Open Letter to Dr. Elizabeth Loftus Regarding “False Memories”, Recovered Memories of Sexual Abuse, and the Satanic Panic

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The Satanic Panic
2. Satanic Ritual Abuse Investigations: Were They Really a “Witch-Hunt”?
3. False Memories, Recovered Memories, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, and the Freyd Family
4. Medical and Psychological Validity of Memory Loss and Recovery Following Traumatic Incidents
5. Conclusion

Content

1. Introduction: The Satanic Panic

     I was born in 1987, close to the middle of the so-called “Satanic Panic” scandal, which lasted from approximately 1983 to 1990. The Satanic Panic was a moral panic, experienced by the American public, regarding the possible existence of child-molesting preschool employees and possibly also Satanic child molesters.

     The Panic eventually resulted in a backlash which attempted to limit children’s access to sexual music and lyrics, and to Satanic and occult imagery. Such imagery - according to concerned parents and pastors - was allegedly found in various toys for children, and in games such as Dungeons and Dragons, and in television shows such as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
     [Link to pastor Phil Phillips explaining his objections to He-Man and D&D:
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNrPs4qReHk]

     This panic also included a backlash against claims that “recovered memories” of childhood sexual abuse are real memories. "Recovered memories" is the theory that it's possible for a person to be sexually abused, then forget the memories of the abuse, but then retrieve the memories later-on in life. Detractors of the "recovered memories" theory began to use the phrase "False Memories" to describe the memories that people claimed they had retrieved.

     By the end of the Satanic Panic scandal – and at the end of the “most expensive trial of all time” regarding McMartin preschool – public perception held that those panicking about Satan had been unsuccessful in proving the existence of Satanic child molesters.

     Thus, concerns about heavy metal lyrics, demonic children’s toys, and even pedo-Satanists, subsided; as has belief in recovered memories of sexual abuse.

     There’s just one problem: Some people involved did have real stories of abuse. It's just that the Los Angeles -area police took a handful of credible allegations, and responded to them by launching an investigation that went completely out-of-control, resulting in the questioning (a lot of it leading questioning) of hundreds of unrelated children. Police discovered nothing more than a few kids telling Andrew Dice Clay -style dirty nursery rhymes, and more or less concluded that nobody (except maybe a McMartin employee) had molested anybody.

2. Satanic Ritual Abuse Investigations: Were They Really a “Witch-Hunt”?

     There is a real boy who was allegedly abused at McMartin preschool in California. His name is Matthew Johnson, and he was four years old when Ray Buckey (or another employee) anally sodomized him (either with a finger, a penis, or an object). He told his mother, Judy Johnson, who took him to a nurse. This nurse reported observing abuse. But the fact that two nurses didn’t report abuse, is cited by detractors of the McMartin preschool abuse theory.

     The jury was unable to convict his abuser because they couldn't figure out which employee did it. Matthew's mother Judy died, from overconsumption of alcohol, before she could testify. If she had lived, she would have clarified what her son reported to her.

     Judy Johnson's son Matthew reported being taken away in a balloon. He also reported seeing a witch. It sounds impossible, but the boy’s reports don’t have to be literally 100% true in order to be concerning. If you ask me, it sounds like this child was forced to watch The Wizard of Oz while somebody abused him from behind. I’m not saying that’s definitely what happened, but it would certainly explain why the child reported seeing a witch and a hot air balloon, which are among the most memorable elements of that film.

     Children only explain things in language they understand. If a child sees his abuser as the devil, or a witch, then the parent should report that fact. The fact that most people would describe child rape as demonic, doesn't have to mean that all Satanic rock bands abused her kid, nor any particular sect of Satanism. Most Americans would agree that Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center got sidetracked, from their original task of looking for Satanic pedophiles, by instead focusing on Satanic and demonic toys and music, and getting all sexual music - like the "Filthy Fifteen" list of inappropriate songs - off the airwaves (even for adults).

     Furthermore, the fact that a man named Gary Hambright gave sexually transmitted diseases to multiple children at a daycare at the Presidio of San Francisco (which is on land owned by the U.S. Military), has now been long forgotten to history. So too have we forgotten the fact that the chief defender of the military, against those charges of being involved in sexual Satanic Ritual Abuse (S.R.A.) was Colonel Michael Aquino, an open Satanist. He is affiliated with the “Temple of Set”; named for Set (or Seti), the Egyptian god of darkness, night, and the underworld. Aquino also wrote a psychological warfare operations manual for the military.

     Despite the actions of Ray Buckey or Virginia McMartin, Gary Hambright, and Colonel Michael Aquino, the public has all but concluded that no Satanist or devil worshiper has ever molested a single child in the history of the world. I find that hard to believe.

