Michelle Remembers
Encyclopedia
Michelle Remembers is a book published in 1980 co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder
and his psychiatric patient (and eventual wife) Michelle Smith. A best-seller, Michelle Remembers was the first book written on the subject of satanic ritual abuse
and is an important part of the controversies beginning in the 1980s regarding satanic ritual abuse and repressed memory
. The book has been discredited by several investigations which found no corroboration of the book's events, while others have pointed out that the events described in the book were extremely unlikely and in some cases impossible.
. In 1976 when Pazder was treating Smith for depression
(related to her having had a miscarriage), Smith confided she felt that she had something important to tell him, but could not remember what it was. Shortly thereafter, Pazder and Smith had a session where Smith screamed for 25 minutes non-stop and eventually started speaking in the voice of a five-year-old. Over the next 14 months Pazder spent over 600 hours using hypnosis
to help Smith recover alleged memories of satanic ritual abuse
that occurred when she was five in 1954 and 1955 at the hands of her mother (Virginia Proby) and others, all of whom Smith said were members of a "Satanic cult" in Victoria.
," which he states is a worldwide organization predating the Christian church
). The first alleged ritual attended by Smith took place in 1954 when she was five years old, and the final one documented in the book was an 81-day ritual in 1955 that summoned the devil himself
and involved the intervention
of Jesus
, the Virgin Mary
and Michael the Archangel
, who removed the scars received by Smith throughout the year of abuse and removed memories of the events "until the time was right". During the rites, Smith was allegedly torture
d, locked in cages, sexually assaulted
, forced to take part in various rituals, witnessed several murders and was rubbed with the blood and body parts of various murdered babies and adults.
After Smith had seemingly recovered her memories, she and Pazder consulted with various church authorities, eventually traveling to the Vatican
.
practised in Victoria. An evangelist
named Len Olsen claimed on televangelist David Mainse
's talk show 100 Huntley Street
that he and his wife were nearly sacrificed
in a satanic ritual by Mark Fedoruk, also known as Lion Serpent Sun. Sun sued for defamation, and in court it was revealed that Olsen had been delusional, apparently due to drug use and guilt; Sun was awarded $10,000 and an appeal
was denied. The lawsuit and result were not reported in Michelle Remembers, only the original false allegations.
interviewed Smith and also Lauren Stratford
(author of the fake memoir Satan's Underground) on the same show, representing the lurid claims made in both books as undisputed fact. A pagan group has called for Winfrey and other media figures to publicly apologize to the West Memphis Three
for the damage that the moral panic
surrounding satanic ritual abuse has caused.
, and the book states that its source material (therapy tapes) were scrutinized. Nevertheless, questions about the accuracy of the allegations in Michelle Remembers were raised shortly after the book was published. Soon after the book’s publication, Pazder was forced to withdraw his assertion that it was the Church of Satan that had abused Smith when Anton LaVey
(who founded the organization in 1966) threatened to sue for libel. In a October 27, 1980 article in Maclean's
magazine, Paul Grescoe interviewed Smith's father, Jack Proby, who denied the allegations against Smith's mother, Virginia (who died in 1964), and claimed he could refute all the allegations in the book. Grescoe also interviewed the mother of a childhood friend of Smith who described Smith’s mother as a kind and charming woman. He also noted that the book failed to make any mention of Smith's two sisters, Charyl (younger) and Tertia (older) and that Pazder and Smith (both Catholic
s) had divorced their spouses and married each other.
