Kirkus Reviews QR Code
LESSONS IN EVIL, LESSONS FROM THE LIGHT by Gail Carr Feldman

LESSONS IN EVIL, LESSONS FROM THE LIGHT

A True Story of Satanic Abuse and Spiritual Healing

by Gail Carr Feldman

Pub Date: July 1st, 1993
ISBN: 0-517-58877-3
Publisher: Crown

A shallow account of how Feldman (Psychology/University of New Mexico) cured a victim of satanic sex abuse through hypnosis and New Age methods. Feldman has a new patient, ``Barbara,'' who can't enjoy sex, feels fat, and would like to commit suicide. After convincing Barbara that her problem is childhood sex abuse, Feldman hypnotizes her, and the patient—as well as the reader—is funneled into a tedious Theater of Cruelty. When Barbara says that she feels dirty, for instance, Feldman puts her under, and the woman remembers a cult ritual in which she had to stay in a dark hole for five days. During her next session, Barbara says that she can't stand the color white, and Feldman's probing reveals that, as a girl, Barbara was forced to wear all white while the cult put a snake into her vagina. More memories follow- -of infanticide and cannibalism; multiple forced fellatio; coprophilia; castrations; children in cages; the removal and devouring of beating hearts—all relived on the page in a tortuous crawl until Feldman gets so upset with the abuse of Barbara by her father and his cult that she berates her own husband: ``What are you going to do about this male abuse of power...the least you could is join a men's group!'' Help for the author comes when a New Ager regresses her to a past life. Impressed, Feldman regresses Barbara into one of her past lives, from which the patient returns symptom-free—no anxiety or tenseness, no smoking or drinking—and able to have sex with her husband five days a week. ``Isn't it amazing how your outlook changes when you've experienced eternity?'' Feldman and Barbara chuckle together. A dull and unconvincing rendering that has no place on the bookshelf next to Georges Bataille, J. K. Huysmans, or even Arthur Lyons (Satan Wants You, 1988).