YOUR MEMORIES ARE NOT FALSE

A Reply to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation
Revised Edition

INTRODUCTION

Recently newspapers, magazine articles and TV have been publicizing the work of an organization called the "False Memory Syndrome Foundation" (FMSF), which makes the following claims: that many memories of incest recovered by adults are "false memories" implanted or suggested by therapists, that getting these memories is just a current fad, and that the "false memory syndrome," to quote the FMSF, destroys "the psychological well-being not only of the primary victim but..-through false accusations of incest and sexual abuse..-other members of the primary victim's family."

Here are some answers to the FMSF's claims (see page 19 for a summary of the main points of this article):

I. A FEW BASIC OBSERVATIONS

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation

1) Much of the energy and money supporting the False Memory Syndrome Foundation comes from people who maintain they have been falsely accused of molesting children [1]. The FMSF founders are Peter Freyd and his wife Pamela, whose daughter has accused Peter of molesting her as a child [2]. An original member of the FMSF Advisory Board who was active in forming the FMSF is the psychologist Ralph Underwager [3].

Dr. Underwager is on record as a defender of pedophilia [4]: he was interviewed in PAIDIKA, "The Journal of Paedophilia" (Winter 1993) as follows. Question: Is choosing paedophilia for you a responsible choice for the individual? Answer by Underwager: "Certainly it is responsible." (p3). When asked how pedophiles might seek decriminalization, Underwager replies: "... Paedophiles need to ... make the claim that paedophilia is an acceptable expression of God's will for loved unity among human beings" (p12). Underwager's wife, Hollida Wakefield, another FMSF board member who took part in this interview, favors "... a longitudinal study of, let's say, a hundred twelve-year-old boys in relationships with loving paedophiles." (p12).

Much of the rest of FMSF support comes from old-line psychiatrists who still agree with Freud's discredited "drive theory," which says that children instinctively want sex with their parents. Freud believed his patients made up fantasies about it actually happening. (We now realize it was Freud's drive theory that was a fantasy, not the memories of his patients.) Because of that false theory, for over half a century therapists believed their patients were making up fantasies of abuse and were therefore unable to help them. The FMSF is basically attempting to revive the belief that memories of sexual abuse are "fantasies."

Science and the FMSF

2) The FMSF wants us to believe that their claims about false memories of incest are based on scientific research into the mechanisms of memory. The evidence they use to build their case actually represents just a few common sense facts about memory: for example, that our memories are often mistaken about details (we get sequences of events wrong, dates, colors, what age we were, etc.). Persons remembering an accident often get the color of the car, or the number of people involved, wrong but they are **never** wrong about the **important** facts: that there was an accident or that someone was hurt.

The FMSF also wants us to believe that memories can be implanted, and experiments have shown that suggestible people can be tricked into falsely believing, let us say, that they got lost in a shopping mall when they were children. But these implanted memories deal with non-traumatic events that might normally have happened.

From these simple experiments the FMSF falsely concludes: (a) that a person's memories are likely to be wrong about crucial events that had a serious impact on their lives and (b) that someone can falsely suggest that a major traumatic event happened to a person, who will then docilely produce detailed memories about it.

There is no solid evidence that incest survivors [5] are mistaken about the major events they remember or that they have generated their memories of abuse at the mere suggestion of a therapist. While there may be a few cases to support the FMSF's view, cases that involve unscrupulous therapists or unprincipled or simple-minded clients, the preponderance of evidence (some of which is given below) supports the fact that childhood sexual abuse is common, that people often suppress the memory of it and then recover its essential elements as adults.

3) The very name "False Memory Syndrome Foundation" is a pseudo-scientific sham, for "syndrome," defined by Webster's New World Dictionary as "a number of symptoms occurring together and characterizing a specific disease" suggests that "false memories" are symptoms of a newly discovered "disease." But how can such a disease have a scientific basis when the truth or falsity of memories can rarely be proved?

The literature of the FMSF pretends to be unbiased [6] and based on science, but the low-level scientific work they cite cannot support the theory that many memories about sexual abuse are false. For how can the situation faced by incest victims be reproduced in the laboratory? How does one scientifically determine whether accuser or accused is telling the truth? A real scientist is someone who searches for the truth, not someone who decides in advance what is true and then tries to convince others by whatever means he can find. If Science had been in the hands of groups like the FMSF, it would have got nowhere.

Catching the "false memory syndrome"

4) The FMSF implies that you can catch the "false memory syndrome" by the merest suggestion of a therapist or by reading a book, and that once you've caught this "disease" you're likely to make up false memories about childhood sexual abuse. The FMSF offers no explanation of why people would make up memories so painful that they themselves do not want to believe them. The FMSF also does not ask why, if the memories are false, people get better by remembering them. People are cured only by remembering the truth.

Furthermore, the FMSF does not consider that a fair number of people always remembered their incest. (What they may not have dealt with are the feelings..-the rage, the grief..-associated with it.) The memories of those who always remembered and those who recovered their memories are in every way comparable.

Moreover, if you ask: "Who has the stronger motive for making things up, the person who remembers being abused or the person who is accused of abuse?" the answer is clear.

Incest memories are not a fad, not implanted, not a witch hunt.

5) History shows that memories of incest are not just a current fad, as some claim. The fact is that sexual and other kinds of abuse have been going on throughout history. "The history of childhood," said Lloyd De Mause in THE HISTORY OF CHILDHOOD (1974), "is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken." De Mause's carefully researched book shows that sexual abuse, while tragically widespread today, was even more common in the past.

6) Most incest survivors get at least some memories before they see a therapist or even read about incest, therefore their memories could not have been "implanted." Furthermore, brains may be capable of lies and fantasies, but can bodies lie? Almost everyone who has endured serious abuse has "body memories" in which a recurring physical pain or sensation insists on reminding them of some early abuse, a pain that continues until they re-experience the abuse, whereupon it disappears [7]. A false memory could not have this effect.

7) Incest survivors' accusations of their abusers are compared by the FMSF to the Salem Witch Trials [8] . There are two crucial differences which they ignore. First, a girl who accused someone of being a witch got instant power and praise, whereas a person who accuses a relative of past sexual abuse gets disbelief, anger, anguish and often separation from the family. Second, sexual abuse is a proven fact, but it is clearly impossible to prove that someone is a witch.

Evidence for the validity of incest memories

8) There are probably a few thousand incest survivor self-help groups around the world. Anyone who attended their meetings would be struck by the intense pain, grief and anger that people suffer when they remember what happened to them as children. These feelings and memories become even more authentic when one sees the beneficial changes that come about from remembering. When the pain and grief are first felt people become dejected and often dysfunctional, but gradually the pain subsides and one sees the same people having more energy, self-confidence and self-responsibility than they ever had and become capable of better relationships. People also finally understand the origin of their addictions (like drinking) and begin to cope with their other psychological difficulties, difficulties they did not understand before or thought were innate. It becomes utterly clear that their intense emotions, their new self-knowledge and the remarkable changes in their lives could not possibly be the result of made-up fictions or implanted memories.

