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

wait, a reaction was seen as an indicator of weird things happening, not vice-versa?

this is serious "if it floats it's a witch" territory

correct
it is exactly that

the more you deny it, the more they think it's true

i searched my school's academic databases looking for some of the articles referenced as the scientific foundation of the SRA panic, but i didn't search very hard. i found a few things but not exactly what i was looking for. anyway, there was a huge movement to institutionalize/basically codify the research so that the court cases could proceed.

i'll also repeat -- there were obvious class issues at play here as well. also, this was the USA in the mid-late 1980s.

i mean.

anyone who is across-the-board nostalgic for the 80s either wasn't born yet or wasn't paying attention, at all

1986 Meese Report http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meese_Report
It was a fertile climate for total nonsense.

that was some hard work, researching all that porn

tax dollars at work

And there weren't even internets for people to mutually reinforce their nonsense on!

meanwhile, in Central America...

It really was terrifying. When Reagan was elected, I was 12 and I knew in my 12 yo bones that he was going to start a nuclear armageddon v the USSR. By the time I was old enough to realize why that prob wasn't gonna happen I was old enough to understand what he and his coven were up to in yes Central America and elsewhere

yah the eighties were creepy.

i went to public schools and a couple of times they let this cultic christian "campus cruasade"-type group come in and show these dumb multi-media presentations to the entire school-- basically multiple slide projectors running along with (presumably) unlicensed pop music... so there'd be some outfield or mike and the mechanics song playing while a narrator asked a lot of vague rhetorical questions about "making the right decisions" and "fitting in". then at the end some guy got up and invited everyone to come to a "pizza party" that night. i remember some kids who went reporting that it was held in a barn(!) and yeah, it was this bait-and-switch where the teen meetup pizza party turned out to be all about jesus.

it still kind of pisses me off that a public high school would let these people roll through and try to sneakily recruit for their cult. and it WAS basically a cult, b/c a girl i knew stuck with it and a couple of years later she was at my college and still participating with the group. they eventually got banned from campus after they started getting media attention for trying to isolate students from their families, etc. it was one of those ones that would come up to you while you were innocently eating lunch or studying in the library or whatever and would start asking you if you knew for certain that you were going to heaven...

I was 5 in 1980 and I remember crying when I heard that Teeth wasn't going to be our president anymore.

xp - omg that story is terrifying

xps lol "he and his coven"

as my friend, who grew up in a pretty church-oriented family just said to me:
"times were simpler, we absolutely knew that the enemy was living among us
pretending to be god-fearing, church-going Christians, and killing babies under the full moon"

Teeth!

Thing is it's so much worse now, just without the nukes.

ugh, don't remind me

It really was terrifying. When Reagan was elected, I was 12 and I knew in my 12 yo bones that he was going to start a nuclear armageddon v the USSR. By the time I was old enough to realize why that prob wasn't gonna happen I was old enough to understand what he and his coven were up to in yes Central America and elsewhere

I was 9 when he was first elected but had out of control nuclear Armageddon phobia no thanks to this bozo. In 1984, my jagoff social studies teacher had a mock election and I was the only one to vote for Mondale. (The teach said we all voted like our parents were planning to and accused me of fibbing when I said my parents were staunch Reaganites. He also gave me more detentions than any other teacher ever.)

Also holy shit your user name.

Yeah I was in St Paul MN where it was possible for a high school freshman to think Mondale might win, lol. Was crushed by the results.

lol thx xp

My paranoid kids' group failed to attract membership in NEOH, but I bet if you guys had been nearby and had seen my flyers for the Children's Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament, you would have considered attending my meetings. There were only three before my two friends gave up. (We also took a bus to DC and camped out in the mall for the homeless. On that bus ride I learned about The Cure!)

Girl you know I would have been at your meeting.

I was 9 when he was first elected but had out of control nuclear Armageddon phobia no thanks to this bozo

I was 15, but was already well down this path of fear. I remember just fuming at everything when news leaked out that Nancy Reagan had a personal astrologer visit her in the White House.

Girl you know I would have been at your meeting.

― carl agatha, Wednesday, October 24, 2012 1:01 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:D

finally, our membership flourishes! 25 years later better than not at all.

NOW WE MARCH

This time I won't have to bring a separate piece of luggage for cassettes. That's a bonus. Oh, the 80s.

My Kindle highlights finally synched up with my account, so now I have all of the best parts of Satan's Silence at my fingertips.

For the record, here's "naugus hole" in context:

Tanya then identified the dolls’ “wee-wees,” “chee-ehees” (breasts), “butts,” “wienie,” and the “naugus hole,” or vagina

This is some of Judy Johnson's word salad

Matthew feels that he left L.A. International in an airplane and flew to Palm Springs… Matthew went to the armory…. The goatman was there … it was a ritual type atmosphere…. At the church, Peggy drilled a child under the arms, armpits. Atmosphere was that of magic arts. Ray flew in the air…. Peggy, Babs and Betty were all dressed up as witches. The person who buried Matthew is Miss Betty. There were no holes in the coffin. Babs went with him on a train with an older girl where he was hurt by men in suits. Ray waved goodbye … Peggy gave Matthew an enema…. Staples were put in Matthew’s ears, his nipples and his tongue. Babs put scissors,in his eyes …. She chopped up animals … Matthew was hurt by a lion. An elephant played … a goat climbed up higher and higher and higher, then a bad man threw it down the stairs…. Lots of candles were there, they were all black…. Ray pricked his right pointer finger… put it in the goat’s anus…. Old grandma played the piano … [a baby’s] head was chopped off and the brains were burned…. Peggy had a scissors in the church and she cut Matthew’s hair. Matthew had to drink the baby’s blood. Ray wanted Matthew’s spit.

Clearly I am going through post-Halloween gore withdrawal.

wat

Judy Johnson was one of the original accusers in the first wave of SRA cases -- she was visibly disturbed, but the prosecution (who joked about her behind closed doors) moved forward with the accusations anyway. She died at home in a pool of alcohol-related vomit iirc.

Attempting to find the killers, police asked local residents to notify them about men whose behavior might suggest them as the culprit. Thousands of reports flooded in, mainly from women. Though most were dead ends, they constituted a fascinating informal survey of the local male population’s sadistic proclivities.

that is sad, but at the same time, who is ratting me out?

*raises hand*

Here's an example of one of the victim interviews from the McMartin case, which was really early in the SRA hysteria/mass contagion/witch hunt/whatever you wanna call it. Over time, the interviewing techniques were under scrutiny and eventually debunked) in spite of a rather robust attempt on the part of a large cadre of child psychology professionals to legitimize them. There were government-funded SRA conferences and everything.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcmartin/victiminterviews.html

Can you imagine what other dirt is in that file? Yikes.

ohhhh fuck @ those interviews ;_;

god

I really need to read this book

It's really good. Now that I've read two of her books, I can say that Debbie Nathan has expert organizational skills. She knows just how much background info to balance with narrative and historical context. I might read her book about pornography next.

The only complaint I have about SS is that it was written in 1994, so there are some questionable opinions about PTSD in there, and feminism, but she usually contextualizes those pretty well.

Has anyone dug through the 1986 Meese Report?

omg INDICTMENT is on netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B6dbLT0ZKQ

that clip is only 16 sec btw

(that's Scorsese's McMartin case courtroom drama starring Henry Thomas, James Woods, and Mercedes Ruhl)

Sorry! It was produced by Oliver Stone. Who doesn't get those two confused amirite?!

― these albatrosses have no fear of man (La Lechera), Friday, November 2, 2012 1:19 PM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark

Best part was how I posted this to a thread polling a poll and it was an error and omg this is what happens to my brain when I get so bored that I resort to book reporting.

One more thing and then I'll shut up

Ray Buckey (played by Henry Thomas in this movie) was the one who received the majority of the abuse accusations; a significant part of the prosecution's argument (and questioning) relied on a single detail about Ray, which was that he rarely wore underwear and that sometimes kids could see his dong through and under his shorts.

(I love this thread. Here goes my entire afternoon.)