     It is also interesting to note that a man who calls himself Lucien Greaves – who is affiliated with the Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts – has put on a presentation attempting to debunk the allegations that children were trafficked through tunnels underneath McMartin. Ted Gunderson (of the L.A.P.D. and the F.B.I.) believed that the tunnels did exist, and that they were just concreted-over to destroy the evidence. There exists a photograph of Gunderson standing near one of these concreted-over tunnels.

     The possibility that Satanists – as well as the U.S. Military – have been involved in (and possibly even collaborate on) child trafficking and rape, has been completely glossed-over, oversimplified, and treated with a knee-jerk reaction informed solely by the notion that everything Christians and Republicans are concerned about must not be serious problems.

     In approximately 2023, a young woman burned her aborted fetus, on TikTok, while openly talking about how she was doing it as a Satanic sacrifice. I want to know why that’s not a serious problem, and I also want to know why Mike Pence is wrong for demanding “fetus funerals”. Whether Satan exists or not, fetus funerals would have protected the corpse of this woman’s baby from its insane, horribly misguided mother.

     Regardless of the insistence, in the Satanic tenets, that consent is absolutely essential and children are not to be harmed, it seems that treating others in a demonic manner has taken root as a standard signal of politeness among those who scowl at the thoughts of showing restraint, modesty, or respect. Whatever words we want to use to describe it, a demonic element of vanity and hubris has taken hold of our society, and most of us have been groomed into not noticing it.

     Anyone who doubts the existence of child-molesting devil worshipers can go ahead and try to argue that the father in the Hampstead S.R.A. case in Britain is just an actor. Or that there are no MS-13 members who have ever raped a young girl and then sacrificed her to the devil.
     Or try to explain John and Tony Podesta's art collections, or the collections of James Alefantis or Marina Abramovic.
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyu910iyTuY

     Or explain that worshiping Lucifer could not possibly have been one of the motivations that Teresa's grandfather and the cult he belonged to, had, when they forced Teresa to submit to rape by animals when she was just fifteen years old. Teresa is a woman from England, who appeared in a 1989 interview, produced by John Penlington, for a segment titled "Satan's Children", for the television show 60 Minutes Australia.
     The video of that interview can be viewed at the link below (and the second link below is to the episode's page on IMDB.com):
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2ioRBNriG8
     https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5178494/

     Granted, the band Slayer did not intentionally incite their fans to murder fifteen-year-old Elyse Pahler on account of her being a virgin. But the fact that those fans intentionally sought to sacrifice a virgin should concern us, whether the Devil is real or not, and whether the members of Slayer worship Satan or not.

     The fact that the Church of Satan is headquartered in the same county in which the McMartin allegations originated, should not escape our notice either. If a child were to claim that "satanists" abused him, then should the local Satanic chapter in the area be free to sue that child and his family for defamation? It's sad to say, but this is not a frivolous concern, whether Satan is real or not.

     Sexual Satanic Ritual Abuse is real. Honest investigators will always keep looking until conclusive proof - or at least evidence that a cover-up may have occurred - is found.



3. False Memories, Recovered Memories, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, and the Freyd Family

     On the topic of recovered memories: They do exist. I know because I began recovering memories of sexual abuse and assault in 2015 (age twenty-eight), of which I had no memory beginning some time between 1997 and 2000 (ages ten and thirteen) until 2015. The abuse occurred at ages eight and nine (1995 and 1996).

     In 2019, I began writing about what I can manage to remember about the abuse, and I subsequently went to the police twice about it and submitted written reports each time. I have been recovering memories of the abuse slowly over the last ten years, and keeping notes, in order to prepare to eventually submit a third report (focusing on memories recovered since the second report, and including everything I will have written on the topic).

     One main reason why people think recovered memories aren't real - and call them all "false memories", even if they're recovered but true - is because of a psychologist named Dr. Elizabeth Loftus. She is known for convincing patients that they met "Bugs Bunny" at DisneyWorld, which is impossible, because Bugs Bunny is a Warner Brothers character, not a Disney character. Loftus took what she did as proof that it is possible to implant "false memories" into people's minds.

     However, Loftus evidently never considered that what she did to her patients could be described as fraudulent, manipulate, or even unethical psychological experimentation. After all, she did lie to her patients. Here's the problem: At no point did Loftus inform her patients that she was using them as test subjects in an unwitting experiment. Therefore, the patients could not have consented to be part of that experiment. This should cause us to question Loftus's morals as well as her methods.

     This is not to say that Loftus is deceiving everyone on purpose, however. It's possible that she has not even considered the ethics of her actions. She has also probably not asked herself whether intentionally implanting false memories in people's minds on purpose, may have reinforced the confirmation bias which she evidently holds (towards the belief that recovered "false memories" are not real).

