Faith Baptist Church, North Yarmouth, Maine
Wesley Harris was the pastor of "Faith Baptist Church" in Yarmouth, Maine. In 1998, Reverend Harris attended a training seminar at the Theophostic Prayer Ministries (TPM) in Kentucky. "According to former members, the climate at the church changed" after he returned from the TPM seminar. Almost all of the women in the congregation underwent TPM counseling after his return. According to former member Betty Bendixon, nearly every woman in the church who underwent TPM recovered repressed "memories" of sexual abuse. In RMT about 80% of clients can be expected to recover such "memories" (actually false memories).
TPM is was extremely effective (100%) at generating pseudo memories using the immense social pressure of such group environments. Many of the women would stand, weeping, beside pastor Harris at the pulpit as he described in detail the sexual abuse incidents that they allegedly suffered, often at the hands of their husbands or fathers. Former church members said that two families have broken up and other family relationships have been severed as a result of these "memories."
Mr. Thomas Wright was troubled by the church. In January 2000, Thomas Wright left the congregation, along with his four children, and began attending a church in Freeport. His wife, Susan, remained at Faith Baptist. In April 2002, THomas Wright was arrested and charged (2 years after leaving) with the sexual abuse of a boy, aged 7 at the time of the alleged events. Three women from the congregation subsequently reported recovered memories of having been abused by this same man. Co-accusers, all with pseudomemories, are very common in such environments.
According to Thomas Wright, Reverend Harris told Susan Wright to avoid “having fellowship” with him. In May 2001, Wright said, he told his wife that she needed to leave the church. Within a few weeks, he said, a young woman in the congregation claimed that he and his daughter, Kate Wright, had sexually assaulted her when she was 12 years old. Susan Wright declined to be interviewed.
Thomas Wright was arrested and required to post a $15,000 cash bail. Mr. Wright said he never learned about the accusation of the 11-year-old boy until after his arrest last month. Although three women told police that Wright had abused them, Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion said detectives focused on the 11-year-old boy’s accusation because that one appeared to be the strongest case.
The Wright case proved to be a complicated one for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. Three detectives conducted more than 55 interviews with many letters and phone calls regarding the case. The district attorney was charged with evaluating the mountain of papers with lurid descriptions of horrid acts by co-accusers as well as church member statements. No direct witnesses or physical evidence was cited. The District Attorney was charged with deciding if there was enough evidence to prosecute. All of the current church members, including Wright’s estranged wife, supported the boy, Dion said.
Thomas Wright's daughter, Kate Wright, is one of the women who underwent counseling (she was 21). During the 3 hour therapy sessions she was asked to close her eyes the entire time. Harris allegedly told her that whenever she spoke during the session, her voice was either God's or Satan's. She recovered a "memory" of sexual abuse by a relative during her childhood. She now believes that the memory is false, and that she felt pressured to create a "memory" because the other women had successfully recovered theirs."
Nobody appeared to question why memories of sexual abuse were emerging in almost all of the women in the congregation. Investigators typically estimate (based on actual data) that only a few percentage of girls are the victim-survivors of childhood incest. About 1% are sexually abused by their father, 1% by their step-father, and a similar percentage are molested by other family members or strangers. Either there was a phenomenal concentration of incest and child sexual abuse in this one congregation, or the memories recovered through TPM were false. Investigators suspected the latter.
On June 26, 2002, Stephanie Anderson, District Attorney of Cumberland County, ME, dismissed the sexual-abuse charges against a Thomas Wright, and verbally accused Wes Harris, his former pastor, of "spiritual abuse." She defined spiritual abuse as the "manipulation and control over the hearts and minds of your flock. It instills fear in people." Tom Bell of the Portland Press Herald wrote: "Pastors from several other churches criticized Harris' ministry and said they are worried about the estimated 60 people who still follow him. They accuse Harris of breaking up several families and of leveraging his influence over people to gain large financial donations."
Often due to shame and fear tragic family breakups caused by pseudo memories go unreported. Pseudo memories are false memories often called "repressed memories" by the uninformed, incompetent or
deceptive practitioner. Theophostic Prayer Ministry (TPM) is focused on creating these false memories. This "Prayer Ministry" explicitly relies on what psychologists, counseling professionals and experts know will CREATE horrid fantasies mistaken for "memories". TPM is one of many methods associated with the now debunked "Recovered Memory Therapy" (abbreviated RMT) are used heavily.
Wesley Harris was the pastor of "Faith Baptist Church" in Yarmouth, Maine. In 1998, Reverend Harris attended a training seminar at the Theophostic Prayer Ministries (TPM) in Kentucky. "According to former members, the climate at the church changed" after he returned from the TPM seminar. Almost all of the women in the congregation underwent TPM counseling after his return. According to former member Betty Bendixon, nearly every woman in the church who underwent TPM recovered repressed "memories" of sexual abuse. In RMT about 80% of clients can be expected to recover such "memories" (actually false memories).