II. ABOUT DENIAL AND THE MOTIVES OF ABUSERS

The origins of denial

9) Most people have repressed a lot of the emotional pain they suffered when they were children. If they were to believe that incest survivors' memories are true, they would be at risk of remembering their own lesser pain (for example, the pain of having been rejected). The greater the repressed pain, the more numb people become to the pain of others so as to avoid feeling their own hidden wounds. Denial of childhood pain is so common that even many therapists have not sufficiently dealt with their own pain, which means that they are not open to the truth of their clients' memories and therefore cannot help them. Such a therapist, of course, cannot be a reliable judge of "false memories" [9]. Denial of childhood pain is the chief force behind the strong backlash against the incest survivor movement.

10) Society in general has a tendency to deny the existence of horrendous acts of evil. The followers of the FMSF, in denying the reality of incest survivors' memories, are not unlike the growing number of people who deny or minimize the reality of the Holocaust, people like neo-Nazi David Duke, the president of Croatia, and the Republican columnist Patrick Buchanan, who assert, for example, that only a few hundred thousand died in Nazi concentration camps [10].

Sexual abuse: the consequences of denial, the agony of recovery.

11) Consequences of denial: Dr. Richard Berendzen, the former president of American University, had always known that his mother had sexually abused him as a child. He thought he had "handled" it. But in his fifties, not knowing why he was compelled to do it, he began making obscene phone calls to women he knew were mothers. Dr. Berendzen had always overworked, but when his obsession hit him, he began working 120 hours a week [11].

Denial of the emotional pain of sexual abuse results in many other kinds of life-defeating behaviors. For example, many sexually abused children grow up to be as sexually obsessed as their abusers [12]. Some become prostitutes or in other ways are easily sexually exploited. A minority become abusers themselves. Because their self-esteem is so damaged, many adults who were sexually abused in childhood cannot properly assert themselves and use their talents. In order to run from the intense hidden pain that lurks just below the surface, a great number of sexual abuse victims become alcoholics, drug addicts or workaholics. The pain is so unbearable for many that they kill themselves. Some suffer from dangerous bouts of rage, some from chronic depression. Although a few have successful careers, they remain numb and emotionally dead in large areas of their lives.

The agony of recovery: For those who face the pain of their childhood sexual abuse, recovery often means years of working through intense fear, grief and anger as they uncover their memories and relive what happened to them. The process is so difficult that some can barely function for a long time. One of the worst pains suffered by survivors who remember their abuse is exclusion by their family, who deny the truth of their memories.

The psychology of abusers: why they do it and why they cannot admit it.

12) At present, few people in our society understand that the very abuse of children is a form of denial. Child abusers (who are themselves victims of child abuse) usually do not remember what happened to them. They repress the original abuse by means of a psychological escape called fusion. When a child is molested, the trauma is often so unbearable that instead of remaining the helpless, hurt victim, the child merges with the abuser and experiences his/her sexual thrills and delight in power. Child abusers continue to handle the pain of the original abuse in the same way. Whenever the pain begins to surface (and it always does), abusers pass on the pain to another child, turning the child into the victim they once were and themselves into the powerful abuser. (It is important to note that only a small percentage of people who were molested become child abusers; most victims handle their pain in other ways.)

Instead of understanding the psychology of abusers, society prefers to believe that abusers are examples of "original sin" or "bad seeds." Society is therefore unable to deal with the causes of abuse and is unable to prevent its continuation. (Child molesters are let out of prison after short sentences because it is not understood that they are unable to stop molesting children unless they remember their own abuse and experience the pain of it.)

13) The FMSF does not understand why most abusers are compelled to deny what they did (beyond wanting to escape prison and not wanting to face the shame of what they did). If an abuser were simply to confess what he did, the bald, plain facts would remind him of the pain of his original abuse, whereas when he is molesting a child, he is identified with his abuser and feels only sexual arousal and power.

III. THE FOUNDERS OF THE FMSF The case of the family of Peter and Pamela Freyd, the founders of the FMSF

14) The FMSF presents itself as objective but it was founded by Peter Freyd and his wife Pamela when Peter was accused by heir daughter of sexually molesting her [13]. The daughter Jennifer is a distinguished psychology professor who did not recover memories of outright incest until 1990 when her mother and father planned a visit. Jennifer became anxious. She did not know why and consulted a therapist. On the second visit the therapist asked her if she had been sexually abused as a child. She said no, but then memories began to come up. She had always remembered that her alcoholic father constantly talked about sex when she was a child, sat in his robe with his genitals exposed, and when she was nine or ten suggested she read LOLITA. Even when she was married her father continued his sexual behavior toward her; he once threw a condom at her, and when she gave him a modelling toy, he made a replica of his genitals which he displayed in his living room. In 1990 she remembered he sexually fondled her when she was three or four and raped her when she was sixteen. When Jennifer tried to validate her memories with her sister, her sister asked "Is that why you had all those locks on your bedroom door?"

Jennifer Freyd recalls that her father used to discuss his own sexual abuse, which occurred when he was eleven years old. He did not call it abuse however; instead he believed he was sexually precocious. He referred to himself as a "kept boy" and said he later became a "male prostitute." [14] (He later decided to become heterosexual.)

Jennifer Freyd also provides convincing evidence that her parents were untruthful in their efforts to damage her reputation with her colleagues: Her mother wrote an anonymous article by "Jane Doe" giving her version of the family story. She sent it to Jennifer's colleagues and made it clear it was about Jennifer by identifying herself as Jane Doe. It states that Jennifer was denied tenure at a previous university because she had not published enough. The fact is that Jennifer moved to the University of Oregon as an Associate Professor because there she could become tenured two years earlier than she could at her previous university. Her mother sent the Jane Doe article to Jennifer's Oregon colleagues **during the year she was up for promotion to Professor**. Her father later admitted to her that "... fictional elements were deliberately inserted ...". Jennifer cites several other instances of her parents' untruthfulness in using the FMSF to harass her.

The Freyds' claim that Jennifer's memories were "implanted" seems ludicrous in the light of Jennifer's story. How could the mere question "were you sexually abused as a child?" have implanted Jennifer's memories of what happened? She is very clear that even when she **wanted** her therapist to help her have more memories, the therapist was unable to do so.

In spite of the dysfunctional family history, in spite of their untruthful efforts to damage their daughter's career and reputation, and in spite of the fact that both their daughters and Peter's older brother do not want to have anything to do with them, Pamela and Peter Freyd nevertheless insist that theirs is a loving family torn apart by inaccurate memories and false allegations [15].

Pamela Freyd must have seen the many locks on Jennifer's bedroom door, she must have known about her husband's sexual abuse as a child, his claim of sexual precocity and his predilection for sexual talk with Jennifer and acting out in her presence. If she were truly a loving mother how could she then dismiss her daughter's memories so totally? Pamela Freyd's attitude about her family is **denial** [16], which is why the FMSF insists that families of accused abusers are "loving families" who have lost a "loved" daughter through "inaccurate memories and false accusations."

Pamela and Peter Freyd are clearly struggling, by every means they can find, to impugn their daughter's convincing evidence that her father molested her as a child. And it appears that they have created the FMSF as a means of doing so.