The Grescoe article did not garner much attention and the allegations in Michelle Remembers were still considered to be true at this point in time. As a result, Pazder was considered to be an expert in the area of satanic ritual abuse. With the sudden emergence of satanic ritual abuse cases in the 1980s (likely due in part to the publication of Michelle Remembers) Pazder's expertise was called upon. In 1984, Pazder acted as a consultant in the McMartin preschool trial
which featured allegations of satanic ritual abuse. Pazder also appeared on the first major news report on Satanism (broadcast on May 16, 1985), by ABC
’s 20/20. Pazder was part of the Cult Crime Impact Network and lectured to police agencies about satanic ritual abuse during the late 1980s. By 1987 Pazder reported that he was spending a third of his time consulting on satanic ritual abuse cases. By September 1990, Pazder had been consulted "in more than 1,000 'ritual abuse' cases". With people suddenly being prosecuted for satanic ritual abuse, prosecutors used the book as a guide when preparing cases against alleged Satanists. Prior to the start of the Kern County child abuse cases
several local social workers had attended a training seminar that foregrounded satanic ritual abuse as a major element in child sexual abuse and used Michelle Remembers as training material.
exposed further inconsistencies in Smith’s allegations. The Mail on Sunday conducted a two week investigation into the claims made in Michelle Remembers and found that other than Pazder and Smith, the people they interviewed described the events in Michelle Remembers as "the hysterical ravings of an uncontrolled imagination". In an interview with Jack Proby, Proby cited (as an example) "three specific points where … Michelle lied" in Michelle Remembers. Proby indicated that although he decided not to sue, he did file a Notice of Intent to sue against the book's publisher should they go beyond the literary contract thereby preventing the book from being made into a movie. The Mail on Sunday also interviewed the Smith’s childhood family doctor: "I believe it was … an over-active imagination."; former neighbors of the Probys: "I dismissed the book as crazy. The mother was a nice, gracious lady. A little girl could not have been tortured without someone hearing."; a former childhood friend of Smith: "Virginia was like a second mother to me. I certainly never had a bad feeling about her."; and her ex-husband: "Not once during their marriage or the birth of their daughter did Michelle ever mention her experience".
The Mail on Sunday reported that the local Catholic Church and Bishop Remi De Roo
were also attempting to distance themselves from the claims in Michelle Remembers: "He [De Roo] wants to distance himself from these people. More than ten years ago he asked the couple to provide him with details, but they never supplied all the information he required." The Mail on Sunday also reported the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
stated that there had never been a single prosecution in Victoria for Satanic practices. During the interview, Pazder was questioned about the truth of the claims in the book:
A 1995 book found further inconsistencies in Smith’s allegations; the authors found no newspaper record of the car crash that the book describes in the time frame described despite the fact that the local newspaper reported on all vehicle accidents at the time. Former neighbors, teachers and friends were interviewed and yearbooks from Smith’s elementary school were reviewed and found no indication of Smith being absent from school or missing for lengthy periods of time, including the alleged 81-day non-stop ceremony. Ultimately the book's authors were unable to find anyone who knew Smith in the 1950s who could corroborate any of the details in her allegations.
A 2002 article by Kerr Cuhulain
not only explored the inconsistencies in Smith’s allegations, but also their unlikeliness. Among other things, Cuhulain noted that it seemed unlikely that a sophisticated cult that had secretly existed for generations could be outwitted by a five-year-old; that the cult could hold rituals in the Ross Bay Cemetery
unnoticed given that Smith claimed she was screaming and given that the Ross Bay Cemetery is surrounded on three sides by residential neighborhoods; that an 81-day non-stop ceremony involving hundreds of participants and a massive round room could have gone on in Victoria unnoticed; and that none of Smith’s tormentors (other than her mother) have ever been identified especially given that some of them had cut off one of their middle fingers at the Black Mass
. Like other authors, Cuhulain also noted that many of Smith's recovered memories appear to have reflected elements in popular culture at the time (e.g.: the movie The Exorcist
) and Pazder's own religious beliefs and experiences from when he was living and working in Africa
in the early 1960s. Finally, Cuhulain hypothesized that Smith's motivation for making the allegations may have come from her desire to spend time with Pazder; though both were initially married to other people, they divorced their spouses and re-married each other after the publication of the book.
