Is anyone...is anyone from the Grey Faction an active Wikipedia editor???? I needed to check Wikipedia because I forgot when the diagnosis changed from MPD to DID in the DSM (I assume when the DSM-IV was released, but I needed to check anyway), and the talking points on the page for Dissociative Identity Disorder weirdly reek of Grey Faction talking points?? Like Satanic panic is mentioned in the first few sentences, and like, ok, yeah, I know that a lot of relevant stuff was happening around that time, but the tone the Wikipedia page adopts is kinda odd??? Like sentences like "Psychologists familiar with the malleability of memory argued that they were constructing false memories." just seem weirdly passive aggressive? At at least one point, the Wikipedia page uses a Grey Faction-affiliated research as a source??? Like isn't that weird??? Or maybe I'm just wilding?
No, they do edit and have editors and they're always in there, weirdly, wiki is a big platform for them
I swear I've talked about the links before but I can't find it
They're more active on the isstd page but they're there and most links go back to them
McNally is quoted throughout and...
Don't trust him
And some of the other people, like Peter Reuell, are only quoting McNally-- just quote McNally, like this doesn't count as two people, Reuell is just a writer talking about how great McNally is.
Mersky and Piper are grey faction golden children
ALSO LMAO LOOK
Re: The Persistence of Folly: A Critical Examination of Dissociative Identity Disorder. What Are Dr Piper and Dr Merskey Trying to Do?
I LOVE RESPONSE PAPERS
SJ Lynn is associated with the FMSF, and I assume co-authors would be as well
Gillig works with Loftus who is part of FMSF
Lilienfeld, FMSF
They're on reddit, if you bring up ramcoa on any of the DID or cringe reddits you get an automatic bot link to Grey Faction
They're all over the place, they're everywhere, social media and Wikipedia are very useful to them, they're on mod teams and they're always editing things
let’s get real about this “grey faction” nonsense. being morally grey as a person can make sense—survival, protecting your family, figuring out where you actually stand in a war. fine. realistic. nuanced. we get it.
but here’s the thing: when fics claim something like “the Death Eaters are wrong, but they have a few good points because muggleborns are destroying pureblood culture, so the best stance is neutrality”—that is not nuance. that’s laziness disguised as sophistication. it doesn’t make your faction morally interesting. it makes them morally cowardly, and it forces the heroes into the role of naive do-gooders just to make your “neutral” faction look clever.
neutrality is fine as a personal choice. prideful neutrality, especially when paired with disdain for those actively resisting evil? that’s not sophisticated, it’s cowardice wrapped in fanon chic. let’s call it what it is: complicity.
your story can have morally grey characters. it can have intrigue, survival strategies, and personal conflicts. but don’t glorify inaction as moral superiority while making the heroes look like idiots. nuance isn’t “we didn’t kill anyone, so we’re better than Harry and co.” nuance is understanding the consequences of every choice, including doing nothing.
Ugh... I just saw an informational post that referred to the Grey Faction as being "previously known as the False Memory Syndrome Foundation."
While there's a connection here, these are two very different groups!
The FMSF was founded in the 90s by Peter and Pamela Freyd after their daughter Jennifer Freyd, the psychologist who would later go on to coin the term DARVO, accused her father of molesting her.
Her parents claimed the therapist implanted the idea in her head through "recovered memory therapy," something which Jennifer has been clear that she never went through. Pamela and Peter connected with other accused child molesters and they formed the FMSF together to defend accused child molesters from abuse accusations from their children.
The Grey Faction is a separate entity entirely founded and ran by the Satanic Temple, started in 2016. It wasn't until 2019 that the FMSF shut down, so there's a good 3-4 year period where both organizations are still operating concurrently.
While the FMSF was founded to defend accused child molesters, the Grey Faction's agenda seems to be much simpler: Repair the image of Satanism by debunking accusations of Satanic Ritual Abuse.
While the Satanic Temple is an atheistic organization, it still is a religious organization and everything the Grey Faction does is in service of protecting their image. Anything coming out of the Grey Faction needs to be viewed through the lens of religious apologetics, because that's what it!