IV. ABOUT MEMORIES

Very early memories exist and can be recovered

15) The FMSF claims there is general agreement that "most people cannot remember anything that happened" before about two years of age [17]. While it may be true that most adults do not consciously remember very early events, there is a great amount of evidence that they do retain early memories nevertheless. We know that is true because these memories can be accessed using techniques such as hypnosis, meditation, drugs such as LSD, and certain breathing exercises. Scientists view these techniques with great distrust [18], but the evidence is overwhelming that early memories can be recovered by using these techniques with care [19].

That newborns and infants would have the ability to recognize and remember important people and events makes sense because it is essential for survival. (Nature provides the young of all living creatures with such skills.)

That infants do retain memories of what happens to them is the subject of scientific books, which give many examples of two- to four-year-olds who remember their birth in surprising detail [20]. One little girl, speaking of life in the womb, said, "There was a snake in there with me ...," an obvious reference to the umbilical cord. This same child reported there was a "doggie" in there also which she played with "like this" (waving her arms about) and heard it bark. It turned out that her mother had acquired a puppy five months before the birth and the dog had spent a lot of time on her stomach [21]. Many similar stories, which parents confirm, are recounted by children who have been told nothing about their birth. This data makes clear that many children remember a great deal about their birth and prenatal life.

If two- to four-year-olds can remember the details of their birth, the next question is: Do they continue to remember? The psychologist David Chamberlin has proved that they can. He hypnotized ten grown children (ranging in age from 9 to 23 years), whose mothers assured him they had not discussed their births with them, and asked them about their birth. He then hypnotized their mothers and questioned them about the birth of their children. Chamberlin was careful to avoid leading questions and kept mother an child separate during this process. He also recorded their replies. The reports of mother and child validated each other in many details [22].

Chamberlin found that of the ten mother-child pairs, there were on average 13.7 points of agreement between the accounts of the mother and child. For five of the pairs there was only 1 contradiction, for four there were none, and for one there were four contradictions [23]. One child fantasized that her father and her favorite grandparents were present when they were not. Despite this, this mother-child pair agreed on 13 points.

The psychiatrist Stanislov Grof provides an example of an independently verified intra-uterine memory elicited under LSD when it was legal [24]. A respected Buddhist meditation teacher, Jack Kornfield, reports that students who practice serious meditation often have experiences like this: "... suddenly I was one year old. I was back there with my spoon, banging on the table" [25]. The FMSF's assertion that very early memories are virtually nonexistent is another example of its ignorance and its bias: the FMSF seeks only to verify its beliefs; it ignores the volumes of evidence that contradict its position.

Repressed memories are real

16) The FMSF also implies that **there is no such thing as repressed memories** [26]. They cite (without references) Freud claiming that he felt "impulse and desire are repressed..-not memories" [27]. But they ignore all the data about Vietnam vets, who often repressed memories of traumatic battles, memories they had to remember in order to get well. Many Holocaust survivors also repressed memories of atrocities, which only surfaced later.

Some repressed memories are easy to access and others much more difficult. We have all struggled to remember a name, only to have it suddenly pop into our mind later. The name, though "repressed," was always there. Painful memories often remain repressed until triggered by an emotionally powerful event. Still other memories are so painful they remain inaccessible for life or are brought to consciousness only in some altered state.

Grof [28] provides another case about a repressed memory that was independently verified. During treatment a patient named Eva remembered that when she was nine, she and her younger brother asked their father what men and women did in sex. He proceeded to demonstrate by having intercourse with his wife in front of the children. Grof was exceedingly skeptical about this repressed memory until Eva's brother became his patient two years later and independently remembered precisely the same event.

Finally, the FMSF claim that there are no repressed memories is totally demolished by the work of the renowned brain surgeon Wilder Penfield [29]. He discovered that when he touched a particular area of the brain with an electrode, his patient would remember in complete, vivid detail some totally forgotten event or scene; if he touched a nearby point, a different memory would emerge, again to the amazement of the patient. His research clearly shows that our brains retain a truly astonishing amount of information about our past, information that, though normally inaccessible, can be retrieved. Penfield used electrodes, but, as we have seen, memories can be retrieved non-invasively by hypnotism, breathwork, deep meditation, and certain drugs.

In its publications, the FMSF once asked: what are we going to do about Wilder Penfield? His scientific qualifications and approach clearly frightens them because his work, which is universally accepted, discredits their claim that there are no early or repressed memories.

V. RECONSIDERATION OF TWO CASES

Two cases are reconsidered that supposedly prove the existence of false and implanted memories. But do they?

17) The FMSF and recent articles in the media have produced a few cases that they claim demonstrate that memories can be implanted and that recovered memories can be false. However some of these cases can be understood in ways that lead to entirely different conclusions. Here are two cases the FMSF would say confirm their claims:

Case 1) In his NEW YORKER article, "Remembering Satan,"[30] Lawrence Wright discusses the case of Paul Ingram, a deputy sheriff who Wright says was accused by his two daughters of sexually molesting them over a period of 15 years, molestation that involved satanic abuse. Wright makes it seem that Ingram was wrongly convicted because, according to Wright, his confession was based on false memories that resulted from brainwashing and "trance-like states."

To prove Ingram's memories were false Wright points out that Richard Ofshe (a member of the FMSF Advisory Board and a prosecution expert) told Ingram the lie that his son and daughter had accused him of forcing them to have sex together while he watched. Ingram later confessed that he had. Because of this "false" confession, Ofshe and Wright conclude that all of Ingram's other confessions were also false memories, even though they were generally corroborated by his daughters, sons, and wife.[31] Moreover, neither Ofshe nor Wright understands that a man as sexually obsessed as Ingram might well have forced his son and daughter to have sex while he watched, that is, that his confession of this incident was probably true. Wright pictures Ingram going into "trance-like states" as a result of his interrogations and of being brainwashed by psychologists and his minister. Wright suggests that Ingram was therefore falsely accused and convicted of sexually abusing his daughters over a period of 15 years, much of it in satanic rituals.

The facts present a very different picture. In a ruling [32] denying Ingram's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, Judge Robert H. Peterson states that Ingram "isn't charged with satanism. ... He isn't charged with anything that occurred back in the 70's, ... He is charged with six counts of sexual improprieties with his daughters in 1988." Moreover, Judge Peterson points out that Ingram made a full confession during his very first interview by detectives, that is, before he was seen by psychologists or the minister. Judge Peterson's ruling also makes it very clear that Ingram's confession was not based on "recovered memories" but on **direct** ones, since the confession and the offenses all took place in 1988.[33] Judge Peterson cites much additional evidence showing Ingram's guilt. And, as Judge Peterson points out, although satanism was involved in later confessions, satanism had nothing to do with the charges.

In contrast to the common-sense clarity of Judge Peterson's ruling, Lawrence Wright's article is devious and dishonest, an effort to prove the FMSF's thesis that memories of sexual abuse are usually the result of brainwashing or implantation and are therefore false. Wright had to have read Judge Peterson's ruling, but he does not mention it because it would invalidate most of his article. It would show that neither satanism, nor recovered memories, nor brainwashing were at issue, whereas Wright falsely made these issues the central ones of his article. This kind of dishonesty typifies the efforts of the FMSF to avoid, distort, and deny the truth about sexual abuse.

