You're Wrong About - Quarantine Book Club: “Michelle Remembers” (Week 3)

Episode Date: April 16, 2020

Sarah and Mike continue into the depths. With Dr. Pazder home from Mexico, he and Michelle continue their journey into her subconscious, and the stories continue to get weirder. This episode contains kitten sacrifice, and the first—but not the last—dead baby of the Satanic panic.Support us:Subscribe on PatreonDonate on PaypalBuy cute merchWhere else to find us: Sarah's other show, Why Are Dads Mike's other show, Maintenance PhaseContinue reading →Support the show

I feel like I just said interesting in a way that I, like, wanted to be understood as derogatory, which is the most Midwestern pass of aggressive I've ever been. Welcome to You're Wrong About, the podcast where historical myths get the sheepskin coat of hindsight. Ooh, that means we warm them and make them cozy. That was a long pause. I'm sorry. I could have done better. I feel like you often have a somatic metaphor. They're so clunky. They're so pointy. Implies that our show is doing something that I find confusing and or troubling.

I don't think it really works as a metaphor, but I just wanted to say sheepskin coat because that was in the last episode. Yeah, I think you just really want to work in the theme and that's your rather than coherence. This has served me well as a professional writer. You are by far the most professional writer I know, so I can't doubt this methodology, really. I am Michael Hobbs. I'm a reporter for The Huffington Post. I am Sarah Marshall. I'm working on a book about the Satanic Panic, and as such, I'm leading you on a four-part journey through one of my core texts, which is Michelle Remembers, and today is part three.

Yes, and we are on Patreon at patreon.com slash you're wrong about, and PayPal, and a t-shirt store, and lots of other places with links in the description, and we just want to reiterate that we know it's weird out there, and if you don't want to support us, that's fine too. And also, if you want to partake of all of our weird content that we're trying out, please do that also because we're trying out some fun stuff to give to you to keep you company while you're soaking your beans. And yes, today we're on part three of our journey through Michelle Remembers,

the Satanic Panic Patient Zero from 1980. Mike, I would really like you at this point to tell us a little bit about your journey with this text because when I first started recording episode one about this, you were like, is this a good idea? And I feel like you're like all hands on deck now. You're like, yes, full steam ahead with the Michelle project. And so what made a convert of you? I mean, I guess just because it's so outlandishly not true,

and it seems like a large number of people thought that it was true, there's something weird about that. I think this happens a lot where a work of nonfiction begins a panic, and then once the panic becomes this like rolling snowball, people forget the actual content of the thing that started it. That seems like the first thing that gets cast away. That's interesting. Because if this is the basis for the Satanic Panic,

which was a nearly decade long moral panic. Well over a decade, well over a decade long. And you could make the argument that it's not really over the same way that like, it's like, when did the AIDS epidemic end? And it's like, well, never. Yeah, I was actually thinking when I was listening to last week's episode, like, I don't want us to come off harsh. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

Because in general, we've said many times on the show that like, other people's relationships are not any of my business. And relationships that span age and class or doctor, patient, like people do not get to choose the way that they fall in love with other people. Like as a gay person, I understand that very deeply. And I can actually imagine a scenario of a doctor getting feelings for their patient and a patient getting feelings for their doctor, and acting on those feelings in like an ethical way.

Like I can imagine somebody saying like, hey, a bond between us is forming that is not doctor-patient, and I'm going to recuse myself from your therapist. And then I'm going to like wait two weeks, and then I'm going to call you and like, let's try rebooting this as a romantic relationships. I'm sure there's relationships that have started that way. In the same way, there are teacher-student relationships that have started that way.

And have been done in a very ethical way. Yeah. And maybe that's what these people did. We don't know. Yeah. It's weird that he's giving her his jacket. Well, I think the reason why I'm not cutting these two particular people more slack is because we know that there are other things that they are lying about. We know that there are illusions in the transcript

where we're not seeing the ways in which he is coaching her. That's also, to me, another tell that they didn't think that this was inappropriate, or that there's something that they don't want the readers of this book to know, because if this book described Dr. Pasder saying, look, I started to develop romantic feelings for Michelle, I realized that was slightly inappropriate, I asked my colleague what's the most ethical way to proceed. That actually seems fine, like whatever,

where all people feelings happen, but that isn't what they're describing in this book. Yes, it's very uncomfortable. I was listening to our last episode and I was like, you know, something we need to emphasize more, and that has become clearer to me, the deeper we get into sort of the like nap of the story is that the more I think about it,

the more I'm like, can there be meaningful consent between someone who's receiving therapy and someone who's administering therapy, and the more I think about it, the less I think there can be. Because, and especially because this therapy is so focused on him regressing her to the experience of being a young child, you know? Right, right. So it's just, yeah, it's just hard not to be tough on this book

because it unwittingly brought incalculable harm, and it was because these two people just weren't able to be honest with themselves about what they were feeling, and then as a result, can't be honest with us about it. And in a way, it's hard to fault them, because you're like, I can tell you're doing your best. Yeah, but let's dive back in. Where should we re-enter this nightmare that you're making me live through?

Well, can you tell us about what has happened so far? Just give us a quick, like where did we leave these people? We left when Pashter was on vacation with his wife, and Michelle was using the tape recorder to record her long monologues and missing him. Yeah, and she's been saying that she can't let the visions come back all the way when Dr. Pashter is in Mexico, because she's too scared. Right. How was your day at camp?

What? How was your day at camp? Oh, because you want to bring us back to this metaphor. Yeah, we're back in summer camp. We went kayaking, and we saw some orcas, and tonight we're going to play Truth or Dare, but you don't know about it because you're the camp counselor. All right, it's a beautiful night at camp.

There's kind of a mossy smell in the air, because this camp in my head is in the northwest, and let us commence with chapter nine. When Dr. Pashter and his wife returned from Mexico, they found themselves a guest of honor at a surprise party. The hosts were their four children, three sons and a daughter, Teresa. Dr. Pashter had set aside four days to be with the children, and to work with Michelle before resuming the rest of his practice.

