Parallels Between Recollections of Repressed Childhood Sex Abuse, Kidnappings by Space Aliens, and the Salem Witch Hunts

Ronald C. Johnson^*

ABSTRACT: The way repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse, including ritual satanic abuse, are restored and treated closely resembles the way memories are restored and treated in persons claiming to have been kidnapped by space aliens.  The witchcraft trials in Salem have similarities to both of these.  Persons claiming victimization learn of a possible cause for their distress and find specific persons to blame.  They learn their symptoms from books, authority figures, or other "victims."  Their beliefs are reinforced and validated by therapists, support groups, and, to varying degrees, the general community.
  

Recovered Memories of Repressed Childhood Abuse

The topic of recovered memories has been extensively covered in the popular media and in professional meetings and literature. An American Psychological Society (APS) symposium in San Diego in 1992, an article in the APS Observer (July, 1992), and a comprehensive paper (Loftus, 1993) dealt with the validity of claims of recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse.  Elizabeth Loftus and John Briere debated the topic at the 1993 American Psychological Association convention in August.  Few topics in psychology have created as much controversy and polarization.

The debate is over whether reports of "recovered" memories are based on memories of actual events or are a result of confabulation evoked by therapists, survivor books, television shows, or other sources.  As Wakefield and Underwager (1992) report, in many cases where the accused parents are aware of their adult child's therapy program, the book, The Courage to Heal (Bass & Davis, 1988), was used.
  

"The Courage to Heal"

This book (Bass & Davis, 1988) is sometimes referred to as the "Bible" of the survivor movement. Here are some quotes:

Often the knowledge that you were abused starts with a tiny feeling, an intuition.  It's important to trust that inner voice and work from there.  Assume your feelings are valid.  So far, no one we've talked to thought she might have been abused, and then later discovered that she hadn't been (p.22).

If you told someone about what was happening to you, they probably ignored you, said you made it up, or told you to forget it.  They may have blamed you.  Your reality was denied or twisted and you felt crazy (p.58).

Many survivors suppress all memories of what happened to them as children.  Those who do not forget the actual incidents often forget how it felt at the time.  Remembering is the process of getting back both memory and feeling (p. 58).

Recovering occluded memories (those blocked from the surface) is not like remembering with the conscious mind.  Often the memories are vague and dreamlike, as if they're being seen from far away (p. 72).

If you don't remember your abuse, you are not alone.  Many women don't have memories, and some never get memories.  This doesn't mean they weren't abused (p. 81).

If you don't have any memory of it, it can be hard to believe the abuse really happened.  You may feel insecure about trusting your intuition and want "proof' of your abuse.  This is a very natural desire, but it is not always one that can be met (p. 82).

One practical way to validate your abuse is to look at your life.  If you see the effects of abuse and then, as you begin the healing process, you see your behavior change, even slightly, you can trust that your belief is sound (p. 88)

(In the "For counselors" section).  Believe the survivor.  You must believe that your client was sexually abused, even if she sometimes doubts it herself.  Doubting is part of the process of coming to terms with abuse.  Your client needs you to stay steady in the belief that she was abused.  Joining a client in doubt would be like joining a suicidal client in her belief that suicide is the best way out ...  If a client is unsure that she was abused but thinks she might have been, work as though she was.  So far, among the hundreds of women we ve talked to and the hundreds more we've heard about, not one has suspected she might have been abused, explored it and determined that she wasn't (p. 347).

Working in a group is the only helpful therapy I've gotten in my whole life, and I've been in therapy since I was six years old.  That's forty-one years.  Being in a group is better than being with a therapist because other survivors really understand — they weren't taught to understand.  And hearing other people's stories has sparked things in my memory.  I can see myself coming in and out of groups for years, maybe for my whole life.  Group support is fantastic (p. 463).

Ritual abuse (often called satanic ritual abuse or SRA) is a special form of childhood sexual abuse.  In SRA there are allegations of satan worship, torture, ritual sacrifice of animals and humans, and cannibalism along with the sexual abuse.  Many mental health and police professionals believe that satanic ritual abuse exists and is frequent.  Bass and Davis are convinced of its reality:

"This isn't an isolated thing that only happened to me.  I traced it back in my little town three generations.  And it happens in other towns too.  It's happening to kids today.  I've had more than a hundred calls about ritual abuse.  It's starting to break into the papers.  And people are starting to believe it." ...  Ritual abuse is surfacing now because we' ve started to talk openly about the sexual abuse of children.  More and more adults are remembering what happened to them when they were young (p. 419).