Wright called Judith Herman, a Harvard psychiatrist and expert on sexual violence, to discuss the Ingram case. In his conversation with her he argued that if some of the allegations against Ingram were false, then all must be; and if false in this case then they must be false in many other cases. Herman questioned him about his claim in his NEW YORKER article that "thousands" of people were accused on the basis of recovered memories and that "certainly many [of these memories] are false."[34] She asked "Thousands? Certainly? How many of these cases have you documented?" After some thought, Wright admitted: "One."[35] **And that one was the Ingram case!**

Case 2) A woman whose story was told in a recent series of articles in the San Francisco EXAMINER (May 1993) [36] remembered having a hole drilled in her skull during her childhood abuse, a memory that could not be confirmed by X-ray. What the general public does not know that abusers often deceive children into believing they have been seriously injured by telling them they are going to injure them and then hurting them a little. When she was a child, the woman in the EXAMINER article probably had a drill-like object pressed into her skull until it hurt badly, so that she genuinely believed that her abusers did drill a hole in her head. Thus do abusers, for their own self-serving reasons, sometimes deceive children into believing false stories.

Abusers often go through fantastic charades like this so that if the child (or adult) tells the story, it seems unbelievable (as was true in this case) and the abuser can escape conviction.

Why some people repudiate memories of sexual abuse.

18) The FMSF cites a number of cases in which people recover memories of childhood sexual abuse and later disavow them. The FMSF claims that this means the memories were false. The FMSF does not understand that most incest survivors during the early part of recovery have strong doubts about their memories. Their almost universal reaction to first memories is "I can't believe it, I must be making it all up." When survivors do repudiate their memories (and some do), they almost always do so to escape the intense pain, not only of the memories, but of alienation from their families. Thus repudiation seldom means the memories were false..-they were just too painful.

VI. ACCUSATIONS AGAINST ABUSERS AND THE FMSF RESPONSE TO THEM

Why people sue their abusers

19) The fact that children sue their abusers can indicate that their memories are true. For what motivates some children to sue are strong feelings of hatred, hatred generated because of what was done to them and because their lives were ruined. Such strong feelings cannot be generated by false memories implanted by a therapist. Their feelings are generated by what really happened. (Others sue in an effort to validate their memories and regain their confidence by standing up to their abusers.)

Concern for accused families and for abused children

20) Families accused of harboring a molester are invariably portrayed by the FMSF as terribly grieved by their child's accusations, concerned about the child's welfare and anxious to have the child back in the family fold. The FMSF **assumes** that the accusation is false and that therefore the child has lost a "loving" family. The FMSF does not understand how much false concern some members of a family can generate to cover up he presence of an abuser in their midst. The family and the FMSF would rather protect the alleged abuser than open up to the pain that the child may have suffered in the family. Most people prefer to believe they had happy childhoods and blank out the pain they actually experienced.

NOTE: We do not argue that there are **no** cases of fabricated or mistaken memories of incest, just that they are few [37]. We have the greatest sympathy for the few individuals who are falsely accused of sexual abuse. But we know of so many cases in which the accusation is just (even though the abuser denies it and appears to be above reproach) that we believe that most of the 2,345 to 10,000+ families appealing to the FMSF do harbor an abuser.

VII. EVIDENCE OF SEXUAL ATTITUDES LEADING TO, AND RESULTING FROM ABUSE

Sexual Obsession

When children are sexually abused, they become aroused because sexual organs are made for pleasure and because the children absorb the sexual excitement of their perpetrators, pleasure that shields them from the pain of what is happening. When they grow up, and the pain of their abuse begins to surface, many of them compulsively seek sexual pleasure instead of experiencing the pain.

People like to believe that women like Madonna were born sexually obsessed, but as incest survivors understand, **no child is born sexually obsessed**; they **are taught** to be. In the movie "Henry and June" we saw the sexual obsession of the writer Anais Nin. Now that we know about her childhood [38], we can see the origin of her obsession. When she was a child, her father photographed her nude, beat her and seduced her. It was this abuse and her fusion with her father's sexual feelings when she was a child that drove her to become sexually obsessed when she was an adult.

Evidence of sexual obsession in society

21) Nin's sexual obsession is not unique; nor is its origin in her abuse when she was a child. The rampant sexual obsession in our society also has much of its origins in the widespread sexual abuse of children.

(A) Studies show that the multi-billion dollar pornography business is largely produced by and consumed by people who were sexually abused as children. (B) Moreover, many studies reveal that the vast majority of prostitutes were abused as children. (C) And finally, still other studies reveal that the enormous number of rapists in this country were also sexually abused as children.

Evidence of sexually abusive feelings towards children

22) The FMSF wants us to believe that children are rarely abused, but there is a well-known phenomenon in our culture that indicates there is a lot of sexually abusive feelings in our society toward children. That phenomenon is the brisk business in "kiddie porn." Illegal magazines, films and videos show small children being forced to engage in sexual activities with each other and with adults. Recently "kiddie porn" has been widely circulated through computer "bulletin boards." This material not only shows the existence of sexually abusive feelings toward children, but also encourages the abuse of children.

23) [Apparently the writers of this article chose to believe the media myths about Waco. Please see our links to the Branch Davidian FACT pages. -Astraea]

24) Thousands of small children disappear every year and are never seen again, except on flyers that ask "Have you seen me?". It is likely that many of these children are kidnapped by pedophiles or cults who sexually abuse and often kill them. Many FMSF followers try to deny this by proclaiming that almost all missing/abducted children are eventually recovered. But the fact is that of 1,487 children reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who were abducted by non-family members, only 362 (less than one in four) were recovered alive (187 turned up dead)[39]. And these figures of abducted children are only the small percentage that are reported to the Center; a 1990 Department of Justice report says that in 1988 alone there were 4,600 non-family abductions reported to police; if the ratio of one in four is recovered, this means that about 3,450 of just **these** reported children disappeared in 1988. Since there is no central place where missing children **must** be reported, it is safe to assume that all these figures understate the facts.

[Replace the word "likely" with "possible" that they have been kidnapped by pedophiles or cults. They could have been kidnapped by -anybody-. Also, take into account the many young adult runaways (12 and up) who wish not to be found. -Astraea]

VIII. EVIDENCE THAT THERE ARE MANY "HIGHLY RESPECTABLE" ABUSERS

Sexual abuse of children by the clergy and scoutmasters

25) The FMSF would like us to believe that respectable people do not abuse children [40]. But recent cases demonstrate that some of the most highly respected people, for example, the clergy and scoutmasters, have been secret child molesters. Here are some horrors that have lately been revealed:

(A) Father Porter, a Catholic priest in Massachusetts, molested hundreds of children, children who as adults have come forward to detail the nature of his rapes, sodomies and other sexual abuses. When finally reported to the Catholic authorities, they merely transferred him to another parish **without revealing his crimes**. There he molested many more children. This scenario was repeated in parish after parish until he was sent to a Catholic "treatment center" for pedophile priests, where he also managed to molest some children.

