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

^^^ that's worth a read, lemme tell ya

xxpost that is a recurring theme-- the people who made a creed out of this shit are largely still sticking to their story today.

yeah, that's for sure -- it was so deeply a part of their reason for existing professionally and they banked everything on it, so goddammit, they're sticking to it

it's just so unconscionable to me, I don't know how they lie straight in bed at night

OTM. And yet, to recant something on that level is basically like... I dunno, I'd have to go study zen for the rest of my life. Ego defense is an amazing powerful thing

OTM

Root cause of many societal ills.

And all arguments on the internet.

the saddest thing in that Witch Hunt doc was a couple of the male adult children who recanted, talking about how they couldn't bring themselves to bathe their own infant children because they were ashamed

ashamed

like that whole system fucked them up for life for making them admit to these awful things. the kinds of things that IRL fuck actual victims up. the fact that they manufactured these cases and ruined the lives of perfectly healthy children and adults is just RAAGGGGH

It's time for a breather VG -- I know the signs! Go read something funny!

Protect ya neck (from Satan)

<3

sound advice, LL

I've had to take a break from reading about stuff like this more times than I can count! After I read Jeremy Scahill's Blackwater book I seriously had to decompress. Finally maybe I am ready to read Going Clear, but with caution and hopefully this time not by myself. It's a lot easier to stomach this stuff when I have someone to talk about it with; otherwise, I'm basically just walking around with tons of horrific thoughts 24/7 and that's not a ton of fun.

I get the same way with my true-crime obsessiveness, after a while I start noting windowless vans and looking at missing persons notices online and seeing possible grave sites on my nature walks, it's a bad scene. I should have recognized the signs!

But I def want to read more when I've decompressed a little

<3

but I still love you to death for creating this thread

<3 to my bad news buddies

hey, creating this thread helped me feel like there were fewer wasps in my head
it's my pleasure!

"Recent examples?" Yeah, apparently he tries for that, and this edition is from 2011

Folk Devils And Moral Panics (Routledge Classics)
'Richly documented and convincingly presented' -- New Society

Mods and Rockers, skinheads, video nasties, designer drugs, bogus asylum seeks and hoodies. Every era has its own moral panics. It was Stanley Cohen’s classic account, first published in the early 1970s and regularly revised, that brought the term ‘moral panic’ into widespread discussion. It is an outstanding investigation of the way in which the media and often those in a position of political power define a condition, or group, as a threat to societal values and interests. Fanned by screaming media headlines, Cohen brilliantly demonstrates how this leads to such groups being marginalised and vilified in the popular imagination, inhibiting rational debate about solutions to the social problems such groups represent. Furthermore, he argues that moral panics go even further by identifying the very fault lines of power in society.

Full of sharp insight and analysis, Folk Devils and Moral Panics is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand this powerful and enduring phenomenon.

Professor Stanley Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics. He received the Sellin-Glueck Award of the American Society of Criminology (1985) and is on the Board of the International Council on Human Rights. He is a member of the British Academy.

Hate to pimp for Amazon, but they have the Look Inside! options for both of these, if you dare.
This one's also been updated.

Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance

Review
"This close reading of the facts behind a media story are the essence of Goode and Ben-Yehuda's work. They have taken the time and trouble to try and see what is a moral panic and what is true." (Metapsychology, March 2010)
Review
"In a thoroughly updated new edition of their very valuable book, Goode and Ben-Yehuda demonstrate the wide gulf that so often separates the real menaces facing our society from the disproportionate waves of public fear and concern that regularly surface in the mass media. Their book - intelligently written, wide-ranging and provocative - shows us once again that knowing what a society fears is essential to understanding its core values, and its highest aspirations."
–Philip Jenkins, Pennsylvania State University

"Moral Panics is more than a classic text in social theory. In this newly updated and enlarged edition, it is an indispensable text for every twenty-first century scholar interested in the social construction and diffusion of fear."
–Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear

"Moral panics remains one of the most hotly-debated sociological ideas to have entered the public sphere, so an up-dated version of Goode and Ben-Yehuda’s pathbreaking work on this subject is very welcome. The new version is even more enlightening than its predecessor."
–Kenneth Thompson, Open University
From the Back Cover
From the Renaissance witch craze to the denunciation of horror comics and rock and roll in the 1950s and flag burning in the late twentieth and the early twenty-first century, institutions and groups of individuals have mobilized around issues where they feel threatened.

This book introduces, describes, and analyzes the collective outbreaks of scares about threats or supposed threats from deviants or “folk devils,” a category of people who, some believe, engage in evil practices and are blamed for menacing the society’s culture, way of life, and central values.

Examining what motivates fear- and concern-inspired collective behavior, the second edition of Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance comprehensively updates this popular and highly-respected text, bringing in a host of new examples, and new chapters on the media and criticisms of the moral panics concept.
About the Author
Erich Goode is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His previous books include The Marijuana Smokers (1970), Collective Behavior (1992), Deviance in Everyday Life (2002), Extreme Deviance (edited with Angus Vail, 2008), Drugs in American Society (7th edition, 2008), and Deviant Behavior (8th edition, 2008).

Nachman Ben-Yehuda is Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His publications include Deviance and Moral Boundaries (1985), The Politics and Morality of Deviance (1990), Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice (1993), The Masada Myth (1995), Betrayals and Treason (2001), and Selective Remembrances (edited with Philip Kohl and Mara Kozelsky, 2007).
‹

There's also a textbook anthology titled The Construction of Deviance or something similar.