For the record, I plan to continue being harsh on these people. So they start the session, and Michelle says, there's something that really has to be said today. I'm not sure what it is. It's something to do with time. Oh, I thought she was going to say it's something new with ethics, yours. But anyway, sorry. And so Michelle basically is telling Dr. Pashter,

like, yeah, I was continuing to relive the events of Christmas and New Year's while you were away. And she says, that's why New Year's, you've scared me so much. The night I first called you, I had the strongest feeling that it was more the end than the beginning. I can't explain, keep going. I felt I was going to die, really die. I know you did.

It was something that happened, something to do with Michelle turned and twisted on the couch. Something to do with my mother. The language about feeling like she's going to die is going to recur and become more frequent as this book goes on, which makes me wonder what Michelle is experiencing. One of the things I feel is that, like, I can imagine that being caused by her experiencing like a panic attack.

Because that can feel like you're going to die, like the shortness of breath and just like racing pulse. I mean, the point of all this is that this all seems painful for her, which is one of the things that Thomas Coggedon, the publisher talks about in the forward. He's like, well, she can't have been doing this just as like a cheap huckster trying to get money. This is an awful experience.

And it's like, yeah, I do not doubt that. Right. This obviously isn't a calculated ploy on her part. Right. Like, she doesn't want to be in pain. Yeah. Yeah. So, Michelle is in the hospital and this woman comes in and says,

Michelle, I'm your special nurse. And I was so happy and opened my eyes. And I saw this pretty lady all dressed in white. I recognized her. She was that lady. You know, the lady, the one who'd been at the house the night the lump was killed, the lady in the black cloak who did those things to me with the colored sticks. She just went around the room tidying up.

She went over to the wall and said, you won't be needing this crucifix anymore. And she took the wooden thing down from the wall. Dr. Pazder went pale. Whoever these people were, Michelle's tormentors, they were not ordinary cultists. And Michelle cries for a while and then says, I can't take anymore. I didn't want to try anymore.

I just gave up. I was going to die anyway. I didn't matter to anybody. And then she pauses and then she says, but I must have mattered if they wanted me dead. You matter. Dr. Pazder said a very great deal. And at this point, they're really starting to conclude that like

memory is just rushing out of her as fast as they can receive it. And that for as long as they keep her under, she's going to have more stuff to talk about. And it's just getting, you know, it's intruding on her daily thoughts. It's clearly, you know, she's crying all the time. Right. They've unlocked something. Yeah. That's their feeling. They're like, we've unlocked something and we have to let it come out.

Right. Until we've like purged you of it. Well, I mean, like so many other things, the metaphor that we use for something guides what we do about it. And so it's interesting that they have this metaphor of like there's something in you that you have to release. And I have read studies on this, that this whole idea of sort of like venting your feelings and like,

I'm sorry, I just have to vent to you at the end of a long day. The metaphor that we use for that is venting. Like there's something inside of us that we need to release. But the better metaphor for that is habit, that when you come home at the end of a long day, you're forming a habit of kind of ranting to your partner or whoever about the terrible day that you had or the terrible boss that you have or the terrible job or whatever.

And so it's actually not the case that when we have pent up emotions, just ranting and raving about them for 15 or 20 minutes actually makes us feel better because we're using the wrong metaphor. And so it seems like they're doing the same thing where they've decided that the metaphor is there's all these terrible memories. And because it's like she's a jug that's too full of water. And if we just pour some of it out, she'll feel better. It's not clear to me that that's the correct metaphor to be using

about the way that trauma works even if she had experienced this. Oh yeah. And I feel like Dr. Pazder is like Big Anthony in Stragonona. Did you ever read that book when you were a kid? So Stragonona is this Italian witch who has a magic pasta pot. And you say a spell to get it to make magic pasta out of nowhere. And then to get it to stop making pasta, you say the spell again. And then you blow three kisses.

And so Big Anthony is like the sort of kid like character. And the premise of the book is that he decides to turn on her magic pasta pot. And then he tries to say the spell to make it stop. But what he doesn't realize because he hasn't observed closely enough is that you have to blow three kisses. And so the entire town is engulfed in pasta. Okay. And that's the story of this book.

Dr. Pazder believes himself to be a responsible practitioner of psychotherapy. He says the spell, he doesn't truly know what he's doing. And North America is engulfed in pasta. And the pasta is wrongful convictions. She says, it was New Year's Eve. And then there's a footnote that says, the dates during the hospital experience are uncertain. It later became clear that Malachi, the nurse, and the others were using a calendar year

that differed from the ordinary. It appears possible that their New Year's Day was the 13th day of the 13th month. That is January 13th. And again, on what basis? Do they have any reason? This is the problem too because actual sataness of the Rosemary's baby variety, like actual sataness of the kind that don't exist,

can't be reached for comment. Right, right. And so you can just sort of make stuff up and be like, maybe their New Year's Day is January 13th, the 13th day of the 13th month. I mean, obviously that seems plausible. It's the kind of shit they'd pull because we invented them. It's also weird that as a doctor who presumably has JSTOR access, that he's not just looking up academic articles on satanists.

But Mike, on the other hand, Dr. Paster has been to Africa one time. I know it's on his Tinder profile, him and all the kids in the village. Yes, I've seen that profile. Oh, okay. So the nurse gives her an enema, which notably is also a component of the book Sybil. Really? Yes, that's one of the things that Sybil's mother does to her. Okay.

And so once again, it's interesting that there's a parallel to an earlier text that seems to have influenced this one in this case. Cops watch cops. Cops watch cops. And this book has a blurb by the author of Sybil, Flora Rita Schreiber and Thomas Congdon. When he was preparing to bring this book to press, he had a brand new publishing company. He was under a lot of pressure to bring it into the black.

And Sybil had been a monster hit in 1973 and he was getting ready to bring out his first new titles, putting this work together in the late 70s. Like this memory would have been very fresh for him. He knew what sold and Sybil was one of the things that sold. Repressed memory is so hot right now. It's like furbies. And so at the end of this chapter, we get a reveal, which is her mom comes to see her in the hospital. And so in the second session after Dr. Pazzer's return, Michelle dealt with what would prove

to be one of the harshest realizations she would have to confront. In the session before, when Michelle was relating her mother's dreadful visit to the hospital and then broke off into some semblance of death, Dr. Pazzer had been stunned by the mention of the mother's quote fiddling with something behind or beside the bed. He had two dire thoughts. Either the woman was trying to put air into one of the intravenous tubes, or she was shutting off the valve on the tank that supplied oxygen to the plastic tent, and the child's smoked scorched lungs.

