Ep. 29.5 - The Satanic Panic - Part 2

[Gina 00:10] Welcome to I Scream You Scream! I am Gina.

[Kathryn 00:14] I'm Kathryn

[Gina 00:15] And for the month of May, we're going to be telling stories about mass hysteria while we eat some Neapolitan ice cream. So grab a spoon and let's dig in.

[Kathryn 00:24] This is the second part of what would otherwise have been a very, very extremely long episode about the satanic panic. So real quick, if you haven't listened to Tuesday's episode yet, you don't technically need to, but we recommend it for optimal enjoyment. And I just realized we're like rushing through this intro so I can tell the story and I haven't eaten my ice cream at all.

[Gina 00:47] Yeah, you're not gonna get to eat, right? Okay, I can ad lib. Some elevator music. I wish we had some Enya.You know that my mom hates Enya. I don't know if it's because, well, I think it's because my dad started playing Enya when my mom was in labor with my sister. And my mom was like, turn that shit off. And so it's one of those, mm-hmm, I get it.

[Kathryn 01:05] What? Who hates Enya? Well, okay. So that's like a, we don't hate Enya, we hate the context in which Enya was unceremoniously forced upon us.

[Gina 01:23] I think I'm telling that story right. If my parents are listening and I'm wrong, I'm real sorry.

[Kathryn 01:30] Honestly, if your parents are listening and you're wrong, that's fine with me because I love this. I love this version of the story so much that I don't even care what the truth is, honestly. This is the one I'll be telling. All right, so I just sucked down my ice cream. Past Kathryn was looking out and got a real small scoop. And when I say past Kathryn, I mean like five minutes ago. But anyway.

[Gina 01:34] What else is new? I choose to believe it, therefore it's real.

[Kathryn 01:54] Okay, so...As a quick recap for those who tuned in Tuesday and have since forgotten everything in the last day and a half, we left off at one of the most pivotal moments that most people consider like the big kahuna when it comes to the satanic panic and just how it all got started. And that was the 1980 publication of an allegedly nonfiction book titled Michelle Remembers. The book was co authored by a young woman named Michelle Smith and the psychiatrist that was treating her at the time, a man named Lawrence Pazder In this book, Michelle and Lawrence recount their experience together, uncovering Michelle's repressed memories of childhood satanic ritual abuse. In this book, Michelle and Lawrence, I just said that sentence.

[Gina 02:56] That was good. That was gold. I loved it so

[Kathryn 02:59] me playing it cool did you love it anyway so literally the next line says so what the fuck say more Kathryn okay so I stayed up really writing these notes I was like on one when I was finishing this part two gets a little unhinged I'm sorry so

[Gina 03:05] Hehehe!

[Kathryn 03:25] Michelle Smith was in her mid 20s and living with her husband in British Columbia. she first came to Lawrence for therapy in 1973, forgot to do trigger warnings again. Throughout the rest of the story, I don't know for sure, but I think more suicide. Depression, mental health things for sure. I don't know about suicide specifically, but there's also going to be some pregnancy loss and definitely lot of, we're gonna be talking about a lot of abuse. So specifically sexual abuse. So trigger warning, moving forward. so yeah, she was at the time that she sought therapy from this Lawrence guy. She was reportedly dealing with.

[Gina 03:49] Hmm.

[Kathryn 04:05] depression, anxiety, and a lot of emotional distress. She had recently suffered a miscarriage and her marriage had been rocky for a while, long before the pregnancy. But the loss of the pregnancy kind of amplified their issues and caused a lot of additional problems that weren't there before that kind of just piled on to the previous issues. So she was just feeling very lost and depressed and anxious. So she decided she needed to go to therapy, which kudos to her, snaps for Michelle, we love to see So she would receive therapy from Lawrence for three years from 1973 to 1976 before one day in 1976,

[Gina 04:38] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 04:51] She kind of just lost it in the middle of a session and could not stop screaming and crying. And it is said that it took almost a half hour for him to calm her down, like in the middle of the session. She was having just like a full on mental breakdown. Keep in mind that Lawrence was a local psychiatrist. He did practice, you know, therapy.

[Gina 05:06] Ahem.

[Kathryn 05:16] Ethically, he was licensed. He was an MD who studied psychiatry, but he had a heavy focus on Catholicism. He was not trained in trauma or dissociation treatment in any way. And he was basically more of a spiritual psychologist, like his main objective was to help Catholics stay on the path, basically, you know, like he was a religious therapist.

[Gina 05:40] Okay. ⁓

[Kathryn 05:45] Despite this extreme lack of credentials in trauma treatment, this breakdown that she had in his office indicated to him that she needed much deeper help than she had previously been receiving he decided that he wanted to be the one to help her with it. Yeah, we hate it. So he decided to begin using hypnotic regression.

[Gina 06:04] Hmm.

[Kathryn 06:08] therapy to help her uncover repressed memories that could be causing her emotional distress. And have you ever heard of hypnotic regression therapy? Because it's talked about. OK.

[Gina 06:19] I've of

hypnosis as like something therapeutic you can do. Like I've heard it helps you like quit smoking and things like that. That's my only real understanding of it.

[Kathryn 06:24] Okay, yes. So yeah, okay. Yeah, so. This is something that comes up in a lot of problematic cases that are talked about a lot in this regard. basically what it is is not just hypnotic therapy, but specifically the use of hypnosis to uncover repressed memories. So that's, it's like a specific type of hypnotic therapy. So.

[Gina 06:50] Okay. Does it take you back to mentally where you were when it was happening to try and...?

[Kathryn 06:59] So that's the theory The technique is considered extremely controversial and highly unreliable. And by today's standards, it's considered mostly ineffective and kind of goes against modern therapeutic standards and would be considered unethical to use today. I will say especially compounded by, you know, if you have no trauma treatment experience. ⁓ The issue with this type of therapy is uncovering those memories relies so heavily.

on the way in which the questions the therapist asks are phrased. So you can very easily, when someone is under hypnosis, you can very easily manipulate them and plant them things in their heads that would not be there otherwise. That's why, like to your point, you mentioned this just a second ago, that's why hypnosis is commonly thought to be successful to help people quit smoking, because all you have to do is say like,

you do not want to smoke and the person's like, okay, cool. I don't, you know, like, that's not a real memory of theirs. It's not a real thought or feeling they do their body does want to smoke, but you told them that they don't. Therefore they don't. So it's extremely problematic as a source of trauma treatment and quote unquote therapy because it is so unreliable. And it's unclear whether the person's memories are their own or something that the therapist gave them. Does that make sense? It is.

[Gina 08:08] Hmm.

Okay.

That seems so dangerous, especially when it comes to trauma therapy

and someone who doesn't have experience with it trying to administer it. Okay, I see where this is going, I think.

[Kathryn 08:36] Mm-hmm. Yes.

Right. You definitely do. Yes.

[Gina 08:41] Okay.

[Kathryn 08:42] there are over 600 hours of recordings of their sessions doing this specific treatment. Yeah, that's a lot. That's fucking lot of hours. During which you can hear her disclose all of the quote unquote repressed memories of satanic ritual abuse that she experienced as a child.

[Gina 08:48] Fuck.

[Kathryn 09:01] She claimed that she had vivid memories of being forced by her mother to be part of a satanic cult in Victoria ⁓ when she was just five years old. And while she was in this cult, she said that she just wanted to leave, but they wouldn't let her leave. And she was scared of her mom because she was making her be in this cult. And she was forced to endure sadistic rituals, physical abuse, and torture. She claims to have witnessed

multiple murders in the form of ⁓ human sacrifice, as well as the ever famous animal sacrifice. She also recounts numerous experiences where she could physically see demonic apparitions appear like right in front of her. There was one final ritual that she was a part of. And she said that that was the one where she was

[Gina 09:50] Ahem.

[Kathryn 09:58] saved by the Virgin Mary. In this unlocked memory, she states that the Virgin appeared to her and healed all of her scars that she had gotten from all of the ritual abuse. And she also wiped her memory. So Michelle wouldn't be able to recount any of the information until the hypnosis that Lawrence performed. So this was a miracle, basically. She was saved by the Mother of God.

Lawrence had uncovered something astonishing and important and the rest of the world just needed to know that these horrible things were done to this little girl because other small children could be endangered too. In last episode you asked, like we brought up,

why were all these parents specifically scared of the kids and not each other? Like no parent seemed in danger of falling victim to Satan. It's like everyone was like, we got to save the kids. Here we are kind of figuring out why. like the

image of this teeny little five year old experiencing this satanic brutality is a very evocative thing. And that was why everyone was immediately like the kids the kids, you know, it was her like it was the image of like, well, that could be my five year old, you know.

[Gina 11:16] Could you remind me, when did this book come out? Like, when did this go public?

[Kathryn 11:21] 1980 it was published. Yes. Yeah. So all of the stories we've told thus far are all happening at the same time, like very overlap. This is not a chronological thing. This is happening in 1980. so

[Gina 11:22] 1980, okay, cool, cool, thank you.

Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 11:33] They write the book together as therapists and patient. And they're like, you know, we got to go out, we got to tell everyone. Published in 1980, and they are now on this extensive media marketing campaign to spread the word. It is marketed as a true story and presented as an official documented case of satanic ritual abuse, also known as SRA, which is a phrase Lawrence

[Gina 11:53] Ahem.

[Kathryn 12:03] point in the book that would be widely and heavily used throughout the satanic panic and even still to this day. I've said it already a bunch. I just didn't cite the fact that this book is where that phrase started gaining traction and actually became part of the lexicon. according to the book specifically, Michelle had been repeatedly locked in cages and forced to eat human flesh. Gross. And bathe in blood. So gross. So sorry.

[Gina 12:07] you

⁓

[Kathryn 12:33] trigger warning for myself. I forgot that was in there. Anyway, it also stated that there was a giant 13 month long ritual that Michelle was forced to take part in while she was like in captivity with this church. Again, all of this started happening at the age of five, and it was never explicitly said how long the cult abuse lasted. But according to the book,

and just the timeline it presented, had to have been at least over a year. And based on everything that was included, seemed like it was much longer, but timeline wasn't super coherent. ⁓ But she, it was said that it started at the age of five. That was, we know for sure. they're sharing these stories while they're on the media tour, which included a lot of prominent talk shows and news outlets, including, not limited to,

[Gina 13:12] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 13:29] tabloid news show, Geraldo Rivera, everyone's favorite daytime program, Oprah Winfrey, and our old pals at 2020. I was already researching this when we were recording the last episode. So if I was a little ragey, it's just I've been getting a lot of 2020 lately. Been getting a lot of satanic messages from that, from that outlet. So all of this costs money. All of this.

[Gina 13:39] Hmm... Okay.

Hehehehehe

You

[Kathryn 13:56] travel to and fro to all of these places cost a lot of money. How ever was this itty bitty book able to fund such a marketing campaign? That's a great question, which has a pretty straightforward answer. And the answer is their main source of marketing funding came from the Catholic Church. Mm hmm. Yes, yes. Capital T, capital C, capital C, the Catholic Church. So

[Gina 14:17] ⁓ yes. Okay. Mmm. Tuh cuh cuh.

[Kathryn 14:27] So what I always say. So not only did they consult with local priests during the writing of Michelle Remembers, but the church really loved the fact that ultimately the message in their story was basically don't stray from God or Satan will getcha. know, the Catholics love that shit. So they were fully on board.

[Gina 14:27] you

Hmm.

[Kathryn 14:51] Someone who was not fully on board was Anton Lavey our old friend from part one, who was the founder of the Church of Satan. Anton Lavey created the Church of Satan in 1966 as a recap, if you forgot from part one or haven't tuned in. He was pissed about Michelle Remembers, and he was so mad at the way it was marketed and just the fact that it was written as a quote unquote true story in the first place.

Very shortly after the book's publication, Lavey and the Church of Satan sued Michelle Lawrence and Macmillan Publishing, who published the book, for defamation and libel that had resulted in a loss of reputation. He had gone Lavey. I know, right? Like, well.

[Gina 15:39] Well, idea of like, you know.

Okay.

[Kathryn 15:42] And I'll get into it. I'll get into why, like, yes, 100%.

Like, that is the accurate response. It sounds silly. It sounds like a cartoon. right, this father of Satan is suing these, like, bad, bad Catholics for being mean. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it sounds ridiculous. But let's go into why, because I think this is important context that it's just little details that caused people to have the wrong idea of what was going on. So he...

[Gina 15:50] It does sound silly, yeah.

her loss of reputation. Yeah.

[Kathryn 16:11] had gone on record numerous times before and after this book was published, stating very clearly that it was fully against all of their tenets and rules and beliefs to force anyone to believe in anything at all. not only is it against what they believe in to force people into their faith, but

On their list of official rules of the church, one of them is literally to not harm children ever. Like that is literally stated in their bylaws. ⁓ Well, what are they called? Hold on, I have it written down.

[Gina 16:48] Because it's like

the Satanist version of like the Ten Commandments, right?

[Kathryn 16:52] It's the Ten Commandments, but it is called the Eleven Rules of the Earth, which I love, pristine love it. can find it on their website, churchofsatan.com to this day. The Eleven Rules of the Earth were established in 1967, so a year after their inception. rule number nine, Rule of the Earth number nine states, quote,

[Gina 16:59] Love that. Yeah.

[Kathryn 17:20] do not harm little children. So from 1967, this whole like, capturing kids and torturing them has been like, against their faith from the beginning. Now we will- go ahead, go ahead. Yeah.

[Gina 17:31] So, sorry, I have a clarifying question. So was Lavey trying

to like say that Michelle is lying or is he just saying if people did this to you, they are not members of this church?

[Kathryn 17:40] ⁓ no.

Full on thought she was lying. Yes. Because, well, probably both. Like, honestly, probably both. I think legally what he was saying is satanic church had nothing to do with what you are saying, but he knew in his heart that she was lying. You know what I mean? Like, legally, he wasn't like, you're a liar. He was like, yeah, leave my church's name out.

[Gina 17:43] Okay, got it, got it.

Got it.

Okay, cool. Yeah.

That was like the route to go down was the, yeah.

[Kathryn 18:06] out of your mouth basically was the thing. So kind of both I should say, but legally, legally one, emotionally the other. I'll put it that way.

I will say, because I have been a naysayer of a lot of like religious rules due to the fact that we often see religious leaders not fucking following them in the first place. So I will take this opportunity to acknowledge that just because they do have these these rules or tenets or rules of the earth or bylaws or whatever you want to call them. Of course, like, there's always people who break the rules. I acknowledge that.

the stereotype of the satanic church is violence, sacrifice, harming kids, like all of these things that is just not part of their practice whatsoever. That's like the thing that is important to understand here. So...

Wait, actually before I move on, I was gonna skip past this, but I do wanna share some of my other favorite rules of the earth that I found on their website. So I'm just gonna share them real quick. So number five states, do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal. We love a consensual sataness, gotta say.

[Gina 19:06] ⁓ cool. Hell yeah.

[Kathryn 19:23] Number six says, do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved. So sweet. Yes, this is my favorite one and I want this like tattooed on my forehead. Number 11 states, when walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

[Gina 19:31] important clarification.

Ahem.

[Kathryn 19:53] Love it. Love it. Yes. anyway, so the church sues Lawrence, Michelle and Macmillan. The case was dismissed, citing First Amendment rights and freedom of speech, which is expected. And I will say one of the biggest things that I remember learning when I was in school,

[Gina 19:54] love that.

[Kathryn 20:15] proving a libel case is like famously difficult. yeah, the burden of proof for a libel case specifically is so extremely high here in the United States. It's almost laughable when people try to do it, you know what I mean? And not to like discredit it like I would too, but it's nearly impossible.

[Gina 20:19] I've heard that, yeah.

Mm.

[Kathryn 20:39] there was a very small, there was no chance that the church was ever going to win this case against the book, you know? ⁓ but the case getting dismissed kind of gave the public the false proof that the satanic church really was doing all of these things. At first, people were like, they got you. Like it was dismissed because she's telling the truth, blah, blah. No one acknowledged that it was like.

[Gina 20:46] Mm.

[Kathryn 21:05] this type of case is so impossible to prove. You know what I mean? It wasn't because it was true. It was because it was impossible to prove that what they said is what caused their reputation to decline. And that's why it's so hard. Right. It's so subjective. And that's why it's so hard. that being said, the longer the book was out, the more they were talking about it,

[Gina 21:09] Yeah.

Yeah, that's a lot of confirmation bias.

Yeah.

[Kathryn 21:28] the more questions people asked, the more holes started to develop in their stories. So Michelle had originally claimed that the lack of physical evidence on her body was due to the Virgin Mary coming to save her at the end of the story. But that didn't explain the lack of evidence elsewhere. There was no verbal testimony. There was no physical evidence

Before we dive into all of that, one of the most controversial and in my opinion, a hugely important part of this story is the fact that in the midst of all of this, both Michelle and Lawrence filed for divorce from their respective spouses and married each other. Yes.

[Gina 22:14] No.

Her therapist? His client?

[Kathryn 22:19] Her fucking therapist.

Her trauma therapist. Yes. Mm-hmm. So unethical and fucked up. Yes.

[Gina 22:26] That is so unethical.

What was the,

okay, so how long after the book was published did that happen? Guestimate.

[Kathryn 22:38] I don't know when he left his wife slash children. ⁓ But I believe she divorced her husband in 79. And they got married in 85. So they were like together through this book tour, not legally married, but they were like an item throughout this. But I think it was secret at first, but people who knew them knew

[Gina 22:40] Mm-hmm.

Okay.

[Kathryn 23:03] In fact, in fact, people who knew them did know because Michelle's sister would later go on record and say that she suspected that Michelle had always been in love with him. And at a certain point in their treatment, she says that she believes things switched and she wasn't going to him for treatment. She was going to him because she was in love with him. And there is some speculation that this

breakdown or whatever quote-unquote she had allegedly was like a

dispute, like a lover's dispute of some sort. And like, this was a way, this trauma treatment was a way for them to continue seeing each other. That is speculation. This is like, I don't want to call it a rumor, because there's some validity to that, but it is speculated, I'll say. And I will say I just...

said a lot about Michelle. I want to be very clear that he is fully in the fucking wrong with this because like the power dynamic between a therapist and patient is so fucked from the beginning that like, yeah, so I say like, Oh, she went to him because she was in love. It's like, well, never have even entertained any of this. Like, full on. Yes. Yes. Mm hmm. Yeah. So

[Gina 23:58] yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah, the number of mistakes he has made. Jesus, wow. Wow.

