Michelle Remembers
Verification of the accuracy of the book “Michelle Remembers” by Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder, MD from the book “A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER” pages xi – xiii”
“Dr. Pazder’s credentials are impressive. He obtained his M.D. from the University of Alberta in 1961; his diploma in tropical medicine from the University Liverpool in 1962; and in 1968, his specialist certificate in psychiatry and his diploma in psychological medicine from McGill University. In 1971, he was made a fellow of Canada’s Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is a member of three Canadian professional associations and of the American Psychiatric Association as well. He practiced medicine in West Africa and has participated in medical task forces and health organizations. He has been chairman of the Mental Health Committee of the Health Planning Council for British Columbia. A member of the staff of two hospitals in Victoria, British Columbia -the Royal Jubilee and the Victoria General-he is in private practice with a group of five psychiatrists. His professional papers include a study of the long-term effects of stress upon concentration-camp victims.
Two experienced interviewers journeyed to Victoria and talked to Dr. Pazder’s colleagues, to the priests and the bishop who became involved in the case, to doctors who treated Michelle Smith when she was a child, to relatives and friends. From local newspaper, clergy, and police sources they learned that reports of Satanism in Victoria are not infrequent and that Satanism has apparently existed there for many years. Satanism in Western Canada flourished in many areas with activities far more ominous than some of the innocuous groups now found in parts of the United States who claim some connection with Satanism.
The source material was scrutinized. The many thousands of pages of transcript of the tape recordings that Dr. Pazder and Michelle Smith made of their psychiatric sessions were read and digested; they became the basis of this book. The tapes themselves were listened to in good measure, and the videotapes made of some of his sessions were viewed. Both the audio and video are powerfully convincing. It is nearly unthinkable that the protracted agony they record could have been fabricated.”
Thomas B. Congdon, Jr New York April 22, 1980
I can add more about “Michelle Remembers.” Larry Pazder practised in the same city as me, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. I knew him slightly and once shared a case of a teenage boy with DID caused by abuse by a babysitter. It was in Victoria that I encountered my first four survivors of organized abuse, and they were all members of the same coven of a Satanic cult, the Serpents. They shared past and (then, early 90s) current memories of abuse by that cult. Some of their parents were leaders in the cult. They remembered rituals at the same locations that Michelle reported (in particular, Ross Bay cemetery.) Although I disagree with Dr. Pazder in interpreting such things as the appearance of Satan literally (such groups use elaborate staged deceptions), I have no question that he and Michelle were talking about very real events. At the time, there was no knowledge of such organized abuse and no understanding of how to treat survivors. Dissociative disorders were not understood, so when Michelle “became” a 5 year old child, Dr. Pazder probably didn’t understand that it was an inside part or that there might have been more such parts. He also made the assumption that the events she remembered had happened only for the year when she was five, but they were probably ongoing for years, since a parent took her to those events. I have no knowledge of whether the cult left Michelle alone after she was treated by and then married Dr. Pazder, but judging by the group’s behavior when I was treating survivors (see Chapter 1 of my book Healing the Unimaginable), I would guess that the perpetrator group would work hard on making sure she remembered nothing more.
Alison Miller
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Alison Miller PHD
Retired Psychologist
Private Practice
(was in) Victoria, B.C.
