Possible Hate Groups – How Do They Effect Survivors and Their Resources
Presented at the 2019 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference on August 17 – 18, 2019 by Neil Brick
Please note: All accusations are alleged. This presentation may be triggering for some survivors. None of the material on these pages or at the conference is meant as therapy, or to take the place of therapy. Strong language (direct quotes) is in this presentation.
Possible Hate Groups – How Do They Effect Survivors and Their Resources by Neil Brick
This presentation will discuss groups that attack survivors and their helpers due to their diagnosis of dissociation and dissociative identity disorder and work recovering from trauma.
“A hate group is a social group that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, nation, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other designated sector of society. According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a hate group’s “primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin which differs from that of the members of the organization.”
Definitions: From Wikipedia, which cites the source: Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines”, Uniform Crime Reporting: Summary Reporting System: National Incident-Based Reporting System, U.S. Department of Justice: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, Revised October 1999.
As per the definition above, survivors of severe abuse and their helpers are often targeted for public attacks, harassment and abuse as “(an)other designated sector of society.” A hate group’s primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against person’s belonging to a disability (dissociative disorders, dissociative identity disorder and trauma survivors and their helpers) which differs from that of the members of the organization.
Violence and Hate Crimes
Hate Groups targeting survivors of child abuse do not normally participate in overt acts of violence or crime against survivors of severe abuse and their helpers.
David Calof
The case of David Calof, as discussed in Calof, D.L. (1998). Notes from a practice under siege: Harassment, defamation, and intimidation in the name of science, Ethics and Behavior, 8(2) pp. 161-187. https://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/notes-from-a-practice-under-siege/
“In this article, I describe practicing psychotherapy under a state of siege and places the campaign against me in the context of a much broader effort in the FMS movement to denigrate, defame, and harass clinicians, lecturers, writers, and researchers identified with the abuse and trauma treatment communities.”
“The malicious and derogatory slogans declare inter alia: “Pseudo Therapist creates victims for profit!!,” “David Calof Sexploits Women,” “David Calof Prowls for Women Victims,” “(Pious) Calof Preys on Women victims,” “Calof’s poison kills families,” “A Greedy Therapist Bashes ‘Innocent’ Parents For $$,” “Voodoo Therapy Practiced Here,” “David Calof, Grand Poobah of the Lunatic Fringe and con,” “Families Expose Terrorist Psycho Therapist,” “Stop Mind Control Experiments” “David Calof Creating Mental Illness,” “David Calof Destroys families,” “300’ [feet] to ‘Cagey’ Dave Calof’s Voo Doo pit.” One sign, most often displayed just outside my office window, warns; “Beware Calof’s Crooked Femi-Nazi Powr [sic] lies.” It is adorned with two red Swastikas.”
“Office personnel and visitors have had to endure shouted obscenities and slurs, many of which are based on perceived race, physical appearance, and sexual preference. Noah has stalked me (sometimes placing himself within several inches of my body) and menaced me with a wooden cross, a large American flag, and a large sign on a long pole bearing my photograph with the caption, “Psycho Spook,” while loudly taunting me with insults and epithets (such as: “That’s right, baldie, go back to your hallucination pit,” “cocksucker,” “asshole,” and the like). Noah also publicly taunted my assistant with crude epithets, such as “cocksucker,” “fucking prick,” “freak,” “Calof’s little suck,” and the like. Noah once stormed out of a legal hearing and on his way out, in plain view of the court, grabbed my assistant by the shoulder and said to him: “You little cocksucker.” The judge noted this incident by hand to her findings and rulings (Calof v. Noah, 1995).”
“This group also has waged an intrusive and extensive campaign of mail fraud and harassment directed toward me, my wife and my staff. For over 2 years, we have received hundreds of unsolicited “you requested this” offerings for products to cure impotence, bed wetting, baldness, and psoriasis; trade school courses; investments; luxury cars; dog and cat food; and psychotropics.”
The full journal article goes into detail about the severe harassment David Calof and those working with him received.
Anna Salter
Another possible exception is the case of Anna Salter, discussed in the journal article:
Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter – Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 , pages 115 – 124 Abstract – In 1988 I began a report on the accuracy of expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases utilizing Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield as a case study (Wakefield & Underwager, 1988). In response, Underwager and Wakefield began a campaign of harassment and intimidation, which included multiple lawsuits; an ethics charge; phony (and secretly taped) phone calls; and ad hominem attacks, including one that I was laundering federal grant monies. The harassment and intimidation failed as the author refused demands to retract. In addition, the lawsuits and ethics charges were dismissed.
Though it appears her harassment by false memory proponents was not as severe as David Calof, she discusses the dynamics of harassment and ways she fought the harassment. Others during the 1990s were not as successful in their fights against harassment.
