Dear Friend:
Pasted below is a report on AFF's 2001 annual conference, for which Dr. Robert Jay Lifton was the keynote speaker. This year's conference was the most international ever, with nearly 40 attendees from 16 foreign countries.
Next year's conference will take place the weekend of June 14-15, 2002 in Orlando, Florida. We hope you will hold this date in your calendar. Details about the conference program will appear in future issues of AFF's Cult Observer and this free electronic newsletter, AFF News Briefs. (Don't forget to send us your e-mail address changes.)
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Thank you.
Sincerely,
Herbert L. Rosedale, Esq.
President
AFF 2001 Conference Report
20 Years of Growth in Cultic Studies, Education
Herbert L. Rosedale, Esq., President AFF
This is the twentieth American Family Foundation Annual Conference on cults and cultism. Our longevity is, I think, a tribute to the success we have had in focusing scholarly, professional, and lay interest in a difficult and controversial subject. It also indicates that the phenomenon continues to provoke interest and concern long after its rise stimulated the founding of AFF.
Two decades ago, the number of conference participants, who did not travel great distances to get there, might have filled two rows in this modern conference hall. Today, there are almost 300 of us, from around the world.
We represent a tremendous diversity of views and goals. But we are ready, I hope, to continue to learn from one another - which is the main purpose of this intimate, three-day convocation. Our great number also indicates that we expect a lot, and it is my fervent hope that the program AFF has crafted- with the collaboration of many of you - will meet those expectations. Each year, our discourse has been progressively enriched, and I expect that this year's conference will only add to our understanding.
The conference program has two parallel tracks (with any number of connections for travelers who want to visit the other): the first track is a scholarly one; the second is oriented to the concerns of former members and their families. For the latter, the conference is designed to provide a unique, secure environment in which to learn and to communicate.
This is also an open conference. No one has ever been denied admission to an AFF conference, not even people from groups that would welcome AFF's demise. Our only rule for such visitors is that they must behave. And I say to former members attending here: you don't have to talk to anyone you don't want to talk to.
Finally, remember that the conference will be a success to the extent that we respect each others' views and engage in constructive dialog.
The Panels at Conference 2001
* Cults, Culture, and Human Rights
* After The Cult: Spiritual Issues
* Social Influences on Youth (tape unavailable on this talk)
* Cults Around The World
* Governmental Responses to Cults
* Problems in New Catholic Movements
* Sociological Perspectives
* Methodological Recommendations
* Cults and New Religious Movements
* Releasing The Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves
* Conversion Experiences: Positive and Negative Accounts
* Sociological Research
* The Family's Experience
* Cults and The Law: Practical Issues
* Cults: A Thirty-Year Retrospective
* Developing Accountability Mechanisms
* Born and Abused in Cults
* Thought Reform Consultation
Keynote
Robert J. Lifton on Apocalyptic AUM
Dr. Robert J. Lifton, the eminent student of manipulative processes, whose Thought Reform and The Psychology of Totalism has led the way to our contemporary understanding of cultism, said he sensed that the AFF 2001 Conference was an important point in the opening out and maturing of both AFF and the field to which we are devoted. Observers who didn't like each other are beginning to come together in some degree, and there is an increasing recognition that there is, indeed, destructive cultic behavior in the world.
Dr. Lifton - Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology and Director, Center on Violence and Human Survival, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, City University of New York - now turned to consider conversion to Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult responsible for the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, and other criminal acts, that sought to hasten the end of the present order in the name of its renewal. Lifton noted that his recent book on Aum, Destroying The World to Save It - based on interviews with Aum members and a psychohistorical approach stemming from the methods of Erik Erikson - looks at the conversion process as "death and continuity of life" - a theme that is actually common in most conversion experiences, he added.
Dr. Lifton reviewed the themes and concepts of "totalism" that he developed in his study of Chinese thought reform during the Korean War era, and noted that they all apply to Aum, even though the latter experience was not voluntary. (Dr. Lifton has added a concept to his analysis, stemming from his Vietnam War study, and appropriate to the Aum experience, which he calls "the atrocity-inducing" milieu; Aum, he noted, was the first cult group that not only projected the end of the world, but got some of the tools that made it seem possible to achieve.)
To be fairly called a "cult" - Dr. Lifton acknowledged that the term is pejorative - a group in his view will 1) be totalistic, and practice thought reform; 2) shift a convert's generalized spiritualism to worship of the guru; 3) sexually, financially, and in many other ways exploit from above the convert's spiritual quest from below.