James R. Lewis, in The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, wrote that Michelle Remembers "must be treated with great skepticism, not least because literally all the charges involved seem drawn from accounts of West African secret societies from the 1950s, imported to Canada." Nichol Spanos has pointed out in addition to the lack of corroboration of Smith's memories, "skepticism appears warranted by the fact that some of these "memories" involve Michelle's encounters with supernatural beings." Spanos also mentions that Smith's father and unmentioned two siblings contradict the allegations made by Smith, as well as Pazder's time in West Africa during a time when there was widespread concern over secret, blood-drinking, cannibalistic
cults.
Despite the lack of evidence and inconsistencies surrounding the allegations made in Michelle Remembers, there are still people who believe that Smith’s claims of abuse are the literal truth and that there is a vast, yet secretive worldwide conspiracy of inter-generational satanic worshipers abusing and murdering children and adults.
The book's contents have been unsubstantiated by any evidence beyond Smith's testimony. Despite this, the book inspired copy-cat accusations throughout the world, against in many cases members of the Church of Satan
, non-satanic occult
ists, and others with no connection to the occult.
Lawrence Pazder
Lawrence Pazder was a Canadian psychiatrist and author. Pazder is known for discredited autobiography, Michelle Remembers published in 1980, that he co-wrote with his patient Michelle Smith, and for his involvement in the satanic ritual abuse moral panic.-Background:Pazder was born in Edmonton,...
and his psychiatric patient (and eventual wife) Michelle Smith. A best-seller, Michelle Remembers was the first book written on the subject of satanic ritual abuse
Satanic ritual abuse
Satanic ritual abuse refers to the abuse of a person or animal in a ritual setting or manner...
and is an important part of the controversies beginning in the 1980s regarding satanic ritual abuse and repressed memory
Repressed memory
Repressed memory is a hypothetical concept used to describe a significant memory, usually of a traumatic nature, that has become unavailable for recall; also called motivated forgetting in which a subject blocks out painful or traumatic times in one's life...
. The book has been discredited by several investigations which found no corroboration of the book's events, while others have pointed out that the events described in the book were extremely unlikely and in some cases impossible.
Background
Michelle Remembers chronicles Pazder's therapy in the late 1970s with his long-time patient Smith. In 1973 Pazder first started treating Smith at his private psychiatric practice in Victoria, British ColumbiaVictoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
. In 1976 when Pazder was treating Smith for depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
(related to her having had a miscarriage), Smith confided she felt that she had something important to tell him, but could not remember what it was. Shortly thereafter, Pazder and Smith had a session where Smith screamed for 25 minutes non-stop and eventually started speaking in the voice of a five-year-old. Over the next 14 months Pazder spent over 600 hours using hypnosis
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
to help Smith recover alleged memories of satanic ritual abuse
Satanic ritual abuse
Satanic ritual abuse refers to the abuse of a person or animal in a ritual setting or manner...
that occurred when she was five in 1954 and 1955 at the hands of her mother (Virginia Proby) and others, all of whom Smith said were members of a "Satanic cult" in Victoria.
Summary
The book documents Smith's memory of events recovered during therapy, documenting the many satanic rituals she believed that she was forced to attend (Pazder stated that Smith was abused by "the Church of SatanChurch of Satan
The Church of Satan is an organization dedicated to the acceptance of the carnal self, as articulated in The Satanic Bible, written in 1969 by Anton Szandor LaVey.- History :...
," which he states is a worldwide organization predating the Christian church
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
). The first alleged ritual attended by Smith took place in 1954 when she was five years old, and the final one documented in the book was an 81-day ritual in 1955 that summoned the devil himself
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
and involved the intervention
Divine Intervention
Divine intervention is a term for a miracle caused by God's/a god's active involvement in the human world.Divine Intervention may also refer to:*"Divine Intervention", a 1991 song on Matthew Sweet's album Girlfriend....
of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, the Virgin Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
and Michael the Archangel
Michael (archangel)
Michael , Micha'el or Mîkhā'ēl; , Mikhaḗl; or Míchaël; , Mīkhā'īl) is an archangel in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teachings. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans refer to him as Saint Michael the Archangel and also simply as Saint Michael...