The book, Michelle Remembers (Smith & Pazder, 1980), seems to have triggered the flood of claims of ritual abuse.  This book was written by Smith (the victim) along with Pazder, her therapist, whom she later married.  Since then, there have been a variety of books, magazine articles, and talk show presentations featuring ritual abuse "survivors."
  

The Paul Ingram Case

Probably the best single description of a case of alleged satanic ritual abuse is in "Remembering Satan" (Wright, 1993).  (Also see Ofshe, 1992.)  Paul Ingram was a policeman and also a member of Pentecostal sect.  The case began when fellow police officers questioned him following his two daughters' accusation of sexual molestation.  The allegations began following a Pentecostal retreat for girls, and Pentecostal church officials, especially an assistant pastor, John Bratun, had much to do with the events that followed.  (One of Ingram's daughters had also read a book on the topic.)

Ingram denied any memory of sexually abusing his daughters but said that his daughters wouldn't lie, so that he might be "repressing" his memory of the abuse.  Next, two other persons were accused of sexual molestation by one of the daughters.  With the help of his interviewers, Ingram began to remember the events and came up with recollections of the involvement of the two persons who also were charged.  Pastor Bratun helped Ingram develop a technique for remembering and soon Ingram began to have memories of people in robes gathered around a fire, with one of them cutting the heart out of a black cat.  (The daughters, to this point, had said nothing about satanic rites.)  A son was brought in for questioning and eventually recalled being plagued by a witch, being bound and gagged, and being forced to commit fellatio.

Ingram's wife was accused of sex abuse by the daughters.  A son, interviewed in Nevada, recalled seeing his mother having sex with his father and one of the two other accused men while the other accused person masturbated.  Mrs. Ingram could not recall the event at first, but eventually did so.

The daughters now recalled satanic rites, animal sacrifice, being tortured by being burned, and being cut with knives, and one of them recalled the sacrifice of a human infant.  One of the daughters charged that her father forced her to have sexual intercourse with goats and dogs and took photos of the intercourse.

At Paul Ingram's trial one of the daughters described approximately 25 infant sacrifices and claimed that she had been impregnated and then aborted with the abortus being cut up and rubbed all over her body.  Paul Ingram cooperated with the prosecution at his own trial.  However, some of the testimony was so strange that an outside consultant, Dr. Richard Ofshe, was brought in by the police.

Ingram claimed to be able to recall the events described by his daughters by using the memory technique that Pastor Bratun assured him would bring him only the truth.  Dr. Ofshe decided to test Ingram by making a new accusation — that he had forced a daughter to have sex with one of his sons.  Ingram had only vague memories, but was told to pray on it.  His memories became more clear at a second meeting.  Dr. Ofshe brought up the same scenario to one of the daughters, who denied it.  A third meeting with Ingram resulted in a full and complete confession.

Paul Ingram, after praying and visualizing (developing mental pictures that then can be put into words) with Pastor Bratun produced a list of ten other alleged cult members — all present or former employees of the sheriff's office.  Charges of satanic ritual abuse faded away.  Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of rape.  Charges against the other two accused persons were dropped.  A daughter charged that approximately 30 satanists controlled the county government and that there had been a cover-up.  Paul Ingram, who began to have doubts about his memories of satanic rites before sentencing, is now serving a 20-year prison term.
  

The Satanic Abuse Conspiracy

A recent book, Out of Darkness: Exploring Satanism and Ritual Abuse (edited by Sakheim & Devine, 1992), addresses events such as those in the Paul Ingram case.  Although Sakheim and Devine note the need for skepticism, most of the contributors accept the existence of a vast conspiracy of satanic abuse.  For example, Greaves (1992) evaluated alternative hypotheses concerning claims of satanic cult activity and stated that they were gravely wanting.  He asserts that survivors' memories cannot be a result of having read of or heard of other accounts of abuse since most survivors profess not to have read anything concerning the topic and no single book or movie contains the material reported by even a single patient.  However, contrary to Greaves' assertion, the Ingram daughters' accounts mirror those of Michelle's Secret (Smith & Pazder, 1980) and Satan's Underground (Stratford, 1988) and at least one of the daughters had read Satan's Underground (Wright, 1993, May 24, p.80).

