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

http://www.bullz-eye.com/images/blogs/ph/vincent_price_witch_finder.jpg

Ed Jagels

Sexy WF

The fact that everyone had their own agenda for keeping up with the
lies (and the increasing outrageousness of the lies) is what attracts me to these stories! It was the same with Sybil.

Who profits from the witch hunt? Everyone and also no one, like any good quagmire, really.

I've been saving Satan's Silence as a special, special treat for myself.

I wonder what D Nathan is working on now?

That book really fucked up my head for a while! I wish you both maximum suerte.

I've wondered that too! I checked a while ago but didn't find anything iirc.

Just as a general note: I have the Kindle version of Satan's Silence and it's not the best transfer ever. For example, they spoke of people acting like a "Tynch mob" and I'm like, who's "Tynch" and how did he get a mob named after him? But then I figured it out. Also satanie for satanic. That one cracks me up.

Yeah I noticed that too. You should see the typos in the porn book!! Sorry, the pom book.

Hm I have the nook one but I bet it'll be the same.

holy shit
today i went to turn in my attendance sheet and i saw the student IT worker's laptop
on it was an open document with capital letters at the top

SYBIL

and then there were ~ three sentences introducing the pathology of multiple personality disorder
it sent chills down my spine!

!!!

MPD as metaphor for the fear or moral anguish that people have to repress in order to live with themselves under late capitalism

This reminded me to check on youtube for the movie, which I haven't done for almost a year. Still no dice. Rights holder doing a thorough job of quashing it.

i wonder what debbie nathan is up to these days?

you and me both!

well, she tweeted about this lost schlocky 1932 el paso novel called HOOKERS that you can take a look at here http://www.scribd.com/doc/163347558/Hookers-by-Ray-Bourbon-courtesy-El-Paso-former-city-representative-Steve-Ortega

and she also wrote an article in which she had the opportunity to talk about vanguard ACLU nudists
http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/01/finding-sex-in-the-bill-of-rights

The early ACLU leadership vacationed together at Martha's Vineyard. On isolated beaches there, many practiced nudism. Nudists today are largely winked at if not ignored. But in the 1930s and '40s, they saw themselves as an avant-garde movement. Going undressed, they believed, would strengthen democracy by challenging the class distinctions so visible in clothing. They also thought the sight of people casually strolling in the buff would cool the frisson of obscenity.

I think they were right about both of those things but on the other hand I'm glad to have clothes.

I wonder who the hardcore nudist ideologues of the early SF pulp writers were.

i am finally reading that 1973 nervous breakdown book and it is SO GOOD! really pleasant reading if a bit heavy on the interpretation of events but that's ok. lotsa good quotations, but this one seemed esp relevant 40 years later

the emergence of a new kind of public for which he proposed the name "disparate mob"—a mass of people without direct contact among themselves: "The reactive mass would be the entire population tied together by our nearly instant news media." By virtue of the "intense communicability of the images surrounding hijacking," such acts could inflame an entire population.

the stuff about skyjacking has been my favorite part so far. and fear of flying, of course. everyone was talking about neurosis in the 70s! like the kook expert witness who had a grand theory about how fear of gravity is our driving force as humans? wha?

i believe the kook also coined the term "disparate mob" so i guess he wasn't 100% kook

There's a decent quality torrent of the Sybil movie... or so i hear

the stuff about skyjacking has been my favorite part so far

if you're especially interested in skyjacking definitely check out the recent well-researched account The Skies Belong to Us by Brendan I. Koerner, which paints a startling portrait of the late '60s/early '70s zeitgeist with many factual details that are today nearly unbelievable

paywalled, but: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929361.000-multiple-personalities-takedown-of-a-diagnosis.html

AT THE height of her illness, Carol had dozens of different personalities. Two were small children: Lucy, aged 9, and "little Carol", aged 5, who liked to watch children's television.

Another was an older female called Louise who had recovered disturbing memories: when younger, Carol/Louise had been sexually abused by her parents and forced to make child pornography. Then there was a more aggressive persona, who acted as Carol's protector and during questioning would fly into a rage.

While Carol's case sounds like an extreme example of multiple personality disorder (MPD), the reality, as Carol eventually discovered, is even stranger.

