Michelle Remembers
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Michelle Remembers is a book published in 1980 co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Lawrence Pazder (April 30, 1936 - March 5, 2004), and his psychiatric patient (and eventual wife) Michelle Smith. A best-seller, Michelle Remembers was the first book written on the subject of Satanic ritual abuse and is an important part of the controversies beginning in the 1980s regarding Satanic ritual abuse and repressed memory.
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[edit] Background
Michelle Remembers chronicles Pazder's therapy in the late 1970s with his long-time patient Michelle Smith. Smith allegedly recovered memories of Satanic ritual abuse that occurred when she was a child in the 1950s at the hands of her mother (Virginia Proby) and others in Victoria, British Columbia. Among other things, Smith recovered memories of being placed with a corpse in a car that was then deliberately crashed near the Malahat highway, being kept locked in a cage with snakes without sleep or sustenance for weeks, being forced to ingest poison and other noxious substances, and taking part in bizarre ceremonies in a round room and at the Ross Bay Cemetery (e.g.: being placed in an open grave and having dead cats thrown on her). The book reaches its climax with the details of how in the fall of 1955, Satan himself appeared at an 81-day non-stop ceremony (allegedly involving hundreds of participants) attempting to claim Smith as his own, only to be opposed by Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the archangel Michael. The book concludes with Smith, having been saved by the Virgin Mary and Jesus, awakening to find she had no memory of the abuse that had occurred and to find her parents telling her that she was recovering from the measles.
Pazder's therapy and treatment for Smith's alleged experiences included hypnotism, exorcism, and conversion to Catholicism. During this time (the late 1970s), Smith was named as the co-respondent (the "other woman") in Pazder's divorce. Pazder and Smith later married (she had been married to Doug Smith during the therapy).
Pazder died suddenly and unexpectedly in his home in March of 2004 of a heart attack. Smith still lives in Victoria. Michelle Remembers is out-of-print as of 2006.
[edit] Criticism
Critics have argued that allegations made in Michelle Remembers are inconsistent with the factual and historical evidence and have no basis in fact (e.g.:, there is no record of the car crash that the book describes or any indication of Smith being absent from school during the time of the alleged 81-day non-stop ceremony).[1] [2] [3] Smith's father, Jack Proby, denied the allegations against Smith's mother, Virginia (who died in 1963); "I can refute the whole bloody thing right down the line".[3] Smith's two sisters, Charyl and Tertia (who are not mentioned in the book) also denied the accounts of Satanic ritual abuse in their home. Although Jack Proby did not sue, he did file a Notice of Intent to sue against the book's publisher thereby preventing the book from being made into a movie.[4] Despite this, the legacy of Michelle Remembers was the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. As described by Michael Aquino:
- On September 30, 1990 London's Mail on Sunday newspaper, as the result of extensive investigation into Smith's background — to include interviews with her father, her first husband, her neighbors, and Canadian occult historians of the 1950s — exposed the book as a fraud. But in the intervening ten years Michelle Remembers inspired a devastating epidemic of copycat accusations directed against legitimate Satanists, non-Satanic occultists, and many other innocent people who had nothing whatever to do with the occult.[5]
Prosecutors have even admitted to using the book as a guide when preparing cases against alleged Satanists.[6]
Smith claims that hypnosis was used to restore her repressed memories. Most modern psychiatrists dismiss hypnosis as a means of restoring lost memories. Some even point out that the process can more easily implant false memories. In the case of Michelle Remembers, critics have argued that many of Smith's recovered memories appear to have reflected Pazder's own religious beliefs and his experiences from when he was living and working in Africa in the early 1960s.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Cuhulain, Kerr (July 8 2002). Michelle Remembers. Pagan Protection Center.
- ^ Carroll, Robert Todd (April 6 2006). Satanic Ritual Abuse. The Skeptic's Dictionary.
- ^ a b Paul Grescoe. "Things That Go Bump in Victoria", Maclean's, October 27 1980.
- ^ Denna Allen and Janet Midwinter. "Michelle Remembers: The Debunking of a Myth", The Mail on Sunday, September 30 1990.
- ^ Michael Aquino. "The "Satanic scare" of the 1980s", Witchcraft, Satanism & Occult Crime - Fifth Edition.
- ^ Shirley Downing and Tom Charlier. "Justice Aborted: A 1980s Witch-Hunt", The Commercial Appeal, January 17-23 1988.
