but not compromising. usually there is one or more victims with a lot of detail, which, when the journalist hears at first hand, is convincing. (the disbelief problem generally evaporates when the substance of the events is spoken of by the person who suffered them, directly) I am thinking here of how the juge Burgaud appeared on tv last night, in a process seemingly designed to hang him for having believed the victims, yet he is still clearly moved by that understanding which comes from person to person information - retell it and it sounds as though you could be gullible, taken in, or partial, but see and speak to the person, question them, hear the answers, and the understanding comes. next the journalist has to try to convince his or her editor, to fund the next stage, and it is then that the trouble starts. I don't mean to be depressing, but the guns are all lined up on the other side. each case has been slightly different, but for example, in one, which concerns accusations made by 13 young people about events which happened to them as children , the perpetrator (big cheese) being well respected etc, the journo had the article all ready to slam in when the expected arrest happened. the period of opportunity to publicise is quite short, being just after arrest, but before sub judice. none the less the legal dept pulled it, and an anodine piece on another subject appeared in the expected slot. no paper publicised the arrest of this man, thus scotching the chance of other victims coming forward. ( he had had an arrest on a similar charge some years previously, only reason the police pursued it really) - last info was case dropped. journos regard this process as a waste of time - they are in the entertainment business actually, no story is just no story. another case comes to mind, very gd writer journo who dedicated years to trying to get the issue publicised, after meeting victims in a well known case. got funding, for a piece on another case, bravely faced the perps for interviews etc, lots of personal time and legwork not paid for, she thought it would get past the legal dept. because 2 separate victims made identical claims, but at last minute 2nd victim refused to confirm ritual elements. reasons for this complicated, hard to understand unless you have been part of the recovery journey for victims. basically, at that time, she did not need to be reminded of it and could not safely talk of it - safely in respect of her own mental health. How would you proceed with research on a case? I no longer try to get journos on board, (though sometimes get roped in to tell my stuff if they are interested) but try to delve into the backgrounds of alleged perps, always looking for links. its not rocket science, I've no resources and can only try to access public records. luckily many of them are arrogant bastards and leave wide tracks.

by **blanc** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 7:51 am

apologies, only just read exchange above btwn biao and you re research. I don't think he is wrong - but neither can it be whole story - I do think that ordinary plodders finding things out may be helpful. firstly, because it is not only or even usually professionals who dish out the compassion or listen in ra cases. secondly, there are potentially more of us , and thirdly, this issue concerns every man woman and child on the planet. that said, I'm not minimising the difficulties, or flagging up my own approach as THE right one. the 2 cases I am principally trying to find out about (avoiding term research, in case its too glamourous a description) involve both the USA and UK/Europe. I'm stuck on the USA side because I can't afford to go there and spend days/weeks/months digging around. its frustrating because the link I think there is btwn the 2 may be there. professionals are doing research for money essentially, that has advantages and disadvantages. I think we need as many willing hands on deck as we can get. the cases I have come across suggest to me that a kind or heirarchy exists, and that at the top level are people who have political strategy, at the bottom common criminals, in between a layer of nicey nicey types who lead a dual existence, and provide cover, with their gatekeeper contacts. this is an aspect of ra which is different to the health issues which result from the damage done to victims, and both these areas, and not only these areas, seem to me ripe for investigation.