In her depths and later during the period of integration, Michelle went back over the experience trying to add details. It was extremely painful for her to face the growing knowledge that her own mother had tried to kill her. So that's the big twist that her mom tried to kill her in the hospital? That's the chapter ending twist. Okay. So now we are going to be brought to a fun appendix. So let's do this.

Okay, chapter 10. Did you listen to CFAQs this morning? Michelle asked Dr. Pazzer why died as she was taking off her coat. He said he hadn't. While they were talking about the Victorian and the different things that are written about in the Victorian, that's a newspaper, and the guy, the announcer said, Black Magic is being practiced in Victorian, has been for years. And if you want to read about it, get a copy of the Victorian.

And he was talking about how it really shocked him, this cultism. Did you buy a copy? Dr. Pazzer asked, no way. But we are treated to a copy of this article as an appendix in this book. Would you like to hear some of it? I was just going to say, please let there be a copy of this. Please. I want this so bad.

Do you feel safe because you're back in your comfort zone? Of laughing at the news media from 40 years ago? Yes. Of archival material? But then this is actually interesting to me because what you're saying is the satanic panic hasn't really been invented yet because this book basically does it. But there's already murmurs of it in the press. Well, this is one of the big subjects.

So Satan is alive and well on planet Earth. One of the big arguments is like there are a ton of witches just all over the place. So the seeds have already been planted for this. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So this is an article in the Victorian from January 28, 1977 by Paul June. And Paul June writes, witches practicing black magic sound like something out of a medieval myth, but they are right here in Victoria, which is quite a claim to make in

such an unqualified fashion in a newspaper. Yeah. Satanic witches who summon the presence of the devil and make human and animal sacrifices for their beliefs. I mean, honestly, what kind of a standard can we hold Michelle and Dr. Paster to when this isn't a newspaper? Yeah, I know. Yeah, I was just thinking.

Number almost 1000 in the capital city says a former Victoria resident who claims he and his wife barely escaped the witches with their lives. What? Len Olson now living in Vancouver, but formerly a Victoria where he says he was a member of one of five local groups of witches belonging to the Church of Satan of Canada. I love that it's not the Church of Satan. I love that it's the Church of Satan of Canada. It's a franchise.

That is a great detail. It's like the Sierra Club of the Bay Area. Yes. Says the witches could live next door to anyone undetected. Love it. Their meetings were miraculous evil things calling on the devil, chanting. About four months after their initiation, the Olsons were told of a special meeting. At first I thought it was unusual, but at the meeting I became more scared than I've

ever been before. They were holding a sacrifice service around us. They tried to kill us. Olson said he grabbed his wife and managed to fight his way out of the meeting. The first place he stopped running was at the door of a church. I went to see the minister after an hour with him. I filed a report complete with my membership number with the Victoria police. Yes, that's right.

They have membership numbers like a co-op card or something. Oh, you have to do your two remaining hours of Satanist work this month. I wonder if you get a discount at rock climbing. City police chief Jack Gregory told the Victorian Thursday that such a report had been filed, but investigations turned up nothing, which is a great place to say that in the story, like 17 paragraphs into it. They're still in Victoria, said Olson. Every time I make a trip to Victoria, I see at least a dozen of the witches.

Many of them are prominent business people. During the daytime, they can't be picked out from everyone else. Their peddler or the man who tries to bring in new members is a long-haired hippie type character who carries a Bible under one arm. His method of enticing new members is to try and sell the white or good witch routine. There are no white witches, it's just a front. And for the most part, they're after young girls. This man like filed this article and his editor was like, looks good.

It's based 100% on the ravings of some random dude. A guy named Len, you know, Len Olson. I mean, I think it's a nice distillation of moral panic thinking, right? Because it's got all of the elements. It's got, they are everywhere and yet you can't see them, right? Because they look like hippies and they're carrying Bibles, so there's no way you'd ever recognize them. It's, it could happen to anyone because we were lured into this church,

us normal suburban people. It's, they are targeting young innocents, including young girls. Like it's the perfect little Neapolitan scoop of things that go into moral panics. It is. All the flavors are represented. Yeah. And Michelle's like, you know, her therapist has her in this narrative and then the news is supporting it. And like, what is she supposed to do, honestly?

Yeah, it's so weird that we're sitting here on a Sunday morning, deep in quarantine, working ourselves up into anger about a 40 year old book. It's such a weird way to spend the morning. And you know what, this is the most normal that I feel in my life. I feel so at home doing this, but I'm like, I'm mad about something that happened 40 years ago. It's great. 40 years is not very long and we're still living in the world

that was created in part, you know, on this couch. Yeah, that's true actually. Okay, so we get another vision. So now we're told that they go to the graveyard she's put in a little nighty and the nurse takes her to a grave that has a crack in the gravestone. And in the photos in this book, we are hopefully shown a grave at Ross Bay Cemetery that also has a crack in it, which as I'm sure you know, kind of is something that happens to gravestones a lot.

Yeah, I love the things that pass for evidence in these books. It's like, it's like you take the least implausible part of the story and you're like, look, graves really do have cracks in them. So the rest of this book must be true. Yeah, this is some of the evidence we're given as readers. So the nurse takes her to this grave and she seemed to be able to move a piece of it away, which is this lady must be strong. There's an empty hole there.

And so she throws Michelle in the grave and then puts the gravestone back where it was. So Michelle's trapped in the grave. It was all mucky on my feet. I thought it was somebody all rotten down there and that I was standing on them. And then eventually they pull her out of the grave. And then we're just told the scene abruptly changed to another part of the graveyard, a mausoleum. And it's like, okay.

So it's a dream. It's just like, you can't just be like, and then there was a horizontal wipe. And Michelle was in a mausoleum. And it's like, but how did she get there? Right. So now we're in a mausoleum. They do another ritual. The nurse does a ritualized birth with Michelle.

