the totally insane true story behind the 1970s film and book Sybil

you can TOTALLY stop having nightmares -- it's a classic hag horror film.

i declare it so

woman who wrote the sybil bk also wrote this excellent true crime/serial killer study:

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1299267908l/67921.jpg

Yeah, and she also started visiting him in jail and being his 70 year old female companion!

At the end, she wrote to him, “I cannot tell you, Boomy Bum Boo, how much it meant to me to be with you.”

“I cannot tell you, Boomy Bum Boo, how much it meant to me to be with you.”

This line has been haunting me!

I mean, maybe the woman who wrote Sybil Exposed is taking this one step further and adding her own ambitious twist to this story, but she has all of her material sourced and all of the papers are archived at John Jay College, where Flora used to teach. It's just a totally jaw droppingly weird story.

On the SRA tip, my grandparents had this book on their shelves when I was a kid, and I used to leaf through it and be simultaneously fascinated and terrified:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5e/Michelle_Remembers.jpg

YES! I was thinking of getting a copy of that.

Is there a more modern version of this book?
http://staging.tralucent.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-and-the-Madness-of-Crowds.jpg? I like the old ones too, but I already read that one.

It kind of amazes me that we went through a period in 20th century America where people believed in gigantic, Satan-worshipping cults abusing scores of kids on the regular with nobody noticing.

That's what I'm saying! It's BANANANANANANANANAS! Also, what does the massive popular interest in child sex torture in the name of Satan say about the nature of our interests?

I got really into Michelle Remembers recently - some of the scenes are so comic that they'll stay with me forever - like when her captor/owner reveals that he's thinking of getting into Satanism, he does so by throwing the horns. With a straight face, like he says "I need something more than just drugs and pornography and prostitution?" and she says, horrified, "What? What could you need?" and he raises his hand with the pinkie and index finger up in response. And then she says "No, no, noooo!"

The woman who wrote it went on to do more hoaxes where she pretended to be a holocaust survivor!

And there's never been any evidence of any such things existing at all, right? I think a lot of people probably still believe that it exists tbh.

I mean of large scale satanic ritual abuse and cults or whatever.

I run a large-scale Satanic cult but we are 100% anti-abuse, we do all the other stuff like blood rituals and heavy doper parties but without the abuse part we can't seem to attract any media attention

And there's never been any evidence of any such things existing at all, right?
right

Sybil Exposed is a great book!

I remember my high school psychology teacher being very into multiple personality disorder and showing our class Sybil, and even then it didn't ring true to me.

at least in dr wilbur's case, the evidence was in the recalled memories that were elicited through sessions in which the frequent injections of Pentothal and a host of other drugs that she administered to the people she treated ERASED the memory of the session for the patient. that was part of her method.

strangely, many people seem to have been hung up on meathooks by their parents.

that first sentence has some clause issues but you follow me, i hope

my mom used to call me Sybil all the time. THANKS MOMS

shoemaker makes me want to start a thread of signet book covers from the 80s

Nicole, have you read any of Debbie Nathan's other books? She has a couple of others that sound interesting to me -- one about her investigation of the SRA paranoia and another about PORNOGRAPHY.

Satan's Silence, a 1995 work which Nathan co-authored with Michael Snedeker, examined and "debunked" the wave of satanic ritual abuse allegations that took place beginning in the 1980s.[9][10] Victor Navasky described the book as the "definitive study" of the subject,[11] and a CounterPunch columnist credited the book as having "exposed and virtually stopped the so-called satanic cult child sex panic".[12] Paul Okami's review of the book in The Journal of Sex Research noted that the book "is not . . . a scientific work", and he had some criticisms of its organization and what Okami saw as misapplication of certain social-science concepts and an overreliance in some parts of the book on feminist and leftist economic theory; nevertheless, Okami judged the book to be "essential reading . . . for its devastating journalistic portrait" and "for its more general analysis of proximate mechanisms by which our society can become vulnerable to patent collective madness."[13]

Pornography, published in 2007, is written as a concise "guidebook" on the subject of pornography.[14] A Canadian reviewer described the writing as "frank and cool", and made note of Nathan's assertion that no connection has been established between the use of pornography and criminal behavior, as well as her focus on the "connection between porn and shame" to define pornography.[15]

Sunny, that is super fucked up. But it's way worse to be Sybil's mom than it is to be Sybil. Sybil's mom supposedly took many public dumps, had lesbian orgies in the woods with underage girls, and administered punitive enemas to Sybil while she was suspended from the kitchen's light fixture. (It is highly unlikely and completely unconfirmed by multiple firsthand witness interviews with people who knew her personally and intimately). So no harm done in the long run amirite?

EIII please do

who did that art, anyway?

