This is a must-watch documentary from PBS' Frontline: "The Search for Satan," 1995
The show stacked the deck against the possibility of Satanic ritual abuse being real, putting it in the preposterous category and accusing counselors of inventing child abuse by cults in order to bilk insurance companies for expensive psychological treatments.
There are counter claims, however, that the show itself contains many inaccuracies and fabrications. An essay called "The Search for Satan – Fourteen Years Later" is published on the web site of S.M.A.R.T. - Stop Mind Control and Ritual Abuse Today. I haven't looked through much of this site, but it seems to have a lot of useful information for pizzagate researchers.
"The Search for Satan -- Fourteen Years Later" describes in detail how many of the claims made on the show were shown to be false, including in a court of law:
AUTHOR NOTE: In my initial review of PBS Frontline’s “The Search for Satan” for Treating Abuse Today I reported some of the problems I had discovered in this documentary: (1) In several clips, producer Bikel flashed a quick shot of a document and narrowed the camera focus to one statement. Using the pause button, I was able to read the rest of the document. There I learned that Mary Shanley was not, as the producers claimed, “having a normal life and doing normal things” before her hospitalization in Houston. (2) The film contained a surprising number of recreated scenes which were not labeled as such. (3) A supposedly direct quote from FBI agent Ken Lanning had been edited. (4) A call to the State of Illinois revealed that Shanley had not been “listed with the State of Illinois as a child abuser,” nor had her teaching certificate been listed as “restrictive.” (5) I did some research and found the producers failed to mention that Shanley had been hospitalized at four different hospitals and received a diagnosis of “mixed personalities.”
I titled my review “Smoke and Mirrors,” and it appeared in the Jan/Feb 1996 issue of Treating Abuse Today.
Two years later, the women featured in the film, Shanley and Pat Burgus, had both settled their lawsuits against their therapists. Shanley’s case settled with a gag order in place. Malpractice carrier AIG and two others had settled Burgus’s case for $10.6 million .The medical license of Burgus’s psychiatrist was suspended for two years. Five of Shanley’s mental health care providers were indicted on federal fraud and conspiracy charges.
I flew down to Houston in September of 1998 to cover the trial in federal court, and was in the courtroom when Shanley was on the witness stand. During cross-examination, defense attorney Rusty Hardin discredited virtually all of the claims Shanley had made in “Search.” Shanley acknowledged she recalled memories of cult abuse long before she met the defendants, and could not name any false memories that Peterson had supposedly implanted. The government rested its case after five months. All charges against the five defendants were then dismissed.
view the rest of the comments →
carmencita ago
Well, these poor women were taken advantage of by their doctors. They wanted to bilk the insurance companies because they had 1M in coverage. It is really sad that they ruined Mary/s life, for while taking the money, they also brainwashed her husband and child. She has no contact with them now because they believe she may kill them. The other woman, her sons will probably have problems in their teen years due to what they had to endure. Mary is suing the doctors. They should have their licenses taken away forever. They poisoned the minds of people watching this program into believing the SRA does not exist, when it does. Dr. Hammond is the one that was on to the real story of SRA, being Mind Control by the Intelligence Agencies. MK Ultra, Project Monarch. Propaganda Brainwashing of the Public.
Psalm100 ago
That show wasn't recent, but from 1995, and if you look at the link I posted from S.M.A.R.T., it says that a lot of things claimed by the women, as well as other things claimed in the show, weren't true. For one thing, it's claimed in the show that Mary didn't have memories of being abused in a cult until her therapists suggested that she'd been abused in a cult, when it reportedly came out in court, when Mary testified under oath, that she did have memories of being abused in a cult before ever meeting her therapists.
carmencita ago
Wow, so she did have memories, but they abused they whole thing to get money from the insurance companies?
Psalm100 ago
Well, that's what PBS/Frontline claimed. They made it sound like the diagnosis of multiple personalities/dissociative identity disorder and claims of Satanic ritual abuse were just made up for a profit motive. It was their way of dismissing the whole possibility of SRA as ridiculous.
carmencita ago
And they are still at their propaganda game. We are going to end that.