None of those details are true. Not the pornography, not the sexual abuse, and not the different personalities; they had all been summoned into existence by Carol's psychiatrist. "This doctor (was) very charismatic and manipulative," says Carol.

I just got to the part in 1973: Nervous Breakdown that discusses Ted Patrick and his "defreaking" practices.

google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=UGq3_Fa6P_YC&lpg=PA116&ots=EKlXJ8_3F8&dq=black%20lightning%20defreaking&pg=PA116#v=onepage&q&f=false

This is all before he became the leading cult deprogrammer in the country:

Born in what he calls "a red-light district" in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he was surrounded by "thieves, prostitutes, murderers [and] pimps. From the time [he] was old enough to remember, [he] saw people being killed, shot up, cut up, beat up. The place was so bad even the police didn't want to come there."[2]

He had a speech impediment, which set him apart from the other children. Until he was sixteen, no one could understand what he said, which made him "shy and backwards and miserable and embarrassed" for most of his childhood. According to Patrick, after being taken to countless faith healers, witch doctors and voodoo practitioners, the final straw was an embarrassing spin the bottle game. The bottle pointed to him and the girl wouldn't kiss him. He then decided to take his problem into his own hands. His speech improved, and with it his confidence and interpersonal skills. He dropped out of high school in tenth grade to help support his family. After working in a variety of jobs, he saved enough to open a nightclub called the Cadillac Club with his cousin. The venture was successful, and eventually he sold his share of the business to his cousin. Patrick was the co-chairman of the Nineteenth Ward in Chattanooga. He planned on opening a restaurant and cocktail lounge; however, according to Patrick, his political enemies obstructed this.[2]

At twenty-five he left his wife and infant son in Tennessee and went with a friend to San Diego, California. There he started the Chollas Democratic Club to assert the rights of the Black community. Perhaps their main accomplishment was picketing supermarkets and other stores to get them to employ Blacks. After he had saved enough money, he brought his wife and children to San Diego. Other organizations he started in San Diego were the Logan Heights Businessmen’s Association, the Junior Government of Southeast San Diego and the Volunteer Parents Organization (VPO.) During the Watts Riots in 1965 the VPO was instrumental in keeping the violence from reaching San Diego. For his efforts in the Watts Riots Patrick was awarded the Freedom Foundation Award, which ultimately led to his job as the Special Assistant for Community Affairs, under then-Governor Ronald Reagan.[citation needed]

they called him "Black Lightning" because I guess he deprogrammed people like a bolt of lightning?!

"The bottle pointed to him and the girl wouldn't kiss him. He then decided to take his problem into his own hands. His speech improved, and with it his confidence and interpersonal skills."

LOL there seem to be some important elided details here in between taking his problem into his own hands and his speech improving? What'd he do to overcome it, I wonder?

How about this?

Despite a lack of formal education and professional training, Patrick was hired by hundreds of parents and family members to "deprogram" their loved ones. A high school dropout, Patrick based his techniques and practices on his own life experience. According to Ted Patrick himself in a TV debate with members of the Hare Krishna group (May, 1979), "How I got into deprogramming was through my own son. All outdoor boy, couldn't nothing keep him in the house. Then one day, he was psychologic... psychological kidnap by a cult". In this interview, Patrick also explained that his quest to understand cults led him to speak to "witches, warlocks, healers" and in fact, he went "all the way to New Orleans" to the same person his mother brought him to for his speech impediment. He also stated that he spent time in a religious group and after a week "...didn't know where I were, nor how I got there...I was hook." Patrick stated that this research and his understanding of the mind from his ongoing struggle with his own speech, was the background for his work in deprogramming.

On June 12, 1971, Mrs. Samuel Jackson contacted Patrick to file a complaint concerning her missing son, Billy. As Billy was nineteen, the police and FBI would not look for him. Billy was involved with the cult known as the Children of God, which had approached Patrick's son Michael a week earlier. Patrick contacted other people whose relatives were in the cult and even pretended to join them to know how the group operated. This was when he developed his method of deprogramming. He ultimately left his job to deprogram full-time.[2]

Patrick, one of the pioneers of deprogramming, used a confrontational method...

apparently he electrocuted members of the all saved freak band?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXw19sgj8DM

Hm this is getting rly interesting!

