The debate over "recovered" and "false" memories continues to be one of the most contentious issues in the field of psychology today. The debate is extremely polarized with very little amicable communication among members of the opposing camps. While such a dispute may eventually be beneficial to science, in that both sides are clearly being spurred on to produce original research at a frenetic pace, at the moment the clearest manifestation of this dichotomy is miscommunication and friction between factions. Such miscommunication has been exacerbated by a tendency of some theorists on both sides to make sweeping generalizations and use vague terminology. An example of such miscommunication is the use of the term recovered memory therapy, used frequently in books such as Making Monsters by Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters (1994). The term as they used it is not without its critics (e.g., Dalenberg 1995) who complain that the term is overgeneralized. Conversely, in a televised debate, Charles Whitfield, a trauma therapist, stated that there is no such thing as recovered memory therapy. The true state of affairs likely rests somewhere in between.
While some misunderstandings may be rooted in semantics, others are more difficult to trace and harder still to describe adequately. It is very difficult to get quantitative data in the area of the beliefs held by therapists regarding topics that may manifest in the form of false memories in their patients. And although some surveys have attempted to obtain quantitative measures of therapists' beliefs, practices, and experiences regarding traumatic memory recovery and therapy (e.g., Poole, et. al. 1995), such surveys fail to fully inform the reader of the quality of those beliefs. In an attempt to obtain a qualitative analysis of the beliefs of therapists with regard to recovered memories of traumatic events, I have frequently attended sexual- and ritual-abuse conferences. Some of these conferences ##have afforded me valuable insight into the dynamics of a scientifically informed trauma therapy. At other times I have gained valuable insight into the beliefs of some "fringe" therapists who believe in vast and nefarious conspiracies organized to harm children. My purpose here is not to argue whether such beliefs are accurate or not; rather, I simply wish to outline what some of those beliefs are. The following is not meant to be representative of all therapists in this field. I offer only a description of what some therapists believe. The reader will please keep in mind that any qualitative description, such as this one, may not be used to infer anything about the population as a whole, but it may be illuminating in that there is a certain subpopulation that clearly is represented.
This article describes my experiences at a conference held in Dallas, Texas, March 23-26, 1995, by a group calling itself the "Society for the Investigation, Treatment and Prevention of Ritual and Cult Abuse" (SITPRCA). SITPRCA may be reached at P.O. Box 835564, Richardson, Texas 75083-5564.
The 1995 SITPRCA conference was titled "Cult and Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, and Dissociation: A Multidisciplinary Dialogue." The word dialogue is misleading because there were no skeptics or critics among the speakers and, as will be demonstrated, any dissension from the audience was strongly discouraged -- it was essentially a monologue. The 1995 conference offered continuing education credit available through the Texas State Board of Examiners of Licensed Professional Counselors.
The conference was attended by 150 to 200 people. A significant minority of the audience consisted of patients who claimed to have had recovered memories of ritual abuse (several of whom I spoke with) and who were allowed access to even the most advanced professional training sessions, sometimes at the recommendations of their therapists.
The SITPRCA organization was created by Dallas therapist James Randall "Randy" Noblitt, currently the president of the group, and Pamela Perskin, its executive director. Noblitt lectures widely on the existence of ritual cults and mind-control techniques, and has served as an expert witness in a number of child-abuse cases. In the 1992 Austin, Texas, day care case of Fran and Dan Keller, he helped obtain a conviction by informing the jury that cults across America regularly ritually abuse children through torture and sexual abuse and that the cults make child pornography with these victims. Noblitt stated that these children will often not be able to recall the events because they are so highly traumatized, and that the severity of the abuse causes the amnesia. This testimony, combined with Noblitt's statement that he was "convinced" that the child in this case had experienced extreme trauma, apparently helped convince the jury that the Kellers operated a ritual-abuse cult in their day care center. At the time of that trial, Noblitt testified that in addition to supervising his own clinical employees he had been sought to consult in 15 similar cases and that he provides supervision for therapists individually and in groups. Noblitt and Perskin (1995) recently released a book outlining their beliefs about ritual abuse. While some mainstream therapists may conclude that those associated with SITPRCA represent a fringe element, I would point out that such organizations are able to have a dramatic influence on society.