Hate Speech
“Hate speech is a statement intended to demean and brutalize another, or the use of cruel and derogatory language on the basis of real or alleged membership in a social group. Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or a group on the basis of protected attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
Thus quote is also from Wikipedia, which cites three different sources.
“Hate speech.” ”Britannica Academic”, Encyclopædia Britannica, 17 Aug. 2015. academic-eb-com.ezproxy.scottsdalecc.edu/levels/collegiate/article/hate-speech/602988. Accessed 30 Mar. 2019. (For the first sentence)
Definitions for “hate speech”, Dictionary.com. Retrieved 25 June 2011
Nockleby, John T. (2000), “Hate Speech” in Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, ed. Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst, vol. 3. (2nd ed.), Detroit: Macmillan Reference US, pp. 1277–79. Cited in “Library 2.0 and the Problem of Hate Speech,” by Margaret Brown-Sica and Jeffrey Beall, Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship, vol. 9 no. 2 (Summer 2008). (second two sources for the second sentence).
As in examples above, hate speech has been used by the false memory movement, which has included “statement(s) intended to demean and brutalize another, or the use of cruel and derogatory language” and “Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or a group on the basis of protected attributes such as…disability.” In our case, the disability is the same as the disability mentioned in the definition of hate groups “dissociative disorders, dissociative identity disorder and trauma survivors and their helpers.”
Modern Harassment of Severe Abuse Survivors
Since 2009, I and others suffering have suffered hatred, hostility and harassment at first by Douglas Misicko (aka Doug Mesner, aka Lucien Greaves) and those working with him and then after 2014 by the group he co-founded, The Satanic Temple and its subgroup The Grey Faction.
I believe the Grey Faction may possibly qualify as a hate group due to its targeting sufferers of dissociative disorders sufferers and their helpers. At times, the inflammatory language used by the group has been meant to “intended to demean and brutalize” with “the use of cruel and derogatory language.”
Evidence the Grey Faction has targeted severe abuse survivors and their helpers:
“Lodging complaints against licensed professionals who espouse conspiracy theories of Satanic ritual abuse.”
“Attending/protesting mental health conferences known to cultivate conspiracy theories in order to expose sanctioned networks of deleterious “therapeutic practice.”
(Grey Faction – About Us Grey Faction website)
It is important to note that:
1) It appears that none of these complaints have caused any disciplinary actions by licensing boards.
2) Attending these conferences by Grey Faction representatives in the case of one conference has been without knowledge that he was working with the Grey Faction. Videotaping taping has been done without permission at least one conference.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence of specific violence or hate crimes by Mr. Misicko or the Grey Faction. However I do believe that both may possibly participate in hate speech tactics. Please note: There are comments with aliases below that are believed to be possibly attributed to him or those working with him.
Examples:
Where the Witch-Hunters are: Satanic Panic & Mental Health Malpractice
By Douglas Mesner and Sarah Ponto Rivera
“But where is Randy “L’il Knob” Noblitt today, now that social conditions aren’t nearly so amenable to the tin-foil hat Torquemada whose doctoral thesis was on The Celestial Concomitants of Human Behavior, more colloquially known as Astrology?”
(“Deeper Dive” Grey Faction Website)
Report from the S.M.A.R.T. Ritual Abuse/Mind-Control Conference 2009, Part 1
by doug — August 25, 2009
On the weekend of August 15-16, journalist Douglas Mesner (process.org) attended a conference for alleged victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse and Mind-Control in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. This is the first of his 2-part report:
“The crude sales booth at the far end of the conference room marketing a more advanced species of tin-foil hat does nothing to allay the suspicion that this is to be a congregation of raving delusional paranoiacs.”
“The organizer of the conference, Neil Brick, stands about 5’6? with a greasy dark curly comb-over, large-thick glasses, and a voice that sounds exacly like Elmer Fudd (without the impediment of pronouncing his Rs as Ws).”
“The disclaimer of the word “alleged” in his own biographical description indicates a type of half-belief that was conveyed from most speakers at the conference, some of whose lectures were startlingly candid accounts of how and why they came to manufacture their paranoid fictions.”
(Process.org website)
Report from the S.M.A.R.T. Ritual Abuse/Mind-Control Conference 2009, Part 2
by doug — August 31, 2009
On the weekend of August 15-16, Douglas Mesner attended a conference for alleged victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse and Mind-Control in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. This is the second part of his 2-part report:
“A twistedly prurient work describing outrageous paedophilic orgies among the famous and affluent, Taylor’s work has been described as “porno for paranoids” – its claims so far-flung and unlikely that, as far as I know, nobody has seen the need to disprove it.”