She pretends to give birth to her. A lot of birth imagery. They force her to eat ashes, which Michelle has a feeling are the ashes of the lump. The lady who got killed, the lady with the red shoes. And at the end of all this, we learned that Michelle surfaced extremely upset. The graveyard experiences were nearly impossible to accept. I don't know how I've lived with that for all this time. She said through her tears.

I don't know. I know. Dr. Paster said his voice choked. It's terrible to hear it. I mean, I shouldn't be laughing, but it's like they keep hinting at the fact that like, this sounds really fucking implausible. And like, I'm sorry, this sounds bananas. But the doctor keeps being like, yep, it does, but it really happened.

It's painful because you're like, the answer is so within your reach that you are expressing it without knowing what you're doing, which is just like, yeah, it's like, once again, I return to my favorite metaphor. It's like watching someone take a bite right out of a string cheese. You're just like, this didn't need to happen. But apparently it did because it happened. Yeah, there's something, I mean, they say the best way to convince somebody of your argument is to admit the weaknesses yourself because that gains you credibility.

And so partly the project here, I think, is to sort of acknowledge that, oh my god, we know it sounds crazy, but it must have happened because it's repressed memory therapy. And we all know repressed memory therapy is like way truer than like memories. And there's this argument that it's like more plausible because it's so crazy. It's like, well, yes, like it sounds unbelievable, but that's proof that it's a real memory because why would you make something up if it's that wild and that implausible? Right. And it's, and you know, and that argument creates a false binary that allows it to circumvent the

possibility of like, she doesn't know she's making it up. She's like, is this real? And over and over again, her therapist is like, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I'm reinforcing her. Yeah. And so she returns to the graveyard memories after several sessions. The book says she talks about her mother who like her feelings about her mother are the emotional core of all this.

They're the part that feel truly the most painful, the most authentic, the part that seem to cause her the most distress over and over again. And in this remembering, her mother says, I don't want you. And she says, I didn't like her. She wasn't a mother anymore. She said she didn't love me and there wasn't any part of me that was part of her. And I was to go be that other ladies. I couldn't stand how much my heart hurt.

And then she's seems to be talking to her mother and she says, please keep me. Please keep me. I don't care if you don't love me. Just keep me. Oh God. Do we know much about her relationship with her mother? I know there's like a biographical chapter of her. But does it say much about her mother being cruel in other ways or like,

I mean, they were in therapy for four years. So presumably they would have discussed her relationship with her mother. To me, it seems entirely plausible that whatever her relationship with her mother was contained sufficient emotional trauma, you know, and then especially coupled with her mother's early death to give her these feelings of loss and rejection and grief and motherlessness that needed to be worked through and this feeling of being unloved and unlovable and needing to feel fully accepted by someone. And I feel like Dr. Pazter became that person.

Did you say her mother died when she was 14? That's what the book says. We know that it's true that her mother died when she was a teenager. Okay. But so yeah, what's interesting too is that if you lose your mother when you're a teenager, you don't want to like process the ways that she might have been aloof or might not have been so nourishing to you or might not have been a great mom because she just died and you're devastated by the fact that your mom just died.

And so part of this might be a way of processing like my mom wasn't a great mom. But I wasn't able to sort of see her as that whole person when I was whatever, 15 or 16 or 14 when her mom died. Oh yeah. And also having these feelings of grief and of anger that you need to work through and that you didn't allow yourself to or weren't able to with the resources you had. And Michelle's getting much better therapy from us than she was from Pazter, I just want to say. We are fucking cracking it, Sarah.

Okay, all right. Chapter 11 starts with a bang. These things do exist in the world. Dr. Pazter knew that from his own experience. In Africa, he had encountered beliefs and practices that had he not observed them directly, he would not have believed it could exist within humanity. Sacrifices, cannibalism, rituals of every sort that responded to inconceivably complex psychological or mystical requirements.

It's interesting that this book is, you know, so occupied with other pursuits that we haven't even really had time to talk about how racist it is. I mean, my God, where is he getting this shit? He's like, well, in Africa, people do just don't behave like human beings. Yeah, it's also so fucking funny how he's trying to repackage these 100-year-old abysmal stereotypes about black people in Africa doing cannibalism as like what I saw in Africa was a lot of cannibalism. No, you fucking didn't.

You're just repeating myths that you have in your head and pretending that they're from personal like sort of field work that you did. I want to kind of skip ahead also to like the most terrible like well in Africa thing is a footnote where Dr. Pazder for some reason is like that reminds me of the leopard children of this tribe and the leopard children are feral children that are kept living in cages and they have their teeth filed down and they walk on all fours and they can't stand up and they're used as assassins. What?

To which I would just like to respond. Why would you use a traumatized, disabled, feral child as an assassin which is like a difficult job and also like humans can't walk on all fours like even Edgar Rice Burroughs was like Tarzan will walk around bipedally because humans can't comfortably get around on all fours because we've lost that ability. There's just like no I mean it's almost like it's so perfunctory to debunk these things because they're so on their face not true. Like if somebody told you this about like you know Mormons in Utah do this you'd be like

well fuck no because you have installed in your brain like firmware the basic humanity of Mormons and it's only when somebody is describing this about a population that you fundamentally do not believe are people that you're like yeah that sounds totally plausible like yeah this this thing that makes no sense. It's this incredible self-own. It's like Lawrence Pazter at some point heard this weird like Victorian racist myth and that's the kind of logic that you are capable of grasping. Yeah yeah.

So we hear about that and then we get into more of Dr. Pazter thinking of the plausibility of all this. And concluding it's totally plausible. Yeah and I know we get these little sections where it's like. Conclusion it's chill. He entertained his doubts and felt fine after a few minutes. Dr. Pazter reflected once again that he already knew Michelle very well after four years of psychotherapy.

Hokes or fantasy made no sense in terms of what he knew and he knew a very great deal about her personality. Lots of people had a preoccupation with the occult, with death, with the weird but not Michelle. Nor could he imagine that she was feeding his own predispositions. They'd never discussed his sojourns in Africa. He'd never told her of the strange things he'd seen. And it's like why do you think you've seen anything? And it's interesting too because it's like it's just like you can tell there's a real

lack of thought here because he's sort of merging these two big areas of superstition where it's like this idea of like the tribal which it's like okay if something is scary because it's old and it's African then it probably is from a time and place where Judeo-Christianity isn't around as a cultural influence and that's why it's scary to you so the devil wouldn't be a part of that. Or maybe she read the same shitty hearty boys level fiction that you read about Africa and she's like yeah they do this in Africa like you you're making it up too without realizing you're making it up.