And for the record, I do think Satanism was unfairly maligned during the Satanic panic. I believe most ritual abuse cases were actually real, but I think it was more of a case of Christian cults and other groups being interpreted as Satanic by Christian victims. Nonetheless, instead of arguing this point, the Grey Faction targeted RAMCOA survivors and their therapists.
And they did so by citing the FMSF, their lawyers, and their cases, and the very propaganda the FMSF created to defend child molesters.
These are two terrible groups that have both caused untold harm to RAMCOA survivors and DID systems, with the Grey Faction propping itself up on the FMSF's pseudoscience. As far as I can tell, the FMSF is not and never has been Satanic, nor has it had any association with the Satanic Temple which runs the Grey Faction.
These are two different groups!
The FMSF did not simply change its name to the Grey Faction!
A lot of people hear about The Satanic Temple and think they're very cool and do a lot of good work.
We would question that (the Temple is ineffective at what it promises to do while its owners have troubling histories and keep TST's finances opaque in regard to where money actually ends up).
What few people know, and presumably none of the members and supporters of The Satanic Temple who themselves are plural know, is that the Grey Faction also claims Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is fake.
Full thread and more under the break.
The Rings System @TheRingsSystem
TW: S*t*n/ic words mentioned
We just found out that @/satanic_temple_ has a project named grey faction, which among it's many goals that align with supporting the false memory syndrome foundation, involves disproving/disbelieving in DID. We are incredibly disappointed and hurt.
Right on it's home page.
"The notion that traumatic events can be repressed and later recovered is the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry."
"A position we have made crystal clear: Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder (MPD/DID) is not “fake,” but typically iatrogenic, cultivated by unscrupulous mental health professionals."
"We do not believe people diagnosed with DID are “faking” their symptoms; we believe people really do suffer from symptoms of mental illness... However, we are skeptical that people really can have multiple personalities... in an objective sense."
They also reduce alters down to "behavioral components" such as rocking back and forth. Which is especially reproachable to take mentally ill folk's description of their lived experience and twist it into something so 2 dimensional as this. Especially when it strips us of agency.
There is an important line to walk when it comes to the era of the false memory syndrome foundation. There are true, horrible instances of carceral care and medical malpractice forced on patients that must be addressed. But you cross that line when you disbelieve survivors & DID.
We're just really, really fucking disappointed in the organization that was supposed to be leftist, and is leaving one of the most harmed & stigmatized communities to rot in the pursuit of taking down some of the very the people who harmed us the most.
The Satanic Temple @/satanic_temple_
Calling for standards of mental health care that don’t allow for the propagation of crippling conspracist delusions is leaving which community to “rot”? In pursuit of taking down whom?
The Rings System @TheRingsSystem
Also, I want to make it clear that this thread does not contest your fight against “recovered memory therapy” of the 80’s (rebranded incarceration & forced meds). That’s important work, and we are all working against the people who incacerated our community for decades
This thread is specifically about my disappointment that in that fight against people who used sodium Amytal, incarceration, etc as “treatment” you choose to drag down the people who were hurt by it as well. (folks with DID).
Specifically, by all the quotes that I have mentioned. They are the focus of this thread. Many members of the grey faction constantly repeat these ideas, which invalidate, harm, and strip agency of a marginalized population (folks w DID). That’s what’s disappointing.
The Satanic Temple @/satanic_temple_
We think people diagnosed with DID are the MOST vulnerable to these irresponsible conspiracist practitioners.
The Rings System @TheRingsSystem
Thank you. You could do better to support our community by believing our lived experiences, and stop encouraging and spreading discourse that directly invalidates what we experience.
You can say people “diagnosed with DID” are the most harmed, but that does nothing to address my point. You can say that and still believe our experiences aren’t real, still work to discredit our community. Undermining our experiences is not helpful if your goal is to help.
The Satanic Temple @/satanic_temple_
We focus on cases of recovered memory testimony that clearly are not accurate. We can’t ignore those because somebody else thinks it negates their experience, nor can we ignore the methods whereby those false claims are cultivated.
The Rings System @TheRingsSystem
Respectfully, addressing the cases where people were inaccurately convinced they had DID in carceral care settings does not require you to state on your website that your “crystal clear point” is that all DID is iatrogenic, and that multiplicity is not something we experience.