by **Dreams End** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:42 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>the guns are all lined up on the other side<hr></blockquote> Sadly, this is true for so many issues that are important to us. Thanks for the interesting, if necessarily vague stories. It sort of proves bio's point, but not completely. First off, let's remember that this thread's origin was really about internet research and really for "just plain folks" trying to figure out what's b.s. and what may have some substance. The side conversation annoyed me at first as I felt it kept putting words in my mouth, but looking back, it's actually reflecting some pretty deep issues. How do we know what we know? How do we know whom to trust? The Bell Curve was chock full of footnotes and sources in its quest to prove that blacks are poorer in the US because they are stupid. That didn't make it true. There was no fascist intent in my list...not suggestions that it's my way or no way. Just some beginning thoughts about why you shouldn't go to someone's website who simply makes unsupported statements and buy it without some kind of evidence. And "I believe there is some kind of conspiracy and this guy is describing a conspiracy so he must be accurate" doesn't quite cut it. But I'm baffled by bio's suggestion that you have to have 150,000 bucks or whatever. I also don't even understand what sort of research that might be. If you are interviewing a victim and not planning on either examining that data critically (as in with an eye to detail not as in "skeptibunking") or if you aren't going to compare it with similar data from other victims, what exactly ARE you going to do with it? Simply collecting stories without analysis is not research, but what sort of analysis does he propose? I have no idea. But this bizarre characterization of journalism...bio is describing the rather sorry state of the media, not the definition of journalism. And even I was using the term loosely just to mean someone digging for facts and seeking to publicize those facts. It is thanks to efforts such as this that I know about MKULTRA, Bluebird, the Finders, Ponchatoula, etc. Without SOMEONE having written about those topics, I would laugh the topic of RA off as completely a rightwing conspiracy. And bio's own post about Fritz Springmeier is EXACTLY the sort of thing that worries me. Can we agree that the idea of RA and MC abuse has a severe credibility problem? We understand that some of the reasons for that are pretty sophisticated campaigns such as the FMSF (the existence of which, if you think about it, on its own is really the most chilling evidence that these things are TRUE because it is so clear what these guys are and how they started..in fact their existence is another reason I believe that these stories contain truth...so thanks FMSF for opening my eyes!) (Side note, DID itself suffers much of the same credibility problem. Since I live with someone who has DID and interact quite regularly with her various parts, I understand to a limited degree what it's like to have a reality that so many don't accept as real. Not on the same level as abuse victims, I realize, and I don't mean to compare, but it's similar on a smaller scale.) But it's the Springmeiers of the world that are all over the internet (unless you look pretty carefully). So my list was a way to counter the Springmeiers out there. Odd that it devolved as it did. Returning to DID for a moment. My wife has it. I read stories to her younger parts all the time. Just the other day she looked in the mirror and saw a face that was not her own, bloody and sneering. This is part of our reality. I can go on the internet and find people telling us that it is not real, that she's acting or that her therapist induced it. And that hurts and it hurts others who haven't been lucky enough to stumble on to therapists who understand DID and what it's about. And then we get into memory issues. This is why I get so personally angy at FMSF. For example, Debbie's sister is so sure that Debbie will get hypnosis and accuse her father of things that "didn't happen" that she even had a nightmare about it. Debbie's sister dreamed that they were in a hospital and she looked at Debbie's chart and saw all these accusations about their Dad and was trying to tell everyone that none of those things were true. It's actually quite an interesting case of denial because 1) she admits he was violent when they were young and has told him so to his face and 2) most of the "accusations" (Debbie actually doesn't have much memory of the times in question yet) her sister would not have even been around for as they happened when Debbie moved in with their dad and out from their mom. Debbie's mom is DID and so debbie's sister wants to put all of the blame at her mom's feet. Plenty of material about mom to deal with...for sure. But why the need to exonerate Dad? Pretty typical case, really, but the FSMF "zeitgeist" out there simply adds so much weight to her denials. But you know what's really helped me? Sites like this one: <a