[Kathryn 24:22] this raised a bunch of eyebrows. It was like, okay, well, these two, what's the game plan here? What are we doing? So people kind of started wondering if this whole thing was just them kind of fucking with people and maybe this was her way of getting his love and attention and maybe this was his way of being her savior and all of these things.

On top of that, and I want to dive into the whole him being her savior situation, not only was it speculated that this all started way prior to her initial breakdown and there was some sort of weird lovers thing going on, that was what was said about her side of the story. His side of the story, people who knew him, said that early on he had been inspired by the movie Sybil.

Have you ever seen that movie? Okay. a movie about a very troubled woman who claimed to have 16 personalities. And it all comes to light when she works with her therapist on based on a true story, but it's largely fictionalized. It's one of those that the topic is based on a true story, but everything that happens in the movie is

[Gina 25:16] Mm-mm.

Okay.

[Kathryn 25:42] not true and that was, you know, that was stated. But Lawrence allegedly told people that he knew after seeing this movie that he wanted to gain notoriety in the media by basically being someone who cured a Sybil.

[Gina 26:03] Okay.

[Kathryn 26:05] Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. So like, was Michelle his Sybil? Sounds fucking like

things are already fucking sketch for a million reasons before we even get into the hard evidence that this was all likely fabricated. So first and foremost, the first piece of evidence that none of this was true is the fact that timelines just didn't add up at all.

Remember that Michelle claimed this all started when she was five and she was basically in captivity and wasn't allowed to see anyone or go anywhere a huge amount of time, minimum 13 months. She was basically off the grid and at the mercy of this cult. While there's proof that this isn't the case, specifically during that time frame,

because she appears in yearbook photos and like family photos and people saw her, people experienced her, there are like, she was at birthday parties, she was at family, like, she was around, she was not missing and she showed no signs of any type of abuse, she wasn't acting weird, she didn't have any like injuries or anything like And on top of that, the investigations that people were kind of digging into

looked at other timelines, it was like, okay, maybe she wasn't five, maybe she was seven and just didn't remember. There was never a piece of time where she was missing or showed any signs of abuse or like emotional damage or anything. She just her entire childhood she was accounted for and people were like aware of her, you know what I mean? There was never a period of time where anything weird

was going on or anyone could remember anything. Her extended family and friends and neighbors and all that all went on record to say that like nothing weird ever happened and she never like disclosed anything to them. There were accounts like there were times where she said she would tell people about this and they didn't believe her. Nobody could remember any discussion about Satan at all. Like it was not part of their world.

[Gina 28:16] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 28:16] ⁓

Arguably one of the most damning verbal, like cases of verbal evidence, if you will. What is that? Verbal testimony? What do people call that? I don't know. Yeah. Something someone said once that held a lot of weight is the fact that every single person who was asked about her mother described her without prompting as one of the most pious and devout

[Gina 28:27] I don't know.

Hehehehe

[Kathryn 28:45] Christian women they had ever met.

there's a disconnect between that and the fact that her mother captured her and took her into a satanic cult.

[Gina 28:56] Is she... Are we sure it was a satanic cult? Or like, did Michelle like... Because maybe it was just some weird branch of Christianity that because she was five, she didn't know any better. She was like, it must be Satan when she realized it older.

[Kathryn 28:58] Yes.

So

that's the thing. the memory that was unlocked from when she was a child is that it was a satanic cult.

and that was the other thing. ⁓ Like, there was no record of any cult at all, you know, like satanic or otherwise. Like, they were a Christian family. They were at church every Sunday. Her mother was active in their church that they went to every set. maybe like for argument's sake.

[Gina 29:34] Okay.

It's not that, no.

[Kathryn 29:41] Is it possible? Well, yeah, all of this is possible, but like the likelihood of it being real is dwindling.

[Gina 29:42] Ugh.

[Kathryn 29:50] with all of that being said, her family was like fucking pissed at her for insinuating that the mother would do this to her specifically. If for no other reason than it was like, I don't remember how many kids there were. It was like four or five of them. It was like one of those old school families where everyone had too many kids. And she like, it was kind of like, well, where were we? Like mom was home. she had four other kids to take care of.

[Gina 30:08] Okay.

[Kathryn 30:18] She didn't have time to be in like underground tunnels feeding you flesh. you know what I mean? It was that kind of thing. her sister was fucking pissed. she straight up was like, you are a liar who owes this family an apology for dragging us into this mess and like slandering mom's name basically because it is impossible for any of this to have happened. Like based on all of our memories of everything that happened.

[Gina 30:22] you

Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 30:47] And it's like, okay, different siblings have different experiences with their childhood and relationships with their parents, but when you are saying that your mom has like kidnapped you and forced you into a satanic cult for over a year, that's a pretty big claim, especially when literally no one can corroborate it just, Things just started unraveling real fast.

There were also no official reports of anything happened. She had previously claimed that a lot of the ritual abuse happened in public, like in public spaces, like at parks and outside and shit, and there was never a report of anyone ever seeing anything. And that's the type of thing that especially back in this would have been like, what, the 60s? That's the type of thing that would be reported. You know what I mean? People didn't just let that kind of stuff slide. That would be reported for like weird behavior.

[Gina 31:34] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 31:40] And there were no police reports of anything or anyone being missing. There is never any report of anyone being abused in this regard. there just were no other claims similar enough to hers that it was like, maybe this person was part of the cult or whatever. there also were no hospital.

or school records of any injuries. She did say that some of the injuries she sustained were so bad that she needed medical treatment and there was no record of that ever happening. keep in mind, she wasn't missing from school at any point in her childhood and no teacher ever saw anything warranted reporting to the school.

And not only that, I don't know if all of the 600 hours of recordings were made public, but pieces of them, pieces of the recordings can be found and listened to. And the number one thing that is important to all of this is the fact that Lawrence almost exclusively asks her leading questions.