Scheflin gave a lengthy talk about how therapists can protect themselves against the lawsuits brought by former patients who retract memories of childhood abuse. These lectures were warmly received, especially Scheflin's. Perhaps because several speakers at the conference had been successfully sued by former clients, the therapists in attendance seemed quite fearful that their clients would retract their memories of abuse and sue them for instilling false memories. I felt that the opening remarks were overtly political for what was purported to be a scientific gathering.
While the Illuminati conspiracy theory is widely endorsed by militia members, it is also embraced by reactionary groups such as: the Lyndon LaRouche organization (political analyst Chip Berlet [1994] stated that in the early 1970s, Lyndon LaRouche "took his followers . . . and guided them into fascist politics"); the John Birch Society (which Berlet [1994] said believes "Insiders" have for years controlled the U.S. and former Soviet Union governments); and the Liberty Lobby. The Liberty Lobby, with its newspaper Spotlight, was created by Willis Carto, who also founded the Institute for Historical Review, which asserts that the Holocaust was a hoax (Berlet 1994).
Author Linda Blood, who spoke later in the day, protested that she was "unhappy to be following someone [Marqui] who is pushing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion," which she said was anti-Semitic trash. Blood's protest deeply angered some and bewildered others, while about four of Blood's friends clapped in support. Perskin, who moderated the session, announced that although she is Jewish she found nothing offensive in Marqui's lecture. Marqui appeared to me to be connecting existing racist conspiracy theories with the therapists' theories about satanic cults.
Marqui was followed by former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Ted Gunderson, who highly praised Marqui's lecture. Gunderson is well known for his claims that an archaeological dig under the McMartin preschool showed evidence of tunnels, through which the children were allegedly spirited to other buildings to be prostituted in the community (Summit 1994). The results of this dig have for years gone unpublished while calls for funds to self-publish the results have been issued in newsletters such as the Survivor Activist (1994). Meanwhile, the integrity of the dig has been strongly disputed (Earl 1995). Gunderson presented what he called "new evidence" in the 1984 McMartin preschool sex-abuse case in Manhattan Beach, California. He produced a number of photographs of the foundation of a house in the hills above San Bernadino, California, that had burned down, he claimed, the night the charges were filed in the McMartin case. He alleged that the McMartin children were flown to this house and ritually abused, and that the house was torched to destroy evidence. The sum total of the evidence he presented to support this allegation was the existence of spray-painted satanic graffiti on the foundation stones and on boulders on the property. Apparently, several years had gone by between the time of the alleged fire and the time Gunderson snapped the photos. Yet Gunderson was dismissive of the idea that the house foundation on the lot, with its hillside vista of San Bernadino, had been used by teenagers who might have painted the graffiti after the fire. The therapists were enraptured and later asked if Gunderson was planning to publish his photos or if there was any chance of using this evidence in a new trial. The McMartin preschool case resulted in the longest criminal proceeding in American history and failed to produce any convictions (see e.g., Nathan and Snedecker 1995).
Gunderson then described a conversation he had with a witness, Paul Bonacci, from an alleged satanic-ritual abuse case in Nebraska that was detailed by former Nebraska state Sen. John DeCamp (1992), who was also a speaker at this conference. The grand jury of Lincoln described this case as an attack by DeCamp "for personal political gain and possible revenge" (Dorr 1991, p. 1), a "smear campaign," and a "carefully crafted hoax" (United Press International, September 18, 1990). The grand jury jailed one and indicted two others (including Bonacci) for perjury, and was so critical of DeCamp that he sued the grand jury for ridicule, though he quickly lost (Dorr 1991). A church in the area, the Nebraska Leadership Conference, responded by publishing a tract (no date) named The Mystery of the Carefully Crafted Hoax, with a foreword by Gunderson, in which he continued the allegations of satanic-ritual crime. At the conference Gunderson related Bonacci's description of a slave auction in Las Vegas in which 25 to 30 vans pulled up, airplanes landed, and foreign men with turbans bought children and took them away. According to Gunderson: "Nobody knows what happened to those kids. They use them for several things: body parts, they use them for sacrificing, for sex slaves. But this is a big market. Does anybody have any idea what a blue-eyed, blond-haired eleven- or twelve-year girl would sell for? Fifty thousand dollars."