"Guruism" is the key to the kinds of conversion that concern Dr. Lifton - he remarked that the guru depends even more on his followers than they do on him - and the highly charismatic Aum leader Shoko Asahara was very good at conveying a new vitality and meaning, even immortality, to his devotees. They became in many ways "clones" of the man they saw as perfect, although Dr. Lifton pointed out that the followers' pre-cult self remained, however submerged, which explains why people can come out of such groups. He showed, through a case study, that manipulative conversion and maintenance rituals and practices, which were "powerful, meaningful, and addictive" -sometimes they employed mind-altering drugs - only came into play after individuals joined up, usually for reasons of ideology and personal psychological need.
Dr. Lifton relates how one Aum follower felt like a "savior" immediately after the poison gas was released in the subway. He felt that Armageddon was at hand. "Our turn has come," he thought. And, "I didn't ask, 'Who did it?' " (He was not among the higher-ups involved in plotting or carrying out mass destruction.) He had been "numbed" to violence, was at least able to accept it, and he didn't care. But he began to have doubts, which led to a month of Aum reeducation. Soon, however, he had yet more questions about Aum, and his connection with the group, and he left to write newspaper articles which exposed some of the organization's inner workings, and criticized especially Asahara's sexual hypocrisy - the guru demanded celibacy among followers, which was very difficult for the apostate to achieve - while indulging himself. Yet even two years after leaving Aum, this former member felt a certain sympathy for Asahara, and, like many former members of other cultic groups, thought that the guru was still a great man.
Dr. Lifton called Shoko Asahara an example of "extreme guruism," like Charles Manson, Jim Jones, and Herf Applewhite of Heaven's Gate (even if this last was non-violent). Where would someone like Timothy McVeigh fit into the discussion, he asked? While not a member of an organized group, McVeigh shared the vision of the radical right, and inspired and guided by The Turner Diaries, he produced an event of mass violence that he hoped would help set off a chain of similar apocalypse-inducing events and bring on a new world order.
Cults, Conversion, Science, and Harm
Michael Langone, Ph.D.
The people about whom William James wrote in his Varieties of Religious Experience typically had sudden, inner-generated, highly personal conversions. But his contemporaries studied gradual conversions that had much more prominent social, or outer-generated, aspects. J.B. Pratt, for example, claimed that born-again experiences in American fundamentalism were largely the result of social expectations: adolescents were "born-again" because their social world expected them to be "born again."
Religious conversion experiences, then, have several dimensions: personal vs. social; sudden vs. gradual; inner-generated vs. outer-generated. But these dimensions should be seen as an intersecting continuum, not as dichotomies. There is a tendency to view inner-generated conversions as more authentic than-outer-generated ones, and sudden conversions can be especially interesting, as they were for James, but they may be suspect if there appear to be psychopathological or utilitarian motivations. Outer-generated conversions may also stimulate skepticism, although this may be blunted when the convert's new belief system is shared by those judging the conversion. Cults and other groups, including large group awareness trainings, have been controversial because they seem to be "engineering" conversions. The Unification Church's sophisticated programs were for long viewed as leading to the archetypal cult conversion - relatively sudden, outer-generated or "engineered," and, to some, crassly utilitarian. Similarities to Korean War-era "brainwashing" were easy to see.
The "Impermissible Experiment"
But cult converts were not empty-headed zombies, and despite the powerful social forces shaping their conversions, they often had profound personal experiences of their relationship to a divine, transcendent reality. Our biases make most of us deny that such experiences can be manipulated, but some observers, such as Dr. John Gordon Clark, one of the pioneering mental health professionals in this field, saw the depth of personal change in these "engineered" conversions. He called cult conversion an "impermissible experiment" on the reshaping of personality, impermissible because no ethical researcher would ever do what cults routinely did. He did not see the conversions as superficial or simplistically directed from the outside.
Academics in sociology and religious studies, however, tended to see the personal depth of these conversions as self-validating, and objected to simplistic brainwashing models to justify deprogramming. An ideological antipathy to the so-called "medical model" made some academics oppose in a knee-jerk manner any theories, however sophisticated, suggesting that some conversions were engineered or exploitive. The academic cult wars, which continue to this day, had begun. As it happens, both cult critics and sympathizers were partly correct.
Conversions can be engineered, but there are also manipulative entries into high-control environments that are difficult to leave. Indeed, the "Moonie" (Unification Church) model so influenced many professionals and researchers that for many years they ignored growing evidence that such conversion was not typical. Even in conversions that are not engineered, maintenance of loyalty may involve high levels of manipulation and psychological coercion. Conversely, an engineered conversion may bring someone into a relatively benign and non-manipulative environment. Some conversions to mainstream Christian denominations may be more manipulative than many realize.
With notable exceptions, most cult sympathizers have been reluctant to write about negative effects of conversion - psychological, physical, economic. Some cult critics, on the other hand, have been reluctant to acknowledge positive aspects of the groups they criticize, although mental health professionals have long encouraged families to acknowledge their loved ones' positive experiences. With such a varied landscape of experience, then, we need three-dimensional theories of cult conversion, cult experience, and cult departure and recovery. That is why we have organized the AFF 2001 Conference, reviewed in this supplement, on positive and negative aspects of the phenomenon, including positive descriptions of conversion to groups typically viewed as controversial. We need to look at the entire panorama of conversion in order to understand the field well enough to make balanced judgments concerning what to do about the truly bad things cults do.
Harm and Science
Although different observers will object to different groups, or to different aspects of the same group, they share a common concern that the group inflicts harm, within or outside the group. I have described these concerns as psychological (for example, high stress resulting from members' being placed in demanding double-binds); ethical (for example, the use of deceit and manipulation to persuade people to attend an introductory seminar); social (for example, breaking laws, medical neglect of children); and theological (for example, whether or not a translation of a sacred text is accurate).
We must not confuse or blend these concerns, or presume that the presence of one makes the group "bad" and, by imputation, infected by the other concerns. Research, in any case, although far from definitive, suggests that involvement in cultic groups has caused significant harm to people in the Western democracies, thus explaining why some people urge governments to take action.
Research and Action
Activists and helping professionals are primarily concerned to assist those who are hurting and forewarn others about possibly harmful involvement. They cannot wait for definitive scientific research; they must act because people need help now. This conflict leads to competition between action and research, both of which demand more resources than society is willing to commit. Sometimes research dominates and action is neglected or ignored. Sometimes the situation is reversed. And sometimes - I hope that this is true of AFF - action and research have a dynamic relationship in which the latter informs and modifies the former, which in turn provides information that stimulates the latter. Research under girds action, which reveals new areas of research. If we balance and coordinate both, it will be easier for governments and institutions to make decisions about assistance and educational needs. Good information is vital here because the challenge is to balance competing rights and responsibilities, not to favor one or the other.
Cult educational organizations as well as civil authorities must continually inform, evaluate, and modify remedial actions so as to take account of new research findings. All organizations do not have to conduct research, but all organizations should try to cooperate with and keep abreast of research studies, especially those that have some practical implications for helping people. If we neglect study and research, we run the risk of becoming what many of us accuse cults of being, that is, ideologically rigid - we will never change our thinking because we think we know all that is worth knowing. Instead, let us all acknowledge that we don't know as much as we think and that we should work together in order to learn together.
Disaster in Uganda
Historian Jean-François Mayer, of the University of Fribourg, in Switzerland, offered observations on the still puzzling mass murders in the Movement for the Restoration of The Ten Commandments, in 2000, which he studied on the spot not long after the event. He believes that the disaster was stimulated at least in part by a failure of millennial prophecy. Followers were upset and leaders needed to silence them. In fact, Mayer found evidence that the deaths followed a strategy and plan. But there is also evidence that the leadership believed that the end was near for everyone. In any case, apocalypticism certainly provided the background for the violence, but does not explain it. Research continues.
Sociological Perspectives
Marybeth Ayalla, of St. Joseph's University, in Philadelphia, reported that of former Unification Church members she surveyed, many more women than men had joined seeking meaning in life, and that many more of the women now thought that cults were a significant social problem that needed fixing. Diane Casoni, of the Université de Montréal, spoke of the type of cult philosophy that was, in her typology, least likely to stimulate criminal behavior. Jean-François Mayer, of the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), meanwhile, emphasized that cults were an international phenomenon, and that many countries were both "importers" and "exporters" of groups. He said that interdisciplinary approaches were important because one can learn a lot from different perspectives (as the AFF Conference showed).
Sociologist Benjamin Zablocki, of Rutgers University, spoke about the war between two camps of academics: the "anti-cultists," and the "apologists," those who stress almost exclusively the harms cults inflict, and those who ardently defend the freedom of the "new religious movements." He suggested that the antagonistic scholars take one another's perspectives into account, agree on concepts and language, and create a new, mutually enriching approach.
The Family Experience
In a session chaired by therapist and clinical social worker Livia Bardin, M.S.W., four ex-members discussed relationships with their families while they were involved, and although the nature of these relationships varied, each of the cults attempted to put as much psychological and/or physical distance as possible between the recruit and his kin and former associations. The panelists agreed that parents must, throughout, be accepting and loving, "keeping bridges open," as a condition of being able to help a child leave a group and reconnect in post-cult life.
Research Methods
A panel of scholars devoted to gaining a better understanding of cults through more rigorous research methods discussed how to avoid, or at least acknowledge the biases in population samples, and the need for better research designs, ones that seek information, for example, about the pre-cult, as well as cult and post-cult lives of individuals. The differing perspectives and approaches of various disciplines-sociology and psychology, were cited-must be aimed at answering similar questions in order to achieve better understanding. One researcher suggested that the questions scholars ask about the cult phenomenon should come before the methods used to answer them. And this bought up the issue of goals: What exactly are the priority questions in cultic studies?
Understanding National Perspectives
Prof. Randy Kandel, observing that different national cultures, with differing constitutional systems, perceive and respond differently to cultic groups in their midst, suggested a framework of issues that might allow us, nonetheless, to constructively debate cults across our various cultures.
Harm to The Individual
Prof. Kandel first noted the issue of religious freedom versus government intervention to limit that freedom. There does not seem to be great dispute internationally about intervention when cults violate individual rights, as in sexual abuse cases, incarceration, and the like. All countries have civil and criminal laws to deal with such violations of individual freedom. More difficult to discern and discuss, however, is the extent to which cult membership has distorted the life "trajectories" of those who have been involved.
Harm to Society
Regarding harm to society and the state, Prof. Kandel returned to the theme of differing attitudes based on culture and history. Germany, for example, is sensitive not only to the strengths, but also to the fragility, of its post-war constitution, operating in the shadow of the Nazi past. So they have fashioned one that can deal rigorously with perceived totalitarian threats. And this is the basis for their approach to Scientology, which they see as a totalitarian organization that threatens the state as well as individuals. Americans, on the other hand, are neither historically nor constitutionally as concerned by totalitarian groups, so they tend to leave them alone.
Definition of Religion
In addition, the U.S. and most European countries define religion differently. State-supported religions in Europe have certain accepted characteristics and operate and relate to the state, and their parishioners, in certain traditional ways. States that support religions feel that they can define what is and what is not a religion. So their attitudes towards organizations that do not conform to certain criteria are different. New religions, especially cultic ones, do not have an integral relationship to the state or to the wider society, and do not act in ways similar to traditional religions, so they raise concerns. While some European governments, then - stimulated by events such as the Solar Temple mass-murder suicides - have set up commissions to observe, educate about, even investigate groups that might be harmful, American governmental bodies, influenced by the religious fervor of the times, are reticent to become involved. Indeed, the U.S. government recently passed a religious freedom act, and now regularly reviews, and often judges harshly, other governments' policies towards certain religious groups.
Imperialism
Some European nations, moreover, with relatively homogeneous national cultures, and religious organizations that are formally tied to the state, recoil from the religious "imperialism" of evangelizing sects - most of them from the United States - and look for ways to maintain their cultural integrity. Americans do not see proselytizing as imperialism, although, as Prof. Kandel pointed out, people have a right in international law to practice their religions undisturbed, and some states feel they have a right to protect culture by monitoring and regulating religion.
Religion and Social Change
Conflict with the state may also arise when religious expression seems to imply significant social change, as the Falun Gong movement seems to do in China today. The Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of religion, of course, but not if it threatens to change the system. Should we see Falun Gong solely as a religious freedom issue, rife with persecution, or also as a traditional religion that has in the past become politicized and, employing civil disobedience, threatened the very existence of the state? Inter-national law has two sometimes conflicting answers, Prof. Kandel concluded: on the one hand, religion must be protected; on the other, the state has a right to protect itself. Different cultures interpret differently what is an abuse of power and what needs to be done to protect citizens. That is why observers from diverse cultures must make a special effort when discus-sing cults.
Roman Catholic Groups
The panel included two priests, former members of The Mother of God (a Catholic charismatic community), and a lay Catholic psychologist, formerly with the charismatic People of Hope. They all described highly controlled environments that rejected critical thinking and evaluation and the expression of one's own opinion and vocation. One referred to "love bombing" used in his recruitment, another to corrupt leadership and financial aggrandizement. A third allowed that his group had many very good people in it who got a lot out of the experience, notwithstanding the harm.
Conversion Experiences: "Good" and "Bad"
Although AFF is concerned principally with the problems caused to converts by destructive groups, Conference 2001, acknowledging that conversions are not always damaging, included a panel entitled Conversion Experience: Positive Accounts, organized by writer and exit counselor Joseph Szimhart and including discussions from Ravindra Das (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), Alan Lombardi (Anthroposophy), and Paul and Dede Sprecher (Universalist Unitarian). Conversion Experience: Negative Accounts, meanwhile, provided personal accounts of typically destructive conversions. Organized by Lorna Goldberg, M.S.W. (a therapist who has worked with former group members for a quarter-century), the panel included discussions of how the experiences adversely affected their lives from Mary O'Connell (who was in an eastern-based group), Maureen Griffo (who was in a Bible-based group), and Jeff Zoccoli (formerly with a drug-rehab-based group).
Understanding Falun Gong
In his Conference paper, "The Fourth Stage of Falun Gong," Deng Zixian, a doctoral candidate at the University of North Texas, said that Falun Gong may be evolving in an alarming direction." The first, or "Qigong" sstage, emphasized the "health effect" for followers. The second, or "Dafa" stage, added a metaphysical component - the disciple's body could be replaced with "high energy" materials through "Falun practice." The third stage obliged followers to "defend Dafa" whenever it was criticized or "attacked." The fourth, or "Zhengfa" stage, signals a major transformation of the past two years; it consists of "indoctrination with hate and elimination of declarations of 'benevolence.' " It also organizes followers into daily exercises to "curse the evil," quite the opposite of "meditation" as propagated in the leader's English language propaganda. Disciples face two stark options: open confrontation with evil or perishing in the "elimination of their atoms." Organizationally, Deng Zixian said, Falun Gong now shares enough similarities with Aum Shinrikyo of the late 1970s, such as regular and synchronized meeting times, and agendas for the different cells at various locations, to warrant concern for public safety in China.
Also presenting was Wen Yan Hai, a specialist in health education and public health, based in Beijing, and coordinator of a non-governmental project on AIDS. He spoke about his perceptions of Falun Gong and the connection that has been forged between the Unification Church and the Chinese government through the U.C.'s sex education programs.
Finally, a television reporter, who came with a videotaping team from a major Beijing media outlet to cover the AFF conference, presented his view of the movement to a final session for scholars and helping professionals who attended the Newark convocation. Relating the experience of a friend who had been involved, he said that Falun Gong is destructive to members.
Cult Accountability
Expert members of a panel chaired by Rutgers University sociology professor Benjamin Zablocki acknowledged the many cultural and practical obstacles to achieving cult accountability for harm done to individuals, families, and society at large. But he suggested that researchers can help cultic groups conform to accepted ethical standards if they write about the secular, as well as the strictly religious, aspects of each group. Also, social service and helping professionals can be provided with a better understanding of cultic processes, and guidelines for discerning abuse. Prof. Zablocki noted that the Hare Krishnas [International Society for Krishna Consciousness] responded to litigation, among other things, and eliminated certain destructive practices. Sociologist Stephen Kent, of the University of Alberta, pointed out that some non-cult evangelical groups, responding to publicized excesses elsewhere in their communities, developed ethical standards of their own (as have exit counselors on their side of the fence). And it was noted that professionally trained ex-members now demand accountability, especially because they fear for the second generation now growing up in the cult milieu. Unfortunately, academics help groups avoid accountability because they must keep confidentiality and not alienate their informants.
Cults and The Law: Use What Exists
This expert panel stressed that persons harmed by cult involvement can and should look to current laws for redress, rather than hope for laws that will regulate cults. Robin Boyle, Esq. (St. John's University School of Law) spoke of the federal Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection ACT of 2000, which is administered by the Department of Justice and funded through the states; its provisions apply to cult situations involving forced labor, sexual abuse, and many more. Randy Kandel, Ph.D., J.D. ( John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York) made clear that family and matrimonial law has by now taken cognizance of cult situations involving abuse, neglect, child support, custody, parental "kidnapping," and the like, and provides numerous possible remedies, which she illustrated. Herbert Rosedale, Esq. (President, AFF) acknowledged that although laws to deal with harmful cultic activities exist they must be invoked in order to have an effect. He stressed that any such litigation should not deal with the cult organization per se - don't claim to be a "cult victim" - which is by and large irrelevant to adjudication of the issue, but stick to the law that the group may have broken.
Psychological Perspectives
This expert panel presented results of recent quantitative research aimed to determine the negative effects of cult involvement. Jodi Aranoff McKibben, M.S. (Ohio University) reported on her own and other studies showing that former cult members had higher levels of distress symptoms than the average college student, but that they did not generally reach the level of clinical concern. Rod Marshall, Ph.D. (Buckingham Chilterns University, U.K.) spoke of his ongoing research, using a "Group Psychological Abuse Scale," to see if stress exhibited by some was clearly related to their cult environment. Jonibeth Whitney, M.A. (California School of Professional Psychology), reported that she has found the criteria developed to define Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (suffered by soldiers in war, for example) useful in understanding an individual's cult experience. Peter Malinowski, Ph.D. (Meridian Psychological Associates, Indianapolis) said that his study of former members undergoing formal rehabilitation showed that a significant minority experienced distress, anxiety, and depression. He remarked that the panelists, and other researchers of his generation, were now trying to test and corroborate the clinical insights developed by pioneers in the field like John Gordon Clark, Margaret Singer, and Louis Jolyon West. Finally, Paul Martin, Ph.D. (Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, Ohio) said how his research has led him to conclude that there is an "at-risk" factor for general distress inherent in cult involvement which is mediated by the individual's pre-cult background. He also said his work indicated that the way a person left a cult, via deprogramming, for example, did not make his or her condition worse than it would otherwise have been.
Born and Abused in Cults
The Rev. Robert Pardon, an experienced clinician in these matters, discussed abuses, both of omission and commission, suffered by children born into certain cultic groups, especially authoritarian communal ones. Remarking that children were often "martyrs" to their parents' beliefs, Rev. Pardon reviewed the kinds of physical and psychological abuse common in such groups, and also spoke about the grave problems that they face when emerging, as many do, from the cult into non-cult society. They typically have identity problem- there is no pre-cult identity to fall back on. They have no personal moral compass or boundaries that conform, more or less, to the wider society's values. And they do not know how to think critically or negotiate workaday life on the "outside." Discussant Arnold Markowitz, a psychotherapist and Director of the Cult Hot Line and Clinic of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services of New York, concurred with The Rev. Pardon's assessment, and stressed the need for therapy and counseling in order to "socialize" children coming out of such groups, and family counseling, if possible.
European Government Responses
Recognizing that the rise of cultic organizations is an international phenomenon - many groups being international in scope - AFF Conference 2001 convened a panel consisting of official representatives of a number of European states to say what they were doing about it. The panel was organized and moderated by Michael Kropfeld, Director of Montréal's Info-Cult.
Belgium
Henri de Cordes, vice-president of the Information and Advice Center on Harmful Sectarian Organizations, in Brussels, told how a parliamentary commission of inquiry several years ago led to: the training of magistrates to help them better adjudicate legal actions involving cults; the creation of his Center - supported by professionals in areas relevant to cult activities - which observes cults and provides information to the public about them, even helping people assess the risks of membership; and the convening of an interministerial government group to collaborate in order to deal comprehensively with the problem on a continuing basis. A new Belgian law also allows security organizations to investigate a "sectarian" group if, in its organization or practice, it "commits illegal or injurious actions, harms individuals or society, or endangers human dignity." A challenge to the constitutionality of the Information Center was rejected by the courts, which decided that the government was doing nothing to imperil freedom of religion.
Austria
Hermann Muller, manager of the Federal Office for Sectarian Questions in Austria, stressed, as the other panelists did, that religious freedom is guaranteed in his country, but freedom to break the law is not. Responding to a 1998 statute that made it possible for many new groups to achieve "religion" status, the government established commissions to study the issue and evaluate groups, and a cult bureau to look into possible harm caused by some of these organizations. The state wants to ensure the physical and mental freedom of individuals, the integrity of the family, and the healthy development of children. Programs have been set up to provide public information, create professional networks, educate teachers and civil servants, and develop counseling models based on professional advice. Local bureaus of cult affairs have been instituted.
Slovakia
Miroslav Lojda, from the Ministry of Culture's Institute for State-Church Relations, said that his organization is responsible for researching, analyzing, and consulting on traditional as well as non-traditional or new religions. The Institute uses experts of all types to help in this endeavor and publishes material aimed to educate the public and professionals about the problem. The government has identified and published a list of about 100 local and international cults (none of which has met the criteria for official recognition), and various state agencies investigate possible illegal cult activities and use laws pertaining to certain types of associations to prosecute criminal cult activity. He said that the state must protect itself and its citizens, so it has a right to limit religious freedom.
Switzerland
François Bellanger, Professor of Law at the University of Geneva and legal expert on cults for the Department of Justice of the Canton of Geneva, is one of the authors of the official report on illegal sectarian practices published in 1997 (a report stimulated by the Solar Temple suicide-murder episodes). The Swiss national response to cults has been limited to two reports, one on Scientology and one on cult movements that recognized the problem and made some ameliorative suggestions. The Swiss government, he said, refrained from offering a definition of "cult," so such entities cannot really be identified in law, but it is clear that many Swiss laws apply to crimes cults commit and that they can be prosecuted accordingly. The Swiss believe that the cult problem should really be dealt with on the canton (state) level, he said. In Geneva, a report recommended preventing involvement through information - a center for this is being created - on abuses, and a guide for victims on legal redress. And there are now draft laws directed at personal growth schemes and psychological technologies offered by people without proper training or certification, as well as mental manipulation that creates dependence. But Geneva needs federal support for such measures to become law. The German-speaking canton of Basle passed a law against misleading recruiting - this in response to Scientology methods - but it was rejected by the federal courts. The canton also tried to make Scientology's trademark public testing illegal, because it is seen as commercial, but this too was quashed on the ground that it inhibited religious freedom. Finally, the Italian-speaking canton has proposed to increase cult information and educational programs for students.
Catalonia (Spain)
Mrs. Rosa M. Pujol, representing the General Secretariat for Youth of Catalonia, one of three autonomous regions within Spain, said that the Catalan parliament passed a resolution in 2000 calling on the government to fully adopt the Resolution of the European Parliament on cults and to create a committee made up of representatives of a number of government and private agencies to study and monitor the cult situation. In addition, the government has begun to provide support for AIS, a Catalan association "noted for its serious and thorough work in defense of the individual and for advice given to families and members of psychologically manipulative groups or coercive sects." The government expects the AIS [which has operated as a private non-profit for a number of years] to include: drawing up a list of sectarian groups; setting up a database and data collection system; drawing up studies and informational documents and organize debates to further understanding of the sect phenomenon and ensure that reliable information is available; providing therapeutic support for any who request it; and linking with other countries to promote effective exchange of information. The government is providing the association legal, security, and financial support. Mrs. Pujol concluded by saying that through these measures, the Catalan government hopes to "create sufficient resources to ensure that citizens who so desire are able to maintain their freedom of choice and emotional and personal independence."
France
Henri-Pierre DeBord, Counselor at the French government's Interministerial Mission for Combating Cults, told how the Jonestown disaster was the spark that first moved France officially to look into cults, both at home and internationally, in order to answer the question: "Can it happen here?" The Solar Temple murder-suicides of 1994, which involved France itself, forcibly answered the question affirmatively. The Prime Minister then put together a commission from among members of parliament to describe the phenomenon, and in 1998 the government created the Interministerial Commission to study and combat cults' illegal activity, with a special section to look into financial, tax, and other economic transgressions. The Mission has a 30-member council that includes politicians as well as experts on law, economy, banking, psychology, sociology, and social work. Its role is to collect and analyze information, move various authorities to take action against illegal activity, train civil servants, and provide information to the public. There is also a group that coordinates the relevant work of numerous government ministries. Finally, Counselor DeBord spoke of the law, recently passed, which allows the government to dissolve groups if they have shown a certain level of criminal activity, and punish individual members who have broken the law. All this, he emphasized, in order to protect liberty, which has been a French cause since the Revolution.
Working with Current and Former Members, and Families
Several panels were devoted to discussing how to help counsel individuals and families affected by cult involvements.
Thought Reform Consultation brought together a number of very experienced exit counselors - David Clark, Carol Giambalvo, Joseph Kelley, Patrick Ryan, Hana Whitfield, and Jerry Whitfield - who spoke about their work and the evolving nature of a once demonized field.
Linda Dubrow-Eichel, Ph.D. and Carol Diament presented Sinister Therapy, a video and discussion demonstrating an ex-member's return to her pre-group self.
Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, was presented by Steven Hassan, author of a book of that name, and critiqued by three other experts in the field.
After the Cult: Spiritual Issues brought together a number of experts who have worked with former cult members to help them regain a spiritual grounding shaken by cult involvement and exit. The discussants included: Craig Branch, formerly of Watchman Fellowship, a Christian counter-cult ministry; Fr. Michael Duggan, a priest of the Roman Catholic diocese of Calgary and a former cult member; William Goldberg, a therapist who has led a support group for ex-cult members for 25 years; Paul Martin, Ph.D., head of the Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center; and the Rev. Robert Pardon, Director of the New England Institute of Religious Research.
Margaret Singer Reflects on "Shattered Myths"
Margaret Thaler Singer, the doyenne of cultic studies, offered a number of telling observations about the field based on her half-century of work to understand the ways and means of thought reform and unethical social influence. She told how certain pervasive myths are now shattered: the belief that confinement and a "gun at the head" are necessary for the success of a thought reform program; and the conviction that there is no such thing as thought reform-despite the plaints of scholarly "cult apologists."
Professor Singer, bolstering her contention with hard data from web site "hits" and research studies, said that the cult "problem" is still with us; many of the larger groups, having been exposed, certainly contain fewer members, but newer cults are continuously springing up.
She also observed that ethical scholars have not conducted better scientific studies, in order to demonstrate cultic manipulation and deception, because to carry out such research would be to indulge in what AFF founding scholar Dr. John Gordon Clark called "an impermissible experiment," the kind of experiment that cults engage in every day, Dr. Singer observed.
