Article on "Michelle Remembers"
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In the 1950s, members of a transgenerational, Satan-worshipping, child-
torturing cult devoted most of their time and attention to one child,
who, thanks to supernatural intervention, lived to tell her tale.
Despite claims that would necessarily leave corroborative evidence,
none was ever found. And while the adult survivor has no shortage of
brutal, pornographic details about the cult, she stopped short of
supplying information that might help bring these apparent monsters to
justice.
Published as non-fiction in 1977, Michelle Remembers became an
international sensation, achieving bestseller status and arguably
doing more than any other publication to incite the Satanic Panic of
the 1980s and 1990s, a twentieth-century witchhunt in which a great
many people faced trial and even imprisonment for crimes they did not
commit: in many cases, for crimes that did not even happen. The
popularity of the book was such that the Vatican launched an official
investigation, and Hollywood studios approached the authors about
movie rights. Those authors-- Michelle Smith, the self-proclaimed
former object of the cult's attention, and Lawrence Pazder, her
therapist-- responded enthusiastically.
The story, in fact, prompted multiple investigations. The various
findings should have calmed concerns that her claims were anything but
the product of imagination. Sadly, however, many years passed before
people stopped taking the book seriously; in some circles, people
still regard the authors as brave mavericks in the fight against an
imagined international satanic conspiracy.
Smith claims that the cult met in Ross Bay cemetery in Victoria,
British Columbia. The problem is that this old graveyard faces the
bay, with houses surrounding it on the remaining three sides. Much of
the grounds, including the mausoleum where key events took place, are
clearly visible from the neighborhood; it would make a very poor place
to hold secret, illegal rituals-- particularly in the conformist, law-
abiding 1950s. Other events simply could not have occurred. Smith
claims a woman lifted the plaque covering one of the graves so that
she could be placed within. None of these plaques work as lids, and
all are too heavy for even a very strong person to lift unassisted.
She gives details of a complex car crash staged by the cult; a
thorough check by reporters Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker failed
to find any record of an accident resembling the one described within
the given time-frame.
She claims the Satanists cut off the middle fingers of their left
hands, and that despite this conspicuous mark, they remained
unidentified in their community, and remain at large, even now.
Several of the rituals resemble distorted versions of certain
traditional African rituals-- rituals which therapist Pazder had
earlier studied.
The Roman Catholic Church concluded that Michelle believed in the
reality of her claims, but that they most likely originated in her
mind.
Jack Proby, Michelle's father, describes an emotional distance within
the family which resulted in part from his own alcohol abuse. However,
both he and Michelle's sisters deny her claims of family cult
involvement and horrendous abuse. Proby (Michelle's mother died in
1963) felt a lawsuit would be prohibitively expensive, but he took a
Notice of Intent against the publisher, which has prevented movies or
other spin-offs from the original book. He and his neighbours confirm
that Michelle once witnessed a gruesome automobile accident, and that
she was treated for poisoning after eating turpentine and shoe polish;
these may be the origin of some of her stories, which include a staged
car crash and deliberate poisonings. Journalists have also confirmed
that the Proby family were church-going Catholics. In fact, Michelle
and her siblings were all confirmed. Michelle Remembers claims the
family had no religious instruction outside of the cult.
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, survivors, whose therapists
claimed they not only repressed their memories, but invented entirely
alternate ones of relatively normal childhood experiences, retold
stories which more than passingly resembled Michelle Smith's accounts.
Mike Warnke, an evangelical charlatan who has long profited from the
belief in Satanism demonstrates her influence on the Satanic Panic. In
his first edition of The Satan Seller, published in 1972, he claims to
be a former Satanic cult leader, and details their operations. He
makes no mention of the kind of ritual abuse that forms the basis of
Michelle Remembers. After her stories became widespread, he began
discussing the ritual abuse and murder of children by the cult.
Her story varies from those which followed only in the means of her
deliverance; in her account, the Virgin Mary ultimately intervenes to
help young Michelle. I mention this detail because it caused a great
deal of grief for Michelle's supporters. Those within the evangelical
Protestant Christian churches and the feminist movements who embraced
the belief in Ritual Satanic Abuse had to conclude that Michelle had
only imagined this Marian intervention, while swallowing the rest of
her far-fetched tale.
Michelle Smith is now Michelle Pazder; she has married the therapist.
He himself has suggested that her stories may not all be literally
true, but that her belief in them is important. Perhaps, but this does
not excuse publishing them as non-fiction and profiting from a
witchhunt which damaged the lives of a great many people.
Michelle has long ceased giving interviews.