Yeah. Again I'm going to continue being harsh on these people I feel comfortable. And then we learn he had been spending more and more time with Michelle often as much as six hours a day. Oh my god. Their working postures had evolved too. They seldom used the sofa. It was not stable enough for the shaking and trembling that Michelle went through as she

relived. They had moved to the mat. Sometimes Dr. Pasteur would sit on the floor beside it. At other times he would lie back a pillow under his head. It was the only way to work considering that the sessions often went on now for five or six hours. No one could sit in a chair that long. And just guess they can. Yeah they can dude that's called work.

Yes. Most days. Yes talk to a bus driver. It is great though the way that they keep like self owning in the text of this book as if it's something that we should all admire. Like they're describing the relationship between patient and doctor becoming wildly more inappropriate and we're all supposed to be like wow he really cares about his patient. It's just like constant awuga noises.

Look at this extraordinary man who can't sit in a chair for six hours. And is getting like lying down on their backs next to each other parallel like it's fucking eternal sunshine to the spotless mind and like she's shaking and he's like they're comforting and they're cuddling and it's like hello why are you telling us this as if we should all be in awe of your genius or whatever. I just think you're a dirt bag. Yeah and that's what makes it so extraordinary is that all of the stuff that is being described

to us that you and I reading this now are like oh I don't like that. Being told to us in this way of like and then they made this other great decision. You know. And also why are these sessions six hours long? Like it's like what is he doing with his other patients? It's clear that this is taking over his life in a way that is like not very healthy. Yeah and just like what else is going on outside of these sessions for both of them. That's one of the things I'm most curious about.

Where is Doug? This is Doug Erasure. So we go into chapter 12. Michelle is once again regressed, surprised and she's in some kind of a room, some kind of a space that she's going to be in for much of the rest of the book. And she describes a hideous white statue considerably bigger than Malachi. It had the form of a man with openings for eyes and a mouth but with horns protruding from the top of its head.

It stood on a stage like area at the front of the round room. And then meanwhile the nurse lights some candles because he got to light some candles. And then she takes a human finger and rubs it on the statue to put blood on it and tells Michelle that they're going to bring the statue to life. So now the Satanists are hanging out with the statue of the devil and they're rubbing body parts on it to get blood on it to make it come alive to like bring back Satan. And there's also a different man comes every night with a white kitten. Okay.

And then surprise, they sacrifice the white kitten. Day after day it was the same. She was alone with the nurse during the day and at night one of the others would come, kill a white kitten, use Michelle as a pointy thing. Remember they point her and throw her to the ground. This happened for 13 days. Michelle noticed because 13 seemed to be their favorite number. It's so hacky.

Like 13 is the unlucky number, so like of course. Of course. And then they have a big ritual and Michelle says all these people are walking into the room in a long line. Everyone's carrying a kitten. I don't like it. I don't like it either, Michelle. It's okay to laugh because no kittens were killed in the making of this book,

just to be very clear. And she sees her mother there and her mother doesn't acknowledge her. She refuses to look at her. And Michelle does the dance that the nurse has apparently been teaching her. And spins like a top according to the book. I thought it was going to be the electric slide. That's not evil enough. Then all of a sudden everybody's looking at me and my mom's coming over.

I knew it. I knew if I was a good enough top she'd come over and get me. Malachi was standing up at the front of the room by that ugly thing. And my mother was taking me up there. Even though she knew I was afraid of Malachi and the ugly thing would run on it. I said I didn't want to be up there. Then she said really loud and clear so everyone could hear. She said, you're not mine anymore, Michelle.

You belong to the devil. Twist. And her mom hauls her up to the statue. And she says, I guess they're going to kill me now. I mean, speaking of racist stereotypes, this seems like something that she's pulled from like old myths about like the Aztecs doing human sacrifice. Like there's an altar. You think?

They're pulling her up. She's in front of an audience. Yeah. And there are other Satanic panic books that I've read with the therapist. It's like, well, the Aztecs killed like thousands of people a year. And it's like, did they though? No. And then the ritual continues and we have all the Satanists.

They each have their own kitten and then they kill the kittens. Oh, God. And then we get 120 pages in the first dead baby of our Satanic ritual. It'd be a story. Okay. And in a way, the first satanically sacrificed baby of the whole satanic panic. It's kind of like being the first death in the Friday the 13th series. Right.

Or like the first appearance of Spider-Man. Yeah. It's like the first appearance of a key part of the myth. Right. Right. So Malachi picked up Michelle who was screaming and crying bitterly and laid her on a stone slab. So yeah, Mike, I think you're onto something. This is very like Narnia.

On a table behind Malachi was the body of a baby. But so small, Michelle couldn't believe it was really born. And Michelle says, Malachi is coming over by me and then he's saying some funny words and smoky stuffs going up in the air. He's all crouched over me. He's cutting that baby over me. It's all over me. Now he's rubbing it on the white thing.

I keep yelling, it's a baby. It's a baby. And then she freaks out and bites Malachi to try and get away. And jumps off the slab and is running around and making what she calls crazy eyes at everybody and disrupts the ritual. What do you think of that? I mean, this is fake, but it's fucking gross. It's very upsetting.

Yeah, it sucks. And she's having a vision where this guy is cutting up a dead baby and rubbing it all over her body. Which is like, again, for someone who restarted therapy because they had a miscarriage, it feels like, okay, Dr. Pazter, we have a dead baby in the story. Are you going to do anything with that? Or are you just going to assume that this literally happened? Right. That looks like it hasn't been born yet.

Yeah. There's also the thing of them killing kittens. I mean, it just seems like she's reaching into her subconscious for the worst things that she can fathom. And these are the things. What's the worst thing that a person could do? Killing kittens and killing babies. Sure. Right.