I am not asking you to ignore them, and I am not saying that I feel invalidated by them. I am saddened and enraged by what they underwent, and they deserve justice.
You can do that justice work without dragging down people with DID in the process. Without insinuating that our experiences are implanted and inauthentic, when many of our community has never once seen a therapist.
Adding this [The Satanic Temple’s tweet reply above] to the end of the thread, as it’s where we have continued our discussion of the issue at hand. I’d also like to note that they have offered to continue discussion with us off Twitter, and we reached out yesterday and are awaiting a response. I can keep folks updated.
When we checked in a few months later, The Rings System said, "No, they [TST] ended up not responding to my email chain and haven't made any of the requested changes to any of their online content."
Grey Faction did make some changes between April 2021 and June 2021, largely removing a much longer section titled "What about Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)?" quoted from in that thread, replacing it with:
The connection between Satanic Panic and MPD/DID is undeniable. Patients convinced that they were (or are) victims of ritual abuse are nearly always diagnosed with DID, and retractors -- people who come to realize their memories of ritual abuse are false -- typically find that they were misdiagnosed with DID. However, we recognize that the existence of misdiagnoses does not by itself invalidate an entire disorder. There is ongoing discussion and debate within the field regarding the nature of DID and its causes; that discussion is largely independent of our work combating the modern Satanic Panic.
So, quite a bit shorter.
By November 2021, then one further edit was made to this section, which is where it stands today:
...modern Satanic Panic. [code word 1: pseudoscience]
This isn't surprising, and we would bet we know who in particular added it back in.
Compared with corporate structures and legal case proceedings, we don't talk a lot about is how TST owner Doug Misicko has, under the pseudonyms "Doug Mesner" and later "Lucien Greaves", spent the last two decades at least involving himself in conflicts of mental health diagnoses based more at this point seemingly on a pursuit of personal grudges than any higher ideal.
The first version of that FAQ section from 2019 until January 2021 likely was the product of Misicko solely:
The modern tide of academic writing on MPD begins around 1980, and the 1980s saw a wealth of literature presenting the condition in very simplistic terms. Therein a case is made that even a single traumatic event in childhood could be so damaging to the psyche so as to fracture it into pieces, or “alters,” that are literal personalities within the individual. These personalities were reported to have their own life histories and accompanying memories, proclivities, tastes, allergies, and even eye colors. Memory, in particular, has been regarded as central to the condition ever since DSM-III R (1987), and memory recovery and processing was, and remains, the central component of treatment.
Due to the catastrophic fallout from the Satanic Panic, MPD has been the subject of controversy within the mental health community as well as in popular circles. Accordingly, the academic literature on MPD has evolved over the last three decades. Some of this was little more than obfuscation intended to stem the tide of push-back (e.g. renaming to MPD to DID to retain parity with a more circumspect DSM-IV in 1994). Some of the evolution, however, represents genuine nuance in part of the community. In developmental models of DID, for example, the condition is seen as a sort of coping mechanism for traumatic episodes that are part of an extended pattern of both trauma and love and support. In effect, an “alter state” here might not be so dissimilar from a sort of more durable “thousand yard stare” common in battle-induced PTSD cases. It would be a stretch to call this sort of state even a metaphorical personality. Even if it had some behavioral components (rocking back and forth, etc.) that were unique to it, it is a very far cry from the literal “alters” of the earlier writing.
Thus, there is a range of interpretation as to what DID even is within the relatively small segment of the mental health community that entertains its legitimacy as a traumagenic disorder in the first place. There is also sometimes a troubling dichotomy in the way it is discussed in public-facing venues vs. within the “trauma community.” One encounters eyebrow-raising statements made at ISSTD conferences by individuals that would be difficult to recognize from their relatively respectable academic writing, for example.
This is an intolerable situation for a supposedly professional community. Foundational ambiguity of this magnitude, an unwillingness by some practitioners to talk openly about their real views, and the pervasive use of a clearly dangerous treatment method mean that patients currently diagnosed with DID should be treated by qualified professionals outside this circle.