href="http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/">www.jimhopper.com/memory/</a> It's a compilation of studies in which recovered memories were assessed for validity. Also they found sexual abuse victims by looking at hospital records (so they knew the abuse was real before they interviewed) and found that many do, in fact, have periods in their lives when the memories are not conscious. They found that recovered memories and continuous memories both have flaws, accuracy wise, but are both about the same level of accuracy. One study even found family member perps who confessed! Now, maybe these are the kinds of studies that bio thinks are important. I agree. But any book that I imagine being involved in would be exposing these studies to a wider audience. I don't have to spend the money..it's been spent. (None of these studies have a separate category for RA or abuse by an extended, non-family network...too bad, but they don't exclude that data from what I can tell, just don't pull it out separately...maybe others know some of these studies better.) And guess what? That's positivism at it's finest. Now, to an individual victim (I'm really sorry to keep using the negative, disempowering term "victim"...I'm really rushing and not being careful as I'd like with language), a million studies does not PROVE that his or her case is true. But it helps with a general understanding that such things DO happen and ARE true and that despite the efforts of some very evil people, information can be accessed about these things. All right, so there's some research that I think Bio would support, or at least the type he'd support without more info about the studies themselves. But what of this idea that a "positivist" approach is somehow inherently damaging. I think that I understand the feelings behind this statement, as I've had responses on this thread and also privately from people who've suffered childhood abuse and were not believed because of "lack of evidence." I'd say a couple things about that. First off, when you aren't believed, it's probably NOT a lack of evidence but simply filters on all of us who don't want to believe such things. While that is human, it is NOT positivist, to use bio's term. And nowhere have I ever insisted that this was about forcing victims to PROVE they were victims. Remember, this started out as being about internet research. So sticking with the internet research theme a sec...I did plenty about DID...and there was TONS of garbage out there. Absolutely tons of it. So I was FORCED to look for some objective criteria to navigate these waters. While we were in no danger of embracing Springmeier directly (Army of God really not our cup of tea around here) the INFLUENCE he's had, as bio pointed out, has contaminated a lot of streams I HAVE waded through. And this alone can be damaging, so insisting on some objective evidence that the "Illuminati" are abusing as part of their plan to bring Satan to earth or whatever is a legitimate concern in my view. Bio did it. Why can't I? (PW...by the way...I didn't mean to suggest you had REJECTED that person's account, only that it might be an example of how legitimate stories get confused by this stuff.) And how to do this? I continue researching and one thing I am forced to do is look at alleged victims' stories critically. I don't mean to call them up and hound them, but I'm sorry, I find Cathy O'Brien's stories to be...problematic. Is it not legitimate, when looking at these things, to use such a critical eye. I can't prove something is true or not, but if someone says they can fly and produce no evidence of this...I think I can be skeptical without being merely a debunker. But it's also possible to get SOME of the story out into the public. It can be done, I know, because it HAS BEEN DONE. I didn't believe in ANY of this...not ANY of it..until I ran across the Finders case. That was the one that did it for me. Absolutely unassailable evidence of child slave networking, CIA/cult connection etc. Freaked me out...and that's a good thing. SOMEONE had to write about that case (McGowan was the first I read about it on...as well as Dutroux, etc. Someone had to write about Dutroux as well...another case that took my blinders off.) And when you write about such topics, when you are the one investigating, you MUST do it with a critical eye, with objections in mind. Otherwise, your story is full of holes and useless. Whether you can get it published, whether a particular journalist is any good or merely a skeptic/agent in disguise (i think of the People magazine interview with the guy who did the McMartin tunnel archaeological investigation who reported that he said there were no tunnels...that's not the fault of journalism, that's the fault of an agent or otherwise ill intentioned writer.) these are separate issues. Anyone can be a "journalist" especially in this age of the web. Oh...and I wish I did have some funds to go stay in Ponchatoula awhile. I could rip that one apart, the ever-morphing "official" story, I mean. Because in that case, the perpetrator's talked. No need to bring the victims in at all.