It was never what happened to you. It was almost always like, what was your experience being in this cult? What kind of injuries did they give you? This is a thing that fucking happened in the satanic panic. It was never like, tell me your story. It was this was your story, right?

[Gina 33:03] Mmm.

[Kathryn 33:04] And she's under hypnosis. you can easily guide someone in that situation, you know? An example of this, there's a documentary about all of this, about Michelle Remembers and her and the fallout and all of this. It's called Satan Wants You. watched it a few years ago, whenever it first came out, and I was like, that's weird and annoying. Like, hate this, but I watched it again in...

preparation for this episode and it made me so mad. Like, I missed so many things when I watched it the first time. They play some of the recordings from her quote-unquote trauma treatment and at one point she literally says quote, can't tell what's real anymore.

[Gina 33:51] Come on, man.

[Kathryn 34:12] like, come on, man. Yes. So this is exactly what everyone warns about this hypnotic regression is because like she literally says in the middle of this treatment, she doesn't she doesn't know what's happening. You know what I mean? And this is allegedly a bunch of repressed memories.

Like maybe again for argument's sake, but when it all starts with leading questions and all starts with him guiding her and the knowledge that he wants to be like the hero in the story, like possible, very much not probable, you know?

[Gina 34:29] Yes.

Fuck Lawrence. Fuck this guy.

[Kathryn 34:34] fuck that guy.

unfortunately, despite all of the knowledge things that would come to light later in the midst of all of this, this was very much real to a lot of people. And it has gone down in history as a big catalyst for ramping up everything that happened. And it also led to

One of the biggest cases

to come as a result of this is the McMartin Preschool case. McMartin Preschool was a daycare slash preschool founded by a woman named Virginia McMartin. And in 1983, shortly after Michelle remembers, like they're deep in their media tour during this time, Virginia's 25 year old grandson, Ray Buckey, worked as a teacher of the school.

That year, a woman named Judy Johnson came forward and claimed that her two year old son had been sexually assaulted by Ray and her estranged husband. So unrelated to the preschool, but she accused these two different, separate men of assaulting her son.

[Kathryn 36:07] So they open an investigation into Ray and McMartin's school, as they should. Just want to go on record right now so like no one comes for us. I want to make it very clear that any assault accusation in general, but particularly a sexual assault, particularly that against a child, should always be taken seriously and investigated immediately. Just don't want any confusion on my stance about But anyway.

[Gina 36:24] ⁓ God.

[Kathryn 36:42] So according to her statement, Judy first started suspecting her child had been assaulted when he was having painful bowel movements one night, which like, ugh, I know, I know. as a result, she asked him straight up if anyone had hurt him or done anything to him. Again, as all parents should if they suspect something is going on. His response to her questions

[Gina 36:53] Yeah.

[Kathryn 37:10] is different depending on who you ask. Some people say that he did originally say no, he was okay, like nothing happened, he like didn't know what she was talking about, but she kept asking, like pushing him like back to the leading question situation and basically encouraged him to say yes to the point where he was like fine, yeah, okay, I was hurt, whatever, you know. Others say that he just said yes right away, so.

[Gina 37:27] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 37:42] We don't really know. The important thing is he said yes, and therefore everything that happened next happened next.

so I think part of the reason it like might matter to the story is just the fact that like two is so young, you know what I mean? like, unless you give them the language to discuss things like this, or understand topics like they're never going to fully understand a topic like that. Like, unless you teach them how to understand it. So

[Gina 37:53] Yeah.

[Kathryn 38:08] Like, it's muddy from the start. Whether he started saying no and she pushed him to say yes or he said yes, either way,

He ultimately said yes, like whether he was confused or not, like we don't know, but we can assume that he was confused no matter what, I guess is what I'm trying to Regardless, like that, he confirms that something happened to him, so she goes to the authorities with this accusation and Ray is arrested in September 1983.

[Gina 38:24] Yeah.

[Kathryn 38:42] After the initial accusation, she repeatedly contacted the district attorney's office over and over and over and over again. Like she just kept calling and calling and calling to continue making additional accusations that were described as just getting like weirder and weirder. Like as time went on, the accusations got stranger and stranger.

they also grew from Ray to the entire preschool staff. So it's not just about him. It's like everyone's the following accusations are just a small sampling of notes that were taken from the DA's office when she called with additional accusations. her son's name is listed in them. I'm removing the name. So anytime I say he in the following list,

that means almost just said his name. That means the son. He is her son in this list. So again, this is just a few. I'm not reading all of it. There's fucking ton. So she said, he describes having communion in church, a prayer similar in sound to the Lord's Prayer was recited. A goat climbed up higher, higher, higher than a bad man threw it down the stairs. It woke up later. Ray poked Peggy at the altar.

[Gina 40:06] He got buried?

[Kathryn 40:08] Yeah, I guess. Yeah, like according to this.

That's a lot of stuff. And there was a lot more stuff similar to that. do get significantly more graphic and unhinged. I think I already said that. If you're interested in learning the full extent of accusations, it's easy to find on the internet. I had to go in the Wayback Machine for this list of notes. But.

all the good stuff on the internet is just FYI. So like if you never use the way back machine, what are you waiting for? So anyway, so Ray seemed to be the leader. It was kind of implied that he was the guy kind of leading all of these witches and all of these accusations. So he was questioned, but there was no

evidence of any kind and like his timelines all added up on where he was and when and you know he had alibis and he had this he had that like they didn't they weren't able to really do anything so he was eventually despite there being no evidence other than these initial accusations

A letter got sent out to over 200 parents of children who either previously attended the school or currently attended the school. they basically, it was basically a notification letter, like, hey, this guy was accused of all these things, specifically satanic ritual abuse. Did your kid ever see anything? Do you want to talk about it? Like was that type of thing. Right, right. So parents freak out. They're like, what the fuck?

[Gina 41:41] get that.