And she starts with the killing kittens. Clearly, they're still like, okay, gotta keep going. Gotta find worst stuff. And it's like, okay, let's kill some babies. Yeah. But this has to be real because I read about it in The Victorian. Right. I mean, it's really appropriate that a newspaper called The Victorian is talking about how many witches there are.

It's also just like, okay, think about this cult, which is apparently quite big. Every cultist needs their own white kitten. Right. And so, again, this brings me back to my favorite question to ask about Satanic cults. Whose job is this? Yeah. You know, it's like 4 p.m. on a Sunday in Victoria. It's kind of a gray day.

You're sitting there having a cup of tea and you're like going through the, like, pet listings in the newspaper, dialing all these numbers, calling around being like, oh, any white kittens? No, you don't have any white ones. Okay, never mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chapter 13. Michelle was so shocked by what she had remembered that for a moment she wanted to believe she was insane.

As she returned to the present, she could do nothing but sob and cry out, what am I going to do? I'm crazy. I must be crazy. They must be crazy. Things like that don't happen. I never heard of anything like that. So, like, this is traumatic for her.

Yeah. This is bad. Yeah. There's also, I mean, it's the thing of her being, I must be crazy. You must not believe me. It's just kind of boring at this point where it's like. You're like, this needs more attention. Well, does the pastor ever say, wow, it's weird that a pattern has emerged

where every time we put you under, you describe something more extreme than the last time? And then when you come out, you're like, you must think I'm crazy. You must think I'm stupid. You must not believe me. And then I reassure you. Like, Michelle, we're in this pattern. It's kind of boring. I mean, that's the thing about how this therapy is set up as a praxis.

And this case study kind of sets the template for that, is that, like, of course, your patient is having a really hard time integrating these memories and believe they happened. That's part of it. That's typical. Of course, they have these initial flashes. And then they're like, no, but that kind of really happened. That seems impossible.

And, like, this is the rhetoric that prevails throughout the 80s. It is your job as a therapist to be like, no, this did happen. No. You will accept it. Which are really in situations like this where the patients themselves are saying, like, this sounds a little bananas. You, as the doctor, are actually supposed to say, no, no, this happened. Let's keep going.

According to the school of thought, yeah. And according to the same school of thought, the fact that the patient is experiencing tension around this, that's denial. That's proof that it did happen. Right, right, right. Their reluctance, once again, helps you to arrive at a false positive. It becomes this thing where any evidence of any kind can be integrated into your theory that makes you right.

Right. It's also a weird, bizarre perversion of the concept of believe women or believe abuse victims. That if it was produced with this methodology of hypnosis or repressed memories or whatever, then it has to be authentic. That even if the patient themselves starts to reject it, you're like, no, no. We did all the steps right. Like, we did the recipe that we're supposed to do. You're not believing the woman.

You're believing yourself. You're believing your philosophy. And the woman is an instrument in that. Because this is, of course, the same culture in the 1970s that is still saying that sexual harassment at work doesn't exist, that is still saying domestic abuse doesn't exist. Like, this is not a culture that all of a sudden is like, well, let's believe women when they come forward with stuff. It's only if they come forward in this extremely narrow and specific way about

this extremely narrow and specific kind of abuse. And crucially, in a way that empowers the therapist. Yeah. That it makes them the genius, like them the Indiana Jones that discovered this great temple of abuse underneath everything. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah.

That is what it's like. That's terrible. And yeah, Dr. Pastor and the Temple of Abuse. Oh, God. Okay. We've got an exorcism coming up. So let's continue. I must have just made it up, Michelle said firmly.

This was a possibility that Dr. Pastor had seriously considered and had ruled out, but he knew she had to face her own question. It's like, he totally knew it was going on, but he was going to let her work it out for 00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:15,760 Yeah, yeah. He's like, such a nice guy. I said thoughtfully. Did you make it up?

He asked her directly, what if I made it up and my mother wasn't like that? And she loved me. Michelle went on defiantly, not answering his question. Even with Dr. Pastor himself, whom she had grown so close to, it was hard for her to admit that the scene had really taken place. So she was asking him to help her deny it. No. Why would you make that up if she had loved you?

He asked. I don't know, said Michelle. If I tell you something, will you tell me whether or not you believe me? Yes, of course. I didn't make it up. She said fiercely. Oh, my God. I believe you.

Dr. Pastor answered. I don't want to be part of it. She sobbed. Please, will you believe that? I'd rather be in a concentration camp for 50 years. And there's this recurring theme where she's like, please, you have to understand. I didn't want those things. I didn't want to be a part of it.

I feel so guilty. And he's like, of course, the cult was doing these things. You're not bad. Yeah. But I feel like that guilt maybe connects to this feeling she has of like, why is my brain making these things? Something I can imagine her feeling upset about it, whether or not she can articulate to herself is like, why is it that whenever I go into my subconscious, I describe these

horrible things? Why do I see myself having a dead baby rubbed all over me? Oh, right. So when we're digging around in my subconscious, why is this what we keep finding? Yeah. And why does this define me, whether as memory or as vision or whatever? Then Pastor is like, here's my coat. Where are my socks?

Here's a spray of my cologne. Keep going. Well, I mean, you're close because we get, again, Dr. Pastor was struck by the innocence of the child, Michelle. Right. She had remained the innocent child who only wanted her mother to love her. He wished she could see that. But they could not work any longer that day.

Michelle was too exhausted. They agreed to talk more the next day when she had rested. The next day. I mean, it's taking over both of their lives and it's like completely unhealthy way. Oh, yeah. Yes. I mean, you have these, I mean, think about how exhausting it is to just record this show for a section of less like four hours.

Like that's my day. Like that's all of my really usable, smart person energy. And we're not reliving traumas. We're just talking about the 80s. Yeah. And here are Michelle and Lauren's six hours of her like shaking and screaming and then coming up and being like, do you believe me? Screaming and crying.

Boy, it's a lot. They need an adult. And so they go back under the next day. We learn a pattern had been apparent to Dr. Pazter for some time and he was pleased that Michelle was beginning to recognize it. He asked what she thought the white statue symbolized. You know, the statue of the man with horns. And I know how he's like, Michelle's not a Catholic.