I haven't taught a single Sybil in 15 years--I don't think I've even known one in my entire life. Like Adolf, it's a name that seems to have fallen out of favor.

Tears For Fears, named their album, 'Songs From the Big Chair', after a phrase used in the 1976 movie. In fact the track 'Big Chair' was inspired by 'Sybil' and the fact she felt safe in the big chair in her therapist's office.

is there a good precis on any of this stuff available anywhere (relevant wiki entry?), so far this thread is p much elliptically the same as the catholic church thread

Her real name is Shirley Mason
This is her
http://i.cdn.turner.com/trutv/trutv.com/graphics/photos/criminal_mind/psychology/multiples/3-3-Sybil-Shirley-K-Mason.jpg

Dr Cornelia Wilbur is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_B._Wilbur

I haven't taught a single Sybil in 15 years--I don't think I've even known one in my entire life. Like Adolf, it's a name that seems to have fallen out of favor.

― clemenza, Monday, July 30, 2012 10:25 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I really like it! I think someone should bring it back.

Flora Schreiber's NYT obit http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/04/obituaries/flora-schreiber-70-the-writer-of-sybil-and-of-shoemaker.html

One perspective on Satanic Ritual Abuse http://www.religioustolerance.org/sra.htm/

ty LL
i figure this is maybe also useful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse
if not wrt this then just to keep as a pinned tab on the next library computer you use

while she was suspended from the kitchen's light fixture.

I feel like light fixtures cannot actually withstand this? I guess it depends.

xp - yes, indeed. i can't wait for my friends and family to see my amazon wish list when they buy me birthday presents this year.

here is the most well known of shirley mason's paintings

http://www.hiddenpaintings.com/uploads/Entrapment_s.jpg

laurel, she was a slight child

I don't think there's a single sum-up but there are a lot of individual books & documentaries that I basically can't resist every time I see one

That's why I wanted to read Debbie Nathan's book. I think it is that book.

Satan's Silence

I mean who can resist SATAN'S SILENCE?!

i read "sybil exposed" too and it is nuts

http://www.youtube.com/embed/6pdRbfVLO6g

Worst Mother in Film: Now with Laugh Track!

1973 Nervous Breakdown is a far better book but this goes deep into the culture-wide dread that fueled the satanic ritual abuse epidemic

http://ebooks-imgs.connect.com/product/400/000/000/000/000/087/529/400000000000000087529_s4.png

Jenkins also wrote a book about cults - Mystics & Messiahs - but it's not that great. he's kind of neo-conservative and middlebrow, a bad combo

I used to listen to this dude's comedy albums when I was a Christian, he is a pathetically tragic figure in the whole Satanic Panic era, being mostly a fraud who was exposed by a Christian magazine, Cornerstone.

man, "Unsolved Mysteries" and "20/20" were obsessed with satanic panic

Warnke's exposure in Cornerstone is one of the all-time great moments in evangelical culture, so amazing

Although I am now more than two decades removed from it, I remain fascinated by the ephemera of evangelical culture. Warnke, Bob Larson, Carman, Mylon LeFevre, DeGarmo & Key, Kerry Livgren's A/D . . . endlessly amazing stuff.

Oof that's a good story. I love fallen frauds, esp if they had followers.

I just want to clarify that there were clearly other factors influencing the Satanic panic/MPD mania of the 80s/90s, BUT a major foundation of the argument supporting it came from the research and promotion of Dr Cornelia Wilbur, who started the "repressed sexual childhood memories" aspect that formed the foundation of SRA evidence.

aero we should start a thread on ILM on CCM music of the 80s/90s. Wonder how many people would participate?

Last specific I'll cite, because I want people to see the film, but part of disproving her story was going back to her school photos in 1955, where she appears way too normal--and seemingly physically fine--for someone going through all this. (And attending school regularly during the window of her abduction.)

that looks awesome, just read up about this. Whatever happened to her? Her psychiatrist/husband is dead now.

She's still alive but declined to be interviewed for the film.

xxp I actually knew a couple punkers who worked at that DC pizza place years ago

And I think there was a video circulating of Ian Svenonius wearing a hooded robe at that pizza parlor, trying to summon Curtis Mayfield's ghost or something like that... might have added to the shooter's suspicions about the place

I had thought the concept of recovered memories was controversial within the research psych community because there was evidence that many of these were false memories?