by **havanagila** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:26 pm

the two cases found credible (Dutroux and Finders) involved law enforcement first, and only then came research. Perhaps doing investigation before police involvement is hard and requires professionals, certainly not journalists. After a case is prosecuted, or finished, a research is possible and advisable. - There were attempts in ISrael to enact regulations, for the employment of expert psychologists (PTSD ) in interrogation of victims with DID and other dissociative disordes. I don't know what became of it.

by **Dreams End** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 4:08 pm

Sure. Law enforcement already came into Ponchatoula. The interesting things about Law enforcement in these cases is a)what they find and don't get reported widely or the stories change and b) what they choose NOT to investigate. That's where journalists come in. It's tough because even without high level plots...there are actually some GOOD reasons why you can't print that so and so is molesting children without being very careful. Simply put, ANYONE can say such things, so we do need standards, I'm afraid. Court records are absolutely immune from libel charges...you can print ANYTHING in a court record or other public document without fear of lawsuits. So after trials and police investigations leaves you much safer in that regard. Ponchatoula already has plenty on the record (though the official records are changing as we speak) so it's a great place to look for this sort of activity. What about when the police are covering up or even involved? That gets tricky and that's where many of the objections to what I've put out really have validity. Sometimes, as Blanco shows, you just can't get it done. With individual cases where libel is an issue, you can always go the "names were changed" routes, but that tends to make your credibility even tougher to maintain. And books on one person's case tend to be sensationalistic rather than helpful in revealing large scale patterns. In fact, that sort of "true crime" book sells quite well. But if someone has been abused as part of a network, then others were abused as well by that same network. These people are not gods. They make mistakes. They leave evidence. It would be great if the police would investigate...but they don't. I think partly there are coverups and conspiracies and partly there is the FMSF working it's magic. I imagine good-hearted prosecutors often choose to downplay ritualistic aspects of abuse just to have a better chance at conviction. I think the best chance for evidence is with MC situations. There's testimony in Congress, there are (very limited) FOIA released docuements. WE have names, locations. Mixing that info with individual accounts actually got Ewan Cameron's "psychic driving" in the mainstream news. Also the man (sorry to blank on his name) who dies from the involuntary LSD experiments. That was all in the MAINSTREAM news...60 Minutes or something. Could that all be intentional "limited hangouts"? Possibly, but sometimes the Limited Hangout is a FORCED response as it's clear that the info is going to come out. It's not perfect...but every step helps.

by **havanagila** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:06 pm

In the case of MC, prosecutors simply cover up because they are ordered to do so. MKultra broke out not with police but congress/politics/senate. These are usually high profile political cases and NOT regarded criminal because the perps have immunity. If you choose MC, you should make a very good, careful, research, with a very good credible victim (main concern is to find a stable victim or one with very good support from family/friends who can speak on her/his behalf when the going gets tough), publish a GOOD book, and then attack the government in MSM. Leading to congressional investigation and/or a big lawsuit. Regular police is useless in that case, except as in "internal affairs" kind of police, dealing with espionage corruption abuses, OR, a totally different police (security exchange committee police, communication violations police, interstate commerce police, you know, such like...) who can "play dumb" on the political/consitutional implications. But that's very hard to "stumble" on, it has to be instigated by someone with a will.

by **Dreams End** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 7:24 pm

Big tangent here, but it reminds me of my old girlfriend who had many issues going on...psychological and paranormal. She swore to me that long before she knew me she sang background for Sly and the Family Stone (I was reminded of this watching the Grammy's). Sly rarely even took the stage...very messed up with drugs etc. Then she swears that the band "sold" her to a German guy and she was kept by him...I think she said two weeks. She said he never touched her and she eventually escaped. I didn't really believe her at the time, though her own matter of fact nature of presenting it (which I now see as a defense) was part of the reason. These things do happen.

by **Avalon** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 9:10 pm

"I think I can be skeptical without being merely a debunker." "Skeptic" as an identity label is pretty useless, and tends to muddy the waters. I usually find that those debunkers who consistently use "skeptic" as a label that describes them are the ones most likely to in actuality use the concept as a religion. They are True Believers in Skepticism. We're ALL skeptics. We just draw the lines separating what we find credible and what we don't in different places.

by **Project Willow** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:32 pm

PM me if you want to know more about handlers, etc. I think I shared a little too much on this very public board. One of the joys of recovery & integration is developing more standard PTSD symptoms as everything, including current dangers, becomes more real. On the research issue, so much is denied due to lack of understanding. Especially with mc, the mechanics and the details are so rarely understood. Case in point, the blog comment discussion about how ubiquitous Sarah is as an alter name. The claim was dismissed immediately by otherwise well-meaning people who didn't realize that perps can and do assign alter names to victims' parts. As for DID, have you seen the FMRI studies? There were two, though I only have a link to one. It compared subjects with DID and actors playing roles. The scans showed that those with DID were using different areas of the brain whilst in different alter states, while the actors' patterns stayed constant. We need more studies like that.

Guidelines for research

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Being Skeptics

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