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Report From a Ritual Abuse/Government Mind-Control Conference 2009

Posted by process on October 7, 2009

On the weekend of August 15-16, journalist Douglas Mesner (process.org) attended a conference for alleged victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse and Mind-Control in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. This is the first of his 2-part report:

The crude sales booth at the far end of the conference room marketing a more advanced species of tin-foil hat does nothing to allay the suspicion that this is to be a congregation of raving delusional paranoiacs.  The hats – an aged, slightly hunched, and shifty-eyed woman quietly explains – are made from a type of metallic fiber weave.  They are effective in blocking the transmissions that They use to get inside your mind.

…And the attendees of S.M.A.R.T’s (Stop Mind control And Ritual abuse Today) twelfth annual  Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control conference are all too aware of exactly who “They” are.  They may be your neighbors, minister, parents, or co-workers.  They might be known as Freemasons, the Illuminati, or Rosicrucians… but they are all Satanists.  They covertly trade slaves, organize secret sex rings, brainwash victims, and work insidiously toward a one-world Luciferian empire.

The S.M.A.R.T conferences are an opportunity for the victims of the satanic conspiracy to exchange their horrific tales, offer support to one another and, most importantly “just be believed”.   Victims are encouraged to bring an accompanying “support person”, as much of the material covered in the 2-day series of talks is considered to be “triggering” (that is to say, it may cause flashbacks in the similarly traumatized).

The organizer of the conference, Neil Brick, stands about 5′6″ with a greasy dark curly comb-over, large-thick glasses, and a voice that sounds exacly like Elmer Fudd (without the impediment of pronouncing his Rs as Ws).  He describes himself as a “survivor of alleged Masonic Ritual Abuse and MK-ULTRA [the CIA's covert mind-control and chemical interrogation project of 1950s - 60s]“.  The disclaimer of the word “alleged” in his own biographical description indicates a type of half-belief that was conveyed from most speakers at the conference, some of whose lectures were startlingly candid accounts of how and why they came to manufacture their paranoid fictions.

Most striking among these was a woman known as deJoly LaBrier, who claims to have learned – through recovered memory therapy – that she suffered childhood abuse at the hands of a cult of satanists in a “military sex ring”.  Remarkably, she also learned, after attending an Al-Anon meeting[an organization that offers "strength and hope for friends and families of problem drinkers"], that her father was an alcoholic, though she “never saw him take a drink”.  But her speech rather glossed over these amazing facts, concentrating instead on her “spiritual evolution”, and standing out within the lectures as among the more revealing of inadvertent confessions.

“We could all decide [Satanic Ritual Abuse] isn’t really true”, LaBrier announced, provoking no real discernible response from the crowd.  She admits that she could pass off her “recovered memories” as “hallucinations”.  But then, “the events [of the past] are not important to me anymore”.  Their only significance is in “what they mean to me in my evolution as a human being.”  Indeed, she will conform reality to her beliefs rather than the other way round.  As she recalls warning possible skeptics at a talk she delivered to an Indiana University class, “Don’t you ever question my reality!

This rather postmodern perspective suggests a near total disregard for Objective Truth, and its conciliatory effect on LaBrier can’t be expected to offer any comfort to her family, who LaBrier has implicated in her accusations of heinous crimes committed in the name of Satan.  Whether Labrier’s parents are still alive or not is unknown to me, but the question of whether or not her parents actually sexually abused and prostituted her is one that ultimately has an absolute and objective answer.  When LaBrier declares during her speech, “I can talk about the memory of my truth, and it doesn’t matter if you believe it”, she suggests that she can have her own personal “truth”, regardless of what the reality is.

Almost all of the self-proclaimed victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse, like Labrier, have “recovered” their “memories” of these alleged early traumas while undergoing psychiatric therapy.  Though common sense and research both indicate that traumatic events are less easily forgotten than mundane or non-traumatic events, a certain school of psychotherapy still maintains that extreme trauma can lead subjects to so rigidly compartmentalize their memories that they develop multiple personalities.  These personalities (known as “alters”) operate independently of each other and fail to retain any knowledge of what the others are up to; thus the gaps in memory – repressed in buried personalities – that are necessary for a therapist to draw out by achieving contact with the various alters.  Following the popularity of the 1976 television movie, Sybil, a so-called true story about a woman with sixteen personalities created as a result of savage childhood abuse, Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) became a rather fashionable diagnosis.  The number of diagnosed MPD cases went from about 75 before Sybil to 40,000 after Sybil.

During the MPD craze, therapists are reported to have often diagnosed patients with symptoms no more outrageous than depression or anxiety with repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse.  They would then set about seeking the alters they knew to be present in the subject.  Patients who refused to play the role of a “multiple” were accused of being difficult, or resisting treatment.  Eventually, many patients would begin to subscribe to the belief that they had been abused, and work to recall the memories of these events that they had been convinced must have happened.  The patients learned to become multiple under the coercion of therapists who would continually ask to speak to the personality that maintained the memory of the trauma.  Thus, as Psychologist Nicholas P. Spanos explained, “patients learn to construe themselves as possessing multiple selves, learn to present themselves in terms of this construal, and learn to reorganize and elaborate on their personal biography so as to make it congruent with their understanding of what it means to be a multiple.”

Recovered memories of abuse and torture, cannibalism, necrophilia, and infanticide at the hands of satanic cults grew to such a level during the 1980s to early ’90s, that it sparked a minor modern witch-hunt, referred to by some sociologists today as the Satanic Panic.  Irresponsible hack reporters like Geraldo Rivera and Sally Jesse Raphael fueled the phenomena with sensationalist “exposes”, tittilating to the midwest masses for their implicit appeal to the righteousness of true bible-believing Christians, and for the salaciousness of the God-less, savage acts they described.  The whole thing began to come undone when serious investigations concluded that their was no evidence to support the claims of massive satanic cult activity.  More and more, the reliability of recovered memories was shown to be nil, and it came to be recognized that some innocent parents had been imprisoned for crimes only imagined.  Instrumental in demonstrating the role of fantasy in recovered memory was the work of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF), an organization comprised of “families and professionals affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution in Baltimore” that was founded “in 1992 because they saw a need for an organization that could document and study the problem of families that were being shattered when adult children suddenly claimed to have recovered repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse.”  ( http://www.fmsfonline.org/about.html)

To Neil Brick, the the FMSF is nothing more than a group of “pedophile sympathizers”, the executive director of which – Pamela Freyd – serves as the oft-cited arch-villian of the conference.  There is Satan, and there is Pamela Freyd.  Without them, the world would be okay, and no children would ever get hurt…

This is the first of a 2-part report.  Read part 2 here…

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  • Blah blah, tinfoil hat crowd, iatrogenic mpd/did, DSM inaccuracies, doesn't exist, etc etc. Right out of the Cointelpro playbook. Deny, point fingers, make the victims look bad.

    It went on - look up the Church Committee. It's all out in the open, even though it `doesn't exist'.

    At least come up with something new, armchair skeptics. Isn't it amazing that people have mpd/did before they ever see the therapists who allegedly plant the disorder?
  • jonathanstatski
    I agree with Lefty. It's all about blame the victim to cover up the crimes. There's millions of dollars invested in these crimes.
  • jonathanstatski
    These CIA guys can be nasty. They must have a lot to cover up.
  • akuma_khan
    Blah blah, Lefty, call the witch-hunters "victims", straight out of the tin-foil hat moron's playbook. So is the author of this piece a Cointelpro operative or an "armchair skeptic" in your expert opinion? And how did you come to this conclusion about him before you entirely disregarded every argument he made without any legitimate rebuttal? "It went on" sounds ominous, but could you be more specific than "it"?
    "Isn't it amazing that people have mpd/did before they ever see the therapists who allegedly plant the disorder?"
    Well, this article makes the case that they don't, and you do nothing to convince us otherwise.
  • Jess Conley
    No, it's not weird. Histrionic personalities who thrive on the accumulation of attention their purported disorder attracts will assume the role of Dissociative Identity Disorder by emulating the media's over-sensationalized image of it. Just because the phenomenon of ritual abuse is "out in the open" does not mean it is substantiated by proof. The continuation of people espousing their preposterous "memories" only tells us that there is still a sizable population who is mentally ill to the degree of believing in false realities, such as diagnoses schizophrenics, pathetic people in desperate need of attention and therapists so greedy for notoriety that they will pursue it at any cost...even the cost of sending innocent people to prison.
  • smartnews1
    Rebuttal to the attacking author’s second article report from the SMART 2009 conference

    The author continues his attack on child abuse survivors and his name calling and insults on the conference attendees in Part 2.

    He insults one of our older conference presenters, stating she is “infirm.”

    He attacks the book “Michelle Remembers” with an article now posted on the “Temple of Set” website.

    What he fails to mention is that the book’s accuracy was verified by the publisher, see http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/day-...

    A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER: “The source material was scrutinized. The many thousands of pages of transcript of the tape recordings that Dr. Pazder and Michelle Smith made of their psychiatric sessions were read and digested; they became the basis of this book. The tapes themselves were listened to in good measure, and the videotapes made of some of his sessions were viewed. Both the audio and video are powerfully convincing. It is nearly unthinkable that the protracted agony they record could have been fabricated.”

    He also attacks the book “Sybil.” Yet, Sybil’s psychiatrist, Cornelia Wilbur, went to great lengths to validate the accounts of abuse…. The case firmly linked multiple personality disorder with child abuse. And Dr. Leah Dickstein of the University of Louisville in Kentucky, who said she was in touch with Sybil for several years after Wilbur’s death, recalls Sybil telling her, “tell people every word in the book is true.”‘ Dickstein, who knew Wilbur, said Wilbur “had no need to make this up.”

    The author of the attack on our conference attacks Bennett Braun in the Burgus case.

    Here’s a summary of the research on Burgus v. Braun et al that was presented by a researcher at the 2002 International Society for the Study of Dissociation conference in Baltimore….In 1993 the Burgus family filed a malpractice lawsuit against Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center, Dr. Elva Poznanski, the boys” psychiatrist, and Dr. Bennett Braun, Pat’s psychiatrist…Before her hospitalization at Rush in 1983, Pat spent most days in bed in with the curtains drawn, unable to care for herself. She threatened to kill herself and others. Her husband came home for lunch to make sure the boys were fed. She became convinced that the doctor who did her tubal ligation had implanted a fetus during the surgery. She approached mothers of infant daughters, asking them if they would trade their daughter for her infant son, Mikey. Pat entered Rush diagnosed with multiple personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. Upon admission Pat was agitated and incoherent. During her first month on the unit and before she was placed on meds, Pat told staff “I’m switching [personalities] out of control today. I’m doing so much switching today I can’t believe it.” Pat testified that the rapid switching decreased over time as her medications were increased….Other patients said they recognized her from her participation in cult-related criminal activities. At the time of her release from Rush in 1987 Pat was more stable and integrated. Did Pat’s psychiatrist implant false memories as Pat has claimed? On January 17, 1997, a defense attorney asked Pat about the source of her memories. Pat repeatedly conceded that she had originated all the memories herself. Her psychiatrist did not implant any memories. He had simply passed on to her what the other patients had reported.”

    Candidate accused by former patient by Thomas R. O’Donnell – Des Moines Register – 10/28/98 – “A former Iowan who won a $10.6 million settlement from a Chicago hospital and two psychiatrists said the diagnosis of multiple personalities and repressed memories of satanic cults that led to her lawsuit originated with a West Des Moines clinical social worker. But the social worker, Ann-Marie Baughman, now a Polk County legislative candidate, said that when she started counseling Patricia Burgus in 1982, Burgus was a troubled woman who was threatening to kill herself and others. Burgus…also was displaying behavior that Baughman could not understand. “It was the physical changes more than just the verbal expressions of what she was telling me” that led Baughman to conclude she was seeing multiple personalities. The “muscles in her face would all relax . . . and she would just look different. It was just the eeriest thing….But suggestions that Braun somehow planted the horrific memories in Burgus’ head are wrong, Baughman said, because they started surfacing during her sessions with Burgus in Des Moines….In the settlement, reached last fall after six years of litigation, neither the hospital nor the psychiatrists, Braun and Elva Poznanski, admitted fault. Braun has said his insurance company settled over his objections.”

    It appears that Burgus’ symptoms appeared before her work with Braun, something the attacking author appears to ignore.

    The attacking author states he only found one mention of the Amirault case on our website http://ritualabuse.us

    He obviously did not look very hard.

    “All nine children testified in a broadly consistent way…The children testified to numerous instances of sexual abuse. Some of the children testified that they were photographed during this abuse, describing a big camera with wires, a red button, and pictures which came out of the camera. The children testified that the defendant threatened them and told them that their families would be harmed if they told anyone about the abuse….The Commonwealth also presented a pediatric gynecologist and pediatrician who examined five of the girls who testified…She made findings consistent with abuse in four of the girls.”

    Additional information on the Amirault case is at our website at http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/day-...

    “in Amirault, the majority of the female children who testified had some relevant physical findings, as did several female children involved in the investigation who did not participate in the trial. The findings included labial adhesions and hymenal scarring of the sort present in avery small percentage of non-sexually abused children.”

    “Victims in the Fells Acres child abuse case broke down Thursday as they described their pain publicly for the first time in hopes of keeping the last person convicted in the case behind bars. Victims urged her to keep Amirault in prison.”

    “This family raped me, molested me and totally ruined my life,’’said Jennifer Bennett, who was 3 1/2 years old when she started at Fells Acres. “We weren’t coaxed. We weren’t lying. We’re telling the truth and we always will.”

    The attacking author states “sexually repressed housewives may place themselves in the midst of deviant orgies in which they had no choice but to participate.” This incredible statement shows the authors thinking clearly.

    The attacking author even criticizes the story of one speaker that has signed confessions of Satanic Ritual Abuse from her mother and stepfather.

    The attacking author states the conference is “full of bullshit.” He even criticizes the well established diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder, citing Paul McHugh.

    Information on Paul McHugh is at http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/paul-...

    quotes from cited articles at our website include:

    “The problem with McHugh’s publications on MPD/DID, like those of Mersky, is that they are mere speculation. From deposition testimony in several cases, McHugh has made it clear that other than an occasional consultation, he has very little actual clinical experience with the ongoing treatment of MPD/DID patients and is generally unfamiliar with both the clinical features of MPD/DID and with what usually occurs in their treatment. This McHugh’s opinion is informed neither by actual in-depth clinical experience with contemporary MPD/DID patients nor by any scientific research on MPD.”

    “At least eight men have been convicted of sexually abusing Maryland children while under treatment at the “sex disorders” clinic McHugh runs at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine – abuse the doctors did not report, citing client confidentiality.”

    The attacking author writes “As Brick wrote in an angry comment upon my first half of this article, “who are you to decide what people remember?” Yet, Brick did not say any such thing. This is more inaccurate writing from the attacking author.

    The attacking author in the original version of his article writes “Disassociative Disorders” and “Disassociative Identity Disorder” yet they are actually called “Dissociative Disorders” and “Dissociative Identity Disorder.”

    But if the author had any experience in the field, he would know this.
    The attacking author’s continued one-sided attack on our conference is inaccurate, insulting and simply untrue.

    The following comments were made later on defending the conference, following further comments that included name calling and insults that were written about myself and the conference attendees.

    9/4/09

    As a speaker at the conference as well as “named” throughout this commentary, I am amazed and appalled at the inclusion of a seriously flawed “report” from a man who faked his identity to attend, canceled his check that was to pay for his attendance, misrepresented who he was, and then failed to check his “facts” about not only myself but others in attendance as well. His errors include such small details as my age and health, reason for sitting at a table (too many papers to juggle standing up), and larger ones such as misquoting and putting words in my mouth. My presentation is on tape, and it would have been easy for him to verify any of his shaky “facts”, but he chose to make fun of our pain, as well. We did not ask him to attend, he did not interview any of us in his “official” capacity as a reporter, and after reading part one in which he made sophomoric sport of his descriptions of attendees, I really did not expect anyone to legitimize his “work”. Googling him has given a clearer picture of a man who is full of contradictions. As a member of an atheist group, he then has a blog with artwork depicting a gleeful satan, another in which he grins as he holds up a jar containing a dead fetus, as well as proclaiming himself as playing the role of a prankster in his reporting. He may throw all the stones he wants. Truth is not dependent on any one man’s visions or delusions. True research, on both sides of the arguments presented, would give a much more balanced picture, but that requires actual intelligent examination of the material.

    I do not know what the goal here is in accepting and publishing this satirical piece of commentary, but am disappointed that anyone can make any statements they choose about a topic like this and have it printed as if it is gospel. If Mr. “Undercover reporter” wishes to engage me directly, all he had to do was ask. Perhaps someone acquainted with him might be able to put some context into his purpose for sneaking into a conference where reporters may interview subjects outside of the conference room, with permission of those he interviews, but are purposely excluded from the speeches themselves.

    This site seems dedicated to exposing abuse, yet it publishes this article that, on the contrary, denies the abuse of people he has virtually no prior knowledge about.

    I expect more attacks–that is the classic M.O. of a debunker. Regardless, this report is about as factual as a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. I expected better of your publication.

    Julaine Cooper

    9/4/09


    To Julaine,

    I applaud you for standing up to this self-described journalist who apparently thought by defaming you he could influence others not to accept the reality of the crimes that you suffered. Your truth speaks much louder than his insults and debunks.

    To the sponsors of the SMART conference,

    I applaud you for continuing year after year, in spite of the personal insults you have been hit with because of your efforts to make the world safer for children.

    To the owners of this website. I don’t understand how you can allow the article misrepresenting the SMART conference and giving distorted views of the history and literature on the topics of ritual abuse stay online and associated with your organization. It is my understanding that another online journal took this self-described journalist’s first article down apparently because of its libelous statements.

    It is also my understanding that many victims report that they were victims of satanic ritual abuse by Catholic clergy. I ask that you do as the other online journal did and remove this self-described journalist’s reports from your website.
  • smartnews1
    This article has been rebutted on several websites including our own at:
    http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/rebuttal-to-t...

    The journalist above, Douglas "Mesner" (not his real name) came to the conference under false pretenses. Journalists are not allowed into our conference to protect the safety and the anonymity of the attendees, who are child abuse survivors. He did not interview any of the speakers at the conference. His articles contained many misstatements, misquotes and inaccuracies. No apparent attempt was made to correct any of these, other than where he misspelled "Disassociative Disorders" and "Disassociative Identity Disorder" which are actually "Dissociative Disorders" and "Dissociative Identity Disorder" and he did not correct these until we mentioned this on our website rebuttal page.

    He is listed on a website for radiofreesatan, where he is a DJ and is described as “an unscrupulous journalist.” He is also connected to the Process group. He paid to enter the conference with a check and payment on the check was stopped after the conference. His articles on our conference have been removed from several websites on the Internet due to defamation.

    While myself and others were defending our work when his articles appeared on these websites, comments appeared on these websites either by the article writer or by aliases in his writing style calling conference members and supporters pedophiles, quacks, exploiters, frauds and worse. This may happen on this site as well. It appears that two of the long comments below were also written in the same writing style as the article writer.

    A true skeptic looks at both sides of the story equally and then comes to a conclusion. This did not happen here. This author obviously has an agenda, in part due to his affiliation with Satanic websites. His intent was not to write a balanced or fair article. His intent was to defame and attack.

    Why is Mr. "Mesner" afraid to use his own name?

    Rebuttal to the Report from the SMART 2009 conference

    Rebuttal to an attack on our recent conference in August 2009.

    Our ritual abuse conference went really well this year. Many excellent researchers from several countries presented data backing the existence of ritual abuse crimes in a variety of settings.

    Unfortunately a “journalist” snuck into the conference under false pretenses pseudonymously. This person on a website for radiofreesatan, where he is a DJ and is described as “an unscrupulous journalist.”

    This journalist paid to enter the conference with a check. He stopped payment on the check after the conference.

    Our conference brochure, which all that register are required to read, states “Members of secret organizations, acting out perpetrators, and/or members of unsympathetic organizations are excluded from the conference. This is for the protection and safety of those in attendance.”

    Also, it is clearly announced at the beginning of the conference, “Please note that media people are not allowed in the conference at any time without the written permission of SMART.”