Gunderson claimed that there are currently 500 satanic cults in New York City alone, each averaging eight sacrificial murders a year, for a total of 4,000 human sacrifices every year. Gunderson did not explain how the cults remove bodies in the asphalt jungle of New York.
Gunderson believes in the threat posed by the New World Order, as do Marqui and militia members. Gunderson has appeared on Dateline NBC, at militia conferences (Witt 1995), on Michigan Militia member Mark Koernke's shortwave radio program, and on the cover of Spotlight (May 13, 1995), stating that the U.S. government intentionally bombed the Oklahoma City federal building in April 1995, in order to remove our rights through anti-terrorism bills. Gunderson informed the audience that Spotlight "tells it like it is," and urged audience members to call the subscription number, which he read aloud. On top of this, Gunderson gave an interview to Lyndon LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review (May 25, 1990), in which he described FBI special agent Ken Lanning as "probably the most effective and foremost speaker for the satanic movement in this country, today or at any time in the past." Gunderson and Marqui seem to me to be attempting to introduce therapists to racist conspiracy theories and reactionary propaganda, while at the same time groups such as the LaRouche organization endorse satanic conspiracy theories to draw in new members.
Political analyst Chip Berlet's argument that radical right elements are seducing the left should be taken seriously. In his monograph Right Woos Left (Berlet 1994), he describes, among other examples, how the LaRouche organization has persistently destabilized legitimate leftist activist organizations by infiltrating these groups and then claiming that these groups endorse LaRouche. The LaRouchians also gain credibility through their association with legitimate political activists, which enables them to draw new converts. The cult-ritual abuse field is a prime example of such infiltration. Many therapists who specialize in treating ritual or other forms of abuse identify to some degree with feminism and other liberal ideals. When radical right conspiracists get such liberals to believe in the New World Order or "Operation Monarch" (a similar movement, described later) they gain a boost in credibility far beyond what they could expect by printing their stories in Spotlight or the Executive Intelligence Review.
Former Nebraska state Sen. John DeCamp, mentioned earlier, has been on the ritual-abuse circuit for some time now, talking about his 1992 book The Franklin Cover-Up, which purports to document a satanic organization in Nebraska that abused children and prostituted them within the White House. DeCamp gives a favorable mention to a fact-finding mission sponsored by LaRouche (DeCamp 1992, p. 241). The editors of the Executive Intelligence Review repeat DeCamp's claims and praise his book as "important" in their virulently anti-Semitic party tract titled The Ugly Truth About the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) (Editors of the Executive Ingelligence Review 1992). The July 27, 1990, issue of the Executive Intelligence Review stated that the FBI in Nebraska covered up child abuse and murder.
On June 15, 1995, DeCamp appeared before a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing on domestic terrorism chaired by Arlen Spector. DeCamp appeared as a lawyer representing the American militia movement and the four militia leaders testifying that day. At a Washington, D.C., news conference, DeCamp glowingly described the militia movement as "a political movement in the birthing . . . painful, joyous, confusing, and exciting" (Janofsky 1995, p. 10). DeCamp also has clear ties with the Nebraska Leadership Conference. A call to the church office confirmed that the Nebraska Leadership Conference had "contributed significantly" to DeCamp's book.
DeCamp delighted the therapists at this conference during a luncheon session in which he described the allegations put forth in his book.
Felix sold me his newsletter, as big as a book, in which he makes some very strange claims: Charles Manson was programmed by the Illuminati, the Anti-Defamation League is controlled by Jewish satanists, and Marilyn Monroe was a mind-control slave. According to Felix, virtually anyone who disagrees with Felix is a Monarch slave, including prominent militia leader Bo Gritz, who talked Randy Weaver into surrendering at the 1992 incident at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Most disturbingly, Felix told me that he works as a counselor and has helped "a lot" of people suffering from multiple personality disorder. Felix apparently has no mental-health counseling credentials, and his name badge identified him as "clergy." Nevertheless, he said he counsels dissociative clients and guides them through the intricacies of international cabals.