     I believe that Loftus has this bias because (as she has said in interviews) she was sexually abused as a child, and that abuser was caught soon after, and punished. I believe that anyone who experiences such a thing would probably not forget it. Being given medical treatment, and rape tests, and having a lot of attention on you, and being in a courtroom, and maybe even speaking in a courtroom, are not easy things to forget.

     However, other children who are attacked sexually, do not always experience the attention and response that Loftus's case received. Since biological fathers and family and close friends are the most frequent sexual abusers of children, most abused children are forced to live with their abusers for years. This perpetuates the cycle of abuse, and after a while, the victim almost "gets used to it".

     It's not that the victim begins to enjoy the abuse, exactly. Granted, though; child rape victim turned billionaire television presenter Oprah Winfrey once explained that many child molesters subject their victims to forced sexual pleasure, under the threat of harm, as a way to trick the child into thinking that they enjoyed the act (because they were forced to enjoy part of it).
     Now, it is fair to want Oprah to be thoroughly investigated for her possible involvement in child trafficking and her association with serial child rapist cult leader John of God. However, that fact doesn't invalidate her statement about how child molesters trick children; she is absolutely right about that. Some child abusers combine pain with pleasure while abusing their victims, while other child abusers commit rape in excessively violent manners which result in many injuries to the children.
     Most child abusers force their victims to "find something about the abuse that they enjoy", as a way to coax the child into enduring the pain, to ensure that they'll remain submissive and try to relax as the abusive acts continue.

     That's how - eventually and gradually - the abused child learns to make the best of the bad situation that he or she is in. While being prevented from escaping repeated traumas, the child avoids the abuser to the extent possible, and fawns (i.e., ingratiates himself towards his abuser), and gets desensitized to pain by the abuser, and gets psychologically groomed.

     If the abuser can keep the abuse sporadic and unpredictable and repeated, but less and less severe over the years, then the victim will forget it ever happened, and "do what they have to do to get through it" until they turn 18 and/or become financially independent enough to flee from the abuser permanently.

     This continues, until the point where the victim ceases to recognize the way he has been treated, as abusive; mostly because he does not remember the earliest and/or most severe incidents of abuse.

     Such a person soon becomes psychologically vulnerable enough to fall for gaslighting - while intentional and accidental - perpetuated by those members of his family and support system who underestimate the degree of abuse he is experiencing. Thus, such a person becomes a prime candidate to go into denial, begin doubting his own ability to remember accurately and correctly, and then literally forget that he was ever sexually abused in the first place.

     When repeated abuse, like this, is never detected, the patient is never going to be adequately medically or psychologically treated for what happened (if even at all). This creates the perfect recipe for the total ignoring of the child, and of his or her claims of abuse (which increases the difficulty of detecting and preventing subsequent abuses).

     Hopefully, though - at some point, when that adult is alone with his thoughts long enough, and gets some freedom to travel far enough away from his abuser to collect his thoughts - the recovered memories begin to surface.
     It may be something the abuser said, or a feeling that evokes the memory of an unwanted touch, or maybe just the sound of an unknown person screaming, which is the first semblance of a memory that is recovered. But either way, this prompts the person to ask himself whether he was sexually abused.
     This begins a journey of memory-searching that eventually results in the recovery of real memories (not "false memories"). Recovered memories are absolutely real (although that is not to say that false reports and false rape claimants do not exist), and therapeutic assistance in the recovery of memories is something that has been specifically studied in the field of psychology and trauma counseling.

     If Dr. Elizabeth Loftus had been forced to live with her abuser for years after the initial incident, and subjected to more abuse – rather than afforded instant care and a memorable view of her abuser being sentenced for his crimes – then I suspect that she would not be as adamant that recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse are not real.
     On the contrary; I suspect that, if that were the case, then Loftus would have had to actively ask herself whether she was abused - and consciously attempt to recover memories - in order to get a chance to remember what happened (and then bring her abuser to justice).
     That is why I believe Dr. Loftus should admit that intentionally suggesting that her patients remembered information which was factually impossible to be true, was unethical; and reconsider and retract some or most of her findings on the topic.

4. Medical and Psychological Validity of Memory Loss and Recovery Following Traumatic Incidents

     I do not say all of this to wish that Loftus had suffered more, so that she may better empathize with other abuse victims. I say this solely because I hope that Loftus will reconsider her conclusions. Her expert testimony has been relied upon in some of the most important sexual abuse cases since the 1980s, so it is very important that she approach this topic with a scientific mind, and ask herself whether her personal experience caused a confirmation bias that skewed her conclusions towards doubting the accounts of people who recovered memories of abuse.