I was just watching Capturing the Friedmans, and was reminded of another similar documentary, and I thought this thread might be the best place to ask about it... Back in the 90s I saw a TV documentary about a case where the staff of an American day care center were accused of Satanic Ritual Abuse. I think the case in question might've been the MacMartin preschool trial, because I clearly remember the documentary referencing the children's claims that the staff members were flying in air like witches, and other ludicrous things like that. I also remember courtroom drawings were used to illustrate the doc. Now, there was a TV movie made about the case, but I can't find any info on the documentary. Does anyone remember seeing this?

The PBS series Frontline did a 2-hour report on a different case (in Edenton, North Carolina)called "Innocence Lost" in 1991. Maybe that was what you saw?

They show Frontline in Finland?! I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about either. When I have time I can look at the index of the Debbie Nathan SRA book to see if there's anything in there about it?

The PBS series Frontline did a 2-hour report on a different case (in Edenton, North Carolina)called "Innocence Lost" in 1991. Maybe that was what you saw?

Could be, though the Wikipedia page for that case doesn't mention children saying that the daycare workers were witches who would fly around, and that's a detail I clearly remember from the documentary.

One thing I've always wondered about these SRA cases is, were all these testimonials that various supernatural and other ludicrous things (like bears and lions being sacrificed to Satan) taken seriously as a part of the prosecutors' claims, or did they try to sweep them under the rug and focus on the more realistic-sounding claims? Because in here, if such outrageous claims were made in court, they would certainly weaken the case significantly... But maybe it's different in the USA, since it's a more religious country?

"that various supernatural and other ludicrous things had happened"

If I understand correctly, a lot of it rested on one simple (untrue) fact: that children don't lie unless it's to cover up something bad they did. Also, the SRA stalwarts had legitimized their interrogation/interviewing methods (which were very leading) and diagnoses within the APA community, so people didn't question them on their testimony.

Add to that the fact that little kids aren't usually asked to testify in the courtroom when horrifying things have allegedly happened to them, so the interviewers testified on their behalf. Basically, the interviewers asked leading questions, the kids gave the answers they thought they were "supposed to" give, and that testimony was taken carte blanche to court and used to convict people of doing ludicrous things.

I have no idea how the claims got so ridiculous, but that's all part of the story I guess.

I guess if you encourage kids to make up stuff about abuse, the downside to it is that they'll make up stuff you weren't asking for. But I'm still curious about how the more outlandish claims were handled in court... Were they left out of the testimonials? Did the interviewers/prosecutors try to downplay them? Or were they used as "proof" that genuine dark forces were involved in these rituals?

I wish I could find the documentary I mentioned above, because IIRC this issue was addressed in it.

They were included afaik, I think your answer is "C", unfortunately. There were people who decried the allegations as ridiculous, but there was also a lot of social/cultural pressure to not ally oneself with Satanic child abusers.

alleged Satanic child abusers, that is.

I was reading Sybil Exposed (it's a great book, btw! thanks for recommending it, LL), and since I'd recently watched The Mothman Prophecies, another movie based on a book that was based on a "true" story, I noticed a funny little connection. According to Sybil Exposed, Shirley Mason moved to Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in the autumn of 1965, and apparently lived there for several years. Now, Point Pleasant is small town with only a few thousand inhabitants, and it's biggest claim to fame is the Mothman, a supposed supernatural creature that was reported to have been seen in the area in 1966 and 1967. (Point Pleasant is also known for a bridge collapse that killed 46 people. The collapse took place in 1967, and both the book and the movie link the incident to the Mothman).

Obviously the fact that Mason moved to Point Pleasant only a year before the first Mothman sightings is a total coincidence, but I can only imagine what sort connections some properly paranoid conspiracy theorist could draw between the two cases...

Whoa, that IS weird.

I love it.

You know what else I love? Point Pleasant has a statute of the Mothman right there in town:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Mothman_statue_2005.jpg

Mothman is one of the least thetical, most WTF paranormal thingies ever. I almost have to believe in it because it is just sooo disorganized and jumbled and devoid of any streamlined point at all. Also I will never stop saying the name 'Indrid Cold' to myself. Also I am v v happy there is a Sybil/Mothman connection! :D

Is there a thread on local monsters (Mothman, Jersey Devil, Chessie)? I think I want to start one if their isn't. I love that crap.

Don't forget the Hodag of Rhinelander, WI.

please start that thread if one doesn't exist, carl. I would be v interested!!

Chessie? Like Nessie, but it plays chess?

the Nessie of Chesapeake Bay iirc

there is also one in Lake Champlain, Champie

Is there a thread on local monsters (Mothman, Jersey Devil, Chessie)? I think I want to start one if their isn't. I love that crap.

Couple of threads that are relevant...

Charles Fort (and the Strange Things That Fell From The Sky)
Does the Loch Ness Monster really exist?
Unexplained Mysteries and Phenomena - S/D
Do You Believe in the Orang Pendek?

I would like to think Paul Bunyan counts as a local monster

Thanks, Elvis Telecom! Those are good, but not quite right. I will start a Local Monsters/Your Favorite Cryptid thread after dinner.

And yes, Chessie is the Chesapeake Bay's own giant water monster.

Did you start a local monsters thread? Link?

WHOOPS NO I FORGOT

*bangs desk* DAMMIT CARL

in cult-related news, i would like to recommend the movie "the sound of my voice" to anyone who enjoys cult movies. the plot is pretty slight, and not without holes/problems, but brit marling's portrayal of a future cult leader is super memorable and she kinda reminded me of daryl hannah if splash was about a mermaid cult instead of a romance or whatever the f it was.

was splash a comedy? rom com? i have no idea.

I did not consider this Darryl Hannah angle but I approve

did you see it? she was really good! i liked her other movie aaaaalright but she was way better as an actress in this one

also somehow with absolutely no intervention from me hattie dorsett has made it onto a list of great villains