2017 ISSTD Protest

The Satanic Temple’s “Grey Faction” invades conference of mental health professionals who propagate bizarre conspiracy theories that have contributed to “Satanic Panic” witch-hunts

April 06, 2017. This past weekend, April 1st, 2017, In a Marriot Hotel in Washington, DC, The Satanic Temple’s Grey Faction, with the stated mission of “[f]ighting conspiracist witch-hunts and irrational mob panics,” made their presence known at the 34th annual conference of the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation (ISSTD), staging a protest accusing the professional mental health organization of propagating discredited conspiracy theories and practicing harmful therapeutic methods. Grey Faction bombarded the conference with brochures detailing the ISSTD’s scientific disrepute and various claims of scientific dishonesty and/or malpractice on the part of ISSTD past presidents, award recipients and distinguished fellows. On the afternoon of April 1st, Grey Faction activists entered the ISSTD conference whereupon a woman dressed in a hospital gown delivered a scripted monologue, reciting various claims of malpractice against ISSTD professionals.

Grey Faction is particularly concerned with the ISSTD’s continued advocacy for discredited theories of “repressed trauma” and use of Recovered Memory Therapies. “Recovered Memory Therapies can be very harmful to those who undergo this malpractice of treatment,” explains Lucien Greaves, spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, who was also present at the Grey Faction protest, “in no insignificant number of cases, these treatments have helped to cultivate sincerely-held delusions, not only of Satanic Ritual Abuse, but also of alien abduction, past-lives, and non-existent traumas that nonetheless metastasize into crippling paranoia-inspiring ‘memories’ of horrific conspiracies. Among the licensed mental health professionals of the ISSTD it is not uncommon to find those who believe their specialty condition of Multiple Personality Disorder (now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder) is actually caused by intentional trauma-based mind-control programming instigated by sinister unseen cults. At this level of delusion, it is apparent that there are many in the ISSTD who should be receiving mental health care, not treating mental health problems.”

“The Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and 1990s was largely supported by these now-discredited “survivor” pseudo-memories, and countless lives were ruined by false accusations of heinous crimes. According to Grey Faction, the Satanic Panic never ended and is still actively propagated by the ISSTD, not only implicitly by way of its advocacy for the debunked therapeutic practices that helped sustain it, but explicitly by the ISSTD’s open endorsement of conspiracist narratives of Satanic Cult Abuse advanced by its “Ritual Abuse/Mind-Control Special Interest Group”. This year’s ISSTD conference contained a lecture titled “Working through the traumatic memories of mind-controlled clients” presented by Satanic cult conspiracy theorist Alison Miller.

Grey Faction protested last year’s ISSTD conference and issued a petition against the former head of the ISSTD’s Ritual Abuse/Mind-control Special Interest Group, Ellen Lacter, whom they implicate in the death of an 8-year old autistic boy. Prior to his death, the boy’s mother sought help from Lacter. The mother later killed the child, convinced that she was preserving him from future tortures at the hands of a satanic conspiracy.

For more information about Grey Faction, see: www.GreyFaction.org