TPM is was extremely effective (100%) at generating pseudo memories using the immense social pressure of such group environments. Many of the women would stand, weeping, beside pastor Harris at the pulpit as he described in detail the sexual abuse incidents that they allegedly suffered, often at the hands of their husbands or fathers. Former church members said that two families have broken up and other family relationships have been severed as a result of these "memories."
Mr. Thomas Wright was troubled by the church. In January 2000, Thomas Wright left the congregation, along with his four children, and began attending a church in Freeport. His wife, Susan, remained at Faith Baptist. In April 2002, THomas Wright was arrested and charged (2 years after leaving) with the sexual abuse of a boy, aged 7 at the time of the alleged events. Three women from the congregation subsequently reported recovered memories of having been abused by this same man. Co-accusers, all with pseudomemories, are very common in such environments.
According to Thomas Wright, Reverend Harris told Susan Wright to avoid “having fellowship” with him. In May 2001, Wright said, he told his wife that she needed to leave the church. Within a few weeks, he said, a young woman in the congregation claimed that he and his daughter, Kate Wright, had sexually assaulted her when she was 12 years old. Susan Wright declined to be interviewed.
Thomas Wright was arrested and required to post a $15,000 cash bail. Mr. Wright said he never learned about the accusation of the 11-year-old boy until after his arrest last month. Although three women told police that Wright had abused them, Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion said detectives focused on the 11-year-old boy’s accusation because that one appeared to be the strongest case.
The Wright case proved to be a complicated one for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. Three detectives conducted more than 55 interviews with many letters and phone calls regarding the case. The district attorney was charged with evaluating the mountain of papers with lurid descriptions of horrid acts by co-accusers as well as church member statements. No direct witnesses or physical evidence was cited. The District Attorney was charged with deciding if there was enough evidence to prosecute. All of the current church members, including Wright’s estranged wife, supported the boy, Dion said.
Thomas Wright's daughter, Kate Wright, is one of the women who underwent counseling (she was 21). During the 3 hour therapy sessions she was asked to close her eyes the entire time. Harris allegedly told her that whenever she spoke during the session, her voice was either God's or Satan's. She recovered a "memory" of sexual abuse by a relative during her childhood. She now believes that the memory is false, and that she felt pressured to create a "memory" because the other women had successfully recovered theirs."
Nobody appeared to question why memories of sexual abuse were emerging in almost all of the women in the congregation. Investigators typically estimate (based on actual data) that only a few percentage of girls are the victim-survivors of childhood incest. About 1% are sexually abused by their father, 1% by their step-father, and a similar percentage are molested by other family members or strangers. Either there was a phenomenal concentration of incest and child sexual abuse in this one congregation, or the memories recovered through TPM were false. Investigators suspected the latter.
On June 26, 2002, Stephanie Anderson, District Attorney of Cumberland County, ME, dismissed the sexual-abuse charges against a Thomas Wright, and verbally accused Wes Harris, his former pastor, of "spiritual abuse." She defined spiritual abuse as the "manipulation and control over the hearts and minds of your flock. It instills fear in people." Tom Bell of the Portland Press Herald wrote: "Pastors from several other churches criticized Harris' ministry and said they are worried about the estimated 60 people who still follow him. They accuse Harris of breaking up several families and of leveraging his influence over people to gain large financial donations."
Found on 7/12/2016 at http://www.religioustolerance.org//theophostic3.htm
Editor’s Comment: The retractor provides an remarkable insight into how a prayer ministry that assumes "repressed memory" to be a fact, combined with a person having significant authority (an ordained \ Minister) predictably nurtures false memories. This position is in spite of the near universal rejection of repressed memories by scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists and rulings of the Supreme Courts at the state and federal levels in the United States.
The false memories generated using this program were in this case done by a highly credentialed authority. Ordained ministers normally have post graduate academic studies. The implementation is always variant with the precise instructions of this "prayer ministry" as is always the case for such distributions of services, BUT the outcome is very predictable and repeatedly so. Use of this program in a culture having a popular media overwhelmed with sexual images from early youth are certain to generate horrid false memories of sexual abuse.
In addition the issue of shame, which silences so many victims, is clearly revealed by the victim of this "prayer ministry". This shame is partly the reason such programs continue to breed falsehood and tragedy. The silence imposed by shame insures the spread of more falsehood and more painful tragedies.
Some Summaries on Prayer Ministry that Harms:
Lying Spirits (online book)
Theophostic Theology (online book)
TheoPhostic: Divine or What? (brief article)
TheoPhostic: Revelation or PsychoHeresy? (online book)