Greaves cites the Necronomicon (Schlangecraft, Inc., 1977) as a major source in supporting the belief in ritual satanic abuse.  However, the Necronomicon has a strange history and its acceptance as anything but a hoax indicates, at the least, a lack of exposure to literature.  H. P Lovecraft wrote a large number of short stories, novelettes, and novels about decaying New England families, most of them in the region around the imaginary Massachusetts town of Arkham.  The equally imaginary Miskatonic University was located in Arkham and there — in the locked shelves — was the Necronomicon, a book on satanism to be treated cautiously, since reading it could drive one mad.  Schlangecraft, Inc. (obviously a somewhat obscene pseudonym based on Lovecraft's name) decided to fill the gap and produce the book.  It is now accepted as real, by Greaves and also by some law enforcement officials (see Terry, 1987).

The one skeptic in Sakheim and Devine's book is Kenneth Lanning (1992) from the FBI's Behavior Science Unit at Quantico, Virginia.  His unwillingness to accept the claims of widespread ritual abuse has led to the accusation that he is a satanist (p. 110).  (Lanning notes other instances of unfounded fears — for example, the belief that hundreds of thousands of missing children have been abducted each year.  All but a few hundred were runaways or involved in parental disputes over child custody and only about a quarter of these may have been abducted by strangers.)  In discussing ritual abuse Lanning observes:

The most significant crimes being alleged that do not seem to be true are the human sacrifice and cannibalism.  In none of the multidimensional child sex ring cases of which the author is aware have bodies of the murder victims been found — in spite of major excavations where the abuse victims had claimed the bodies were located. ...  Not only no bodies found, but also, more important, there is no physical evidence that a murder took place.  Many of those not in law enforcement do not understand that, while it is possible to get rid of a body, it is much more difficult to get rid of the physical evidence that a murder took place, especially a human sacrifice involving sex, blood, and mutilation (p. 130).

The large number of people telling the same story is, in fact, the biggest reason to doubt these stories.  It is simply too difficult for that many people to commit so many horrendous crimes as part of an organized conspiracy.  Two or three people murder a couple of children in a few communities as part of a ritual, and nobody finds out?  Possible.  Thousands of people do the same thing to tens of thousands of victims over many years?  Not likely.  Hundreds of communities all over America are run by mayors, police departments, and community leaders who are practicing satanists and who regularly murder and eat people?  Not likely (p. 131).

If a group of individuals degenerate to the point of engaging in human sacrifice and cannibalism, that would most likely be the beginning of the end for such a group.  The odds are that someone in the group would have a problem with such acts and be unable to maintain the secret (p. 132).
  

Kidnappings by Space Aliens

The controversy about repressed childhood abuse and ritual abuse is over whether these reports are reality based or are a result of confabulation evoked by therapists, religious leaders, survivors' groups, books, or other sources.  The claims of abductions by space aliens are relevant to this debate since the way the memory for the alien abduction is uncovered closely resembles how memories of early sexual abuse and ritual abuse develop.

While having been kidnapped by space aliens is not yet a part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, treatment of these victims is a growth industry in some therapeutic circles.  Dr. John E. Mack, a full professor at Harvard Medical School, has written a review article (Mack, 1992), and is writing a book on the abduction experience.  He claims that "between several hundred thousand to more than 3,000,000 adults in the United States alone have had an abduction experience" (Mack, 1992, p.10). He states:

Many abductees have been forced to go "underground," keeping the information of what they have been through to themselves until, with considerable fear and courage, they venture forward to contact someone who they hope is capable of helping them (p.10).

... experiencers are more likely to have self-diagnosed their conditions as being UFO or abduction-related through a grapevine of connections.  This generally begins with a friend or colleague to whom they have confided their experiences and questions and who then refers them to a book dealing with the subject or to a lay person or professional associated with UFOS or otherwise involved in the UFO network (p.10).

UFO-related abductions affect powerfully the lives of experiencers.  Some abductees feel as if they have been living a second, secret life that they have denied or kept out of consciousness, separate from their everyday experiences, even though they know or suspect that what they have been through is of great significance.  When the memories of what they have been through are relived, especially under hypnosis, feelings are expressed of terror, rage, and grief as intense as any I have encountered as a psychiatrist (p. 11).