How does she know? And it's like, I'm not Catholic either, but I know what the devil is supposed to look like. Yeah, come on. That's not like some obscure deity from some obscure religion. Like it's the second most famous deity. It's actually, I mean, I would say that people have a clear idea of what Satan looks like than they do of what Jesus looks like. Jesus is white with a big beard.

Everybody knows that. Right. Jesus looks like Kenny Loggins. Yeah. But yeah, they're doing this performative naivete. They're like, how did she know? Yeah. And this is also like, she's supposed to be saying this like, wow, how did she know this

if she's not religious? The devil said Michelle, but they didn't call him that. They called him Lucifer and they called him the Prince of Darkness. Then she remembered a detail that did not come out in the previous day's session. In the middle of the rituals of dancing and chanting, smoke wits around the white statue. And suddenly, mysteriously, Malachi would appear on the platform next to the statue. It was an impressive effect, one that added greatly to the atmosphere of the ritual. I like that Malachi is rising from the stage like Beyonce at the Super Bowl.

And Michelle is like, well done, Malachi. Nicely done. And then they have, you know, they're putting blood on the statue, as we recall. And Michelle reflects, they couldn't just kill one person and pour all the blood on that thing in the round room. Somehow that wouldn't be evil enough. Oh, God. Does it make any sense to you when I say he had different fingers and a different arm?

Yes, it does. Where would they get them? I'm not sure. But I think from the pictures they showed me that they got them from accidents and hospitals. It seemed better for them if the person who died had been bad, like a drunk driver or something. All their actions seemed calculated to break Michelle's innocence, her belief in love, her good feelings. By desecrating what was sacred, they would make room for evil to take hold.

And I just feel like, okay, if that's the argument that we've chosen, which is kind of what they land on here and stick with, it's like they had to ruin Michelle's ability to love or feel loved so that Satan could take over. And it's like, Larry, you know as a therapist that you can destroy a child emotionally with minimal effort. That's actually one of the key aspects of it. Less effort actually often results in more trauma. You can just neglect.

You don't have to be part of some organized Satanist cabal in order to traumatize a child. Trauma is just everywhere, you know? Yeah. That's one of the things that gets me about all this. He's like, they were obviously very organized, calculated Satanists who had decided to ruin this child emotionally and destroy her ability to feel loved. And they accomplished it with great effort and a tremendous expense. Right.

And it's just like, that's not really the nature of the problem we're dealing with in this world. Yeah. They could have just like wanted her to be a doctor and then just been super disappointed that she didn't want to be one. Like there's other ways to like fuck up your kids that are much less onerous. Malachi would be scarier if he were sort of like withholding and like, you know, just like worked a lot and was emotionally unavailable as a father figure. Just like general dead beatery.

Yeah. Yeah. It feels all very sort of mid-century. Like you haven't had a bad childhood if you haven't been put in a devil statue. Is this Lawrence Pazder's first patient? He doesn't seem like a very worldly therapist. You will call that he's in his life 40s. So he's been practicing for a while.

I'm curious. Oh, this is good. Dr. Paster sense that Michelle was now ready for one question he had been wanting to ask. Michelle, did they ever call themselves a name? No, not that I remember. Who could they be? I've been thinking about it for some time. They seem more complex than ordinary cults or secret societies.

The rituals are very formal. Nothing really spontaneous is allowed to happen, you know. All that makes me think this group has a long history. You mean you think they've been together for a while, but who could they be? It's hard to believe that people could carry on like that right here in Victoria. The only group I know about that fits your description is the Church of Satan. My God, you mean like Satanists? Why are they pretending that this is some sort of revelation?

Also, I know that people know this, but the Church of Satan was founded in the 1960s in San Francisco by Anton LeVe. It's not this like age old codified. Like it's literally within the past decade and a half. They've been like, why don't we put girls, like naked girls on an altar while we chant stuff? That sounds fun. It's as old as like T-Mobile. And they're not organized and they also aren't known for child torture.

Again, easily Googleable or whatever the equivalent of Google was for Dr. Paster 40 years ago. But Michelle says, my God, you mean like Satanists? And Dr. Paster says, yes, exactly. You know, I never quite believed they really existed. Well, they do. There's a lot in the psychiatric literature about them. Nice try. Most people think they're strictly dark ages, but the fact is the Church of Satan is a

worldwide organization. It's actually older than the Christian Church. And one of the areas where they're known to be active is the Pacific Northwest. It's the same thing we see in human trafficking. It's a hotspot for human trafficking. Every city in America has been described as a hotspot for human trafficking at one point. It doesn't make any sense. What do you think of the claim that Satanism is older than Christianity?

No. That's like Bowser predates Mario. Like it doesn't make any sense because for the antagonists to exist, the protagonist has to exist. You know, and who knows how close to reality this scene is. But according to the way it's depicted here, Dr. Paster is just sitting there counting down the seconds until it can be like Satanism is super a thing. And I think that's what this is.

And there's a lot of it like right around where we live. And yep, that's it. Also, the timeline is not super clear, but didn't she just come into his office a few days ago with an article from the local newspaper saying there are lots of Satanic cults where we live? Yeah, it said Satanic witches. So yes, she has come in earlier and been like, oh my gosh, I heard this thing on the radio about Satanic witches.

Yeah. And then like three days later, he's like, Michelle, I reluctantly have come to the conclusion that it's Satanic. And she's like, no, like they're already chatting about Satanism. I love how he's like, I think it's the Church of Satan. And she's like, you mean Satanists? Like is that supposed to make her look more doubtful than she is? Or just because it makes her look like someone who can't use context clues?

Because when I read this book, the more I feel like it's like secretly great literature. Like this is one of the great unwitting, unreliable narrator books, I think. It's just performance art the whole time. Like the same way that like, I think American Dirt is actually the great American, like clueless, middle class, white American woman novel, because it's like everything is imagined through this lens of like, and then people were nice to me for no reason and helped me. And I always had enough resources somehow and everyone I loved was fine. And you're like, okay, this is not really helping out the topic, but it's like

accidentally very revealing of like this whole other psychic layer. Right. Like everything they're describing, they're like, and then we behaved in a way that was totally above board. So yeah, so Michelle's like, yep, that sounds like shit. It's like the therapy is like taking the form of like the sex that they clearly want to be having. Yes. They're like flirtally leading each other into this like, oh, what if it's Satanists?