    Less than one week after the conference, he placed a vicious article on a major Internet newspaper personally attacking some of the conference attendees, the field of DID and memory. Attacks included disparaging remarks about one’s appearance and voice as well as claiming child abuse survivor accounts at the conference were fictional. Fortunately, with the hard work of many people, this article was removed from this major Internet newspaper after four days.

    The author repeats the rebutted attacks on the field of DID and ritual abuse made over twenty years ago. The scientific research on DID shows it to be a solid and robust phenomenon that had been misdiagnosed as schizophrenia for over half a century. The research he cites “offer(s) no evidence that either stable alter personalities or the range of clinical features typically associated with MPD can be created in the laboratory.” Accurate information on DID and rebuttals to skeptics can be found at http://ritualabuse.us/research/did/

    He also attacks the phenomenon of recovered memory. Yet recovered memory has been found to be a proven and verifiable phenomenon in many cases with fairly high accuracy rates. For more information on this, see http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Recov...

    He repeats the same misstatements made about “panic” made twenty years ago. Yet, ritual abuse crimes and their incident rates have been shown to be very real. For more information on this, see http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Ritua... and http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/

    This author’s first article concludes with several misstatements about what he claims was stated at the conference about the FMSF. However, this was not stated. This is another misstatement made by the author.

    In essence, his article contained insults, personal attacks, misstatements, misrepresented and slanted data as well as blatant lies.

    The following are some comments posted on the website below the article attacking our conference before the article was permanently removed from the Internet. Some of these comments were removed from the page by the author, yet comments calling myself a “pedophile” more than once were allowed to stay up.

    (Note: Many additional comments were made defending myself, the conference and ritual abuse survivors, we have not received permission yet to post these.)

    Neil Brick 8/22/09
    This article contains many untruths and insults.

    No one by the name of _____ attended the conference. (Note: he attended with a fake name)

    We clearly state in our conference registration form “members of unsympathetic organizations are excluded from the conference. This is for the protection and safety of those in attendance.”

    We also clearly state that members of the media are not permitted to attend the conference without written permission, to protect the attendees anonymity.

    The author above, if he did attend the conference, attended with a fake name and under false pretenses.

    The article itself personally insults both myself and the conference attendees, with statements like….Yet several attendees and speaker have solid evidence including confessions of the perpetrators and scientific books and publications. These were left out of his article.

    Neil Brick
    The article also misrepresents the data around many important issues.

    There are hundreds of scientific books and journals documenting the reality of ritual abuse crimes. Information on these can be found at http://ritualabuse.us

    There was no MPD craze. It is well documented that most MPD (now called DID) cases were misdiagnosed as schizophrenia for over 60 years. There is no evidence of therapist “coercion” in the scientific literature. Spanos has been critiqued as seriously overgeneralized his data and his data “data offer no evidence that either stable alter personalities or the range of clinical features typically associated with MPD can be created in the laboratory.”

    There was no “panic.” There were victims of horrible crimes coming forward to expose their perpetrators….

    Neil Brick
    Readers should draw their own conclusions around this issue, with thorough research about the topics of ritual abuse and DID.

    However, one sided articles like the one above that contain personal insults about people serve no constructive purpose whatsoever. They only continue to polarize the debate around these issues and lower the level of civil and intellectual discourse.
    August 23, 2009

    Neil Brick
    There is no such thing as “repressed memory therapy.” This is a construct of those that attack the field of therapy and those that attack those that help trauma survivors.

    You make excuses for your personal attacks of others, yet you are responsible for your own behavior. You insult my voice and appearance in your article as well as the other conference attendees because of your supposed “disgust.” This goes beyond an ad hominem attack on your part, degenerating into name calling and personal insults.

    At my website, there are hundreds of books and article documenting ritual abuse crimes. Go to ritualabuse.us and click on the ritual abuse tab.

    August 23, 2009
    Neil Brick

    You state (in the article author’s comment on the page): “yes, I did attend pseudononymously.” In other words, you must have used a fake ID to attend the conference, as all participants need to present an ID to gain admittance to protect the safety of all conference members.

    So you lied to attend the conference. You misrepresented the reason you were attending and you even lied about who you were. So why should we believe you now?

    You knew media personnel were not allowed at the conference without permission, yet you attended anyway, simply to attack myself and the conference.

    You made up statements about what you claim I stated about the FMSF and you state we often cite Ms. Freyd, another fabrication. You even got my height wrong.

    Your article does not fairly represent the research on the topics it presents.

    You state “I see my description of Brick as accurate, even charitable.” Really, personally insulting someone’s appearance and voice is “charitable.”

    Neil Brick
    The author mentions Loftus to back his theory of memory.

    Loftus is very biased in her interpretation of traumatic memory. There is NO evidence that traumatic memories can be created through manipulation. Loftus’ work has also been heavily critiqued. See the work of Hopper, Hoult, Crook, Pezdek and Pope. Loftus even published a study that shows recovered memory exists (Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18 (1994) 67-84.)

    The reality is that recovered memory has been proven in numerous studies to exist and that it has fairly high corroboration rates. (go to ritualabuse.us and click on the related research tab)

    Or use a search engine for “101 corroborated cases of recovered memory”

    Neil Brick
    8/23/09
    Since you ignored my question the first time, here it is again:

    You state: “yes, I did attend pseudononymously.” In other words, you must have used a fake ID to attend the conference, as all participants need to present an ID to gain admittance to protect the safety of all conference members.

    So you lied to attend the conference. You misrepresented the reason you were attending and you even lied about who you were. So why should we believe you now?

    What kind of a “researcher” uses a fake ID to attend a conference and then repeatedly uses name calling and insults to “prove” their points?

    Note:
    The author of the article attacking our conference made a comment on 8/23/09 about the daughter of Pamela Freyd, stating her daughter (Jennifer) recovered her memories during therapy sessions and then retracted the claim and reconciled.

    It was pointed out to the author in a comment on the page that Jennifer did not recover her memories in therapy, nor did she retract, nor did she ever reconcile with her mother. This entire section was deleted by the article author the next day.

    Neil Brick
    8/23/09

    You keep mentioning “hats.” One conference table (of many, note how the author only describes one) run by one person did have information on how to protect oneself from certain electromagnetic frequencies. There is scientific evidence that certain electromagnetic frequencies can cause problems for certain people. However, most conference participants were not involved with this topic. And whether one believes this topic is accurate or not certainly has nothing to do with the fact that ritual abuse exists around the world.

    A dishonest debater would of course conflate the two terms to discredit both.

    Neil Brick
    8/24/09
    It is interesting that several comments I have made defending myself,
    even today, as well as others’ comments defending me have been deleted, yet libelous comments calling me a “pedophile” have been kept.

    The author’s creation of a straw man argument, that there is an organized conspiracy, is of course a dishonest debate tactic. The point is that ritual abuse exists around the world and that this is well documented.