[Kathryn 41:47] was another instance of like the panic just like immediately. at this point that the Children's Institute International gets involved. So Children's Institute is a nonprofit organization in LA. And it's basically just like a social work office, they offer like therapy and support to kids who've experienced violence. And

[Gina 41:50] you

[Kathryn 42:11] There was a team led by someone named Kee MacFarlane, and they set out to interview a bunch of children who had gone to the school ⁓ to get to basically the bottom of what actually happened. Like, are these accusations real? If so, what the fuck happened? And like, to what extent did it happen? According to the interviews, many children said they were subjected to ritual murder, witnessing animal sacrifices,

molestation by clowns. It said, I didn't fully understand this, but it said they were sent away in hot air balloons, trapped in tunnels. And they all saw witches flying around. Yeah.

[Gina 42:56] What the fuck?

[Kathryn 42:59] This is another case. It is noted in every single source I looked into that was a social worker who didn't have any form of forensic interview training. So go into every single one of these interviews and just immediately start with the leading questions as we have seen before.

They didn't were you touched inappropriately? They'd ask, and this is a direct quote from like their interviews, the bad man touched you show me where.

[Gina 43:36] What? To little kids?

[Kathryn 43:38] So.

for people who've never spoken to a child before. And I haven't said this, but the age range of children being interviewed was between the ages of two to six years old.

[Gina 43:50] They'll just go along with it.

[Kathryn 43:53] Listen, they'll just fucking go along with it. I... Literally, last year at Phil's mom's birthday, Coco went into this whole big long fucking thing about how there was a drop of water on the table because the gnomes that live in the ceiling would crawl out of the cracks when no one was looking and stick their hand in the water and flick it on the table and then crawl back up before you could find them. She's now afraid of gnomes.

[Gina 44:17] That's so creepy.

[Kathryn 44:21] And she's the one who fucking like made like said the story out of nowhere. This was prompted by nothing. Can you imagine if someone like prompted her? Like Phil definitely fed into it. Like he was into like the whole, like she's like he, they were having discourse about gnomes, but she's just started that. that's how children's brains work. Like they don't work that way. You can't phrase things that way. A child between the ages of two and six.

[Gina 44:29] mean, like, yeah.

Yeah. No.

[Kathryn 44:47] They don't fucking know anything about the world. if you tell them something happened to them, they have no reason not to believe you. They don't know.

[Gina 44:54] And granted, like, I don't know how this ends. Like, I don't know. I'm not familiar with this case. So I'm not saying I believe the accusations or I don't believe the accusations, but I do know if you tell a four-year-old, this happened to you, right, they'll be like, yep, and here's all the details. And then they'll just spit a bunch of shit out. That's just what kids do.

[Kathryn 45:01] Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And they'll just make it all up. Yeah. Yes. And not only did they ask leading questions, but every single one of the children that they were talking to started out saying, nothing happened to me. When they said no,

[Gina 45:27] Hmm.

[Kathryn 45:29] they continued to ask the same questions over and over again, just in different ways until eventually the kids were like, okay, yeah, I guess that happened. Like when you phrase it that way, yeah, it probably did. These children are two to six years old.

[Gina 45:45] Even grown adults, like,

[Kathryn 45:48] I don't, I can't even get into, I can't

[Gina 45:49] yeah. Okay, yeah.

[Kathryn 45:51] even go down that I'm I'm getting itchy because yes, exactly. this is increasingly to this day a fucking problematic interview tactic that works to get people to say things that you want them to say. That is like a known fucking thing.

[Gina 45:55] Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 46:10] Okay, so.

like literally like need a minute. I'm sorry. I'm like It's just so infuriating because it's so obvious if you look for more than a second You know what I mean? And it's like but it's one of those things that is easily like well I didn't tell them to say that I was like well technically not but that's not the point because You did a thing with your voice words that made them say that

[Gina 46:15] You

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

You didn't tell them to say it,

you non-verbally communicated that they should say

[Kathryn 46:42] 100%. And, and this is all to say I do have to add another disclaimer just in case because I'm like, you know, we're talking about sensitive things. This doesn't mean don't believe your children if they tell you something happened to them. You absolutely should. But that's why it's so important to like successfully teach them the language to use and how to talk about these things. And I would argue the fact that these children said no, period end of sentence, and they kept pushing is the version of not believing children that is dangerous. Like, they said no, these things didn't happen. And they didn't accept that as an answer. They just kept asking them.

[Gina 47:16] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 47:23] But I'm not done with the interview tactics yet. This is the part that like I'm so fucking done after I learned this. Not only did they use leading questions, not only did they repeat their questions over and over again, but they literally gave candy to the children when they admitted they were abused. This is all fucking fake. Yes.

[Gina 47:45] Okay, so this is just fucking out the window. there's this is yeah, this is fake.

There's no fuck that. Seriously? How did they not?

[Kathryn 47:50] Yeah. They were rewarded.

Because they knew what the fuck they were doing. They were just trying to nail people for satanic bullshit. Yes, this was all a fucking game from the beginning.

[Gina 48:01] And they were using kids, little bitty babies.

[Kathryn 48:03] Children, two year olds can barely fucking speak. I say again, have you ever talked to a two year old? So like, we flew away in hot air balloons makes a lot more sense to me now. You know what I mean? Yes. So.

[Gina 48:08] Yeah!

[Kathryn 48:23] God, I forgot about this part. Jesus, I'm so mad. This is such a struggle. I need a break from Satan after this, guys. I'm sorry. Okay. So over the next few years, so between 1984 and 1986, these interviews would expand to several other daycares and even just within communities ⁓ and within individual families. Like people were panicked.

[Gina 48:25] ⁓ no.

[Kathryn 48:51] that they were coming for all the kids. Like, anytime anything even remotely strange or weird or like a child would say something weird or like whatever, people were like, Satan, my God. Several people were implicated in the initial McMartin case, but everyone was eventually released due to a lack of evidence except for Ray and his mom, Peggy. And his mom, I don't think I explicitly stated his mom also worked at the school. It was like a family business. She did like admin or reception or something like they were put on trial for these allegations. In the midst of all of this, Judy, the initial accuser, is diagnosed with schizophrenia.

[Gina 49:36] So did that—

You—

[Kathryn 49:38] It did, if you're asking if that mattered, no, it didn't. That had no bearing on anything. For those who don't know, what we know about schizophrenia and what we knew then, you have delusions and they are... I'm not an expert on this. shouldn't, I don't want to go like too deep into it. I don't want to like mis-describe this at all. But it's hard to differentiate from your delusions versus reality.

