Victims of Memory Web Page

There is currently a raging debate regarding "recovered memories" of sexual abuse. This web site provides a great deal of introductory information on that debate and offers a "jumping-off place" for connections to other relevant web sites on all sides of the issue. By clicking on the following chapter headings, you will be introduced to many aspects of human memory research, infantile amnesia, hypnosis, multiple personality disorder, ritual abuse, interviews with those on all sides, religious aspects of the debate, legal battles, and more.

Essentially, the debate boils down to the question of "massive repression." Can human beings completely forget years of traumatic events, only to recall them later? Victims of Memory, by Mark Pendergrast, argues that the answer is "No." But readers must make up their own minds. Read on....

Victims of Memory is the most comprehensive, scholarly book available about the recovered memory debate. This web site includes reviews, ordering information, selected material from the book (the beginning of each chapter), and cross-references to other web sites (see end of this home page) on both sides of this issue.

Reviews Excerpts: "An impressive display of scholarship...a comprehensive treatment of the recovered-memories controversy.... Pendergrast demonstrates a laudable ability to lay out all sides of the argument...." --Daniel L. Schacter, Scientific American

Ordering Information

North American version

Victims of Memory (635 pages, $24.95, ISBN 0-942679-18-0) is available through bookstores in the U.S. and Canada or it can be ordered directly from the publisher, below.

To place your order:

1. Call Upper Access at 1-800-356-9315 OR

2. Send e-mail to Upper Access OR

3. Write to Upper Access Books, P.O. Box 457, Hinesburg, VT 05461, including a check for $29.95 (for Priority Mail shipping). Orders of 10 or more receive a 40% discount. Copies of the first edition (1995) are available at a major discount for a limited time. Ask for the Upper Access catalog while you're at it.

UK & Commonwealth Version

The British edition of Victims of Memory (London: HarperCollins, 1997, 746 pages, Ł14.99, ISBN: 0-00-255684-7) can be purchased in bookstores throughout the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, or it can be purchased directly from the publisher.

To place your order, contact:

HarperCollins Publishers, 77--85 Fulham Palace Rd., Hammersmith, London W6 8JB; Fax: 44-0181-307-4656

Foreword by Melody Gavigan

Introduction: Victims of Memory, An Overview

Chapter 1: How to Become a Survivor

The Horror of Real Incest ~ The Search for Lost Memories ~ The Courage to Accuse ~ Other Survivor Literature ~ Emotional Incest ~ Men Can Be Survivors, Too ~ A Textbook for Memory Invention ~ The Academics ~ Ritual Abuse and Multiple Personalities ~ Entering the Mainstream: "The Terrible Truth"

Chapter 2: The Memory Maze

Reconstructing the Past ~ Psychological Turf Wars ~ Repression: For and Against ~ "Proof" for Repression ~ Lenore Terr: Story-Time ~ Miss America and Other Famous Victims ~ Elizabeth Loftus: "That Woman" ~ Wilder Penfield, Karl Lashley, and the Search for the Engram ~ Implicit and State-Dependent Memory ~ Neuroscience and Repressed Memories ~ The Connectionist Computer Model ~ Memory Palaces and Haunted Houses ~ Infantile Amnesia and Preverbal Abuse ~ Common-Sense Conclusions

Chapter 3: How to Believe the Unbelievable

Hypnosis: Memory Prod or Production? ~ Age Regression: Let's Pretend ~ Past Lives and Unidentified Flying Fantasies ~ Facilitated Communication and the Human Ouija Board ~ Dream Work ~ Sleep Paralysis ~ Flashbacks or Visions? ~ Body Memories and Panic Attacks ~ Symptoms: Pickle Aversion and Eating Disorders ~ Drugs ~ Cognitive Dissonance and Group Contagion ~ The Contexts of Insanity

Chapter 4: Multiple Personalities and Satanic Cults

Sybil and Her Traumatized Alters ~ Ralph Allison's New Frontier ~ James Friesen's Multiple Demons ~ Diagnosing the Elusive Multiple ~ Manufacturing MPD ~ Dissociative Disorder Units: Terror in the MPD Mills ~ Dissociation and the Absent-Minded Professor ~ Grade Fives, Temporal Lobe Spikes, and Personality ~ Satan's Minions ~ A Warning from Thigpen and Cleckley

Chapter 5: The Therapists

Sam Holden, Christian Counselor ~ Janet Griffin, MSW ~ Horace Stone, Minister/Counselor ~ Leslie Watkins, PhD, Clinical Psychologist ~ Charlotte Halpern, Psychiatrist ~ Jason Ransom, Body Worker ~ Katherine Hylander, Past Life Hypnotherapist ~ Sally Bixby, Psychotherapist ~ Robin Newsome, Retractor Therapist