― stank viola (Neanderthal)

idk. it's interesting. i didn't think repressed memories were a real thing either until i found out that i had them.

to be clear i wasn't ritually abused by a satanic cult or anything like that. there were just things that it was easier to... not think about for a while. then in my 40s i started dealing with gender stuff and i was like... why has none of this ever come up before?

and then i realized it had. again, we're not talking about anything wild or outrageous. i had friends who were like "oh yeah, i remember you telling me something like that", when in my head i'd told no-one my secret. it was easier to not think about it, to compartmentalize it somewhere out of the way. there was nothing i could do with that information, no useful purpose it could serve.

for some people their past is a rational logical narrative and for me, i've been told so many different things, some of which aren't true, by people i learned to trust that... it's confusing what to believe sometimes. i kind of try to piece things together from fragments of things i remember, and sometimes i put it together wrong, i draw conclusions that aren't correct, i misremember. i guess it's easy to categorize them as "false memories", i'm trying to figure things out and i do it wrong. and then when i do sometimes people will say "see, you're always remembering things wrong", and dismiss everything i remember, but i'm not "always" remembering things wrong. sometimes one person remembers things one way and me and my sibs all remember things in a very different way.

sometimes... one is pressured to believe a narrative that doesn't hold up to scrutiny if you examine it. and that narrative can be satanic ritual abuse, or it can be "perfectly normal child".

I like your last paragraph a lot there...You should look for this film. I think you would, at the very least, agree that this particular case was fraudulent.

i haven't seen the film, but from what i've read i have no doubt of that... i guess what i'm interested in is the way that narratives of "satanic" or "occult" abuse are perpetrated by hegemonic institutional forces (in this case mainly christianity) while at the same time genuine instances of abuse perpetrated by these same institutional forces is dismissed as indicative of things like "false memory syndrome". particularly given the tendency christianity has to portray queerness as demonic! i'm thinking here of things like the D&D panic ignited by the disappearance of james dallas egbert iii. his parents hired a pi named william dear to investigate the case... dear says that egbert's disappearance has a lot more to do with his homosexuality than dungeons and dragons...

that said dungeons and dragons is something that does have great resonance with queer people... one of the things parents found most dangerous about dungeons and dragons was the way it encouraged its players to take on alternate personae... it's extremely common for players to use this as a way of exploring sexual or gender identities that would otherwise be taboo. d&d is a tremendously queer game today, and has spawned explicitly queer successors like "thirsty sword lesbians".

one can also see the way something like "false memory syndrome" was created by paul mchugh, the conservative catholic who shut down the gender affirming surgery program at johns hopkins because of his personal beliefs... personal beliefs which then led him to defend vigorously priests accused of the serial sexual assault of children, a crime which was covered up by the ecclesiastical hierarchy...

this sentence from lawrence pazder's wikipedia page stood out to me...

Pazder considered himself to be a devout Catholic.

the archbishop of portland earlier this year issued an edict forbidding teachers in catholic schools in portland from calling trans kids by their names or gendering them correctly... christians call us "groomers" when the actual people abusing children are far more often youth pastors... christianity's long, shameful legacy of child abuse continues, all the while claiming to "protect children".

hail satan. baphomet is goals.

SATAN WANTS YOU (the Michelle Remembers doc) is 100% worth the rental on prime. Debbie Nathan is in it!!
Well made and the ending satisfies. When someone besides me watches it we can discuss "baby candles"

Oh thank you thank you will totally watch

I assumed this thread was bumped because of the growing popularity of the multiplicity online subculture! Whenever I see someone talking about their supposed dissociative identity disorder I can’t help but think about my fascination with Sybil when I was a teenager.

ok this isn’t specifically Debbie Nathan related (yet, that I know of) … but it seemed appropriate for this thread i think

Sarah Marashall, host of “You’re Wrong About” has a new limited podcast series with CBC about Satanic Panic

It’s called The Devil You Know and is about people who experienced the Satanic Panic in real time. the first ep just went up, looking into a couple of semi-famous Satanic scares in rural Kentucky

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/2054-the-devil-you-know-with-sarah-marshall

Ooh that sounds good! I’m not a fan of You’re Wrong About but I’d give it a shot.

I’m trying not to admit that it’s her voice but (it’s her voice)

Ep2 is about Michelle Remembers eeee

also LL i do get what yr saying re her voice — in this series she’s sounds little less “batty Aunt” if that helps.

It does. It’s highly uncharitable of me but I think it’s a lateral lisp that I find distracting. Not proud of this but in the purely audio format it’s hard for me to let go.

<3

I watched I Never Promised You a Rose Garden(1977) awhile back... I enjoyed it. Good casting (Bibi Andersson, Kathleen Quinlan, Sylvia Sidney) and a pretty good film for the time and the modest budget. Dovetails well with Sybil and the other mental health films of that era. I think I found it on Amazon. (I think there's also a brief Mel Gibson sighting in there but fortunately he's not in the main cast)

Ep2 is about Michelle Remembers eeee

Just listened to this episode of The Devil You Know - worth checking out but good grief...

yeah Michelle’s story gets more infuriating with every new retelling. i used to think i felt sorry for Michelle but now i just kinda hate her.