    My organization helps trauma survivors, by providing resources and
    accurate information to them. His article hurts them, by
    personally attacking myself and them, in a one sided and inaccurate
    manner. He has not corrected his several misstatements as promised, but he has continued to present his disinformation. He has no experience in the field of trauma, and repeats the same misstatements by others about the field of trauma.

    sondra
    This reporter failed to mention the professionals who spoke at this conference, or Anne A Johnson, author of Hell Minus One, who obtained written confessions from her parent. Another sources for facts: Colin Ross’ book, Bluebird: Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists, based on 15,000 pages of documents obtained from the CIA. The FMSF was formed by Pamela and Peter Freyd, Hollida Wakefield and Ralph Underwager. Pamela and Peter Freyd are parents of Jennifer Freyd, who, despite statements to the contrary, always had memories of her abuse, and never recanted. You can find Jennifer’s story (and her refusal to recant) in her book, Betrayal Trauma: the Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse. This reporter entered the conference under false pretenses, creating false images. I am disappointed in this newspaper for allowing this, and expect better things from it in the future. Meanwhile, please do your own research on this topic rather than buying into this version. sondra

    Cecilie says:
    I am very grateful to Neil Brick for the work he continues to do on behalf of RA and government mind control victims. Articles like yours contribute to survivors fears of coming forward and reinforce the public’s head in the sand position, thus prolonging the exposure of this kind of activity.

    I am a survivor of ritual abuse in the Catholic Church….If you are a sincere person and not just trying to add to the misinformation out there, I suggest you do some reading on the current research out there on trauma and DID. You are are sadly misinformed.
    August 24

    August 22, 2009.
    Pamela Perskin Noblitt
    I responded to the article with the following comment:
    If I were Mr. Brick, I would consult a lawyer to discuss the defamatory manner in which he was characterized in this article. Your disrespectful, biased, and poorly researched story is clearly a work of fiction….Journalism requires an open mind, an investigative spirit, and a passion for truth and justice. Sadly, you are lacking in each of these departments. Perhaps you should take the time to actually do some research. And by research, I mean studying alternative perspectives from your own with discretion, respect, and scientifically based inquisitiveness. Remember the first rule of science is parsimony. The simplest answer is often the truest. Which is more likely? That people dreadfully abused in childhood carry lifelong scars? Or that well-reared, well cared for children grow to adulthood and suddenly turn on their good parents? I wish you well in your next career.

    Pamela Perskin Noblitt

    I have been researching the area of religious cults for the past 33 years and ritual abuse for the past 20 years. In my chapter on History of Satanic Religions in Out of Darkness (I document that satanic (in the original meaning of the term satanic as simply adversarial to social norms) has a long history. This dovetails with University of Alberta Sociology Professor Stephen Kent’s articles in Religion in 1993 in which he analyzed the content of abuse survivors statements and found differences between Masonic satanic abuse, Christian satanic abuse and Mormon satanic abuse….
    all the best
    Martin H. Katchen

    Kay says:
    My memories were clear all the way. I was seduced at 14, which is rape by law. He told me to keep quiet, because he was a man of [God] and because of brainwashing by the Institutional Corporate Roman Catholic Church. It took me more than 45 years but, because of survivor support groups like SNAP and SMART, I can now post my full name without fear….I believe Mr. Brick is a victim/survivor of ritual abuse, further; I admire and respect Mr. Brick and SMART for reaching out to other survivors. You chose, with the stroke of your pen, to degrade not only Mr. Brick, but every other human being who does not fit in a [box]. Like…, your attitude comes across as arrogant and threatening. People have feelings.
    August 23, 3:43 PM

    Kay says:
    ATTENTION! NEWSFLASH! Freedom of Speech exists, is alive, and flourishing. Freedom of the Press exists, is alive, and flourishing. Mr. Brick convened a group of people who are survivors of ritual abuse. The author attended that conference. Instead of reporting on the conference, he chose to use…to vent against victim/survivors of any form of abuse, including abuse by brainwashing. The author has certainly achieved his goal….The author has chosen to use his talent as a writer to demean others. I am NOT a survivor of ritual abuse. I am NOT a professional with credentials. I AM, however, a survivor of child rape by a Roman Catholic priest via brainwashing that led me to believe that a priest is “God” on earth.
    August 23, 1:33 PM

    This was sent to the online newspaper after the article was taken down.

    Thank you for taking down the article about the SMART conference, dealing with Ritual Abuse Torture and Mind Control. As a survivor, this conference had been a life line for me. When the problem of Child Sexual abuse within the family was first brought up, people didn’t want to believe that it was happening. Not even professionals. I don’t think that any of us would deny it today. Ritual Abuse Torture is going through the same process.

    Hopefully the writer doesn’t have a personal interest in discarding survivor’s reports, as do the actual criminals. I would like to think that he just has a hard time believing such things can happen to children. They do. They happened to me and to clients I worked with as a therapist.

    No matter what the writer’s motivation is, survivors need support and not attack. The person who organizes these conferences put many hours of hard work into them and does not deserve such treatment. Neil especially takes a special care to make this conference a safe place for survivors. Just a small example: I must have been coming to the conference for the last five years and Neil knows me quite well by now. Never the less you can rest assure that he will still be asking for my ID when I first walk in.

    Trying to discredit and silence us does not help the children who still suffer today. Again, thank you for removing the article…from your website. It was defamatory, insulting, and inaccurate.
  • process
    Well, I'm glad this "rebuttal" was posted here as it gives me the opportunity to address it. It has been posted elsewhere, but this time it includes some new misinformation. This article was never removed from ANY site for defamation. It WAS removed from Examiner.com because S.M.A.R.T. conference organizer Neil Brick frightened an editor there into doing so by deluging the phone lines there with angry calls both day and night.
    This rebuttal prefers quantity over content, but don't let that quantity fool you. There's no substance. Brick tends to be very juvenile in these "debates" as well, and he'll attempt to deluge a message board in an attempt to get the most prominent word in. He is angry because my research in "recovered memories" is showing of how little value they actually are, and I am in the process now of speaking to victims of this therapeutic technique who now realize that they were manipulated by therapists at the expense of their personal relationships. Since this conference, I have spoke to the top medical professionals (included those consulted in the making of the Showtime TV series The United States of Tara) who still believe that MPD/DID is a legitimate diagnosis, but NONE of them support what Neil Brick and S.M.A.R.T. do by promoting the idea of a multi-national satanic conspiracy to the mentally vulnerable. Every one of them distance themselves from S.M.A.R.T.
    Now let's look at the defense. The best links are those that actually cite articles that explore DID as an actual phenomena, but they all miss the point. I take Paul McHugh's view that DID is a clinical creation - thus, the symptoms exist, so pointing to articles that explore these symptoms is really no argument at all. Nor should we allow S.M.A.R.T. the latitude of pretended that their position is merely 'DID exists'. The conference promoted the idea of a massive satanic conspiracy that functions at the highest levels of government, engages in mind-control, even utilizing electro-magnetic waves to control the minds of distant victims. This requires far more justification than DID, but when called on, S.M.A.R.T. chooses to ignore the question. This may indicate that these claims are not even believed by their purveyors, a very disturbing prospect to me. Neil Brick claims himself to have been a mind-controlled assassin for some masonic/satanic group in his past, but never tries to defend this claim with evidence or facts.
    This so-called rebuttal then defends Michelle Remembers on the grounds that the publisher said it was true, despite the fact that the hyperlinked article in my report shows that the facts of the book were thoroughly shown false. Despite the publisher's disbelief that the story could have been fabricated, it most definitely had, nor is "I can't imagine" a legitimate rebuttal to anything. I would also ask that anybody who has a similar disbelief that such stories of abuse could be fabricated, please see my upcoming book and articles that contain testimony from victims of therapeutic abuse who found themselves fabricating these very types of stories during recovered memory therapy.
    I would also encourage anybody interested to do a simple Google search for Gerald Amirault to see just how distasteful it is to suggest that the man should still be in prison. All evidence points to his innocence, but "broadly consistent testimony" is enough for S.M.A.R.T. to accept his imprisonment. This shows either a complete ignorance of what "evidence" is, or the typical witch-hunting mentality that "the cause" is more important than the innocent lives ruined.
  • smartnews1
    Reply to Mesner

