Jean-Marie Abgrall

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Jean-Marie Abgrall
Born (1950-04-12) 12 April 1950 (age 74)
Toulon, France
Occupation(s)Psychiatrist, author, cult consultant
Known for Brainwashing theories

Jean-Marie Abgrall (born 12 April 1950) is a French psychiatrist, criminologist, specialist in forensic medicine, cult consultant, graduate in criminal law and anti-cultist. He has been an expert witness and has been consulted in the investigations of cults. Abgrall is known as a proponent of brainwashing theories.

Contents

Early life

Abgrall was born 12 April 1950, in Toulon, France. [1] In his youth, he was active in the AMORC Rosicrucian order, as well as a related organization, the Renewed Order of the Temple. [2] [3] Between 1989 and 1994, he was a member of the Green Party in France. [2]

Career

He is a psychiatrist in private practice. [4] He has been an expert witness when it comes to cults. [2] Describing his opinion on cults, he stated in a television interview that, “Notwithstanding what they claim, cults are not religious movements but rather criminal movements organized by gurus who use brainwashing techniques to manipulate their victims." [5] He was a member of the board of MILS, [6] though resigned in May 2004. [5] He was also an expert psychiatrist for the Court of Cassation. [6]

Various sects, including the Aumism movement and the Raelian Movement, have opposed Abgrall. [7] For his opposition to them, he was attacked by some groups, including the Church of Scientology, who in one instance called the secretary of the Greens and told them Abgrall was a secret service agent. [2] In 1996, the French government set up an observatory body to investigate cults and sects, the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France. Abgrall was a "key actor" in these investigations, preparing official reports in France and Belgium, and was an active anti-cult movement spokesperson in the European media, in particular television. [2] [8] In 2004 he appeared to testify in the trial of Néo-Phare, a controversial sect. [5]

Order of the Solar Temple

In the 90s, Abgrall was appointed as an expert in the French investigation of the Order of the Solar Temple cult; his involvement was subject to some criticism, as the Renewed Order of the Temple group (that Abgrall had attended meetings of) had counted among its membership Luc Jouret, one of the leaders of the cult. [2] [9] He never personally undertook any field work related to the group, though often discussed it on television. [9] Abgrall published two books (La mécanique des sectes and Les sectes de l'apocalypse: gourous de l'an 2000) in which he revealed confidential information about the case; Alain Leclerc, the lawyer of some of the victim's families, succeeded in getting Abgrall disqualified as a witness in the Tabachnik trial as a result. [5] As a result of the publication of the books he was indicted for "violation of professional secrecy". [10]

Leclerc further demanded an investigation into his finances, which was initially blocked by the courts twice, but was eventually granted. This resulted in a scandal: it was revealed that, in 1996, Landmark Worldwide (a company that had been designated a cult in the Guyard Report list of cults), displeased by their designation, contacted Abgrall to audit the organization and have their designation removed. Abgrall wrote a report on the organization arguing that they were not a cult, arguing that they were a "harmless organization", though did conclude by recognizing that the group may have had some warning signs. They were removed from the list; from the period of 2001 to 2002 Abgrall had been paid €45,699.49 by Landmark. Abgrall complained in 2004 when interviewed by Le Parisien that this had only been revealed to block his involvement in the trial, and that he had no conflict of interest as he "wrote an unfavorable report and paid [his] taxes." [5] [10]

Works

Abgrall is the author of several books, including La mécanique des sectes and Les sectes de l'apocalypse: gourous de l'an 2000. Susan J. Palmer retrospectively criticized the arguments the books made about the OTS, judging them a "psychological interpretation" that, given later evidence, was "premature" and "incompatible" with the facts. [5] His works on the OTS were reviewed positively by the journalist Arnaud Bédat, who called his conclusions "extremely convincing" and said that Abgrall was ideally suited to the task. [11] Abgrall was also sued over the books by the widow of Jacques Breyer. [6] [11]

Reception

Dick Anthony and Thomas Robbins have written that in their view, Abgrall's theories of brainwashing are pseudoscientific, and so unsuitable for use as a basis for legal judgments in cases involving cult membership. They qualify Abgrall as the "leading psychiatric consultant to government agencies and legislative bodies concerned with controlling and suppressing non-traditional religions", noting that Abgrall's brainwashing theory has served as the primary psychiatric rationale for anti-cult laws, governmental rulings, and legal cases brought against alleged cults in Europe. Abgrall has also influenced former communist countries through the dissemination of official governmental reports from France and Belgium that he helped produce. [12]