Here's an interview Misicko, again as "Lucien Greaves" gave to one of TST’s in-house journalists back in 2018.
In today's guest post The Satanic Temple's Lucien Greaves answers questions about Dissociative Identity Disorder and the Grey Faction initia
Lately, it’s been a popular hobby of those who are still trying to legitimize DID to merely illustrate by way of PET or MRI that their are demonstrable indicators of DID, which avoids all of the real questions in this entire controversy, which is whether or not the condition is primarily or entirely cultivated in therapy, or the result of earlier trauma.
I’ve met with and corresponded with, interviewed, and read the case studies of many people who felt that they very much did, at one time, have Dissociative Identity Disorder, but who came to realize that the condition was iatrogenically imposed, meaning that it was a dysfunction that was created and cultivated for them during the course of the therapy itself.
So, in short: If there are, somewhere, credible rare cases of naturally occurring (as opposed to iatrogenically created) DID, we still have very little understanding of what that would look like because the scientifically ignorant quacks who have inextricably tied their theory and treatment to Recovered Memory Therapies.
In a former attempt at a career as a self-styled journalist under the name "Doug Mesner", Misicko devoted a lot of time and energy to for lack of a better term debunking Dissociative Identity Disorder entirely.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) remains one of the most controversial diagnoses in the American Psyc
In 2013 in Vice, under both pseudonyms "Doug Mesner" and "Lucien Greaves", Misicko explained that one of his goals with The Satanic Temple was to "destroy this harmful pseudoscientific practice", although you can read that more or less charitably as you see fit:
In 2009, I went to a “Ritual Abuse/Mind-Control” conference in Connecticut where I listened to “experts” elaborate upon their beliefs in Satanic Ritual crimes. I thought they would be a fringe grouping of delusional people holding firmly to incredible beliefs, hurting nobody but themselves. What I found instead was a twisted subculture of licensed therapists, and their clients, who subscribe to a pseudoscientific belief in “dissociative amnesia”: The theory that some events—particularly sexual abuse—can be so uniquely traumatic that the conscious mind cannot comprehend it, and thus those memories are “repressed.” This school of “therapy” breeds conspiracy theory and literally indoctrinates clients into false beliefs in a Satanic threat. Clients are encouraged to “remember” episodes of abuse that are presumed to have been concealed from their conscious minds, and when the evidence doesn’t match their confabulatory false memories, they explain it away as evidence of a much larger conspiracy—a Satanic conspiracy. With the false veneer of science, these “experts” in dissociation have kept a witch-hunt alive. Innocent people have been convicted and imprisoned on the “evidence” of recovered memory testimony, even though this is the exact same “evidence” we have for alien abduction, and is the same “therapeutic” process by which people practice “past life regression.” I have a long and complex body of writing, much of which can be read at www.process.org, where I detail in a number of articles how this cult-like therapy subculture continues to ruin the lives of innocent people. So one of my own goals is to destroy this harmful pseudoscientific practice, and dispel the myth of an international Satanic conspiracy. The broader goal of the Satanic Temple in general is to advocate for all of those who are unjustly maligned, demonized, or marginalized—victimized by conspiracy theorists and dogmatic supernaturalists. We seek to assert the rights of religious non-believers and skeptics. We also hope to provide the philosophical framework by which our membership may hone their cognitive tools and never fall victim to those forces.
So it's not that they don't know.
Misicko just doesn't believe in DID (there's also a whole thing with Misicko about C-PTSD we won't get into here) and directs The Satanic Temple and its projects like Grey Faction accordingly. There are many good people in TST and its various organs who legitimately want to do good work.
But Misicko is co- or sole-owner of all of the various corporations that make up the Temple, and there is no overruling him. He (and Cevin Soling) sit atop the hierarchy. You cannot reform it.
So think about that when you're thinking about organizations you want to support and provide resources to.
When it comes to The Satanic Temple, there's always more and it's always worse.
Edit: Speaking of which, one more thing
As "Lucien Greaves", Doug Misicko will sometimes claim to have attended Harvard, but it's not clear what evidence has ever been provided for this.
