Related Research Articles
Deprogramming is a controversial tactic that seeks to dissuade someone from "strongly held convictions" such as religious beliefs. Deprogramming purports to assist a person who holds a particular belief system—of a kind considered harmful by those initiating the deprogramming—to change those beliefs and sever connections to the group associated with them. Typically, people identifying themselves as deprogrammers are hired by a person's relatives, often parents of adult children. The subject of the deprogramming is usually forced to undergo the procedure, which might last days or weeks, against their will.
Apostasy is the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous religious beliefs. One who undertakes apostasy is known as an apostate. Undertaking apostasy is called apostatizing. The term apostasy is used by sociologists to mean the renunciation and criticism of, or opposition to, a person's former religion, in a technical sense, with no pejorative connotation.
The Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was an anti-cult organization founded by deprogrammer Ted Patrick that provided information on groups it considered "cults", as well as support and referrals to deprogrammers. It operated from the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s in the United States.
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 cults and new religious movements.
Steven Alan Hassan is an American writer and mental health counselor who specializes in the area of cults and new religious movements. He worked as a deprogrammer in the late 1970s, but since then has advocated a non-coercive form of exit counseling.
The anti-cult movement, abbreviated ACM and also known as the countercult movement, consists of various governmental and non-governmental organizations and individuals that seek to raise awareness of cults, uncover coercive practices used to attract and retain members, and help those who have become involved with harmful cult practices.
Anson David Shupe, Jr. was an American sociologist and author noted for his studies of religious groups and their countermovements, family violence and clergy misconduct.
Stephen A. Kent is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He researches new religious movements (NRMs), and has published research on several such groups including the Children of God, the Church of Scientology, and other NRMs operating in Canada.
Jeffrey K. Hadden (1937–2003) was an American professor of sociology. He began his teaching career at Western Reserve University and then at the University of Virginia commencing in 1972. Hadden earned his Ph.D. in 1963 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he was trained as a demographer and human ecologist.
The academic study of new religious movements is known as new religions studies (NRS). The study draws from the disciplines of anthropology, psychiatry, history, psychology, sociology, religious studies, and theology. Eileen Barker noted that there are five sources of information on new religious movements (NRMs): the information provided by such groups themselves, that provided by ex-members as well as the friends and relatives of members, organizations that collect information on NRMs, the mainstream media, and academics studying such phenomena.
Jean-Marie Abgrall is a French psychiatrist, criminologist, specialist in forensic medicine, cult consultant, graduate in criminal law and anti-cultist. He has been an expert witness.
Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field is an edited volume discussing various topics related to cults, including the scholarly field itself, the concept of brainwashing, and the public perception of the groups. The book was edited by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins, and was published by University of Toronto Press on December 1, 2001. It includes contributions from 12 religious, sociological, and psychological scholars, in 14 essays.
The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements is a 1998 book edited by David G. Bromley. It presents studies by several sociologists of new religious movements on the role played by apostates The volume examines the apostate's testimonies, their motivations, the narratives they construct to discredit their former movements, and their impact on the public controversy between such movements and society.
Thomas Robbins was an author and an independent scholar of sociology of religion.
Lorne L. Dawson is a Canadian scholar of the sociology of religion who has written about new religious movements, the brainwashing controversy, and religion and the Internet. His work is now focused on religious terrorism and the process of radicalization, especially with regard to domestic terrorists.
Dick Anthony was a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on the validity of brainwashing as a determiner of behavior, a prolific researcher of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.
The People's Organised Workshop on Ersatz Religion (POWER), also called the People's Organised Workgroup on Ersatz Religion, was a British anti-cult organisation founded in 1976 based in Ealing, London. Some believe that POWER is a front organisation by large new religious movements (NRMs) meant to delegitimise other anti-cult organisations like Family, Action, Information, Rescue (FAIR). POWER functionally disappeared in 1977 but caused major controversy within its roughly one-year lifespan. The organisation published a brochure called Deprogramming: The Constructive Destruction of Belief: A Manual of Technique, which advocated for mass deprogramming of cult members, including methods like sleep deprivation, food deprivation, forced nudity, kidnapping, and "aggressive sex".
The New Vigilantes: Deprogrammers, Anti-Cultists, and the New Religions is a 1980 nonfiction book on anti-cultism, deprogramming, and new religious movements (cults) by sociologists of religion Anson D. Shupe and David G. Bromley. A foreword was written by Joseph R. Gusfield. It was published by SAGE Publications in its Library of Social Research series as volume 113. Some have described the volume as a companion to their previous work, "Moonies" in America: Cult, Church, and Crusade (1979). Shupe and Bromley approach the anti-cult movement in the United States through a resource-mobilization lens.
Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare is a 1981 nonfiction book by Anson D. Shupe and David G. Bromley about the "cult scare" in America in the 1970s. It was published by Beacon Press in Boston. Shupe and Bromley analyze six specific new religious movements (cults) – the Unification Church, the Church of Scientology, the Children of God, the Divine Light Mission, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and the Peoples Temple – in order to partially dispel myths about them.
Let Our Children Go! is a nonfiction book by Ted Patrick with Tom Dulack about Patrick's experience with cult deprogramming. It was first published in 1976 by E. P. Dutton, but was republished by Ballantine Books in 1977. The book alternates between sections written by Patrick and Dulack in describing encounters with cults including the Children of God, the Love Family, the Hare Krishna, and the Unification Church.
References
- ↑ Swatos, William H..; Kivisto, Peter (1998). Encyclopedia of Religion and Society. Rowman Altamira. pp. 63–64. ISBN 978-0-7619-8956-1.
- ↑ See Religion and the Social Order, Association for the Sociology of Religion.
- ↑ Thomas Robbins and Phillip Charles Lucas (2007), "From 'Cults' to New Religious Movements: Coherence, Definition, and Conceptual Framing in the Study of New Religious Movements", in James A. Beckford and N. Jay Demerath III, editors, The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, SAGE Publications, Newburyport Park, CA, ISBN 978-1412911955, pages 227–247 (Bromley’s alignment theory is discussed at pages 228-229).
- ↑ Bromley and Anson Shupe, Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981
- ↑ McCormick Maaga, Mary (1998). Hearing the voices of Jonestown , Syracuse University Press, ISBN 0-8156-0515-3
- ↑ Bromley (editor) The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1998.
- ↑ Steve Bruce (1999), review of The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements, edited by David G. Bromley, Contemporary Sociology, vol. 28, pp. 444-445.
- ↑ Stephen A. Kent and Kayla Swanson (2017), "The History of Credibility Attacks Against Former Cult Members," International Journal of Cultic Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 1-35.
- ↑ Swatos, William H.; Kivisto, Peter (1998). Encyclopedia of Religion and Society , Rowman Altamira, ISBN 978-0-7619-8956-1, p. 63
- ↑ "Curriculum Vitae".