, who removed the scars received by Smith throughout the year of abuse and removed memories of the events "until the time was right". During the rites, Smith was allegedly torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d, locked in cages, sexually assaulted
Sexual assault
Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person, or any sexual act committed without consent. Although sexual assaults most frequently are by a man on a woman, it may involve any combination of two or more men, women and children....
, forced to take part in various rituals, witnessed several murders and was rubbed with the blood and body parts of various murdered babies and adults.
After Smith had seemingly recovered her memories, she and Pazder consulted with various church authorities, eventually traveling to the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
.
Witchcraft in City
An appendix reprints the article Witchcraft in City' Claim by Paul Jeune; the article was referenced by Smith in the book in reference to the alleged black magicBlack magic
Black magic is the type of magic that draws on assumed malevolent powers or is used with the intention to kill, steal, injure, cause misfortune or destruction, or for personal gain without regard to harmful consequences. As a term, "black magic" is normally used by those that do not approve of its...
practised in Victoria. An evangelist
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
named Len Olsen claimed on televangelist David Mainse
David Mainse
David Mainse is a Canadian televangelist and evangelical Christian leader.Born in August 1936 in Campbell's Bay, Quebec, and raised in a rural area near Ottawa, Ontario, Mainse was highly influenced by his father, Roy Lake Mainse who worked as a missionary in Egypt, as well as a Holiness Movement...
's talk show 100 Huntley Street
100 Huntley Street
100 Huntley Street is a Christian daily talk show and the flagship program of Crossroads Christian Communications based in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Created in 1976 by Rev. David Mainse, it first aired on June 15, 1977 from its first studios located at 100 Huntley Street in the St...
that he and his wife were nearly sacrificed
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
in a satanic ritual by Mark Fedoruk, also known as Lion Serpent Sun. Sun sued for defamation, and in court it was revealed that Olsen had been delusional, apparently due to drug use and guilt; Sun was awarded $10,000 and an appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
was denied. The lawsuit and result were not reported in Michelle Remembers, only the original false allegations.
Publication history
Michelle Remembers was first publicized with articles in People Weekly and the National Enquirer. In 1980, Pazder and Smith toured the United States to promote the book. Ultimately a publishing success, the book earned Pazder and Smith a $100,000 hard-cover advance, $242,000 for paperback rights, royalties, and a potential movie deal.Media support
Michelle Remembers was enthusiastically and uncritically promoted by the media. In May 1989, influential television host Oprah WinfreyOprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
interviewed Smith and also Lauren Stratford
Laurel Rose Willson
Laurel Rose Willson was an American woman born in Washington, whose allegations of satanic ritual abuse were published under the alias Lauren Stratford, which she would later adopt as her legal name...
(author of the fake memoir Satan's Underground) on the same show, representing the lurid claims made in both books as undisputed fact. A pagan group has called for Winfrey and other media figures to publicly apologize to the West Memphis Three
West Memphis Three
The West Memphis Three are three men who were tried and convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was sentenced to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Jason Baldwin was...
for the damage that the moral panic
Moral panic
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...
surrounding satanic ritual abuse has caused.
Accuracy questions
Pazder was a credentialed psychiatrist and fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada
The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada ' , French: Collège royal des médecins et chirurgiens du Canada, is a national, private, nonprofit organization established in 1929 by a special Act of Parliament to oversee the medical education of specialists in Canada...
, and the book states that its source material (therapy tapes) were scrutinized. Nevertheless, questions about the accuracy of the allegations in Michelle Remembers were raised shortly after the book was published. Soon after the book’s publication, Pazder was forced to withdraw his assertion that it was the Church of Satan that had abused Smith when Anton LaVey
Anton LaVey
Anton Szandor LaVey , born Howard Stanton Levey, was the founder of the Church of Satan as well as a writer, occultist, and musician...