One of this is kind of an aside, but it's the it's the best way that I can ⁓ describe it. There is someone I don't remember his name, but we'll share it in this show notes. I'll find it. ⁓ There's a man who has a social profile. He has like TikTok, Instagram, all that. And he kind of chronicles his experience living with schizophrenia. And he has a service dog that he has trained to greet every person he sees so the man can know who is real and who is not. Like, that is how real people seem to him. And he told a story one time about how he was in a job interview and he thought three people were interviewing him, but he noticed that one person kept trying to ask questions, but the other two would just talk over him. And finally he chose to answer this one person's

[Gina 50:32] Hmm.

[Kathryn 50:56] interview question and the other two were like, the fuck who the fuck are you talking to that person literally was not there. Yeah. So this is just this is an anecdote about like how I say delusional I don't mean that in like a bad way but like the delusions are so real that like from the beginning

[Gina 51:02] my God.

That's fucking wild.

[Kathryn 51:17] All of these allegations that she made to the DA's office, were very likely not coming from her son at all. Like, now that we know she had schizophrenia, it's like, okay, who was telling you this? Was it someone who wasn't there? Like, did you think your son was saying this? It's just like too many She also had a problem with alcoholism, likely as a result of...

[Gina 51:25] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 51:44] the delusions and hallucinations that is unfortunately a common problem. Like if people don't get the treatment they need for schizophrenia, like addiction and alcoholism is a common result of that, especially in the 80s. This is like, keep in mind, this was a long time she ended up dying as a complication from chronic alcoholism in 1986, the year before the trial started.

[Gina 51:59] Oh

[Kathryn 52:11] So she never even testified. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[Gina 52:11] ⁓ my god. Fuck, all right.

[Kathryn 52:16] So trial starts in 1987 and goes to 1990. And including all the pre-trial investigation, it is, I think to this day, if not definitely then, one of the longest and most expensive criminal cases in US history. It lasted seven years and cost around $15 million total. Yeah.

[Gina 52:39] Seven years?

[Kathryn 52:41] And that's in 1986 money, which is like so much more money now. Yeah.

[Gina 52:44] Holy sh— Did the fact that she was schizophrenic come up at all in the tr— Like how could they not?

[Kathryn 52:51] No, that's like a shoot. What is that called? I don't know, I don't think that could be submitted as evidence for some legal reason, I don't know.

[Gina 52:59] Even if it's like, this might be why the witness made, or not the witness, but the accuser made these allegations could potentially be because they were delusions.

[Kathryn 53:09] But I don't know. That's, and exactly.

[Gina 53:09] I mean, just because she's schizophrenic doesn't mean that she wasn't telling the truth. Like all the things could have been true, but it seems like it would be an important caveat when considering her. Yeah.

[Kathryn 53:18] And that's why my assumption is no, because of what you just said. It's like insubstantial evidence, something like that. in addition to that insubstantial evidence, even though over 100 children were initially interviewed, only a few of them actually testified. And their testimonies were described as, being inconsistent and vague, which makes sense. These kids probably don't even remember being interviewed at that point. Right. This is full on, like, yeah.

[Gina 53:48] Especially if it took over, like if you're like five when you get interviewed by the police, and by the time this trial is wrapping up, you're almost a teenager.

[Kathryn 53:57] That's the thing. Like this was several years later. At this point, like lawyers were just coaching them on what to say. So of course, it's going to be vague because they don't know what the fuck they're talking about at this point. In addition to that, no physical evidence was ever found. were no injuries. Ray, the initial accused or whatever. He I think one of the accusations was that

[Gina 54:00] Yeah.

[Kathryn 54:20] like something with like child pornography, like tapes or, know, basically stuff like that. was just never any of that ever found. No physical injuries, timelines didn't add up, like just all the classic things that we've been seeing over and over and over and over with the satanic panic. Like they all followed a very similar formula. Crazy accusations were made. People took them seriously as they should.

And then things didn't add up, but like damage had been done. It just kept happening over and over and over again. Ray's mom, was acquitted due to lack of evidence, but the jury deadlocked on Ray, so he needed to go through another trial. They deadlocked again in the second trial, then the DA denied a third trial. They were like, this has fucking gone on long enough and is expensive enough.

[Gina 55:03] Holy shit!

[Kathryn 55:13] So he was eventually released, but he had spent five years in jail at that point, like throughout the trial. Yeah. So the McMartin case is widely used as basically an example of one of the most poorly handled cases in American history. It's taught in both law classes and psychology classes as just a guidebook on what not to do because it was so mishandled from the beginning and there was too much bias throughout the entire thing. There was very clearly an agenda from the very beginning.

The fallout from this case is astronomical throughout the whole trial. Of course, I've said this a million times at this point, the media was just in a frenzy. Headlines from this period were chaotic as fuck. ⁓ So the public naturally panicked and they were saying that Satanists were in their daycare. So daycare started to increase their security.

If you have a child in daycare that has like cameras you can peek into throughout the day. You can thank the McMartin case for that. And I will say that's not a bad thing. I think that you should absolutely take every precaution necessary or that you can think of to protect children. The problem and the issue I do have with this is the precautions people were taking were displaced.

[Kathryn 56:46] They were going after the wrong people, you know, like fall on love and increase security measure to protect kids but Like they were so afraid of Satan and these you know, satanic cults and all of these things. So it's like There's other problems in the world going on that have been proven to be like bigger issues Than this like this has been proven to be false time and time and time again

[Gina 57:11] Hmm.

[Kathryn 57:17] Yes, increase your security, but like, make sure you're focusing on the right problem. You know what I mean? So, for example, one of the things that makes me sweat a little bit is case and others, I will say right now, others were happening around this time. We don't have time to talk about all of them. The McMartin one is kind of the cornerstone slash catalyst for a bunch of daycare cases that happened. So I just want to reiterate, this is just a small sample.

[Gina 57:39] You

[Kathryn 57:52] But this case and others inspired police departments, social work offices, and therapy clinics to receive mandatory seminars on handling cases related to satanic cults

[Gina 57:52] Not mandatory seminars on cases related to children where you have to interview kids?