I finally listened to The Devil You Know — I got past the lateral lisp and was able to enjoy the quality production and various povs.

Yay!

Excellent podcast

It was really well done. I recommended it to a few of my Satan-naive coworkers who had no idea about the panic etc.

huh, not a big podcast fan but maybe I'll check this out

Hugely recommend

It’s more audio documentary than broadly “podcast”
That’s the means of distribution, but like many podcasts it’s actually a long form audio documentary.

A well researched, wide ranging, informative, and entertaining one (if you enjoy documentary film etc)

so not just a couple wags chuckling at each others jokes?

Not remotely

I listened to a slick one about cults and they did that thing where they just spoke really, really fast and it was annoying

This is not that

One of the most interesting parts for me was the interview with the woman who refused to be an expert witness — the link she drew between a growing awareness of how widespread CSA actually is, now that people were taking about domestic abuse honestly for the first time, and the horror of that —-> it must be Satan. Fascinating.

I was in BFE East Texas when all this was going on and I was drawing pentagrams on everything. In 5th grade I had to sit down with a school counselor who asked me a lot of questions about my interest in Bon Jovi and horror movies and she told me it was very abnormal.

now that people were taking about domestic abuse honestly for the first time, and the horror of that —-> it must be Satan. Fascinating.

yeah this is something that stood out to me too, one of the first things about the satanic panic that actually made some sense to me. Like, with all these stories of sexual abuse and incest being public for the first time it didn't seem like that much of a leap to assume people were also doing satanic rituals.

Yeah and not just that but it was easier/less vexing to blame Satan than admit that dad/grandpa/other trusted relative is capable of CSA.

thanks for bringing this up again. i don't think it's something that's... well, it's something i'd like to listen to but i don't think i could handle it emotionally right now, with america being what it is. because i think people still aren't aware of... well. OK. I think there's a lot of DARVO going on. I mean I grew up Catholic. Which colors my opinion strongly on the idea of "Satanic Ritual Abuse". Because I think CSA is _often_ closely correlated with religious institutions, and Satanism just, uh, isn't very prevalent in America, even today, in any organized form. And, I mean, you might notice that I'm _NOT_ saying things directly, because a lot of people, people I like and respect and rely on as _allies_, get very very upset and very very offended when I say things directly. I believe that the evidence points to certain problems and that openly talking about those problems is outside the Overton Window right now. It frustrates me a lot.

the other thing is that i'm not anti-religious, i have a very fraught and complicated relationship with religion. i don't think religion is the problem. i think _patriarchy_ is the problem. and i also don't think we can really address patriarchy without addressing the strongest patriarchal institutions in place.

Not quite sure what you're talking about specifically, but not-talking about things is how we got to the satanic panic!

The podcast isn't particularly triggering imo -- it's not splashy or sensational, unlike the panic itself.

Not quite sure what you're talking about specifically, but not-talking about things is how we got to the satanic panic!

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera)

yeah it's hard, because truth be told one of the things i took from the satanic panic is recognizing the signs of moral panic. and it's something i have to deal with today, that panic, that desperation, that desire to make increasingly extreme accusations so that for god's sake _somebody_ will do _something_. and the more people actually listen, the more i'm capable of being reasonable and measured.

if you look at, today, the places outside the family where csa is being done, the people who are doing CSA, it's often people like christian youth counselors. that a lot of people are using "religious freedom" as a shield for CSA. running a support group, i do talk to a fair number of young adults, and religion, christianity especially, is _very_ often used as a shield for CSA. other forms of religious abuse are more common, and i think they also need to be addressed, and CSA is definitely _one_ of the facets of religious abuse.

i'm _not_ anti-christian, but i do believe that a lot of people in systemic positions of authority in large christian organizations in america are responsible for and are perpetuating _very serious problems_. and this causes me a great deal of emotional distress.

The podcast does an excellent job of tying the satanic panic to gay/trans/migrant panics; the social compulsion to blame the Other for the bad things being perpetuated by our own communities.

i'm glad to hear that

i don't want to make this shit about me because it's _not_ about me. at the same time my youngest sib texts me and says "hey we're planning a family vacation on the georgia coast next month, wanna come", and i _do_, cuz i love my family, but i gotta ask "so, uh, is it legal for me to pee in georgia?" and they text back "as long as it's not in a school, yeah"

and i have to admit that makes me a LITTLE BIT MIFFED. not because of my sibling. because apparently that is a law that exists. i don't expect it'll affect me, because i'm white and because i pass pretty well, but it apparently _is_ a law that exists.

oh i meant "next year" not "next month" lol