     There is a perfectly reasonable medical explanation of recovered memories.

     The mind shields us from things that are too traumatic to be processed on a regular and/or conscious basis. There would be no adaptive evolutionary advantage for the brain to allow the body to panic and be stressed all the time. Having to think about past sexual abuse regularly provokes a fight-or-flight response, and causes the release of adrenaline and cortisol. Cortisol is released when a person is under stress.

     Cortisol shrinks the hippocampus, the part of the brain which is responsible for the formation of long-term memories. The shorter the hippocampus, the more difficulties with memory retrieval. This is probably why remaining unstressed for long periods of time, is so helpful to people who are trying to “fill-in the gaps” of what happened, during the parts of their childhood which they don’t yet remember.

     Cortisol also grows the amygdala, which is responsible for moral judgment. The larger the amygdala, the more “black-and-white” - and less ambivalent - the person’s moral thinking becomes. Thus, a person who has been abused multiple times, is more emotionally reactive and sensitive, and “on-edge” around people they don’t trust, than people who were abused less or not at all. This may come off as judgmental, from the perspective of people who don’t know the person was abused. This effect may also lead an abused person to become “reactive”, practicing “imperfect self-defense” in overreaction to perceived threats and perceived lack of safety.

     I am sincerely sorry about what happened to Dr. Elizabeth Loftus when she was a child. But I also hope that she will read this article, and consider retracting some of her submissions to written academic discourse on the topic of recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse and assault.

5. Conclusion

     I urge my readers to watch the 2008 documentary Flashback, the only film of which I'm aware which directly deals with recovered memories of sexual abuse. Dr. Loftus appears in the documentary. Its full title is Flashback: The Science Behind the Recovered Memory of Child Sexual Abuse, and it can be viewed for free on YouTube at the following address:
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0lSXh_fE7Y

     About halfway through the film, a woman with curly gray hair appears, asking why children would say such things about parents who have only tried to take care of them. That woman was Pamela Freyd, the wife of Peter J. Freyd. Freyd coined the term "False Memories Syndrome", and founded the now-defunct False Memories Syndrome Foundation. The reason why the foundation is defunct, is because Peter J. Freyd sexually abused his daughter Jennifer. Jennifer Freyd grew up to be a psychologist, and write books about her experiences, including one titled Betrayal Trauma.

     Until Dr. Loftus makes her retractions, I hope that this article will serve as sufficient cause - in the court of public opinion - to indicate that the efforts to debunk recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, have, themselves, been officially debunked. Or, at the very least, to indicate that the investigations into McMartin, Hambright, Aquino, and others were grossly mishandled (or even covered-up) and should be re-opened.

     I hope that this article will prompt more thorough investigation of recovered memories claims, as well as Satanic Ritual Abuse claims. I hope that it also results in the phasing-out of the phrase “false memories”, which was coined by a child molester to discredit his own daughter’s true claims of sexual abuse.

     To those who still suspect, after reading the above, that anyone and everyone whom is concerned about exposure of children to occult and demonic themes, must only be motivated by a desire to convert children to Christianity, I say the following:
     The pastor, Phil Phillips, who raised caution about the show He-Man, did not only object to the description of He-Man as the "master of the universe" (a title which Christians only afford to God); he also objected to the exposure of children to He-Man insofar as his body-builder body-type indicates that he is a hyper-masculine stereotype. This imprints, upon boys, unreasonable expectations about the body, which may be deleterious to boys' ability to feel manly (i.e., because they don't look manly enough).
     Thus, Christians and transgender allies alike have a reason to think twice before they allow children to watch He-Man, play with He-Man dolls, or play with other hyper-masculine man dolls or hyper-sexualized hyper-feminine woman dolls.

     One does not have to believe in God, nor Jesus, nor the Devil (or Satan, or any demonic entity), in order to object to the exposure of children to hyper-sexualized, gender-stereotypical, or dark or foreboding themes. Children deserve happy childhoods; they do not deserve to grow up around goat-headed statues with exposed breasts, or demonic-looking hyper-sexualized drag queens who want to read them stories.
     Children deserve respect, and we cannot give them respect until we free ourselves from our delusions. We must stop giving possibly pedophilic Satanists and possibly pedophilic members of our military and police the benefit of the doubt. We must not suspend disbelief.
     As Rosemary said, in Rosemary's Baby, "This is no dream! This is real!"

     The cost of freedom, and happy and safe childhoods, is for adults to be eternally vigilant.

     I hereby declare the Satanic Panic to be officially back on.

Written and published on August 21st, 2025

Based on two e-mails;
one written to David Rych in 2023 or 2024,
and another to David Ramsay Steele on August 21st, 2025