Michelle remembers

The book documents Michelle Smith's memory of events recovered during therapy, documenting the many Satanic rituals she believed that she was forced to attend (Pazder stated that Smith was abused by the "Church of Satan," which he states is a worldwide organization predating the Christian church). The first alleged ritual attended by Smith occurred in 1954 when she was five years old, and the final one documented by the book was an 81-day ritual in 1955 that supposedly summoned Satan himself and involved the intervention of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Michael the Archangel, who removed the scars received by Smith throughout the year of abuse and blocked memories of the events "until the time was right". During the rites, Smith was allegedly tortured, locked in cages, sexually assaulted, forced to participate in various rituals, witnessed several human sacrifices, and was rubbed with the blood and body parts of various sacrificed infants and adults.A best-seller, Michelle Remembers relied on the discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make sweeping, lurid claims about satanic ritual abuse involving Smith that contributed to the rise of the Satanic ritual abuse moral panic in the 1980s.