By this time a crowd had gathered around Felix and me. After Felix's monologue, a social worker from North Carolina informed the group that in the day care sex-abuse case she was investigating, she thought she remembered the kids talking about black helicopters. She said she would look into it.
O'Brian stated that she was forced to have sex with a plethora of political figures including George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford (whom she said she knew as "the neighborhood porn king"). She also said she was abused by Hillary Clinton (but not by Bill). Politicians were not the only ones involved -- O'Brian stated that a number of baseball figures were in this satanic/CIA mind-control plot. She told me personally that virtually the entire country music industry is set up by the New World Order to make money. According to O'Brian, most popular country singers are Monarch slaves who had alter-personalities created with good voices for singing. Phillips and O'Brian, along with Bowart and others, claimed that the CIA is currently abusing people through Operation Monarch. Phillips claimed 20 years of experience in genetics and said that the cults would breed slaves selectively to create musical geniuses. To test his vast experience with genetics, I asked him what he thought of the Human Genome Sequencing Project. He had never heard of it. It seems impossible for anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of genetics to be unaware of the biggest project ever in that field. Nevertheless, one author claims that Phillips is "currently deprogramming at least six Monarch slaves" (Springmeier 1995, p. 243).
It seems that a number of people in the audience were accepting of Phillips's and O'Brian's claims, although Perskin (of SITPRCA) informed me that this duo will not be asked back in the future because they failed to produce evidence of Operation Monarch. In a personal conversation with me (July 12, 1995), Scheflin stated that he had been able to obtain internal CIA documents corroborating the existence of mind-control experiments in the 1950s and 1960s. (The documents demonstrate that the CIA conducted unethical experiments to try to create multiple personalities in people for the purpose of creating a super spy who could keep vital information submerged in an alter personality [Thomas 1990].) But, he said, the paper trail completely died out by 1976. According to Scheflin, there are no credible reports of mind-control experiments after 1976 and no credible reports of any nature on Operation Monarch.
Catherine Gould gave an advanced workshop in which she described the mechanics of cult mind-control, extensively utilizing the mind-as-computer model. At one point she puzzled over the idea of cult members catching AIDS. She said that no one can figure out why the offenders are not "dropping like flies, because we know they don't practice safe cult sex." With all the blood, cannibalism, and unprotected sex, they ought to be catching a lot of sexually transmitted diseases. Therapist Jerry Mungadze offered a unique explanation. He suggested that mind-control programming boosts the immune system, making the victim resistant to the HIV virus, and that is why children in day care satanic-ritual abuse cases do not have elevated levels of sexually transmitted diseases.
Well, if they've found a cure for AIDS, why do they bother making money with pornography? Such a cure must be worth several billion dollars! In the grand tradition of conspiracy theories, discrepant information is explained away or, as in this case, incorporated into the scheme. Amazingly, this solution to the AIDS conundrum appeared to be taken seriously by most in the room.
In the final analysis of the Williams data, the nonsignificant trend of force being associated with greater recall is probably a confound wherein both greater force and greater recall are associated with older age at time of abuse. Nevertheless, mine was a legitimate question to raise during a session on traumatic memory where it was stated that events that are more traumatic are more likely to be dissociated from consciousness. The scalding reaction I received from the audience supports the view that group social representations are not amenable to contradiction (Guerin, in press), and indicates that these are not issues open for discussion.
It seems incredible that a psychological conference could be constructed with a seminar focusing on legal issues and the testimony of children in court, without a single person involved ever having heard of Ceci, who has contributed so much in this area. Indeed, this was the third day of the conference and there had been much talk of children's accusations of abuse, but not one mention of Ceci's research, which was why I felt obliged to pose the question. Often when I attend lectures I ask the speakers what they think of criticisms against them.
