From Brazil to Japan, Cambodia, Austria, and the USA, pedophiles are kidnapping, raping, abusing, and frightening children from the very young to pre-pubescent teens. Between 10% and 20% of pedophiles are women, but it is mostly observed as a male obsession, and men generally do the most harm. In America 65% of abusers are family members and 90% are known to the victim. Some 60% of people in drug and alcohol rehabilitation were abused as children. Social and mental problems follow or consume many of the abused for the rest of their lives.

Currently Americans are learning of a horrendous situation of pedophilia. Phillip and Nancy Garrido have been accused of kidnapping an 11-year-old, Jaycee Dugard, and keeping her locked up for 18 years. While Phillip was previously jailed for 11 years for kidnapping and rape, he was found to be mentally sick. He was given early release from jail three years before the alleged kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard took place in 1991. Jaycee appears to have been held captive and raped, and she now has two daughters, presumably by Mr. Garrido.

In Austria another recent case appears to be even worse. Reportedly Josef Fritzl has confessed to keeping his daughter Elizabeth in a windowless cellar over a period of 24 years. It appears that he fathered seven children by her, three of whom had been kept without sight of daylight all their young lives. Fritzl’s wife appears, strangely, to have been ignorant of what was going on. Wow!

In the shanty towns of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, young children are forced into prostitution, both male and female, and involved in porn-movie making. Drug money is used to bribe the police to look the other way. The recent Oscar-winning Bollywood movie Slumdog Millionaire told a similar story about the Mumbai slums in India.

Sex tourism in Cambodia has been in the news with the deportation to America of three convicted sex offenders. They were caught in a US-led operation. Jeff Blom of the International Justice Mission has said, “Cambodia in particular has been known for some time as a pedophile haven because there’s been a broken justice, no rule of law, and actually no laws on the books that would have been enforceable against these types of activities until recently.”

When Japanese censorship laws were relaxed in the 1990s, a wave of “lolicon” (Lolita complex) art developed a big following. Widely distributed pictures portray 12- to16-year-old girls and depict or imply a wide range of sex acts in pictures that often feature partial nudity. Claims that this literature leads to actual sexual abuse are hotly denied. Japanese culture is undoubtedly more liberal and includes the annual Phallic Festival in Kawasaki, attended by some 30,000 who honor the gods of sexuality, represented by giant penises, and seek the gods’ protection against sexually transmitted diseases. The rest of the nation, presumably, tunes in to watch the event on TV.

Japan’s practice of enjo kosai (compensated dating) has older men dating schoolgirls, as young as 12, in exchange for presents. While not always including sex, this is a highly dangerous activity and is said to involve 5 to 10% of young high school girls. Prostitution is illegal in Japan, but the age of consent is only 13 in Tokyo and some other parts of the country.
Enforcement of prostitution varies widely even in regard to little children. Some countries, including Australia, Canada, Eire, and New Zealand are among a minority where publication of lolicon pictures is a crime. Whatever laws are on the books, most countries struggle to control pedophilia because of a lack of political will or shortage of dedicated personnel.

WODEN finds it a bit difficult to look at this grisly scene with the detached vision of the spirit world, but he understands how spirit guides view things: very differently from human beings.

First, the divine Source of energy, of which our souls are a part, has created in this world a finely tuned balance between positive and negative forces.

Second, we are all actors playing roles down here on Earth as we unlock the meaning of the positive through our experience of the negative. We may choose to play negative or victim roles. Presumably the pedophile’s free choice, made before coming to live on planet Earth, was to grapple with obsessions and to encounter hostility on the part of society. Some souls became addicts, others racists, and still others sex maniacs. We may also assume that their victims freely chose to suffer control and abuse by others. Both pedophiles and victims find themselves in a mental “hell” as the drama plays out.

The fact that our souls are involved in role play while in physical form may deepen our understanding of why pedophilia happens, and why this is such a big deal in the interplay between positive and negative forces. But it doesn’t mean we have to go soft. Kids need protecting from predators, and society must be able to function smoothly. If that means we must lock people up for life or chop off their heads (or another part of their anatomy) Woden is wrathfully cool!

But when we feel aggressive towards pedophiles, we must watch ourselves and guard against all-too-frequently made hasty or biased judgments. Although a fierce social response may be one aspect of a pedophile’s life lessons, Woden prefers restraint regarding execution or castration out of simple humanity and in fear of the real danger of judicial mistakes. We must guard against our vengeful actions or we will add ourselves to the number of people in “hell.” Our guides insist that hell is not a future destination but a present state of mind. We make hell for ourselves as a judgment on our own lives, the spirit guides tell us. It is something pedophiles know all about—you can see it on their faces.

(For more on this topic read Talking with Leaders of the Past. A discussion with Adolf Hitler deals with this topic. Available from www.celestialvoicesinc.com .)