[Kathryn 57:57] Yeah, or like just fucking child abuse within the home. Parents who accidentally kill their kids because they beat them too hard or fucking the police brutality that caused the LA riots just one fucking year after this case wrapped up. Thank God those cops knew how to deal with fucking Satan. Sorry, yes, I know. Yeah, like I can't like. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. ⁓

[Gina 58:00] Nah, let's focus on the red guy with horns.

Let it out. Let it out, baby.

[Kathryn 58:26] I can't my eyebrows are sweating So

[Gina 58:29] Ha ha.

[Kathryn 58:31] And I'm speaking present tense now because we're now moving into 2000 through present. So over the course of the past 20 years, ⁓ we've acquired a lot of knowledge ⁓ that is, in my opinion, necessary for understanding how problematic all of this was. Things like studies that have conclusively shown fact that Lawrence and his methods

[Gina 58:36] You

[Kathryn 58:59] are completely unethical and biased et cetera. Studies that have conclusively shown the tactics that whatever their name was, McFarland with the kids, completely ineffective and problematic. Like time and time again, we're now in a space where we are able to study these things and we can see this was fucked from the beginning.

A result of these discoveries, many people who are either wrongfully convicted or still considered guilty in the court of public opinion have been officially exonerated and pardoned due to these findings and these updated studies as recently as 2020.

[Gina 59:42] Holy shit.

[Kathryn 1:00:07] so like, is still, we're still apologizing for the bullshit that happened in the 80s. So yeah, I will say despite the fact that we're all intelligent enough to identify these patterns and understand these tactics that people used to scare people back in the 80s and 90s, 70s, 80s and 90s, I'll say, ⁓ they didn't have the internet back then. I feel like this is like a thing that keeps popping up.

[Kathryn 1:00:07 continued] ⁓ we now do, so scary things can travel a lot faster and we are, as we speak, in the process of seeing history repeat itself. and as you asked so brilliantly at the beginning of last episode, the catalyst was the creation of a new satanic religion. So.

In 2013, the Satanic Temple was founded and it is more of a political movement, but it's got the word Satan in it. So like people don't care or notice any of it. It got people's panties in a bunch and the same timeframe between the creation of the Church of Satan and the full on Satanic panic of the 80s is almost identical to the creation of the Satanic Temple and the

aggressive uptick in things like QAnon, satanic conspiracy theories. It is the same thing is the same pattern. We're seeing like the same theories that echo the same fears from the 80s. It's just instead of satanic ritual abuse, we're now referring to satanic like child abuse, rings and like kidnappings and all of that. So the call in response is the same.

It's the same cycle over and over again. So like the beat goes on. It's just going to continue. I do not believe there will ever be a time in history that someone somewhere isn't panicking about Satan. We it's happened since the dawn of time. Like the Salem witch trials were at their core a satanic panic.

I have a whole thing about how the majority of cults in America are actually fucking Christian and no one has ever actually found a real satanic cult, but I'm so tired that I'm not gonna go into that. I'm so upset. This is just bewildering. It's just bewildering. as much as I wish the satanic panic was in the past, we could all move forward living our most delicious satanic life.

filled with sin, ⁓ the panic's not over quite yet. And I don't think it ever will be. And that's end of my story. Thank you for coming. Yeah.

[Gina 1:02:24] Well, fuck.

You did warn me and I still wasn't ready for it. You did, you did. I liked the D &D part was really fun. That was fun. I think it's, yeah. Yeah.

[Kathryn 1:02:29] I did it! What a journey, right? Yeah, the first one's a little more fun, the suicide, but like the whole Dungeons and Dragons and metal music, yeah. It just, like, there's just so much. This was a

small sample of everything and it's still, like, I just can't.

[Gina 1:02:46] Well, great job tackling a massive fucking topic.

[Kathryn 1:02:51] I'm literally dizzy. I love this topic. That's the problem. I enjoyed myself so much, but listen, my last few episodes have been a little aggressive with the things Kathryn can't stand vibes. So like it's mostly just people not using their brains

[Gina 1:03:00] Hmm.

Hehehehehe

I think it's interesting. The part that you were saying about the cycle that repeats over and over again and how we're seeing a rise in this kind of stuff once again, the intersection of that with something else we've talked about previously, which is the rise in ⁓ essentially the occult, especially the feminine occult, witchcraft and things like that, that's very interesting. I wonder if something similar to that was happening when the satanic panic first popped off.

[Kathryn 1:03:13] Mm-hmm. Right, yes. Yeah. So.

[Kathryn 1:03:13 continued] So was. So like, that's the New Age era. Like, you know, all the hippies were doing yoga and like all that kind of stuff. then, yeah. And then once you move into the 90s, 90s witches were like the vibe, you know what I mean? And that's when Lilith's Fair was established, you know, like little things like that. You know, a lot of that was...

[Gina 1:03:45] And our version of being a hippie is just like being a witch.

Interesting.

[Kathryn 1:04:06] about women empowerment and, you know, a growing understanding of like, third wave feminism and all that kind of stuff. ⁓ Which feels separate from everything we just talked about. But as far as the way all of these things come to be in the public's

⁓ opinions about everything that happened is all intertwined, you know, so yeah. Right, right. That's why it was kind of hard to tell this like I'm hoping it's not confusing that all of these things happened at the same time. ⁓ But it's just there's no way to describe it otherwise, you know, otherwise you're gonna be back and forth because so fucking much was happening. my god, I would never.

[Gina 1:04:28] Yeah, everything touches everything, yeah.

Yeah, if we did do a full chronological look at the Satanic Panic, that would be the entire podcast and we wouldn't finish until we're like 85.

[Kathryn 1:04:52] I'm sure there are podcasts out there that, in fact, I know there are satanic panic podcasts out there. I found a bunch. Yeah, exactly. That's just not today. Not today, not today, Satan, maybe tomorrow. It's a Saturday. Anyway, so thank you for coming.

[Gina 1:04:56] I have listened to some and they're, yeah.

Not today, Satan! ⁓

⁓ So yeah, until next time, little spoons, keep it cool.

[Kathryn 1:05:15] And keep it creepy.