Skepchick getting in on the sweet Sybil action:

http://skepchick.org/2013/10/skepchick-book-club-sybil-exposed

I just put Sybil Exposed on reserve at my local library - Nov 15 cannot come soon enough :D :D :D

oooh i bought this a little while ago. let read it together!

***us***

the first few chapters where she sets up each woman's backgrounds is so memorable and finely detailed in the best way possible.

sybil exposed bookclub countdown :D

started Sybil Exposed yesterday, ploughing through it like nobody's business!

I am completely flabbergasted by the number of drugs Dr Wilbur had Sheila on. Like, beyond levels of crazy oldtimey psychiatry. Like Seconal and Thorazine (!) every kind of barbiturate you can think of *and* oh hi she's totally jacked on pentothal anyway, by the way oh and here have some demerol for your MENSTRUAL CRAMPS.

what the christ

not that I am surprised the drugs themselves were prescribed but the amounts, and the fact that she was on like 10 things SIMULTANEOUSLY
I'm surprised she was functioning at all

Yeah that part was really sad. No wonder she did whatever Dr Wilbur wanted.

i really love how Nathan's focus is not so much gettting to the bottom of the crazy but exploring these 3 women in context of the world they were living in and grew up in, and how that really does underline so much of all of this

Anyone who enjoys sad hoaxes must see The Woman Who Wasn't There (it's on netflix streaming). The last shot has haunted me considerably since I saw it.

Also how was the bookclub?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicia_Esteve_Head

That was a good movie.

There was a story on This American Life that reminded me of her. It was about a guy who gets duped into robbing banks by another guy named who was impersonating a CIA officer conducting an operation to test bank security. The fake CIA guy has delusional disorder, which a doctor describes this way: The big difference is that people with schizophrenia have crazy delusions that nobody believes, like believing that the CIA is using telepathy to read your thoughts or believing that you're Jesus Christ. Whereas the delusions that come with delusional disorder, they could be true. That kind of plausibility plus his conviction about his identity probably helped him be convincing, and I wondered if maybe Ms. Head really believed she was a survivor.

Transcript of the story here http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/506/transcript

she seemed pretty messed up based on the grisly car accident she was in, teasing she had endured, general predilection toward lying/delusion. it reminded me of shirley/sybil -- that she would do whatever it took to be beloved. it was sad, but also scary because actions have consequences, etc.

The eighties were creepy?? I guess if you were very young you might feel that way. I'm not trying to be dismissive...the seventies were way more bizarre.

I watch "TVTerrorland" on YouTube a lot now...eighties horror had a lot of slashing, but 70's relied on the "creep" factor. Sybil was one of those books your mom would leave lying on her nightstand and you would read chapters of it when she was chatting with the neighbors. (I.e., I read it)...Stuff like that was like folklore back then. My theory is that cable tv demystified a lot of things. Politics and talk show fights 24/7!

There was a "reincarnation" fad too back then, my grandma, an Irish Catholic believed in it and had a bunch of fun kooky books on it and "near death"...

Bridey Murphy!

http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1344267955l/455764.jpg

Fran and Dan Keller: freed!
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/01/fran_and_dan_keller_freed_two_of_the_last_victims_of_satanic_ritual_abuse.html

From that article:

"In 1992, folk singer Joan Baez released “Play Me Backwards,” a song in the voice of a victim of satanic ritual abuse who was forced to witness the sacrifice of a baby and is now recollecting her repressed memories."

yup

listening to "play me backwards" - man that thing sounds so 1992 & the second verse is just

Let the night begin there's a pop of skin
And the sudden rush of scarlet
There's a little boy riding on a goat's head
And a little girl playing the harlot
There's a sacrifice in an empty church
Of sweet li'l baby Rose
And a man in a mask from Mexico
Is peeling off my clothes

I've seen them light the candles
I've heard them bang the drum
And I've cried Mama, I'm cold as ice!
And I got no place to run

what the absolute hell

like half the music I listen to has lyrics like that but it's guys from Norway in bullet belts

this has made my day