    I will reply to Mr. "Mesner" (not his real name) below. Mesner's article has been removed from several websites due to defamation. The repeated name calling and insults in his articles and the comments below these articles (calling me a "pedophile" etc.) caused the articles to be removed. Of course, the conference attendees and myself did contact the Examiner when these defamatory comments were made and not removed by Mesner below his article at their webpage.

    Mesner states: "This rebuttal prefers quantity over content, but don't let that quantity fool you." This is Mesner's way of ignoring the data I have presented to rebut his arguments, without addressing most of mine and others' statements.

    Mesner states: "He is angry because my research in "recovered memories" is showing of how little value they actually are..." No, Mesner misrepresents the field of memory. His extreme position that they have little value is supported by few in the field. Since he keeps ignoring the data showing the accuracy of recovered memories, I will list several pages below for readers to read:

    http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/whatabout.html

    http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/recov...

    http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/recov...

    Research discussing corroboration and accuracy of recovered memories
    http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/suggestedrefs.html

    http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center...

    http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center... 101 Corroborated Cases of Recovered Memory

    http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/ Recovered Memories of Sexual Abuse Scientific Research & Scholarly “Amnesia for childhood sexual abuse is a condition. The existence of this condition is beyond dispute. Repression is merely one explanation – often a confusing and misleading one – for what causes the condition of amnesia. At least 10% of people sexually abused in childhood will have periods of complete amnesia for their abuse, followed by experiences of delayed recall.”

    http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/tm/tm.html Research has shown that traumatized individuals respond by using a variety of psychological mechanisms. One of the most common means of dealing with the pain is to try and push it out of awareness. Some label the phenomenon of the process whereby the mind avoids conscious acknowledgment of traumatic experiences as dissociative amnesia . Others use terms such as repression , dissociative state , traumatic amnesia, psychogenic shock, or motivated forgetting . Semantics aside, there is near-universal scientific acceptance of the fact that the mind is capable of avoiding conscious recall of traumatic experiences.

    These are only a few of the many scientific sources that rebut Mesner and show that recovered memory is a robust phenomenon.



    Mesner states: "I have spoke to the top medical professionals (included those consulted in the making of the Showtime TV series The United States of Tara) who still believe that MPD/DID is a legitimate diagnosis, but NONE of them support what Neil Brick and S.M.A.R.T. do by promoting the idea of a multi-national satanic conspiracy to the mentally vulnerable. Every one of them distance themselves from S.M.A.R.T."

    This statement is incorrect for several reasons. Many professionals in the field of dissociation do believe that ritual abuse exists and some believe that groups participating in ritual abuse network and may work together. I work with many of these professionals. People at our conference have a wide range of beliefs. Mesner here and throughout his article twists our statements to the extreme to make them look ridiculous. Some believe that ritual abuse exists but these groups may or may not network to share resources and commit crimes. Others believe that these groups work together under a more formal structure. Mesner states "the mentally vulnerable." This tactic moves the weight from "blame the victim" to "blame the person that helps the victim." Therapists and others that help these victims do so at great risk for little if any financial remuneration. Also, how does Mesner know if anyone is "mentally vulnerable." Has he diagnosed any of these victims?


    Mesner states: "The best links are those that actually cite articles that explore DID as an actual phenomena, but they all miss the point. I take Paul McHugh's view that DID is a clinical creation - thus, the symptoms exist, so pointing to articles that explore these symptoms is really no argument at all."

    McHugh's view has been rebutted and it has been stated McHugh has no experience working in the actual field. (It appears that Mesner does not either.) Mesner repeatedly ignores these rebuttals.
    “The problem with McHugh’s publications on MPD/DID, like those of Mersky, is that they are mere speculation. From deposition testimony in several cases, McHugh has made it clear that other than an occasional consultation, he has very little actual clinical experience with the ongoing treatment of MPD/DID patients and is generally unfamiliar with both the clinical features of MPD/DID and with what usually occurs in their treatment. This McHugh’s opinion is informed neither by actual in-depth clinical experience with contemporary MPD/DID patients nor by any scientific research on MPD."
    Brown, D; Frischholz E, Scheflin A. (1999). “Iatrogenic dissociative identity disorder – an evaluation of the scientific evidence”. The Journal of Psychiatry and Law XXVII No. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 1999):549–637. p. 604 – 605

    McHugh may also have a conflict of interest:
    "he frequently testifies on behalf of accused molesters"
    Dubious choice for resolving church scandal by Mara J. Math 9/21/02
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=...


    The idea that DID/MPD is a clinical creation is unproven and has been rebutted by most of the clinical field working in dissociation. The clear antecedent of DID/MPD is severe, repeated child abuse.

    The DSM-IV-TR (American Psychological Association (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed. text revision).Washington, D.C.) states that patients with DID report having severe physical and sexual abuse, especially during childhood and that the reports of patients with DID are often validated by objective evidence. People that are responsible for acts of sexual and physical abuse may be prone to distorting or denying their behavior. The DSM-IV-TR is the research and diagnostic standard for the field of psychology.

    Objective documentation of child abuse and dissociation in 12 murderers with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Lewis, D.O., Yeager, C.A., Swica, Y., Pincus, J.H., & Lewis, M. (1997). American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 1703-1710. This study establishes, once and for all, the linkage between early severe abuse and dissociative identity disorder.
    http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/ful...

    D. Gleaves July, 1996 “The sociocognitive model of dissociative identity disorder: a reexamination of the evidence” Psychological Bulletin Volume 120, issue 1, pages 42-59 “No reason exists to doubt the connection between DID and childhood trauma.”