According to Dick Anthony, Abgrall emerged as a key "cult expert" in France, because he was the first psychiatrist in France willing to embrace brainwashing theories. He describes Abgrall's theories as "essentially identical to the pseudoscientific theory that was developed first by the American CIA, as a propaganda device to combat communism, and second as an ideological device for use by the American anti-cult movement to rationalize efforts at persecution and control of minority religious groups". [9]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brainwashing</span> Concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled

Brainwashing is the controversial idea that the human mind can be altered or controlled against a person's will by manipulative psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subject's 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Order of the Solar Temple</span> Esoteric new religious movement (1984–1997)

The Order of the Solar Temple, or simply the Solar Temple, formerly the ORT–Solar Tradition or the International Chivalric Order of the Solar Tradition, was a new religious movement of disputed classification, often described as a cult, notorious for the mass deaths of many of its members in several mass murders and suicides throughout the 1990s. The OTS was a neo-Templar movement, claiming to be a continuation of the Knights Templar, and incorporated a mix of Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and New Age ideas. It was led by Joseph Di Mambro, with Luc Jouret as a spokesman and second in command. It was founded in 1984, in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Center for Studies on New Religions, otherwise abbreviated as CESNUR, is a nonprofit organization based in Turin, Italy that focuses on the academic study of new religious movements and opposes the anti-cult movement. It was established in 1988 by Massimo Introvigne, Jean-François Mayer, and Ernesto Zucchini.

Cult is a term often applied to new religious movements and other social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term has different, and sometimes divergent or pejorative, definitions both in popular culture and academia and has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Massimo Introvigne</span> Italian sociologist of religion (born 1955)

Massimo Introvigne is an Italian sociologist of religion, author, and intellectual property attorney. He is a co-founder and the managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), a Turin-based nonprofit organization which has been described as "the highest profile lobbying and information group for controversial religions".

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 religious groups that they consider to be "cults", uncover coercive practices used to attract and retain members, and help those who have become involved with harmful cult practices.

Alain Vivien is a French Socialist Party (PS) politician, best known for chairing (1998–2002) the French Mission Interministérielle pour la Lutte contre les Sectes, MILS, a ministerial organization designed to observe the activities of various religious organizations defined as "Sectes" (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.

Freedom of religion in France is guaranteed by the constitutional rights set forth in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

The application of the labels "cults" or "sects" to religious movements in government documents usually signifies the popular and negative use of the term "cult" in English and a functionally similar use of words translated as "sect" in several European languages. Government reports which have used these words include ones from Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, and Russia. While these documents utilize similar terminology they do not necessarily include the same groups nor is their assessment of these groups based on agreed criteria. Other governments and world bodies also report on new religious movements but do not use these terms to describe them.

The European Grouping of Marketing Professionals, widely named GEPM then renamed CEDIPAC SA, was a multi-level marketing company founded in the U.S. in 1988 by Jean Godzich, a former member of Amway. In France, its headquarters were in Fleury-sur-Andelle, Eure and it employed approximately 360 employees and 50,000 distributors in France. In 1995, its activities ended and it changed its name after many complaints by former members who presented it as a cult, as well as two parliamentary reports.

Energo-Chromo-Kinese, also named ECK, is a pseudo-scientific and esoteric-oriented new religious movement founded in October 1987 in Villefranche-sur-Mer by Patrick Véret, a former acupuncturist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dick Anthony</span> American psychologist (1939–2022)

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.

Jean-François Mayer is a Swiss religious historian, author, and translator. He is also Director of the Religioscope Institute, which he founded. He received his masters degree, and then his doctorate, from the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 in 1979 and 1984. His writing focuses on religion, with a particular focus on new religious movements and cults, including the Unification Church, the Church of Scientology and the Pilgrims of Arès.

On the morning of 16 December 1995, 16 members of the Order of the Solar Temple died in a mass murder-suicide in a clearing in the Vercors, near the village of Saint-Pierre-de-Chérennes in Isère, France. Two members of the group, Jean-Pierre Lardanchet and André Friedli, shot and killed 14 other members, including three children, before setting the bodies on fire and killing themselves. This was done in order to facilitate a spiritual voyage to the star Sirius, a "transit", as it had been in previous mass suicides.