“Thus, Neil Brick may re-imagine – as he does – a past in which he was a top secret Cold War assassin, and sexually repressed housewives may place themselves in the midst of deviant orgies in which they had no choice but to participate. In this context, it is bad form, even pointless, to question the validity of the claims put forward by the conference speakers.”
“The conference is so self-evidently full of bullshit that exposing it may seem no more productive than pulling the false beard from a shopping mall Santa Claus. But, absurd as the premise of the S.M.A.R.T. conference is, and deranged as the speaker’s tales clearly are, there are practising, licensed therapists who, to this day, will defend the legitimacy of the “recovered memories” that have revealed the machinations of the Satanic Conspiracy discussed here.” (Process.org website)
Douglas Misicko alias Douglas Mesner update 7 – Radio Interview Rebuttal
“In a radio interview this week, Mesner states “The organization S.M.A.R.T is run by this little shit named Neil Brick, he’s actually when I first saw him, he’s this staggering little moron with this greasy combover and thick glasses, and he’s very short and very frail …”
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/douglas-misicko-alias-douglas-mesner-update-7-radio-interview-rebuttal/
Reviewer: salzburg m September 15, 2009
Subject: Job’s a Job
Might as well give up on asking Neil Brick to answer any straight-forward questions. He’s probably the middle-aged bag boy at some grocer he can ride his bike to. Everybody needs to make a buck, and he probably gets an extra boost each time he has his little conferences. Nothing so wrong with that so long as they aren’t outright accusing people of wrong-doing any more. But then I see where the author of the article is coming from when you have to question what
these people really believe if they aren’t really willing to accuse people they believe have really tortured them. On the one hand, maybe let them have their fun, but on the other, it would be nice if they’d blame the aliens like the other crack-pots.
Reviewer: doug mesner September 13, 2009
Subject: Brick, the Exploiter
….Neil Brick seems to believe that an argument is won in quantity rather than quality, and for this reason he posts all the superfluous and mostly irrelevant comments from other attendees and speakers at his conference who, of course, agree with his tall tales…..
(quoting Brick) “My organization helps trauma survivors, by providing resources and accurate information to them. His article hurts them, by personally attacking myself and them, in a one sided and inaccurate manner.”
I would very much disagree. I think that the participants of S.M.A.R.T. should be well aware that the outside world does not take seriously and in fact mocks Neil Brick’s position. They should seek real help from real professionals – not quacks like (participating S.M.A.R.T. speaker)….
Reviewer: Mort Walt September 14, 2009
Subject: Neil Brick and Child Abuse
I am well aware of the effects the satanic panic had on many innocent people growing up in the early eighties. At first I felt this report had the feel of a heavy-weight mercilessly pummeling away on a hapless Special Olympics contender, but Mesner justifies his vitriol with his compassion for the falsely accused. I am aware of S.M.A.R.T. and how they often claim their opponents are part of a pro-pedophile agenda. I think that’s really sleazy, and I don’t trust Neil Brick at all. So, I began to think about why I really found myself disliking Neil
Brick, and I decided that maybe I had been sexually abused by him. I worked to remember any possible abuse at his hand. After a while, I could imagine his greasy comb-over dripping over my exposed loins, shouting commands in his Elmer Fudd voice. These memories must be true.
By Neil Brick’s own standards of evidence, he is now convicted as a pedophile….
Reviewer: Doug Mesner September 15, 2009
….Brick, try to follow the argument here. I know that you’ve come unarmed in a battle of wits, but read slowly: these articles explain the symptoms of DID, and I DO agree these symptoms exist. They are created in a clinical setting as therapists lead their clients to emulate the diagnosis. Very interesting the questions Brick chooses not to answer. May I tell them about your actual job, Neil? I wanted to give you the opportunity to explain how it is this work could possibly tie in to your mysterious training (we’ll probably never know where) in psychology. You see, Neil, I’m not arguing with you to convince you of anything. There are others in the field who are convinced that people like you aren’t lying, rather, you simply don’t know what the truth is. To some extent, I think this is the case. But, the more we correspond, the more I think it is evident that you DO know you’re lying, at least insofar as those things you entirely ignore in my critique are concerned.
You have NO credentials in Psychology or Psychiatry. Your organization is based on the delusional premise of satanic conspiracy and government mind-control….
From a member of TST and colleague of Lucien Greaves in 2016 on twitter:
Please note: names of others tagged have been removed.
@Neil_Brick I just wonder what pedophile like you would do in a situation like this
January 27, 2016
doubt it. Looser, not cool, touched her professional colleague @Neil_Brick on the no no area.
@stopritualabuse yeah and? She’s a COA specialist who molested @Neil_Brick
@stopritualabuse don’t believe anything she says. She works for the Cia and touched @Neil_Brick
Jan 22, 2016
when the homosexuality was flying @Neil_Brick kissed _____, did they show you their hot dog collection?