I watch carefully for what I call signs of "ontological shock."  This is demonstrated by a certain sadness, even tearing, which represents the impact of the undoing of the experiencer's denial ("I have treated them as dreams" or "I was hoping, doctor that you would tell me I was crazy"), leaving them with the bleak realization that what they have experienced actually occurred and that reality as they have defined it is forever altered.  It is an existential moment brought about primarily by my indicating familiarity with the details of their story from other cases, thus distinguishing what they have been through from dreams, fantasies, or psychological symptoms (p.12).

In most, but not all, cases the person wishes to go further with the exploration of what he or she usually feels has been, if not a lifelong process, an area of their lives that has been troubling, burdensome, and mysterious.  Further curiosity has usually been aroused in the session, and the experiencers want to know "what has been happening to me," as if to reclaim their lives.  I discuss with them the possible pain and distress they will almost inevitably encounter if they explore further (pp.12-13).

... abductees usually feel, in addition, that they have been instructed not to, or forbidden to, remember their experiences.  Sometimes they are told that this is for their own protection ... (p. 13).

Mack says much more, but these quotations demonstrate that there are parallels between becoming aware of early sexual abuse, including ritual abuse, and becoming aware of having been kidnapped by space aliens.  Communion: A True Story (Strieber, 1987), widely read in UFO circles, includes descriptions of space alien activity that appear to involve sexual assault (e.g., on p. 115, Strieber has his mouth forced open, something stuffed into it, brushed his teeth afterward) and the possible creation of alien-human hybrids (p. 227-278).

A recent article on abductions by space aliens (Judge, 1993) begins with the case history of Catherine.  "Catherine is an alleged UFO abductee.  She believes that alien creatures have kidnapped her countless times since she was a child, taken her aboard a flying saucer, and sexually abused her for breeding purposes.  Her story is not unique" (Judge, 1993, p.26).  The article goes on to describe the experiences of John Mack's abductees:

Most of the abduction stories Mack hears from his patients are similar to Catherine's.  In a typical scenario, the victim is taken from his or her environment — in most cases, from bed while asleep or shortly after spotting a UFO — by small, humanoid creatures who are able to pass through walls and windows.  The person is then taken aboard a spaceship — usually a saucer with bright lights — where he or she is disrobed and subjected to medical procedures, including sperm removal from males and pregnancy tests on females.  Often the abductee is shown images of global destruction; many describe an enormous room containing rows of incubators that hold fetuses that resemble hybrids of humans and aliens.  After the abduction the victim is returned to the site of the abduction with virtually no recall of the incident and sometimes bearing small scars.  The aliens — or visitors, as some abductees call them — often force them to forget the abduction episode or plant bogus "screen memories" to replace the traumatic events.  Later hypnosis or another incident-seeing aliens portrayed on television, for example-may trigger memories (Judge, 1993, p.26).
  

The Salem Witch Trials

Both the claims of satanic ritual abuse and abductions by space aliens have similarities to the Salem witchcraft trials.  Almost certainly the definitive work on devil worship in Salem Village (the town of Salem was almost completely unaffected) in Massachusetts in 1692 is Starkey's The Devil in Massachusetts (1949).

The sufferers generally were adolescent girls.  Starkey points out the dullness of their lives, their relatively low status, the fact that their lives were "on hold" until they married, the general public interest in witchcraft, the willingness of the clergy (the psychotherapists of that era) to believe their claims, their "contagious" influences on one another's claims of victimization, their increased status that resulted from these claims, and the validation of their claims from community support that led to the deaths of many of those whom they accused.

Many women, and a few men, were hanged and one man was pressed to death as a result of accusations of witchcraft made against them by adolescent girls.  This evidence brought against the convicted witches was spectral evidence.  The accusers "saw" events, such as witches flying to satanic rituals in the Reverend Parris's orchard, "saw" evil spirits at the witchcraft trials, and "felt" the strength of these spirits as they choked their victims while in the act of accusing the witches persecuting them.