Chapter 6: The Survivors

Virginia Hudson, Incest Survivor (Letter) ~ Susan Ramsey, Incest Survivor ~ Diane Schultz, Incest Survivor ~ Frieda Maybry, Ritual Abuse Survivor ~ Patricia Delaney, Survivor and Lawyer ~ Angela Bergeron, Multiple Personality Survivor ~ Elaine Pirelli, Survivor Who Remembered Being Impregnated ~ Melinda Couture, Sexual Abuse Survivor and Wife of Accused Father ~ Sally Hampshire, Incest Survivor Who Has Always Remembered

Chapter 7: The Accused

Hank and Arlene Schmidt, Accused Parents, and Frank Schmidt, Their Son ~ Bob Sculley, Accused Father ~ Julia Hapgood, Wife of Accused ~ Dr. Aaron Goldberg, Accused Father ~ Joe Simmons, Accused Father ~ Gloria Harmon, Accused Mother ~ Bart Stafford, Accused Sibling ~ Rhonda and Paul Hallisey, Accused by Facilitated Communication

Chapter 8: The Retractors

Olivia McKillop, Retractor ~ Laura Pasley, Retractor ~ Maria Granucci, Retractor ~ Leslie Hannegan, Christian Retractor ~ Nell Charette, "MPD" Retractor ~ Stephanie Krauss, Retractor from a Psychiatric Hospital ~ Robert Wilson, Retractor

Chapter 9: And A Little Child Shall Lead Them (And Be Led)

McMartin: the First Day-Care Scandal ~ Research on Suggestibility ~ Abusing Kids in Outer Space and Other Allegations ~ The Fells Acres Nightmare ~ The Rape of the Souza Family ~ Believing the Children ~ Peggy Buckey's Post-traumatic Stress

Chapter 10: A Brief History: The Witch Craze, Reflex Arcs, and Freud's Legacy

The Witch Craze ~ Demons ~ The Nerve Doctors and the "Hysterics" ~ Hypnotism ~ Charcot's Circus ~ Freud's Mental Extractions ~ Did Freud Lead His Patients? ~ Multiple Personalities ~ Emil Kraepelin and His Patient

Chapter 11: Why Now?

A Nation in Search of a Disease ~ Victims All ~ Pop Therapy ~ The Frantic Pursuit of Happiness and the Boomers ~ Psychics and Exorcists ~ The Women's Movement ~ Politically Correct Excesses ~ The Fragmentation of the Family ~ Righting Wrongs ~ Media Madness and Sexual Schizophrenia ~ A Concluding Note

Chapter 12: Survivorship as Religion

The Substitute Faith ~ Defining Religion ~ Conversion ~ Ecstatic Religion and the Possessed Shaman ~ Minirth-Meier and the Christian Hunt for Memories ~ Rage and the Worship of Self ~ Bradshaw: The Evangelist of Dysfunction ~ Saving the World ~ Survivorship as Sect ~ Seeing Cults Everywhere ~ Constant Rage Can't Last

Chapter 13: Conclusions and Recommendations

The Scope of the Problem ~ The Backlash: Whose Back? Whose Lash? ~ Who's in Denial Now? ~ Circling the Wagons ~ Avoiding the Truth Trap ~ "Moderates" and Other Therapists ~ Holding Therapists Responsible ~ Where the Money Is ~ Therapists Facing the Future: "Flocks of Edgy Birds" ~ The Hazards and Uses of Therapy ~ The Verdict on Repressed Memories ~ How to Tell True from Illusory Memories ~ When a Friend Remembers ~ A Hug Is Not Sex Abuse ~ Humans Are Resilient ~ Crying Wolf ~ Unwanted Bedfellows ~ Legal and Professional Recommendations ~ To Parents, Children, and Therapists

Appendix: Myths & Realities

Selected Bibliography

Notes on the Author

Investigative journalist Mark Pendergrast spent over three years researching and writing Victims of Memory . His 1993 history, For God, Country and Coca-Cola , was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times . A Harvard graduate, Pendergrast lives in New England. To send a message to the author, mhp4@aol.com.

Click on the following "hot buttons" to transfer to related web sites on both sides of the issue.

Web sites skeptical of recovered memories:

Witchhunt Information Page

FMS Foundation Web Site

Concerned Citizens for Legal Accountability

Answers in Action: Satanism & SRA

Ontario Centre for Religious Tolerance sites provide excellent resources.
Go to their "not so spiritual"; home page and browse, or go straight to the OCRT page about recovered memories. Or go straight to the OCRT page about ritual abuse

"Skeptical" web sites:

The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) home page.

Skeptic Magazine home page.
(NOTE: A subpage contains Mark Pendergrast's interview with Robin Newsome,a retractor therapist, which is also included in the second edition of Victims of Memory.)