Co-owner Cevin Soling (a.k.a. Malcolm Jarry) seems to legitimately have several degrees, including post-graduate degrees, but he came from money, so that's not surprising.
For Misicko, we'd really like to see some evidence he ever did more than take some Harvard Extension School courses and hang around on campus.
Sincerely, correct us if that exists somewhere because our searching has not turned up anything, even admission or a stray reference to him being a student, much less an alumnus.
All of that is to say, Misicko doesn't really seem to have any authority for having strong opinions about this psychological and neuroscience stuff, but he speaks as if he does, directs Grey Faction to his interests as if he does, and the effects are quite harmful.
The least defensible of these is Misicko's continued role as one of the diehards championing the now-shuttered "False Memory Syndrome" Foundation. We're mentioned this before as it's specific to Misicko and TST, but New York Magazine's Katie Heaney wrote what's likely the definitive post-mortem on that.
Jennifer Freyd accused her father of sexual abuse. Her parents’ attempt to discredit her created a defense for countless sex offenders.
On December 31, 2019, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation abruptly announced it would dissolve. In some ways, this wasn’t surprising. Pam and Peter Freyd are both in their 80s, and nearly half the group’s board members are listed as “deceased.” The FMSF had raised more than $7.7 million since its founding, but the donations and dues tapered off over the years, and it ceased publishing its newsletter in 2011. The foundation gave birth to a number of offshoots; its Australian counterpart is also defunct, while the British False Memory Society remains active. The Satanic Temple, a religious group with chapters in 21 states, has a vocal false-memory subgroup called the Grey Faction. The temple’s co-founder, a 43-year-old man named Doug Misicko (who uses the pseudonym Lucien Greaves), earns a living creating content for 1,097 fans on Patreon. If the FMSF are the genteel, gray-haired grandparents, the Grey Faction are their online, cult-obsessed sons.
Misicko (as "Greaves") naturally responded with his own blog, calling the journalist a liar and worse names. This is sort of a pattern for him when he gets criticism from anyone except the far-right.
Other than the fact that under yet another pseudonym (Mikoto Niikura), Misicko continues to help run "False Memory Syndrome Action Network" a FMSF spinoff group, this association isn't exactly hidden, clearly.
It's just all done with the justification that "false memory syndrome" is primarily about the since-disproved Satanic panic rather than utilized for bog-standard sexual abuse excuses and apologism.
The Satanic Temple’s Grey Faction protests the fear-mongering and destructive pseudoscience of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) in Chicago
Hey! You don't have to answer this if you don't want to given you currently have your hands full with other stuff, but I'm writing a paper on OSDD and I know that the Grey Faction (that was the name of the weirdo organisation that is hellbent on claiming that DID and OSDD aren't real, right?) is full of shit, and I know that one of the studies I will be covering in the paper is a study done by them, but I'm wondering if there are any specific authors I should watch out for? As in is there anything in a study that might tell me "Ah, this was done by the people involved in this organisation."?
I think it'd really help my paper if I could point to these and these specific studies and say "Yeah and even though these have different authors, they're all done by this organisation and as you can see from these and these sources this organisation is biased because they have an ideology they're trying to push, and you can see even in the studies that the conclusions they make aren't really supported by the methodology. At best the conclusions are a possibility."
(I have noticed, in that one specific study, that it was wild af because they concluded something like "And anyway this means that amnesia is not real" and I was like: "???????? What???? Where did that come from???")
!!!! That's so exciting!
Grey Faction and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation
Finding their authors is actually very easy, just Google an author's name followed by either term, the more highly either talks about the doctor, the less you can trust them
In particular, look out for Richard Noll, but see how easy?
Also Google the paper name followed by "response" because you'll find other doctors arguing with shitty papers, tumblr style
For example, that very first link...
Editorial Note: In light of the responses we have received regarding this article by Richard Noll, PhD, that was posted on our website on December 6, 2013, the article has been reposted with a modification. Additionally, we are posting responses from certain of the individuals mentioned in the article and from Dr Noll in order to leave analysis of the article up to our readers.
I hope this helps!! Omg, keep in touch, I'd love to hear how the paper goes, if there's anything I can help with, don't hesitate to reach out!!