(who founded the organization in 1966) threatened to sue for libel. In a October 27, 1980 article in Maclean's
Maclean's
Maclean's is a Canadian weekly news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.-History:Founded in 1905 by Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean, a 43-year-old trade magazine publisher who purchased an advertising agency's in-house...
magazine, Paul Grescoe interviewed Smith's father, Jack Proby, who denied the allegations against Smith's mother, Virginia (who died in 1964), and claimed he could refute all the allegations in the book. Grescoe also interviewed the mother of a childhood friend of Smith who described Smith’s mother as a kind and charming woman. He also noted that the book failed to make any mention of Smith's two sisters, Charyl (younger) and Tertia (older) and that Pazder and Smith (both Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
s) had divorced their spouses and married each other.
The Grescoe article did not garner much attention and the allegations in Michelle Remembers were still considered to be true at this point in time. As a result, Pazder was considered to be an expert in the area of satanic ritual abuse. With the sudden emergence of satanic ritual abuse cases in the 1980s (likely due in part to the publication of Michelle Remembers) Pazder's expertise was called upon. In 1984, Pazder acted as a consultant in the McMartin preschool trial
McMartin preschool trial
The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case of the 1980s. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran...
which featured allegations of satanic ritual abuse. Pazder also appeared on the first major news report on Satanism (broadcast on May 16, 1985), by ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
’s 20/20. Pazder was part of the Cult Crime Impact Network and lectured to police agencies about satanic ritual abuse during the late 1980s. By 1987 Pazder reported that he was spending a third of his time consulting on satanic ritual abuse cases. By September 1990, Pazder had been consulted "in more than 1,000 'ritual abuse' cases". With people suddenly being prosecuted for satanic ritual abuse, prosecutors used the book as a guide when preparing cases against alleged Satanists. Prior to the start of the Kern County child abuse cases
Kern County child abuse cases
The Kern County child abuse cases started the day care sexual abuse hysteria of the 1980s in Kern County, California. The cases involved claims of Satanic ritual abuse that were performed by pedophile sex rings with as many as 60 children testifying they had been abused. At least 36 people were...
several local social workers had attended a training seminar that foregrounded satanic ritual abuse as a major element in child sexual abuse and used Michelle Remembers as training material.
Criticism and debunking
By 1990, an article in The Mail on SundayThe Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
exposed further inconsistencies in Smith’s allegations. The Mail on Sunday conducted a two week investigation into the claims made in Michelle Remembers and found that other than Pazder and Smith, the people they interviewed described the events in Michelle Remembers as "the hysterical ravings of an uncontrolled imagination". In an interview with Jack Proby, Proby cited (as an example) "three specific points where … Michelle lied" in Michelle Remembers. Proby indicated that although he decided not to sue, he did file a Notice of Intent to sue against the book's publisher should they go beyond the literary contract thereby preventing the book from being made into a movie. The Mail on Sunday also interviewed the Smith’s childhood family doctor: "I believe it was … an over-active imagination."; former neighbors of the Probys: "I dismissed the book as crazy. The mother was a nice, gracious lady. A little girl could not have been tortured without someone hearing."; a former childhood friend of Smith: "Virginia was like a second mother to me. I certainly never had a bad feeling about her."; and her ex-husband: "Not once during their marriage or the birth of their daughter did Michelle ever mention her experience".