Yeah, yeah. It's like putting your hand on someone's shoulder and seeing if they don't want it there. And just to see if things naturally escalate, maybe you'll both start talking about Satanism. Right. And then you're just both talking about Satanism and you both want it. Yeah. And then eventually somebody has to call an Uber. You know what I find hard to understand?

Ask Dr. Paster, what pray tell? How they carry out these rituals and still lead a normal life. Michelle. My God. He asked me to this morning as the bits and pieces were coming together, I had the same thought. How can they do that at night and then get up and go to work the next day? She thought for a moment.

Of course, they don't do it every day. Their timing is very important, you know. I've been looking at their calendar a lot lately and I realized that Sunday is very important to them. They have their big meetings every second Sunday. It all has something to do with certain special days in the Christian church, I think. Sure. I've sensed that too, said Dr. Paster. We're going to have to find a church calendar for 1955 and compare it to 1977.

As she left that day, Michelle touched Dr. Paster's arm. Thank you so much for understanding, she said. Thank you for what you're giving me, he answered. What do you mean? You give me a great deal. For one thing, you're teaching me a lot about innocence and survival. In psychiatry, we often focus on what parents and situations do to children and not on how children survive them.

We often ignore all the resources children have, but look at you. Oh God. When it seems you have nothing left, I'm always moved at how your innocence has been your only ally. His obsession with innocence is such a tell too. Oh wait, it gets better. It gets better. Okay, sorry, go ahead, go, go, go, go. I don't know, said Michelle.

When I'm in that crazy place, I always feel so helpless. From the outside, you are, said Dr. Paster. But inside, you're winning. What? You're beautiful, Michelle. You always reach out and find the goodness. No one loved you. That was part of their plan.

But your goodness was still powerful. And whenever you could, you reinforced it with some little bit of goodness from that crazy world around you. How can I tell you how good that makes me feel? End of chapter. Are you just seeing like their faces drift closer and closer to each other as they're having this conversation? Yes.

It is that kind of conversation. Yeah. It's like, no, you're one of the good ones, Michelle. Am I, Doctor? You're beautiful, Michelle. Your spirit, obviously. Yeah. Just your spirit.

Just the child within you. Yeah, the number of times the word innocence appears in this book. Oh my God. I don't know how many, but it's a lot. It's a pattern. Yeah. What do you make of that? It's always, these moral panics are always about taking innocence, right?

They're not about like teen runaways who are like maybe struggling with drug addiction. And maybe their parents are struggling with drugs too. And they run away because they can't handle the abuse at home anymore. And they're kind of complicated people and they end up homeless. Like we are not interested in those people. We want to pick ages and types of people. These like suburban little angels who get taken away from these perfect childhoods. And that's exactly what he's constructing.

He's aging her back to the point where she doesn't really have a whole lot of agency, right? She's not a teenager while this is taking place. And like a kind of rebellious teenager or like maybe she's tried smoking weed once. No, it's she's this perfect blank slate that things are only being done to. Because if she had an ounce of agency in this and if he was able to sniff out that she had brought this on herself in any way, then I think his interests would completely evaporate the way that it always does with moral panics. And especially the kind of morality that tends to come from the church on this,

where it's like they're looking for an excuse to not care about a particular group or to sort of put them in the category of not victim. And so like I'm doing my own psycho analysis of him now, but it seems like he has some sort of rescue complex where he needs to save this innocent girl and like make her perfect and fix her. Like as a person who has done this, I recognize this in myself. It's like, no, we're just going to talk about you forever. And our entire relationship will be based on fixing you.

Anyway, that was mostly my own shit, but that's what it says to me. Well, but I also feel like she's stuck in this loop where like for as long as she's being tortured by Satanists, she's worthy and deserving of love. It just feels like they're trapped in this torture loop, both of them in a way. And I give him a lot more agency in this because he has a lot of power and he's the one steering this relationship to the extent that anyone is. But I also don't think he's aware of what he's doing because no one would make themselves look this bad if they had any awareness

of how bad this could look. It's like she wants to be able to believe that she's worthy of love. And yet from this kind of primary caregiver figure that she, I think, has made him into at this point, she only gets to be loved if she's a victim of torture. And over and over, he's like, you're worthy no matter what they did to you. But what she's getting is like, you're worthy because all these things were done to you. Right. Is there an online betting website where people can place bets on when they had sex the first time? Because this scene is a candidate.

I would say this scene is a candidate if we were to play that game. But anyway, sorry. Well, I feel like this is a good place to stop, actually. Oh, OK. Because there's like other beats to get to, but there's kind of some repetitive torture between now and then. Like if you're a Michelle or if you're a Michelle subconscious and you're like, we have to keep going.

We have to keep saying more stuff and somehow reach the end of this and be done. How are you going to get there? That's the thing because you've already played the dead baby card. You can't get more extreme. Right. We've crossed the dead baby bridge and we're over the dead baby river now. Like we can't go back. And things have to keep getting worse from here. So what do you do?

Personally, I'm not sure this book works all that well as a book because it's pretty repetitive. Yeah. It's not enjoyable to read. Yeah. It's interesting that like it had this sort of superstar editor guy, but it's just like there's no there aren't really any subplots about like what's going on with her at work or her insurance status or her husband. Or even just her fiber arts. It's like, how is Michelle's fiber work going right now?

Does she have time for it at all? Yeah. Is she just like crying all the time so she can't focus on anything? Yeah. There's very little plot that I mean, it's kind of like reading misery in a way because you're like, and we're in the room again. It's like either these two people in this consultation room inadvertently torturing each other or the visions that that work is producing. And you just don't get out very much.

Yeah. Yeah. It creates really, I mean, a claustrophobia even in the reader, I think, to be just like stuck. Yeah. Also in this loop. Yes. That's why we have to take breaks and go outside and go on bike rides. That's why we got to go canoeing. Let's go canoeing.

On the lake where the that camber drowned 20 years ago, I don't think anything bad will happen out there. It's only tonight.