Deprogramming is measures that claim to assist a person who holds a controversial belief system in changing those beliefs and abandoning allegiance to the religious, political, economic, or social group associated with the belief system. The dictionary definition of deprogramming is "to free" or "to retrain" someone from specific beliefs. Some controversial methods and practices of self-identified "deprogrammers" have involved kidnapping, false imprisonment, and coercion, which have sometimes resulted in criminal convictions of the deprogrammers. Some deprogramming regimens are designed for individuals taken against their will, which has led to controversies over freedom of religion, kidnapping, and civil rights, as well as the violence which is sometimes involved.
Brainwashing is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subjects' ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds, as well as to change their attitudes, values and beliefs.
Margaret Thaler Singer was an American clinical psychologist and researcher with her colleague Lyman Wynne on family communication. She was a prominent figure in the study of undue influence in social and religious contexts, and a proponent of the brainwashing theory of new religious movements. She was prohibited from testifying as an expert in American courts as a result of the Scientology Fishman case.
The term large-group awareness training (LGAT) refers to activities - usually offered by groups with links to the human potential movement - which claim to increase self-awareness and to bring about desirable transformations in individuals' personal lives. LGATs are unconventional; they often take place over several days, and may compromise participants' mental wellbeing.
Eileen Vartan Barker is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics (LSE), and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights. She is the chairperson and founder of the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) and has written studies about groups she defines as cults and new religious movements (NRMs).
Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr., also known as Do, among other names, was an American religious leader who founded what became known as the Heaven's Gate religious group and organized their mass suicide in 1997. It was the largest mass suicide to occur inside the U.S.
Love bombing is an attempt to influence a person by demonstrations of attention and affection. It can be used in different ways and for either positive or negative purposes. Psychologists have identified love bombing as a possible part of a cycle of abuse and have warned against it. It has also been described as psychological manipulation in order to create a feeling of unity within a group against a society perceived as hostile. In 2011, clinical psychologist Oliver James advocated love bombing in his book Love Bombing: Reset Your Child's Emotional Thermostat, as a means for parents to rectify emotional problems in their children.
In modern English, a cult is a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This sense of the term is controversial, having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia, and has also been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study. The word "cult" is usually considered a pejorative.
The anti-cult movement are groups that oppose any new religious movement (NRM) that they characterize as a cult. Sociologists David Bromley and Anson Shupe initially defined the ACM in 1981 as a collection of groups embracing brainwashing-theory, but later observed a significant shift in ideology towards pathologizing membership in NRMs. One element within the anti-cult movement, Christian counter-cult organizations, oppose NRMs on theological grounds and distribute information to this effect through church networks and via printed literature.
Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse a 1995 book edited by Michael Langone, director of the anti-cult group International Cultic Studies Association, published by W. W. Norton & Company, treats the theories of mind control as related to cults.
Michael D. Langone is an American counseling psychologist who specializes in research about cultic groups and psychological manipulation. He is executive director of the International Cultic Studies Association, and founding editor of the journal Cultic Studies Journal, later the Cultic Studies Review.
Ronald M. Enroth has been a professor of sociology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and an evangelical Christian author of books concerning what he defines as "cults" and "new religious movements" and important figure in the Christian countercult movement.
Carol Giambalvo is a retired exit counselor who worked with Cult Awareness Network's New York office and chaired on the Cult Awareness Network's national board of directors from 1988–91, and also sits on the International Cultic Studies Association's board of directors heads its Recovery Programs, and is responsible for its outreach program. She co-founded reFOCUS, an anti-cult organization for ex-cult members in the United States.
Crazy Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work? is a book by the psychologist Margaret Singer and the sociologist Janja Lalich. It was published by Jossey-Bass in 1996.
Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults is a 2004 psychology and sociology book on cults by Janja Lalich. It was published by University of California Press.
Janja Lalich is an American sociologist and writer. Lalich is best known as a foremost expert on cults and coercion, charismatic authority, power relations, ideology and social control. She is a professor emerita of sociology at the California State University, Chico.
Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field was edited by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins. The book was published by University of Toronto Press, on December 1, 2001, and includes contributions from ten religious, sociological, and psychological scholars.
Jesse Stephen Miller was a psychologist and psychodynamic psychotherapist.
Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion is a non-fiction book on cults and coercive persuasion, written by Marc Galanter. The book was published in hardcover format in 1989 by Oxford University Press, and again in hardcover in 1999 in a second-edition work. The second edition was reprinted by Oxford University Press in March 2007.
Twisted Scriptures: Breaking Free from Churches That Abuse is a non-fiction book by Mary Alice Chrnalogar, published by Zondervan. Chrnalogar instructs readers on how to determine if a religious group is manipulative or abusive, and describes techniques of mind control. The book was first published in 1997 by publishers Whitaker House and Control Techniques, and republished in 2000 by Zondervan. A Spanish language edition was published in 2006 by Vida.
