Ritual Satanic Abuse
OK, first let me write that as far as I know there is no such thing as "ritual satanic abuse." What I do know is that it is very easy to install false memories by incompetent hypnotherapists. In the early eighties suddenly many people were falsely accused of abusing their children in what was called "ritual satanic abuse" (SRA). What happened was that some psychologist self- described expert (super-guru) would discover some weird thing like alien abduction, multiple personality disorder, SRA and such.
Soon that "expert" would discover that ninety percent of the world had been abducted by aliens. In fact I read an article by the alien abduction expert and there was a questionnaire with about twenty true/false questions. The author wrote that even if you answered yes to two questions you were very probably abducted by aliens. I believe that I answered true to at least five questions. Believe me I have never been abducted by any aliens although I would love to be. So if any extraterrestrials are out there reading this, you know my address. I would willingly help you with your research.
Back to SRA: I am not sure there can possibly be any satanism (other than a few teenagers and goths playing at satanism) let alone SRA. My reason is that in order to believe in Satan you must first believe in the Abrahamic God (God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Then you would have to reject this omnipotent God and go for a second class much much less powerful being. Only a total idiot would do that. In fact all attempts by police to discover any SRA has failed and no one has proved the existence of any Satanism. What had been called witchcraft by medieval Christians in Europe was in fact those adherents of the older less male dominated paganism of Europe. Millions of women (midwives, herbalists and other healers among them) were burnt at stake for being witches and lovers of Satan.
Now back to hypnosis and abuse: As far as I'm concerned, the people being abused were the clients of these people. Psychologists, hypnotherapist would go to weekend-long seminars by the experts and would come home and suddenly all their clients would be suffering from SRA whereas in every case when there was objective research done it was discovered that their clients had been made to have false memories (false memory syndrome). It is important to understand that in hypnosis there is a thin line between elicitation and installation. That is why forensic hypnosis is a very specialized field and needs much training before being accepted by the courts.
For further studying of SRA I suggest these two articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse and http://www.religioustolerance.org/sra.htm.