Tweets from 2019:
Sarah Ponto Rivera “Grey Faction collaborator and Former Director of @GreyFactionTST”
@spontorivera
May 25
Just to be clear this quack treats those in need of mental health care. The unstable should not give treatment to the vulnerable. Is there competent peer review and supervision? Or is quackery just a part of the culture of mental health professionals?
Lucien Greaves
@LucienGreaves
Mar 11….
Yes, I’m entirely in support of taking the pseudoscientific diagnosis of the iatrogenic condition of MPD out of the DSM. The quacks who wrote the article you attached are associated with the ISSTD which propagates conspiracy theories of “Satanic Ritual Abuse.” How’s that hateful?
Lucien Greaves
@LucienGreaves
Apr 1
Thanks to all who helped spread the word & draw attention to #ISSTD2019 & their conspiracy-mongering exploitation of mental illness during this past weekend’s #ISSTDAC2019 annual conference. Thanks to all #GreyMass participants. The @ISSTD will end. Join us at @GreyFactionTST
TST-Arizona
@SatanicTempleAZ
Mar 29
Organizations like the #ISSTD that perpetuate the Satanic Panic must be destroyed. #ISSTDAC19 #ISSTDAC2019 #GreyMass
#greyfaction
Grey Faction
@GreyFactionTST
Mar 26
The Satanic Temple will conduct a national Destruction Ritual on April 1st to symbolically destroy the dangerous pseudoscience and Satanic Panic conspiracism that keep culpable organizations like the ISSTD alive. #ISSTDAC19 #ISSTDAC2019
Other information:
Mr. Misicko (using the alias Doug Mesner) did the artwork and illustrations for a new edition of the book, Might Is Right or The Survival of the Fittest, is a book by pseudonymous author Ragnar Redbeard. As described on the Internet: First published in 1890….There are also controversial parts of the book that deal with race and male–female relations, claiming that the woman and the family as a whole are the property of the man and proclaiming the innate superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race. The book also contains many strong anti-Semitic statements.
There are also allegations using the alias Doug Mesner made anti-semitic comments in a podcast several years ago (2003).
Might Is Right Special by shane bugbee, amy bugbee, doug mesner
https://archive.org/details/MightIsRightSpecial
These are just a sample of the insults and harassment I and others have had to suffer over the years by Douglas Misicko using various aliases and those connected to the Satanic Temple and the Grey Faction.
The factual information of the Grey Faction has been rebutted by myself and others.
The group takes the extreme position that DID is created by therapists and not by trauma. They distort factual information to fit their own narrative, even comparing the treatment of trauma memories to lobotomies.
Grey Faction Calls for Symbolic Destruction of ISSTD “Like Freeman’s lobotomy, recovered memory “therapy” is not only dangerous and outdated, but has left a trail of victims.” “TST is publicly calling for the unequivocal destruction of the ISSTD for their propagation of harmful conspiracy theories of Satanic ritual abuse, and their promotion of long-debunked recovered memory therapies.” (Destruction of ISSTD – Greyfaction.org website)
Conclusions
Though trauma therapists continue to help survivors of abuse, this destructive disinformation campaign which includes misrepresenting legal and treatment cases as well as the scientific literature at times may have made it difficult to help those in need of help, including survivors of severe abuse.
Those presenting this misinformation to the best of my knowledge have no experience in the field, cherry picking data from minority opinions in the field of psychology who apparently have ignored the data and come to unproven pseudoscientific conclusions.
They believe that certain types of dissociative conditions are created in professionals’ office, even though the research clearly shows otherwise, at times that those abused in cults and abusive religious groups have not been abused, even though personal, legal and research accounts have shown otherwise and that repressed memory is a “controversial theory” going against theories of cognitive science, when repeated studies and legal case studies show otherwise. “The controversial theory of repressed memories – which runs contrary to the conception of memory” (Grey Faction is launching a project to expose the damages of the lingering Satanic Panic at muckrock.com Aug 2, 2017 “Grey Faction Project)
As previously shown, the groups attacking child abuse survivors and their supporters may use a variety of tactics, regardless of ethics, to attempt to destroy those that disagree with their side. This includes possible hate speech, hostility and harassment, “intended to demean and brutalize another, or the use of cruel and derogatory language.”
To quote the previously mentioned Anna Salter, “The argument between the field of child sexual abuse and the backlash against survivors is not an academic debate between two well meaning groups equally invested in ascertaining truth. It is not an academic debate at all; it is a political fight.”“What wins political fights is organization and stamina and a refusal to be intimidated.” (“Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned” by Anna C. Salter – Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 , pages 115 – 124).
The choice is ours. Do we allow the world to be controlled by hate and hate speech or do we stand up for what is right.
A good source of information with the problems of their group and rebuttals to their misrepresentations of data is at: