Customer Reviews

Hell Minus One: My Story of Deliverance From Satanic Ritual Abuse and My Journey to Freedom

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The severe abuse described in this book is horrific and will be too graphic for some people to stomach. However, for survivors of severe, systematic child abuse, this book may be a godsend. The author describes her healing and recovery from the abuse with clarity and grace.

Anne A. Johnson Davis had wonderful Sunday school teachers and school teachers, and was loved unconditionally by her mother before the abuse started. These factors may have given her a spiritual edge that kept her more sane than many other ritual abuse survivors. Anne's descriptions of the ritual abuse and mind control methods she endured make it easy to understand why many other Ritual Abuse survivors end up as drug addicts, or with severe dissociative disorders.

Fortunately, Anne had a good therapist who did not make suggestions or guide her memories, but only helped her pick up the pieces and sort through them. Furthermore, Anne's parents wrote confessions which substantiated all of her allegations and even provided extra details that Anne couldn't have known. Her siblings also wrote letters that corroborated her story.

The FMSF review of Anne's book asks why she didn't pursue a criminal suit against her parents, because the FMSF people want to believe that Ritual Abuse doesn't exist. Anne's parents did settle with her out of court to pay for some of her therapy expenses. Yes, Anne does have a huge amount of corroborating evidence, and might have been able to see them convicted and imprisoned. But Anne explains very clearly that church officials and law enforcement officials had already taken steps to protect other children from her parents. If Anne had focused on revenge and criminal charges, then she wouldn't have had the time to focus on reconnecting with her birth father and his family, and on her own spiritual and emotional recovery, which she so lovingly describes in her book.

This book is a must read for all survivors of extreme, systematic child abuse, and is a must read for anyone who has ever doubted the reality of the existence of abusive satanic cults.

This book is an incredible account of survival from ritual abuse. Anne's parents both confessed their crimes in writing and verbally to clergymen, and to the detectives from the Utah Attorney General's Office. Anne's suppressed memories, which she had in her mid-30s, were fully substantiated by her mother and stepfather. She shows us the importance of speaking out against these horrible crimes, which happen far too often.

We have information about Anne's case and others at our website on ritual abuse at [..]

As a survivor of satanic ritual abuse that has no way to corroborate her memories, it is comforting to know that someone who has experienced such heinous abuse was able to validate and prove that the abuse happened. SRA is such a horrific crime that most people are unwilling to believe it even exists. Let me tell you; it does. It has affected every area of my life - as a student, wife, mother, friend, employee, grandmother and Christian. With God's help and by His grace and with the help of a very caring therapist I am slowly healing from the ravages that were perpetrated on my body, mind and spirit. This book has done much in helping me to not only accept that it really did happen, but also to firmly grasp that healing is possible. Thank you, Ms. Davis, for your willingness to share your story with us.

First, a warning to survivors:
This book contains LOTS of triggering details.
Please, take care of yourself and be cautious in reading it.

This woman's story does not represent the experience of all (or many) Satanic Ritual Abuse survivors. I found it difficult to relate to her, and it left me a bad taste in my mouth. While I applaud her for speaking up, and find her parents' confessions fascinating, I still don't feel that she captured the reality of the majority of Satanic cults, or the recovery process.

Someone tagged this with "Dissociative Identity Disorder", but the author never had it, so there is nothing pertinent to that topic in this book, either.

I couldn't swallow her misinformation about the recovery process, which sounded a little too much like the FMSF views, even though she was obviously trying to prove them wrong. I also had a really hard time with her over-generalizations, and the idea that her recovery-- without DID-- should somehow be the guideline for all survivors. Her experience was just not typical.

I wish I could stand with the other reviews, and simply just applaud her efforts, but due to my own experience, I really don't have the capacity to admire her for writing this. Her experience sounds so EASY, that I couldn't handle the detailing about how horrible her life was. Sorry, no sympathy from me.

I realize that my low opinion of the book is largely due to my high expectations of it. After reading other reviews, I thought this was going to be a great resource. It certainly doesn't stand out among other published survivor stories, to me. There are much better books out there.

I recommend "Suffer the Child", for a more typical experience of ritual abuse. The woman in this book really suffered the weight of a full-on cult, and put her best efforts into integrating, and healing.

I also recommend "Safe Passage to Healing: A Guide for Survivors of Ritual Abuse" for an excellent guide and resource for recovery, written by another survivor, Christine Oksana, who really did her homework and compiled a ton of correct information in her book. Hers is the BEST resource for survivors, in my opinion.

When I read this book I was amazed at the detail that was seared into her mind from the terrible abuse she suffered from her parents and their coven of witches. I have known her for more than 37 years and watched as she and her husband had to address these issues. I saw how it affected her both emotionally and physically. I witnessed the slow gradual changes taking place as her parents were exposed. I saw the partial triumph in her husband's eyes when her parents finally confessed to the atrocities they made her suffer. It is my understanding that this is one of the few cases of ritual abuse where the parents confessed to the truthfulness of her accusations.

I saw the work she went through with her therapist and watched as she slowly drug herself out of this deep pit. I saw the success and the strength she now exhibits after having lived through Hell.

This book is a real account of ritual abuse that everyone should read to realize what types of people are still in the world. Yes it is graffic but this is an important part of the story. What is even more importatnt is the fact that her past did not have to be her future. She chose another path which led her to a higher plane of understanding and forgiveness thus freeing herself from her past and allowing her to have a more normal life.