    Kluft, R.P. (2003) Current Issues in Dissociative Identity Disorder in journal Bridging Eastern and Western Psychiatry 1(1) p. 71-87 http://www.psyter.org/allegati/180/Kluft.pdf "A review of the DID literature demonstrates numerous instances of documented abuse. Two studies of younger dissociative patients found documentation of abuse for 95% of their young subjects. The documentation of recovered memories of childhood abuse in DID populations has been documented. "

    Brown, D; Frischholz E, Scheflin A. (1999). “Iatrogenic dissociative identity disorder - an evaluation of the scientific evidence.“ The Journal of Psychiatry and Law XXVII No. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 1999): 549–637. p. 604 – 605 "At present the scientific evidence is insufficient and inadequate to support plaintiffs’ complaints that suggestive influences allegedly operative in psychotherapy can create a major psychiatric disorder like MPD per se…there is virtually no support for the unique contribution of hypnosis to the alleged iatrogenic creation of MPD in appropriately controlled research.”

    Pearson, M.L. (1997). “Childhood trauma, adult trauma, and dissociation”. Dissociation 10 (1): 58–62. https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/bitstre...
    "Subjects who experienced both early and recent trauma were more dissociative and endorsed more symptoms consistent with DID.”

    Paley, K. Dream wars: a case study of a woman with multiple personality disorder. Dissociation : Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 111-116 https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/bitstre... Multiple personality is seen as the adult manifestation of child abuse (Fraser, 1990; Baldwin, 1990; Ross, 1988; Kluft, 1986; Bliss, 1985; Greaves, 1980) . Putnam, Guroff, Silberman, Barban, and Post’s (1986) survey of 100 patients revealed significant childhood trauma in 97% of the cases; incest was the most commonly reported trauma (68%).

    Also, there are several studies showing physiological differences between personalities in DID patients. This means that it is highly unlikely that DID/MPD symptoms could be created clincially, but instead were created instead through extreme, repeated trauma.

    J Am Optom Assoc. 1996 Jun;67(6):327-34. Visual function in multiple personality disorder. Birnbaum MH, Thomann K. State College of Optometry, State University of New York, NY 10010, USA.
    "Numerous reports indicate physiological differences, including significant differences in ocular and visual function, across alter personality states in MPD."

    Clin Electroencephalogr. 1990 Oct;21(4):200-9. Brain mapping in a case of multiple personality. Hughes JR, Kuhlman DT, Fichtner CG, Gruenfeld MJ. Department of Neurology, University of Illinois, Chicago 60612. "Findings that were replicated in the second session showed differences from 4 personalities, especially in theta and beta 2 frequencies on the left temporal and right posterior regions."

    Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1982 Jul;39(7):823-5. EEG studies of two multiple personalities and a control. Coons PM, Milstein V, Marley C. "These data suggest that EEG differences among personalities in a person with multiple personalities involve intensity of concentration, mood changes, degree of muscle tension, and duration of recording."


    Mesner states: "This so-called rebuttal then defends Michelle Remembers on the grounds that the publisher said it was true, despite the fact that the hyperlinked article in my report shows that the facts of the book were thoroughly shown false."

    Mesner's authoritative source "debunking" Michelle Remembers is from "The Mail on Sunday" (posted at a Temple of Set website). It contains quotes from her father and a few acquaintances. Obviously the type of abuse Michelle stated she went through would be hidden from acquaintances and her father would of course not admit to it.

    from the publisher of "Michele Remembers":

    "Two experienced interviewers journeyed to Victoria and talked to Dr. Pazder’s colleagues, to the priests and the bishop who became involved in the case, to doctors who treated Michelle Smith when she was a child, to relatives and friends. From local newspaper, clergy, and police sources they learned that reports of Satanism in Victoria are not infrequent and that Satanism has apparently existed there for many years. Satanism in Western Canada flourished in many areas with activities far more ominous than some of the innocuous groups now found in parts of the United States who claim some connection with Satanism.

    The source material was scrutinized. The many thousands of pages of transcript of the tape recordings that Dr. Pazder and Michelle Smith made of their psychiatric sessions were read and digested; they became the basis of this book. The tapes themselves were listened to in good measure, and the videotapes made of some of his sessions were viewed. Both the audio and video are powerfully convincing. It is nearly unthinkable that the protracted agony they record could have been fabricated.”

    It appears that the publisher did a much more thorough investigation of the case than "The Mail on Sunday" did.


    Mesner states:
    "Gerald Amirault to see just how distasteful it is to suggest that the man should still be in prison. All evidence points to his innocence, but "broadly consistent testimony" is enough for S.M.A.R.T. to accept his imprisonment. This shows either a complete ignorance of what "evidence" is, or the typical witch-hunting mentality that "the cause" is more important than the innocent lives ruined."

    Mesner makes another mistake here, like he did when he spelled DID "disassociative identity disorder" in the original version of his article and when he stated on a comment board that Jennifer Freyd retracted her claim of abuse and reconciled (she never did either). Here Mesner states that Amirault is still in prison, yet Amirault was released in 2004. The quote I cited in my rebuttal was from the victims asking for him not to be released earlier this decade.

    I pointed to physical evidence from several sources that shows that the children were abused, as well as their own statements as adults confirming this. The "innocent lives ruined" were the children that were abused. The "witch hunt" is against the survivors of these crimes.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20010719201703/http:... /hardoon.htm
    Letters to the Editor: The Real Darkness Is Child Abuse WALL STREET JOURNAL (J) 02/24/95
    "in Amirault, the majority of the female children who testified had some relevant physical findings, as did several female children involved in the investigation who did not participate in the trial. The findings included labial adhesions and hymenal scarring of the sort present in a very small percentage of non-sexually abused children."

    “All nine children testified in a broadly consistent way…The children testified to numerous instances of sexual abuse. Some of the children testified that they were photographed during this abuse, describing a big camera with wires, a red button, and pictures which came out of the camera. The children testified that the defendant threatened them and told them that their families would be harmed if they told anyone about the abuse…The Commonwealth also presented a pediatric gynecologist and pediatrician who examined five of the girls who testified…She made findings consistent with abuse in four of the girls.” (424 Mass 618 Commonwealth vs Amirault p.624)
    http://abusearticles.files.wordpress.com/2007/1...)

    Amirault’s accusers reveal their faces, and their pain Boston Herald – Boston, Mass. – Peter Gelzinis – Aug 7, 2001 "During counseling meetings as a child, I would speak of a tall man touching me and taking pictures of me," Phaedra Hopkins, 20, said at an emotional news conference. "So many times, Mr. Amirault hovered over me, touched me and hurt me and committed many disgusting acts of abuse."
    Those children, now adults, stood by their testimony Thursday.

    "This family raped me, molested me and totally ruined my life," said Jennifer Bennett, who was 3 1/2 years old when she started at Fells Acres."

    "We weren't coaxed. We weren't lying. We're telling the truth and we always will," said Bennett, 22. "I was there. None of you were there. We weren't coaxed, nor were we ever ever ever brainwashed.''

