Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0679755829, Paperback)
In 1988 Ericka and Julie Ingram began making a series of accusations of sexual abuse against their father, Paul Ingram, who was a respected deputy sheriff in Olympia, Washington. At first the accusations were confined to molestations in their childhood, but they grew to include torture and rape as recently as the month before. At a time when reported incidents of "recovered memories" had become widespread, these accusations were not unusual. What captured national attention in this case is that, under questioning, Ingram appeared to remember participating in bizarre satanic rites involving his whole family and other members of the sheriff's department.
Remembering Satan is a lucid, measured, yet absolutely riveting inquest into a case that destroyed a family, engulfed a small town, and captivated an America obsessed by rumors of a satanic underground. As it follows the increasingly bizarre accusations and confessions, the claims and counterclaims of police, FBI investigators, and mental health professionals. Remembering Satan gives us what is at once a psychological detective story and a domestic tragedy about what happens when modern science is subsumed by our most archaic fears.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:57 -0400)
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Lawrence Wright discusses the legal status of repressed memories, the philosophy behind the movement, and a few of the people and organizations that made it a cause (one that has receded in the years since Remembering Satan was written). Depressing, muddled, and absolutely without resolution, but fascinating in its own grimly lurid way. (