[Well, this is all coming out of the woodwork now ... April 2002]

Father Porter is just one example of hundreds of clergy in churches of all denominations who have recently been exposed as child molesters. Until now the churches have dealt with sexual abuse in private, a practice that permitted sexual abuse to continue. Only now, when knowledge of sexual abuse has increased and become less shameful, have people who were victimized by clergy felt ale to tell their stories.

(B) Female clergy have not been exempt. Recently PRIMETIME LIVE [41] did a story on the "Gray Nuns." In the 40's and 50's they ran a Catholic orphanage in Quebec where they not only sexually abused children but also brutalized them..-beat them, tied them to bare bedsprings for weeks at a time, and gave them electroshock as a punishment. Hundreds of their former victims are now coming reveal the cruelties these "respectable" nuns perpetrated on helpless children in the privacy of their institution.

(C) Recently the CBS program DAY ONE [42] revealed that the Boy Scouts of America had a list of pedophile scoutmasters which they kept secret. That meant that when these pedophiles were finally discovered and dismissed, they were able to become scoutmasters in other communities. One much-admired scoutmaster, for example, abused many boys in four successive communities before finally being sent to jail.

Comment

26) Although many pedophiles have been convicted, many, probably thousands, remain in the employ of the churches and the Boy Scouts, which, like the FMSF, want to go on believing that the sexual abuse of children is not such a serious problem, an attitude that aids and abets child molesters.

IX. CONCLUSION

In a recent celebrated case of child molestation in California, Ellie Nessler shot and killed Daniel Driver, the man accused of molesting her 8-year-old son and three other boys. When Driver arrived seven years earlier in the Gold Country town where Nessler lived, no one knew he had recently been convicted on **multiple** counts of child molestation in Santa Clara County [43]. They did not know because members of his church appealed to the Santa Clara judge, telling him what a fine religious man he was, and the judge decided to parole him instead of sending him to jail. The efforts of Daniel Driver's congregation set him free to destroy the lives of four more children.

The efforts of the FMSF will likely result in ruining the lives of thousands of children. The pseudo-scientific pronouncements of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation are likely to convince hundreds of judges to acquit or parole thousands of child molesters, who in turn will go on to destroy the lives of tens of thousands of children. For example, Driver destroyed the life of Nessler's 8-year-old son, who became dysfunctional after the rape (and who threw up when he saw Driver in court). In their sympathy for accused abusers, the FMSF are willing to disregard the suffering of millions of children and to be indirectly responsible for the sexual abuse of thousands more children.

Incest survivors are bringing new knowledge into the world, knowledge about the abuse that children suffer in families and knowledge about how to recover from that abuse. By accepting this new knowledge mankind can be freed from much of its suffering.

But, like all major shifts in human consciousness, the insights of incest survivors arouse resistance. Just as the Church forced Galileo to recant the new knowledge he discovered about the solar system, so do the forces of ignorance and reaction want incest survivors to recant the new knowledge they have discovered. These reactionary forces refuse to face that an enormous amount of abuse goes on in many families. They want to pretend that the TV stereotype of the happy family is real. Protecting a false image of parents means more to them than the fact that children are being damaged. Whenever the son or daughter of a celebrity reveals the unpleasant facts about his or her family, the public attacks the son or daughter and refuses to believe that what they revealed is true. This has happened again and again, for example, when the son of Bing Crosby told the truth about him and when Patti Davis told the truth about the Reagan household.

Incest survivors have looked deeply at the dark side of family life; they know that parents often destroy their children's self-esteem by abusing them in many ways (not just sexually). They see how this abuse sets up a chain reaction that ruins the lives of generation after generation.

Followers of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, like most people, resist the new knowledge about family life because they are afraid of facing their own hidden pain. They desperately keep on waving the tattered banner of "family values." Their path of denial belongs to the past. The path of incest survivors, the path of all those who courageously face the truth, is the path of the future. It is the only way to achieve lasting family values.

Have courage. The truth of incest survivors, like Galileo's truth, will finally prevail because it **is** the truth.

Appendix I: SUMMARY

Here is a summary of the main points in this article.

Basics

.. The FMSF is biased. It was founded by and is run by an accused child molester and his wife. Furthermore an original member of the Advisory Board champions pedophilia. The FMSF is supported mainly by the families of accused child molesters and by psychiatrists who believe that children are born wanting to have sex with their parents.

.. The FMSF is unscientific. It draws false, high level conclusions from basic low level data. Its name implies the existence of a "disease" characterized by having false memories of incest, yet it is usually not possible to determine the truth or falsity of these memories.

.. The FMSF does not explain (a) why people would make up memories so painful that they want to believe they are false; (b) how people could get better remembering what is "false"; (c) why recovered memories of incest that are alleged to be false are so similar to memories of those who never forgot their incest and (d) why we should trust people who have been accused of incest more than those who remember being abused.

.. Incest memories are no fad. History shows incest was even more common in the past.

.. Many incest memories occur before reading about incest or seeing a therapist; these are clearly not "implanted." "Body memories," which are relieved by remembering the cause of a physical pain, are clearly not "implanted."

.. Thousands of people lead richer lives as a result of remembering their incest. No one recovers from recalling false memories.

Denial and the motives of abusers

.. Most people are in "denial;" they repress childhood emotional pain and are fearful of having it activated by hearing or believing the suffering of others. Many therapists are in similar denial and therefore cannot be reliable judges of the truth or falsity of incest memories.

.. Denial of the pain of childhood sexual abuse has many devastating effects on victims' lives: sexual obsession, prostitution, depression, debilitating rage, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, emotional numbness, and an inability to assert oneself and use one's talents. The family's denial of their children's memories adds to their pain.

.. The FMSF does not understand the psychology of child molesters. When molesters were themselves molested as children they avoid the pain of it by feeling the sexual excitement of their abuser. They continue to avoid their childhood pain by remaining fused with their abuser and molesting a child.

.. Abusers in almost all cases are compelled to deny what they did because confession could make them feel the hidden pain of their original abuse. (Confession does not protect them in the way actual abuse does).

Rebuttal of the FMSF's claims

.. The case of the family of the FMSF's founders, Peter and Pamela Freyd, illustrates the denial, bias, malice and untruthfulness inherent in the FMSF. Their daughter's account of her father's own childhood sexual abuse, of his continuing sexual obsession and of his sexual abuse of her as a child is very convincing. many cases of clear, independently verified, birth and prenatal memories refute the FMSF's belief that most people cannot remember anything before about two years of age.

. There is much evidence that the FMSF is wrong in believing there are no repressed memories: the repressed memories of Vietnam veterans and of Holocaust survivors; independently verified repressed memories of sexual abuse; and the work of the renowned brain surgeon Wilder Penfield.

.. A NEW YORKER article about the conviction of Paul Ingram for incest presents the case as one of satanic abuse over an extended period even though Ingram was not tried for satanism. It also suggests that the case was based on old repressed memories that were false because they were elicited by brainwashing, whereas in fact he confessed the first time e was questioned to offenses that occurred in that same year.

.. An article in the San Francisco EXAMINER appears to be a case of a false recovered memory. We argue that it may be a case of an abuser deceiving a child into believing a false story that was then "recovered" as an adult. Abusers are known to confuse children with charades so that the children's stories will be unbelievable when they tell someone. The abuser can thus escape conviction.