Non-Government Responses in Other Countries
"Cults Around The World" brought together representatives of non-governmental groups from a number of countries who reviewed the current cult situation at home and told of their work to help individuals and families affected by cult involvement, and of programs mounted to educate the general public and their governments about the problem. Many of these organizations were founded and run by former members of cultic groups and/or their families.
Josep Maria Jansa, M.D., an epidemiologist for the city council of Barcelona, told how Assessment and Information on Cults (AIS) of Catalonia, in Spain, with which he has been associated for almost two decades, recently achieved a formal working relationship with the youth ministry of the Catalan government. AIS will receive financial support while providing public and professional education as well as clinical referral and counseling services.
Friedrich Griess, an engineer and member of Austria's Society Against The Dangers of Sects and Cults, related how his organization, which, like other Austrian "self-help" organizations receives financial support from government, had worked to gain parliamentary hearings on cults and the creation of an office on cults, and collaborated with the government on educational brochures. He said Austria still needs education for professionals in health and child care.
Alexander Dvorkin, a scholar at a Russian Orthodox Church seminary in Moscow, and head of Russia's St. Irenaeis of Lyon Center, which collects information on sects and cults and offers free consultation on the issue, noted that foreign cults are not rapidly growing anymore; rather, they are buying property and becoming institutionalized. Native cults, meanwhile, are on the rise. Litigation stemming from Russian laws aimed to curb cults is being tested in the courts.
Natanel Blasbalg, who consolidated three major grassroots educational, support, and referral groups concerned with cults into Israel's Forum Against Cults, has seen the government appoint an Interministerial Committee to look into the phenomenon, helped thwart Scientology's effort to influence the Israeli educational system, and lobbied for a law, which passed, to limit the non-professional practice of psychological counseling.
Susanne Schaaf, a psychologist at Switzerland's InfoSekta, in Zurich, which provides information, counseling, and therapy for people with cult-related problems, told how her government's report on cults, in 2000, called for a number of information gathering and educational initiatives, but she lamented the absence of a national policy, and action. Some of the Swiss cantons (states) have, however, been more active, meeting cult challenges through education and the enforcement of local ordinances.
Valdemar Kristensen, representing Sweden's FRI, reviewed his organization's preventive education and ex-member rehabilitation programs, noting that it had sent professionals to Ohio's Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center for training in cult counseling methods. A Swedish parliamentary investigation of the cult phenomenon has not led to any action, largely because "politicians don't understand the problem very well," he concluded. FRI relies on the internationally renowned Dialog Center, of Denmark's Aarhus University, for background information on cultic groups.
Rienie Venter, Ph.D., a lecturer at the University of South Africa, in Johannesburg, reported that South Africa's Cult Information and Evangelical Centre, with which she is associated, provides information on cultic groups, offers assistance to family members of cult victims, gives emotional and spiritual assistance to ex-members, and mounts educational programs in schools. With an extremely tolerant government attitude toward "alternative" religious and cultural gorups, the Centre's preventive education does not speak of particular groups, but rather explores issues like unethical influence and mind control through general concepts such as "influence in relationships," and the like.
Michael Kropfeld, head of Canada's Info-Cult/Info-Secte, said that his organization concentrates on providing information to the public, government officials, and affected families while urging the application of existing law rather than the introduction of new legislation to deal with the problem. But he bemoaned the failure of the authorities to take action in accord with the law. The Québec government provides financial support to Info-Cult.
Daphne Vane, representing Britain's FAIR (Family, Action, Information, and Referral), also spoke of the need to make use of current law, especially family and malpractice statutes, and of the need to educate professionals, especially lawyers and physicians, who must deal with cult-related harm.
Professor Claire Champollion, of France's ADFI (Association for Defense of the Family and the Individual) told how she helped form ADFI, with chapters throughout France, after one of her children got involved in a cult more than two decades ago. ADFI, which helped provide the information and commentary needed for passage of the recent French law aimed to curb cult activities, now receives support for its educational work from the French government.
Joseph Wilting, a 40-year member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and founder of Norway's Live in Freedom, which now has 1,000 members, said that publicizing accounts by former cult members of their experiences has, after many years, begun to have a significant effect in the effort to educate the Norwegian public and authorities about the problem.
Finally, Friedrich Griess read a report from Jean Nokin, of FECRIS, an association of European grassroots organizations which includes representatives from most of the groups noted above. Mr. Nokin told about this developing center for research and information on cults that is providing advice to the European Parliament, and other governmental organizations, in a collective European effort to ameliorate cult-related harm.
This report was prepared by Robert E. Schecter, Ph.D., Editor, Cult Observer. October 2001.
AFF (American Family Foundation), P.O. Box 2265, Bonita Springs, FL 34133. [email protected]; www.csj.org; www.cultsandsociety.com
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