As Starkey notes (1949, p. 251), Salem Village was "so odd a site for God to choose as the battleground between heaven and hell."  The infestation of witches began in the Reverend Parris's own kitchen, where Tabitha, a Black slave, informed a group of adolescent girls on the art of magic.  Among the visitors to Tabitha's kitchen was Ann Putnam.  Her mother, a semi-invalid, had persons she regarded as enemies in Salem.  Ann was very close to her mother.  Ann first, then other young women, accused persons (almost all women) residing in Salem village of witchcraft.  The idea of witchcraft was in the air; four children in Boston had been bewitched six years earlier and it took the work of four ministers, including the redoubtable Cotton Mather, and the hanging of the witch, to restore the children to normalcy.  Mather's book on the topic had wide circulation and the Reverend Parris is known to have had a copy (Starkey, 1949, pp. 21-22).  The symptoms experienced by the young women of Salem Village were the same as those earlier experienced by the children in Boston.  Starkey also notes other means by which these young women could develop parallel sets of symptoms to earlier cases and to one another.

Some of the accused managed to escape, but of those tried, all were convicted and all put to death except (as the accusations spread) those who were willing to turn "state's evidence" and testify against others.  Notably pious persons, such as Rebecca Nourse, died by hanging.

The young women afflicted by witches were sought out as witch-finders by other communities, but began to suffer defeats.  They identified Robert Calef as a witch; he began suit against them for defamation of character, and they fell silent (Starkey, 1949, p. 195).  At Ipswich they met an old woman and had the convulsions that identified her as a witch, but the people of Ipswich ignored them.  The same kind of spiritual messages that had identified witches told Mary Herrick that the wife of John Hale, a very prominent minister, was invading her dreams (Starkey, pp. 223-225).  Other witch finders accused the wife of Governor Phips of being a witch (Starkey, pp. 232-233), and even Cotton Mather, Massachusetts' leading theologian, was accused (Starkey, p.265).

Respected citizens began to question the witchcraft proceedings.  Judge Richard Pike wrote Judge Jonathan Corwin (one of the panel of judges hearing the witchcraft cases) arguing that trial procedures were questionable.  Thomas Brattle, a wealthy Boston merchant, circulated an open letter stating that it was disgraceful that magistrates based their judgments on common gossip, irresponsible "confessions" and the pretensions of the afflicted girls.  Neighbors who earlier feared to speak, lest they, too, be accused, petitioned for the release of persons accused of witchcraft (Starkey, 1949, pp.216-220).  Dutch theologians in the former New Amsterdam, by then renamed New York, were questioned by Joseph Dudley, a former deputy governor of Massachusetts.  They denied that spectral evidence (on which all convictions rested) could be trusted (Starkey, 1949, pp.238-240).

Governor Phips had equivocated, but the spread of accusations (including those against his wife), expressions of doubt by leading citizens, and the Dutch theologians' denial of the validity of spectral evidence, led him to change the rules.  Spectral evidence was not allowed and 49 of the 52 persons scheduled for trial were not tried.  Three were tried and convicted.  Judge Stoughton signed their death warrants as well as those of five previously convicted witches but Governor Phips reprieved them all.  Some remained in prison for some time, since they had to pay their room-and-board before release, but eventually all who survived imprisonment were released.  Despite the wholesale jail delivery of witches, the previously afflicted young women no longer manifested their seizures or other symptoms.  They no longer had a responsive audience.

Some of the judges, such as Samuel Sewall, admitted error, which others such as Stoughton and Hathorne (grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote of these events in "Goodman Brown") did not.  Reparations were made to surviving witches and children of those killed. Starkey notes:

Massachusetts had come out of its delusion not without honor.  There had been misery, injustice, bloodshed, but at the worst nothing on such a scale as had in the recent past been suffered in witch-hunts in England, on the Continent, and in Sweden.  In comparison with historical precedents, the panic in Massachusetts had been distinguished less by its violence than by the pertinacity with which sanity had struggled for domination from the first and by which it had finally prevailed (Starkey, p.29 1).
  

Discussion

The similarity between claims of recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, satanic ritual abuse, and abductions by space aliens are clear.  The same sequence of events occurs.  The person claiming that such events have transpired (1) is unhappy and feels that "something is wrong," (2) with the aid of a therapist, begins to recall the details of the abuse or kidnapping, (3) further therapy, along with interaction with fellow sufferers, evokes ever more memories which are, in turn, (4) validated by the therapist, the support group of fellow sufferers, and the general community.