.. The memories of incest victims are so painful that some victims repudiate them. They do this to escape the pain of the memories and of separation from their families; but repudiation seldom means the memories were false.

Sexual attitudes leading to, and resulting from abuse

.. Sexual obsession is one result of childhood sexual abuse. Children internalize the sexual excitement of their abusers because it shields them from the pain of being a victim. As adults this childhood defense becomes sexual obsession, obsession that protects them from emerging fear or emotional pain.

.. The rampant sexual obsession in society is evidence of the widespread sexual abuse of children. Studies show that the vast majority of the following groups of people were sexually abused as children: (a) the producers and consumers of the multi-billion dollar pornography business, (b) prostitutes, male and female, and (c) the large number of rapists.

.. There is much evidence of sexually abusive feelings in society towards children: "kiddie porn"; sanctioned abuse of children in a religious context: and the disappearance of thousands of children every year, many of whom are possibly abused and killed.

Evidence of many "highly respectable" abusers

.. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of children are molested and their lives destroyed by priests, ministers, scoutmasters and nuns. The churches and the Boy Scouts are often more concerned with maintaining their reputation than with the safety of the children in their care.

Conclusion

.. The pseudo-scientific pronouncements of the FMSF will likely result in spoiling the lives of tens of thousands of children by molesters set free by judges who believe the false conclusions of the FMSF.

.. Incest survivors have brought a new understanding of the prevalence and effects of child abuse and of how to recover from abuse. Like Galileo's truth about the solar system, this new truth about family life and child abuse is being denied by the forces of reaction. But like Galileo's truth, the truth of incest survivors will finally prevail because it **is** the truth.

APPENDIX II [Excerpts from the judge's ruling in the Ingram case:]

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF THURSTON
STATE OF WASHINGTON,)
Plaintiff;) )No. 88-1-752-1
PAUL ROSS INGRAM,)
Defendant.)
REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS - VOLUME VII

BE IT REMEMBERED that on Thursday, February 1, 1990, the Dabove-entitled and numbered cause came on for hearing before the HONORABLE ROBERT H. PETERSON, Judge of the Superior Court, held at the Thurston County Courthouse, Olympia, Washington.

A P P E A R A N C E S MR. GARY R. TABOR, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, appeared on behalf of the Plaintiff;

MR. MONTE E. HESTER, and MR. WAYNE C. FRICKE, Attorneys-At-Law, appeared on behalf of the Defendant.

AFTERNOON SESSION

1:30 p.m. ...

My decision is this: I am going to refuse to set aside the guilty pleas. I don't find a manifest injustice. ... I simply do not find that the defendant has sustained the burden of proof to set aside six guilty pleas to third degree rape.

... But these are powerful accusations [by the daughters] ... against the father, particularly when there was a threat to kill if one of the girls told.

First of all, the daughters. They were 18 and 22. And in the Fall of 1988 accused their father of molestation. There were several acts of molestation that were repeated on each of these two women, and there is no real reason that's been given to me here in this courtroom, why they have or would falsely accuse their father.

... The way this came out .. it looks rather logical to me .. one of these girls broke this at a church retreat. Another one broke it in a letter to the high school teacher. The accusations came out, I think, in a fairly normal fashion. So why would the girls lie? ...

He and his wife were on the Oregon Coast for a one week vacation prior to November 28th. They knew that the daughters had made these accusations. ... So he goes to work on the morning of the 28th ... And then shortly after that, Det. Schoening and Det. Vukich start questioning Mr. Ingram. And I have listened to the tape. It's not terribly long, but in the tape that afternoon he, in my judgment, essentially confess[es] to molesting both of these young women.

At one point he says, well, I would have done this, I would have done that. And the detectives said: "Well, would you or did you?" Answer: "I did."

And specifically as to the older daughter he says .. and this is on Page 4 .. I don't want to be unduly insensitive here, but I think you should know what I'm finding.

He says: "I would have gotten out of bed" .. this is the afternoon of the very first day of the interrogation .. "I would have gotten out of bed, put on a bathrobe, gone into her room and taken the robe off, and at least partially disrobing, and then fondled her breasts and vagina, and telling her that if she told anybody that I would kill her"

Now that's Mr. Ingram's statement to two officers who are lower in rank than him in the Sheriff's Department here in Thurston County. ... ...

There is .. this is on Page 9 of his statement. I'm not going to read this, but he goes into graphic detail as to what he did with the younger daughter.

And ten on Page 11: "Did you ever tell them that they would not be believed if they told anyone? Yes, I would have said that. And Paul are there any other kind of sexual improprieties that you have engaged in with these two women that we haven't discussed." Then he goes in to some other specific sexual acts.

Now this is before any psychologist has been seen by the defendant. This is before any of the ministers, or counselors have been seen by the defendant. And so the brainwashing .. the alleged brainwashing, by the chaplain and the alleged brainwashing by the psychologist,could not possibly have occurred at that time.

And I just find that taking into consideration who Mr. Ingram is, what his back ground was [he had been an insurance adjuster who interrogated people as part of his work], what his position was at that time, and who the people were who were interrogating him, it's just highly, highly unlikely that he would be convinced to confess unless he were guilty.

Now, the next thing I'd like to mention is this is business of witchcraft, and satanism, and devil worship, and what not.

He isn't charged with satanism. He isn't charged with improper activities with this other woman. Whose name I think was Dana. He isn't charged with anything that occurred back in the '70's, or at the time early on. He is charged with six counts of sexual impropriety with his daughters in 1988, not in the distant past. The daughters never recanted on the improprieties that their father foisted upon them in 1988. They stick with that.

There were other statements that were later made that I have to presume that were probably gross exaggerations. The business of 400 sessions with .. satanic sessions, 800. I think that those are certainly gross exaggerations. And the girls have given inconsistencies in their statements. There have been many statements, but basically the doctors have stated this is not an unusual thing, that when people have been subjected to severe sexual abuse over a period of years.

... he's not being accused of raping his wife, of being involved with multiple activities that have been described here in the courtroom back in 1975, 1976, or any of the satanic .. alleged satanic. The case here is rape of the two women in 1988, and that's all the charges are. And I just find that he did it.

... In essence there are two psychologists, Hatcher and Peterson, who had gone over Mr. Ingram very carefully, and in essence they say that his statements and his conduct, and whatnot, are consistent with those of a sex abuser. One family counselor, Dr. Lennon, is not a psychologist, but he is an experienced person in the treating of sexual problems, and he in essence is consistent, in my judgment, with the testimony of the two psychologists.

One witness, Dr. Ofshe, who is a doctor of sociology says differently, but I really feel that the three states witnesses are more credible than Dr. Ofshe. ...

Dr. Lennon finds a dissociative disorder, but he believes that the defendant admitted having a direct memory of molestation. ... in this questionnaire that Dr. Lennon gave to Mr. Ingram when he was in jail, and that Mr. Ingram filled out in his own handwriting, he states: "What is your the background of your current situation? Long term sexual abuse of my children by myself and others. Incest, sodomy, and homosexual activity involved." He says, "I'm accused of raping my daughter Julie in October of 1988. I have been able to recall the incident." He does say that "I don't remember raping my other daughter, but she says that I did it and so I did it."