    "Brian Martinello, 21, said he was sexually abused by Amirault. His mother, Barbara Standke, claims her son came home from the day care with sores on his genitals and other people's underwear."


    In conclusion, Mesner ignores data that rebuts his position and twists and spins our position and the field's in general to create a straw man argument that he uses to discredit our work.
  • smartnews1
    In reply to Douglas Mesner (not his real name), Mesner continues his defamatory comments, personal insults and name calling in an attempt to discredit our research. Mesner uses propaganda techniques like name calling and character assassination to falsely discredit others that disagree with him.

    Mesner misquoted myself and others in an attempt to discredit our work. He misquotes my presentation twice in his articles, both times making up statements that I never said. Mesner has refused to correct any of these misstatements. Julaine has stated in writing that Mesner misquoted her and put words in her mouth.

    Mesner picks and chooses information to mischaracterize the research behind our work. The data I have listed conclusively rebuts his opinions on memory, DID and ritual abuse. I list hundreds of journal articles to back up my research, many of these are above.

    Is Mesner "academically qualified" to discuss these topics? Has he worked with the victims of child abuse and those that suffer from these crimes?

    Mesner mentions Susan Clancy. Her work has been critiqued by several experts in the field.

    These include:

    closing arguments
    by Alan W. Scheflin, professor, Santa Clara University School of Law
    Memories of Abuse

    "The phenomenon incorrectly known as “repressed” memory or “recovered” memory, but more accurately called “dissociative amnesia,” has been recognized by psychiatry and well documented for more than 100 years." "In a letter to the Boston Globe after the verdict in the Shanley case, Harvard memory researcher Susan A. Clancy wrote: “I don’t believe repression exists. Second, I don’t believe the abuse at the time it occurred was traumatic. For children, sexual abuse is rarely painful or terrifying at the time it occurs.”

    "In fact, however, the concept of repression has existed long before statute of limitations issues
    involving sexual abuse have been litigated. Furthermore, legislators have recognized the validity of repressed memory and drafted statutes protecting causes of action that would otherwise be barred."
    http://www.scu.edu/etal/spring2005/closing.cfm

    Clancy's opinion on the idea that child abuse is "rarely painful or terrifying at the time it occurs"
    is in the extreme minority of the field, as research has clearly shown the significant detrimental
    effects of child abuse.


    Clancy has stated: ''What they're getting from alien abductions is what I wish I could get from
    religion,'' Dr. Clancy said. The people who spoke of abductions described a sense of belonging, and of someone watching over them. ''Not one of them said, 'I wish it didn't happen,' ''.
    Daniel P. Brown replied:
    The same, of course, cannot be said of victims of childhood rape. Daniel P. Brown, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and author of the 1998 book ''Memory, Trauma Treatment and the Law,'' said Dr. Clancy was not naïve, but instead canny, in trying to equate adults who say they have unearthed memories of abuse with people who swear they have talked with space aliens. ''There's a political agenda here,'' he said.
    (Harvard Advertises for People Abducted by Aliens, but the Truth Is Out There a Little Farther
    By Diana Jean Schemo Wednesday, December 18, 2002)


    Another critique of Clancy:
    The Boston Globe
    Letters to the Editor
    Children are Harmed by Sexual Abuse
    February 27, 2005

    AS A PROFESSIONAL who has devoted many years to trying to aid in the healing of child sexual abuse survivors, I was surprised by the peremptory tone and deficient scholarship in Susan Clancy's Feb. 20 letter regarding child sexual abuse (''The concept of repression").

    The notion that child sexual abuse is usually not harmful is ignorant at best and provides pernicious support to pedophiles at worst. This pseudoscience was thoroughly debunked in the controversy over the infamous Rind study in 1998 alleging similar notions to Clancy's. Clancy states she does "not believe that repression exists." Personal belief does not belong in scientific discussions. There are more than 85 studies in the literature, conducted using multiple research paradigms, that verify the phenomenon of fragmentary or total traumatic amnesia. No study that has asked survivors the question has failed to find a robust number of persons reporting the phenomenon....Tell me that my clients who have been raped at gunpoint by drunken relatives firing guns near their heads to obtain compliance have not been harmed.

    Clancy's letter is a biased document whose errors of logic and scholarship do not reflect the state of the science and serves to support the dangerous notion that children can give consent to and are not harmed by sexual abuse. PHILIP J. KINSLER, PhD Lyme , N.H.
    http://leadershipcouncil.org/1/blog/mj.html#Kin...

    (Dr. Kinsler is extensively published in the fields of psychological trauma, suggestibility in
    interviews of children and adults, relational psychotherapy of trauma survivors, and ethical forensic practice.)

    In Amirault, Mesner continues to ignore the fact that there were physical findings of abuse and even as adults, the victims have continued to state they were abused.

    These kinds of attacks allow the victims of these crimes to continue to be defamed and these crimes against children to continue.
  • process
    Here we go again with Neil Brick suddenly pretending he's just an expert psychologist exploring issues in trauma therapy rather than a conspiracy-monger who claims to have been a victim of masonic mind-control and a secret cold war assassin. I don't "make" his conference look ridiculous, it IS ridiculous. Even if one doesn't agree with my assessment of DID, I did not misrepresent the conference in any way. Brick will ignore the questions, he always does, but anybody who might be interested should ask: Were there, or were there not electromagnetic wave blocking hats being sold? There were. Are those genuine quotes from Labrier and Julaine? They are. Did not "Royal" actually claim to have been abused by Josef Mengele? She did. How then, did the article "misrepresent" this foolishness?
    Again preferring quantity over content, Brick selectively chooses quotes and articles he feels support his position. This isn't hard to do, as there has been much written. But here's a question for DID advocates (not for Brick, he's not academically qualified): Recovered Memory Therapy has brought us not only tales of abuse and the "discovery" (invention) of MPD, but also recovered memories of Alien Abduction and Past Life Regression. Are these all also true? If not, how do we distinguish true recovered memories from false ones? If we don't have a way to do that (and we don't) - we have no method of distinguishing memory from confabulation and the "memories" are useless as evidence.
    Now - what's more likely: there is a high degree of confabulation in recovered memories, or aliens are running about conducting anal probes (leaving no real evidence), Napolean and Cleopatra have reincarnated themselves in thousands of over-lapping lives, Michelle Remembers is based on fact and Michelle actually met both Christ and Satan in person, and Neil Brick was a secret weapon for the masonic/satanic world conspiracy at a time when he thought he was only some guy with a failed marriage and a drinking problem?
    A great book about the Recovered Memory phenomena is "Abducted" by Susan Clancy. I'm sure Brick can cite reviewers amongst the DID field who say they didn't like it, and I'm sure he'll also mistake that to mean it has been "debunked".
    Do a search for the Wall Street Journal's coverage of the Amirault case and you'll see how much evidence Brick had to ignore to decide the man is guilty.
    I have to run, have to report to Satan now on a new segment of the rural lower-middle class that threatens our entire empire with their revelations of Truth!
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