Immediately after the session a man connected with the conference demanded to know who I was, where I was from, and why I had asked the question. He was not satisfied with my answers and became visibly agitated when I tried to describe Ceci's experiments in greater detail. He soon gave up and informed me in a brusque tone that "everyone here thinks you are a plant." Perturbed, I entered the main hallway where I was confronted by Perskin, who asked if I had set out any literature in the bathroom. Apparently, someone had set out flyers from the Temple of Set, a satanic church, in the men's room!
I frequently observed a categorical rejection of the possibility that there could be "false" memories of traumatic events, and that anyone who made such claims must be "dirty" or a part of the "backlash," and that such claims could be dismissed without serious consideration. There was clearly an assumptive worldview or social representation that unified the audience and speakers, deviation from which would brand one as a spy. Actual debate was an anathema. The assumptions that united the group often veered toward conspiracism, though the particular elements of the conspiratorial plots could change from person to person (satanic cults, New World Order, etc.). Most, though by no means all, of the therapists appeared to be previously unaware of New World Order conspiracy, though some appeared receptive to such ideas. Many seemed to be familiar with and believe in the Operation Monarch conspiracy, despite the lack of credible evidence for this. Of course, belief in conspiracies does not necessarily indicate therapeutic incompetence. However, I would be worried if those therapists interviewing children who are suspected of being victims of sexual abuse believed that the biblical revelation was coming in the form of satanic U.N. troops sweeping up children in black helicopters.
We cannot know what effect these therapists' conspiratorial beliefs may have on their clients. What we can see from these anecdotes is that strong beliefs are highly resistant to discrepant input and they do have a certain persuasive power. An indication of the influence of this conference can be seen in a quote from Jerry Leonard, a physicist who attended and wrote a review of the conference (Leonard 1995), in which he stated:#### I came away with the opinion that cults are far more prevalent, well connected, sophisticated and dangerous than I had ever dreamed . . . apparently, this type of cult activity is fairly widespread. Police departments have stumbled on well organized nationwide child kidnapping rings. Ted Gunderson . . . described one case in which he personally uncovered an elementary school which had been built on a system of tunnels through which children were taken into neighboring houses . . . to participate in Satanic ritual abuse. . . . It is my personal view that the larger satanic cults are being manipulated by the federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies from behind the scenes. Leonard informed me that this was his introduction to claims of cult child abuse. This testimonial demonstrates the persuasive power of the rumors that were put forth at this conference, at least to someone who was receptive to hearing them.
We have no way of knowing the percentage of practicing therapists who are represented by this style of thinking. Even if only a very small minority of the therapeutic community is represented, it is troubling to think of the effect these therapists may have on their colleagues, to say nothing of their clients. The theories presented at this conference may at times find wider appeal among more traditional therapists who are searching for evidence of cults, and it appears that such theories have enjoyed fairly wide popular circulation in the recent past (Victor 1993). Sherrill Mulhern (1991, 1994) has outlined the role played by conspiracy theories both historically, and at prestigious gatherings of psychologists. While the majority of psychological trauma specialists are not "conspiracists," they may at times be influenced by conspiracy claims, such as the claim that tunnels existed under the McMartin preschool, because such claims resemble or circumstantially support in some way the memories reported by clients.
The possibility of right-wing racist organizations using the present mental-health dilemma for their political gain is something therapists working in this area should be aware of. Therapists who only seek what is best for their clients may at times be vulnerable to propaganda put out by such groups. In the end it is the client, along with the client's family, who suffers. Whether motivated by such groups, claims that critics are active CIA agents who are engaged in a secret war against the American public, or that they are part of a nationwide backlash against belief in child abuse, only serve to make some therapists antagonistic to all forms of criticism, regardless of the motives of the critic. This is unfortunate because, as trauma therapist and researcher John Briere stated at the 1995 APA meeting, many of the criticisms have merit, and the field will be made better, not worse, because of them.
Evan Harrington is a graduate student in social psychology at Temple University, e-mail evan-h@vm.temple.edu.
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