The goal of the program will be to offer an environment in which parents can give one another mutual counsel and support. Parents will have an opportunity to focus on the complex relationships resulting from multi-generational cult involvement. When: Sunday afternoon, April 14, 2013 from 2 pm to 5 pm.…
Christian group makes legal appeal for charity status
Guardian James Gray A legal appeal will decide if the Charity Commission was right to deny charitable status to the Brethren movement – the case hinges on whether its doctrine and practices are compatible with public benefit January 3, 2013 Last month saw the formal start of a charity tribunal…
Beyond belief
The Observer, Saturday 11 December 2004 With the likes of Madonna and Guy Ritchie giving celeb cred to Kabbalah, cults have never been more fashionable, nor more contentious. Nick Johnstone meets US cultbuster Rick Ross who, for a fee of $5,000, offers to deprogramme ‘victims’ and return them to their families…
Logic-Tight Compartments: How our modular brains lead us to deny and distort evidence
michaelshermer.comMichael Shermer How our modular brains lead us to deny and distort evidence January 1, 2013 IF YOU HAVE PONDERED how intelligent and educated people can, in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence, believe that that evolution is a myth, that global warming is a hoax, that vaccines cause autism and…
"Crazy" Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work?
Excerpts from the book by Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich The Therapeutic Relationship The relationship between patient and therapist is unique in important ways when compared to relationships between clients and other professionals such as physicians, dentists, attorneys, and accountants. The key difference is present from first…
James Ray’s attorneys seek to exclude witnesses
Arizona Family, January 26, 2011 FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Defense attorneys for a self-help guru facing manslaughter charges are asking a judge to keep two of the state’s witnesses from testifying at trial. James Arthur Ray’s attorneys say the testimony of a man who studies cult behavior and a corporate…
Scientology and Its Discontents
October 2, 2011 Scott Lauder, Hulton Archive, Getty Images In 1968, L. Ron Hubbard used his Electrometer to determine whether tomatoes experience pain. He concluded that they “scream when sliced.” Enlarge Image By Seth Perry This past spring, in a course I called “American Scriptures,” my students and I listened…
“Cults” and Globalization: Reflections and Questions
Mike Kropveld Revised from a presentation at the International Symposium on Cultic Studies (Bangkok, Thailand), organized by Graduate School of Philosophy and Religion, Assumption University, Thailand and the Institute of Religious Studies, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China, December 15–16, 2011. In my presentation today, I will give an overview of…
Chapter 22: Ideological Totalism
Thought reform has a psychological momentum of its own, a self-perpetuating energy not always bound by the interests of the program’s directors. When we inquire into the sources of this momentum, we come upon a complex set of psychological themes, which may be grouped under the general heading of ideological totalism. By this ungainly phrase I mean to suggest the coming together of immoderate ideology with equally immoderate individual character traits — an extremist meeting ground between people and ideas.
Characteristics Associated with Cultic Groups – Revised
. The following list of social-structural, social-psychological, and interpersonal behavioral patterns commonly found in cultic environments may be helpful in assessing a particular group or relationship.