But then he goes on, and again on Page 8 starts talking about what did to the youngest daughter, and that he hit her in the face when she says she'll tell. Then she moves out of the house.

... But were I a defense lawyer, and were I to refer the defendant to Dr. Lennon for a report, and were I to get this report, I would be very much down in the dumps, because it's a .. in my judgment, it's a highly negative report from the standpoint of the defense.

Lennon, in the report, states, "Mr. Ingram stated that he had been involved in either sodomy and homosexual activity. He stated I have been involved in bondage and tying my victims up on at least three occasions. He stated he threatened his family with threats of torture and did he tell and handguns were used at least six times. "

He stated and .. a direct quote on again, so far as the younger daughter is concerned, and on Page 7, "He is an individual who has clearly indicated that, `I raped my daughters and sons.' "

Then Dr. Lennon comes in with the recommendation that he would be at a high risk to reoffend. ... And he says here that he does not believe he should be treated as a outpatient, that it would be an inpatient situation, and it should be at Twin Rivers, which is the Department of Corrections or, in essence, prison.

That is the defense doctor saying that. Nobody else, except Dr. Ofshe, finds coercion. The other witnesses do not.

Let me talk just briefly about Dr. Ofshe. I have got another five minutes of reasoning here. Then I will quit. My problems with Dr. Ofshe's testimony are just these.

No. 1, he is not a clinical psychologist. He is a professor of sociology at .. in Berkeley. He's not able to treat .. he's not able to treat this defendant for the conditions that Dr. Lennon found that he had.

2, he's not an expert in sex abuse or with matters with regard to victims of sex abuse.

3, his experiment that he engaged in here was odd in my judgment. The first day he came to Thurston County was February 2nd. And on that very first day he went to the defendant and gave the defendant, when he was allegedly working for the state, a false set of facts, but a set of facts that came pretty close to what one of the victims had accused the defendant of. But he said this person said this, and this person said this. Now, what do you say about it. And then told him to go back to the cell, and come back with a scenario as to what happened. And he came back with a scenario.

If that had been a police officer making false statements to a defendant, I think the state would come under very heavy criticism for that. And Dr. Hatcher said that is not an appropriate technique that he would have used. And if one were going to use a technique like that, one would wait until you had exhausted all other avenues, then come back and say nothing fits here, I'm going to try and experiment, rather than doing it on the very first day. So there would be .. there would be no tainting. If you're going to be doing things like that, wouldn't you pick something that is totally foreign from anything that could probably be true.

I think I would say, why don't you pick a scenario of a female and male that live in Shelton, or Tacoma, or someplace else, and see if you could get them to come back with details regarding that. He didn't do that. And I find that it's a odd experiment, and the timing is odd.

The next problem I've got with Dr. Ofshe is he finds the defendant to be in a hypnotic state, or in a trance, on November 29th from reading a dry record. I find that to be strange. I wonder if that can be done. I have great cause for concern with that. I find that really he is considerably less qualified than Hatcher, Peterson, and Lennon to give opinions in this area. ... ...

[In discussing Ingram's testimony toward withdrawing his guilty plea:] He [Ingram] states now that Risch and Rabie [the other two men accused by the daughters of molesting them] had no involvement with any of this. He pulls back on all of his statements in that regard, after having involved them with statements. And sometime in April .. I can't be precise here .. or early May, he came up with the statement .. the story that ten other people, some of whom I suspect may have been law enforcement officers, committed sexual improprieties with members of his family. Now, on the stand he says that was all false. ... I believe his testimony is impeached, and I believe that he is somewhat of a manipulator. These are powerful words. I understand that. But I'm simply telling you what I believe and what I truly feel.

The bottom line, I don't think there was a manifest injustice, and I think the pleas of guilty were voluntary, and they will stand. So that's it.

[The rest of the transcript concerns issues of sentencing, etc.]

Comments? Please call the authors at (415) 731-8155, or write to John Backus and Barbara Una Stannard at P.O. Box 16014, San Francisco, CA 94116. Single typeset copies may be obtained by sending a business- size, self-addressed envelope with $.52 postage to the authors at this same address.

Original: January 1, 1994. Revised and Appendix II added, September 12, 1994.

-------------
NOTES

[1] An FMSF flyer says 2,345 families have called complaining about their children remembering sexual abuse (more recent data indicates the number of families is now over 6,000 or even 10,000).

[2] Pamela is the Executive Director of FMSF. Together Peter and Pamela effectively **are** the FMSF. See page 6 for their daughter's sensational story about their family.

[3] In a newsletter of February 29, 1992, Pamela Freyd says that the original list of 202 prospective FMSF member families came from Dr. Underwager's "Institute for Psychological Therapies." Some 1992 callers to the FMSF 800 number spoke with Underwager in his Minnesota office. A February 1993 FMSF flyer lists him as an Advisory Board member; bad publicity caused his resignation, but the FMSF still welcomes his help.

[4] "Pedophilia" or "paedophilia" is defined by Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as "sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object."

[5] In this article we use the popular term "incest survivor" as shorthand for the longer phrase "adult sexually abused as a child."

[6] But recent revelations by the daughter of the founders of the FMSF show that her parents founded the FMSF because they wanted to discredit their daughter remembering that her father sexually abused her. See page 6 for a discussion of the Freyd family.

[7] One man had a serious cough for three months until he remembered that his mother tried to drown him. No medical treatment helped the cough, which disappeared quickly after recovering the memory.

[8] See "Psychiatric Misadventures," by Paul R. McHugh, THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, Volume 61, Number 4, 1992, an article distributed by the FMSF; see also "The False Memory Syndrome Phenomenon," an FMSF booklet, pg 6.

[9] An FMSF "expert," psychiatrist Harold Lief, reveals the following opinions in ADDICTION & RECOVERY (May/June 1993): if a memory occurs after reading THE COURAGE TO HEAL, or if it concerns abuse by a woman, or deviant abuse, or very early abuse, then, in Dr. Lief's opinion, it is less likely to be true. (One must suppose that if someone remembered deviant early abuse by his mother, and had read COURAGE, then Lief would be **certain** it was false.) Lief also compares going into the details of childhood traumas to "exorcism for demonic possession." These illogical opinions seem more a result of denial than of reason.

[10] DENYING THE HOLOCAUST by Deborah Lipset (Free Press, 1993).

[11] COME HERE by Richard Berendzen (Villard, 1993).

[12] See page 15 for further discussion of why this happens.

[13] Pamela Freyd is the Executive Director of the FMSF; she and her husband are the driving forces behind it. In a very real sense they **are** the FMSF. The evidence strongly suggests that the FMSF grew out of the Freyds' effort to discredit their daughter Jennifer. That is why it is important to give some details of their story from the daughter's viewpoint. Their daughter has never sued her father. She did not make her side of the story public until after her parents sent their account to her colleagues. See "Memories of a Disputed Past," The Sunday Oregonian, August 8, 1993. See also the paper "Theoretical and Personal Perspectives on the Delayed Memory Debate" presented by J. Freyd at The Center for Mental Health at Foote Hospital's Continuing Education Conference: Controversies around recovered memories of incest and ritualistic abuse. August 7, 1993. Ann Arbor, Michigan.