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".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of the Order of the Solar Temple</span>

Following the Order of the Solar Temple affair – a case that gained international notoriety when members of the group, a then-obscure neo-Templar group, orchestrated several mass suicides and mass murders in the 1990s – there have been several books and studies published about the events and organization. The case became a media sensation, with many conspiracy theories promoted by the media. As described by Susan J. Palmer, "false or unverifiable trails have been laid: secondhand testimonies are traded by journalists, ghost-written apostate memoirs are in progress and conspiracy theories abound."

Néo-Phare was a small French new religious movement, often described as a cult or doomsday cult, founded by Arnaud Mussy in January 2001. It formed through a schism with Phare-Ouest, which was founded by the esoteric writer André Bouguenec. Bouguenec's belief system incorporated Kabbalah and hermeticism, and he also proclaimed that he was God. Mussy joined the group in 1997, and Bouguenec died the same year. Viewing the original group as too rigid, Mussy and 20 members left the group and formed Néo-Phare.

In 2001 Swiss composer and orchestral conductor Michel Tabachnik was tried in the Grenoble criminal court, over his involvement in the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS) religious movement. The Solar Temple was an esoteric and eclectic new religious movement and secret society, often described as a cult, that had been involved in several high profile mass-murder suicides in the 1990s. Tabachnik was accused of brainwashing the followers into the suicides and having known about the plans beforehand. Tabachnik was the only person tried in the aftermath of the Solar Temple deaths; he was found not guilty in the 2001 trial and in the 2006 appeal trial.

References

  1. ↑ Chemineau, Sophie (12 February 2003). "Tous manipulés, tous manipulateurs" [All manipulated, all manipulators]. Metro (in French). Paris. ISSN   1632-0832.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Coignard, Sophie; Deloire, Christophe (17 September 1999). "L'impuissance publique" [Public powerlessness]. Le Point (in French). Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  3. ↑ Broussard, Philippe (24 December 1999). "L'enquête sur le Temple solaire révèle le monde des sociétés secrètes" [Solar Temple investigation reveals world of secret societies]. Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 26 December 2018.
  4. ↑ Richardson, James T.; Introvigne, Massimo (June 2001). ""Brainwashing" Theories in European Parliamentary and Administrative Reports on "Cults" and "Sects"". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion . 40 (2): 143–168. doi:10.1111/0021-8294.00046. ISSN   0021-8294. JSTOR   1387941.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Palmer, Susan J. (2011). "Néo-Phare: The First Application of the About-Picard Law". The New Heretics of France: Minority Religions, la République, and the Government-Sponsored "War on Sects". Oxford University Press. pp. 161–168, footnote 64. ISBN   978-0-19-973521-1.
  6. 1 2 3 Koch, François (15 July 1999). "Les experts visés" [Targeted experts]. L'Express (in French). Paris. Retrieved 8 December 2024.
  7. ↑ "Procès Raël contre Jean-Marie Abgrall" [Raël v. Jean-Marie Abgrall]. prevensectes.com (in French). Archived from the original on 15 July 2011. Retrieved 13 March 2007.
  8. ↑ Shupe, Anson D.; Darnell, Susan E. (2006). Agents of Discord: Deprogramming, Pseudo-Science, And the American Anticult Movement. Transaction Publishers. ISBN   978-0-7658-0323-8.
  9. 1 2 3 Anthony, Dick (1999). "Pseudoscience and Minority Religions: An Evaluation of the Brainwashing Theories of Jean-Marie Abgrall". Social Justice Research . 12 (4): 421–456. doi:10.1023/A:1022081411463. S2CID   140454555.
  10. 1 2 Vézard, Frédéric (28 May 2004). "L'embarrassant rapport de l'expert antisectes" [The embarrassing report of the anti-cult expert]. Le Parisien (in French). Retrieved 27 August 2024.
  11. 1 2 Bédat, Arnaud; Bouleau, Gilles; Nicolas, Bernard (2000). L'Ordre du Temple solaire: Les Secrets d'une manipulation (in French). Flammarion. pp. 329–330. ISBN   978-2-08-067842-3.
  12. ↑ Anthony, Dick; Robbins, Thomas (2004). "Pseudoscience versus Minority Religions". In Richardson, James T. (ed.). Regulating Religion: Case Studies from Around the Globe. Springer Science & Business Media. p.  144. ISBN   978-0-306-47887-1.
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