The events in Salem Village followed a similar pattern.  The girls led relatively low-status and boring lives until they became involved in allegations of witchcraft.  They were influenced by the Black slave, Tabitha, and the allegations were supported by the clergy (the psychotherapists of that era).  The allegations gained them much attention.  Under the influence of each other (the local survivors' group), the clergy, and the general community, the allegations grew and more people were accused.  As with today's survivors," the influence of therapists and the group support and encouragement resulted in ever increasing and elaborate allegations.

The belief in the infestation of witches in Salem Village illustrates that when presented with information concerning strange events, each person has a point where disbelief sets in.  In Salem, when the governor's wife was accused, when leading citizens expressed doubt, and when the Dutch theologians denied the validity of spectral evidence, attitudes changed and the witch hunts were over.

For most people today the point of doubt is reached well before believing that 3,000,000 Americans have been kidnapped by space aliens, sometimes with repeat abductions between one therapy session and the next.  For many, that point is reached well before accepting the belief that there is a nationwide conspiracy of satanists who sacrifice thousands of victims without detection — over twice as many as the victims of known murders (Lanning, 1932, p. 131).  For others, the point of disbelief is reached at the point where people claim sexual abuse on the basis of evidence of the sort accepted as valid by Bass and Davis (1988).

The events in Salem occurred when the original charter of the Commonwealth was revised, putting an end to the theocracy, King Philip's Indian war against the colonists had been moderately successful, and at a more local level, family feuds festered.  Times were bad, and the residents of Salem village were a close, tight, dysfunctional family.  The problem erupted in Salem but spread, possibly because Salem's problems were, to a degree, the problems of all residents of Massachusetts (they did not spread to other colonies).  As Starkey points out, the citizens of Massachusetts did manage to come to terms with reality, express their remorse, and make restitution.

We, too, are living in times of social change and of personal feelings of powerlessness.  May we do as well as the citizens of Massachusetts in coming to terms with the reality of the claims of recovered childhood sexual abuse and satanic ritual abuse.
  

References

APS Observer (1992). Remembering "repressed" abuse. APS Observer, pp. 6-7.

Bass, E., & Davis, L. (1988). The Courage to Heal ()(). New York: Random House.

Greaves, G. B. (1992). Alternative hypotheses regarding claims of satanic cult activity. A critical analysis. In D. K. Sakheim, & S. F. Devine, (Eds.), Out of Darkness: Exploring Satanism and Ritual Abuse (). (pp. 45-72). New York: Lexington Books.

Judge, M. G. (1993). The outer limits of the soul. Common Boundary, 11(4), 24-33.

Lanning, IC V. (1992). A law enforcement perspective on allegations of ritual abuse. In D. K. Sakheim, & S. E. Devine, (Eds.), Out of Darkness: Exploring Satanism and Ritual Abuse (). (pp. 109-146). New York: Lexington Books.

Loftus, E. F. (1993). The reality of repressed memories. American Psychologist 48, 518-537.

Mack, J. E. (1992, July-August). Helping abductees. I.U.R., pp. 11-l5, 20. (Available from International Ufological Reporter, 2457 W. Paterson Drive, Chicago, IL 60659).

Ofshe, R. J. (1992). Inadvertent hypnosis during interrogation: False confession due to dissociative state; misidentified multiple personality and the satanic cult hypothesis. The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 40(3), 125-156.

Sakheim, D. K., & Devine, S. F. (Eds.), (1992). Out of Darkness: Exploring Satanism and Ritual Abuse (). New York: Lexington Books.

Schlangecraft, Inc. (1979). Necronomicon (). (Edited by Simon). New York: Avon Books.

Smith, M. & Pazder, L. (1980). Michelle Remembers (). New York: Congdon and Lattes.

Starkey, M. L. (1949). The Devil in Massachusetts ()(). New York: Time Incorporated.

Stratford, L. (1988). Satan's Underground (). Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House.

Strieber, W. (1987). Communion: A True Story (). New York: Avon.

Terry, M. (1987). The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation of America's Most Dangerous Satanic Cult. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Wakefield, H. W., & Underwager, R. (1992). Recovered memories of alleged sexual abuse: Lawsuits against parents. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 10, 483-507.

Wright, L. (1993, May 17 & 24). Remembering satan. Parts I and II. New Yorker, pp. 60-81 & pp. 54-76.