[14] This history of childhood sexual abuse is characteristic of many child abusers, including the emotional denial of their own abuse. It is little wonder that this exceedingly sexualized man..-who has not dealt with the anguish of his own disastrous childhood..-has no sympathy for his daughter's pain. Many abused children grow up pleased with their sexual obsession; they often believe that they were always "sexually precocious" because they are unable to face that they were **trained** to be that way. They usually prefer to regard their sexual training as "love." Their sexual obsession is important to them because it often represents one of the few seemingly "alive" and pleasurable aspects of their lives.

[15] An odd example of their "love": Peter Freyd wrote Jennifer "I [think of] the whole project [**the FMSF!**] as being primarily a way of communicating with our daughters." It appears to be more a means for abusing them.

[16] Peter Freyd's older brother says of Peter and Pamela that "both are convinced they have the only correct view, any disagreement is seen as being misinformed or deranged." This kind of rigidity is a common element of denial.

[17] FMSF Newsletter, December 5, 1992, pg 1.

[18] This distrust arises from the fact that these techniques create altered states of consciousness in which subjects often become suggestible. However, used with care to avoid leading or suggestion, these techniques can produce a lot of information about facts and emotions.

[19] Remember that men of science have had many erroneous views; in regard to the awareness, intelligence and sensibilities of newborns and infants, they have been particularly obtuse: for example, until recently the majority of doctors believed that newborns were insensitive to pain and would operate on them and circumcise them without anesthetics (many still do!). But many studies have shown that newborns are sensitive to pain just as we are. Scientists also believed the newborn brain to be primitive and poorly developed; they consequently believed babies were non-persons who could not accumulate a personal history. This skepticism about babies' mental abilities is widespread even today, despite ever increasing evidence that even preborns and newborns have remarkable mental capacities. For example, they can pick out their mother's face from a set of photographs minutes after birth. They recognize their mothers in the dark by smell. The list of their abilities is long; see BABIES REMEMBER BIRTH by David Chamberlin, Ph.D., (Tarcher, 1988) for a charming account of their development and abilities; see also PRE & PERINATAL PSYCHOLOGY, AN INTRODUCTION, Thomas Verny, ed. (Human Sciences Press, 1987). Thus scientists' opinions can be just as inaccurate or even as foolish as laymen's.

[Dr. Piaget, author of _The Child and Reality,_ who did more research than anyone on the reasoning and intellectual capacities of infants and children, confirmed that newborns were conscious and aware. He published his findings forty years ago. -Astraea]

[20] Here is a conversation of a visibly pregnant anthropologist with her young daughter in BABIES REMEMBER BIRTH (p102): Daughter: Is the baby going to be dirty when she comes out of your tummy? I was dirty when I came out of your tummy in the hospital. Mother: You were? What made you dirty? D: Mud. It was all over me. It was yucky! M: What color was it? D: It was white. M: What happened? D: They put me in a bathtub and washed me all clean. M: And then what happened? D: They gave me to you and you held me. Then they took me and put me in a box. Why did they put me in a box? M: To keep you warm. What did the box look like? D: It was a plastic box and it had a lid on it. M: And what happened next? D: They brought me to you again and you held me. ... M: What happened when we got home? D: You put some pretty baby clothes on me and you put me in my crib and I went to sleep.

[21] BABIES REMEMBER BIRTH by David Chamberlin, Ph.D. (Tarcher, 1988) p99.

[22] BABIES REMEMBER BIRTH pps 105-120.

[23] Here is one sample from the account of pair #6 (pp 107-8: Mother: "I pick her up and smell her. I smell her head. I look at her toes and say, 'O God! She has deformed toes!'" She then asked the nurse about the toes and received assurances they were all right.

Child: "She's holding me up, looking at me ... She's smelling me! And she asked the nurse why my toes were so funny ... The nurse said that's just the way my toes were and that they weren't deformed."

[24] REALMS OF THE HUMAN UNCONSCIOUS by Stanislov Grof (Souvenir Press, 1975) pps 161-2. A patient accurately remembered the sounds of a village fair his mother visited just before his birth. His mother, who had not told her son about it, told Grof about her excursion when he questioned her later.

[We highly recommend -all- of Dr. Grof's early books, including BEYOND THE BRAIN and LSD PSYCHOTHERAPY, as well as REALMS. -Astraea]

[25] "On Meditation and the Western Mind" in NOETIC SCIENCES COLLECTION, 1980-1990, pg 119.

[26] He we do not make technical distinctions between "repressed," and other, temporarily inaccessible memories such as those resulting from dissociation or post-traumatic stress disorder. We use "repress" in the dictionary sense of "to exclude from consciousness."

[27] FMSF Newsletter, December 5, 1992, pg 1.

[28] REALMS OF THE HUMAN UNCONSCIOUS by Stanislov Grof (Souvenir Press, 1975), pps 66-8.

[29] THE MYSTERY OF THE MIND by Wilder Penfield (Princeton Univ. Press, 1975). Penfield received a great many decorations and awards for his work.

[30] Part II, May 24, 1993. Wright has written a book of the same name, which we have not read.

[31] Ingram's wife, his two daughters, and his two sons all recount numerous incidents of bizarre sexual activity in the family. For example, the older son, who knew nothing about the case and lived in another state, told detectives in his first interview of an incident in which he discovered his father (and the **same two other men** accused by the daughters) having deviant sex with his mother who was tied up on a bed.

[32] IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF THURSTON, State of Washington, Plaintiff; Paul Ross Ingram, Defendant; No. 88-1-752-1; Report Of Proceedings .. Volume VII. This is the transcript of Judge Robert H. Peterson's ruling, dated February 1, 1990. Excerpts from the ruling appear in Appendix II of t See page 22.

[33] For example, Ingram told Dr. Lennon, a defense expert, that he had raped his younger daughter in October of 1988 [p909, lines 4-6 of the judge's ruling]. His first confession of incest was on November 28, 1988, at most 2 months after this rape.

[34] "Remembering Satan," Part II, THE NEW YORKER, May 24, 1993, p76.

[35] See "Presuming to Know the Truth" by Judith Herman in NIEMAN REPORTS, The Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, Spring 1994, p43

[36] This series is yet another example of biased reporting: One of the authors, Stephanie Salter, was the lover of a man accused by his daughter of molesting her.

[37] These usually occur in bitter divorce and custody cases.

[38] THE EROTIC LIFE OF ANAIS NIN by Noel Riley Fitch (Little, Brown, 1993).

[39] Brochure of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. These figures cover eight years of the Center's operation. The Center operates under Congressional mandate and works in cooperation with the Department of Justice.

[40] For example, their brochure says that the median income of their supporting families is $60,000, that 60% are college graduates and 25% have advanced degrees. One must assume that this is supposed to indicate that these families are "respectable" and therefore could not have abused their children.

[41] May 6, 1993.

[42] June 14, 1993.

[43] Driver was also divorced in 1980 on the grounds that he had molested his wife's 5-year-old son. A single child molester like Driver or Father Porter, if not in prison, often wrecks the lives of literally hundreds of children.

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