The Mail on Sunday reported that the local Catholic Church and Bishop Remi De Roo
Remi Joseph De Roo
Remi De Roo is a retired Canadian Roman Catholic bishop. Ordained a priest on June 8, 1950, and a bishop on December 14, 1962, he was the Bishop of Victoria until he retired on March 18, 1999...
were also attempting to distance themselves from the claims in Michelle Remembers: "He [De Roo] wants to distance himself from these people. More than ten years ago he asked the couple to provide him with details, but they never supplied all the information he required." The Mail on Sunday also reported the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
stated that there had never been a single prosecution in Victoria for Satanic practices. During the interview, Pazder was questioned about the truth of the claims in the book:
A 1995 book found further inconsistencies in Smith’s allegations; the authors found no newspaper record of the car crash that the book describes in the time frame described despite the fact that the local newspaper reported on all vehicle accidents at the time. Former neighbors, teachers and friends were interviewed and yearbooks from Smith’s elementary school were reviewed and found no indication of Smith being absent from school or missing for lengthy periods of time, including the alleged 81-day non-stop ceremony. Ultimately the book's authors were unable to find anyone who knew Smith in the 1950s who could corroborate any of the details in her allegations.
A 2002 article by Kerr Cuhulain
Kerr Cuhulain
Kerr Cuhulain is the pen name of Canadian occult author and Detective Constable Charles Ennis. A former child abuse investigator, he is the author of several articles on child abuse investigation that appeared in Law & Order Magazine. A former Air Force officer, Cuhulain was a police officer for...
not only explored the inconsistencies in Smith’s allegations, but also their unlikeliness. Among other things, Cuhulain noted that it seemed unlikely that a sophisticated cult that had secretly existed for generations could be outwitted by a five-year-old; that the cult could hold rituals in the Ross Bay Cemetery
Ross Bay Cemetery
Ross Bay Cemetery is located at 1516 Fairfield Road in Victoria, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island, Canada.-History:The cemetery was opened in 1873. The 27.5 acre cemetery is part of a public park and its south side faces Ross Bay on the Pacific Ocean...
unnoticed given that Smith claimed she was screaming and given that the Ross Bay Cemetery is surrounded on three sides by residential neighborhoods; that an 81-day non-stop ceremony involving hundreds of participants and a massive round room could have gone on in Victoria unnoticed; and that none of Smith’s tormentors (other than her mother) have ever been identified especially given that some of them had cut off one of their middle fingers at the Black Mass
Black Mass
A Black Mass is a ceremony supposedly celebrated during the Witches' Sabbath, which was a sacrilegious parody of the Catholic Mass. Its main objective was the profanation of the host, although there is no agreement among authors on how hosts were obtained or profaned; the most common idea is that...
. Like other authors, Cuhulain also noted that many of Smith's recovered memories appear to have reflected elements in popular culture at the time (e.g.: the movie The Exorcist
The Exorcist (film)
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...
) and Pazder's own religious beliefs and experiences from when he was living and working in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
in the early 1960s. Finally, Cuhulain hypothesized that Smith's motivation for making the allegations may have come from her desire to spend time with Pazder; though both were initially married to other people, they divorced their spouses and re-married each other after the publication of the book.
James R. Lewis, in The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, wrote that Michelle Remembers "must be treated with great skepticism, not least because literally all the charges involved seem drawn from accounts of West African secret societies from the 1950s, imported to Canada." Nichol Spanos has pointed out in addition to the lack of corroboration of Smith's memories, "skepticism appears warranted by the fact that some of these "memories" involve Michelle's encounters with supernatural beings." Spanos also mentions that Smith's father and unmentioned two siblings contradict the allegations made by Smith, as well as Pazder's time in West Africa during a time when there was widespread concern over secret, blood-drinking, cannibalistic
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
cults.
Despite the lack of evidence and inconsistencies surrounding the allegations made in Michelle Remembers, there are still people who believe that Smith’s claims of abuse are the literal truth and that there is a vast, yet secretive worldwide conspiracy of inter-generational satanic worshipers abusing and murdering children and adults.
The book's contents have been unsubstantiated by any evidence beyond Smith's testimony. Despite this, the book inspired copy-cat accusations throughout the world, against in many cases members of the Church of Satan
Church of Satan
The Church of Satan is an organization dedicated to the acceptance of the carnal self, as articulated in The Satanic Bible, written in 1969 by Anton Szandor LaVey.- History :...
, non-satanic occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
ists, and others with no connection to the occult.