Word: ritually
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William Cone, a psychologist in Newport Beach, California, who specializes in treating alleged abductees, finds similarities between some of his patients and people who recover memories of satanic-ritual abuse. Both have "organizing personalities" -- a loose sense of self given to paranormal experiences like seeing ghosts. Many are also highly suggestible. "They are highly functioning, intelligent people and truly believe that this happened," says Cone. "I try not to believe or disbelieve. I just sit and listen and try to help...
That kind of reasoning does not sit well with Margaret Singer, a retired professor from the University of California, Berkeley, and an expert on cults and influence techniques. She has interviewed 50 people who once believed they had recovered repressed memories of incest or ritual abuse but now think they were mistaken. All 50, Singer emphasizes, were in therapy when they "recovered" terrifying memories of abuse. "These people are reporting to me that their therapists were far more sure than they were that their parents had molested them...
There are likable characters and funny moments, even a ritual redemption in the poetic finale, but the dominant moods are treachery, betrayal, revenge and greed. The most beautiful words spoken are about the few hundred acres of land on which all the action unfolds -- so ablaze in spring that one character equates Moses' burning bush with a scarlet azalea -- yet it ends up despoiled and abandoned, wanted by no one save for the coal that lies beneath, and that can be reached only by scraping away the last remnants of soil, life and growth...
...against bare walls. When you have finished your scavenging, you haul your sack to the door, where the man weighs your bulging load. One dollar per pound. The man makes change from a roll of dog-eared singles. No cash register, no receipt. It is a no-nonsense ritual which repeats itself every weekend, starting...
...ritual of naemul is an outgrowth of the Confucian grounding upon which Korean society is based. Just ask any Korean or Korean-American about the New Year's Day custom of parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and other adults handing out envelopes of money to children, who respond with a long, ceremonious bow and a wish of good blessings. Because of this fundamental grounding, naemul in one form or another has penetrated almost every other aspect of Korean society...