Critical Thinking on Cults & AntiCults
This is a paper written in 1980 on the AntiCult Movement, as it existed when the authors estimated when it was 10 years old. Can you see any differences in the AntiCult Movement today? _______________________________________ Cults of Anti-Cultism by Anson D. Shupe, Jr., Roger Spielmann, and Sam Stigall During the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s … Read more
Social scientists like Eileen Barker traveled to Moonie recruitment seminars where brainwashing & mind control was claimed to be in use. They found that more than 90% of the people in those “brainwashing” seminars did not sign up to be a Moonie, and all were gone from the Moonies within 2 years.
I want a federal investigation of Scientology for the right reasons.
Max Scheler said that an apostate was ‘engaged in a continuous chain of acts of revenge against his own spiritual past’. Can you be an anti-apostate Apostate?
A Post-Ex has integrated the arguments, and “truths”, he made as a Scientologist with the arguments, and “truths”, he made as an Ex/Anti-Scientologist. He has seen the disconnects and the contradictions there, and repaired them. He no longer walks around with an opposite self inside him, with which he is at war.
In the same way that asking critical thinking questions can get you out of Scientology, asking critical thinking questions can get you out of Anti-Scientology, too.
One of the most hysterical & unscientific beliefs of AntiCultism is that “brainwashing” & “Mind Control” are at work whenever anyone becomes a member of a “cult”.
The Truth Rundown in Scientology tries to force Scientologists to delude themselves into believing they never saw what they saw with their own eyes.
“Brainwashing” Theories in European Parliamentary and Administrative Reports on “Cults” and “Sects” JAMES T. RICHARDSON MASSIMO INTROVIGNE This study examines the recent rash of official reports done by governmental agencies in Western Europe to guide policy development in those societies. Particular attention is given to reports in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, and Italy, and … Read more
The following is a compilation of scientific studies which have thoroughly debunked the idea of brainwashing.
It’s strange for an Ex to accept these stereotypes about who they used to be. Yet Exes seem to do it – almost unthinkingly & obediently. When will they begin questioning these stereotypes?
The anticult movement is destructive to Ex-Scientologists & to any Ex of any minority religion slurred as a “cult”. It’s just belief. Not facts.
Question for Leah Remini – How will blaming a Scientology mother for her daughter’s suicide bring about a federal investigation?
“If I am correct about brainwashing ideology being a form of totalitarian influence, it would presumably serve the function of ministering to a polarized self-sense and curing identity confusion by enabling converts to it to shift responsibility for undesirable aspects of their personalities and former behaviour onto a scapegoated contrast category, in this case the new religious movement of which they were formerly a member.
The following is an exchange with a commentor on Marty Rathbun’s blog named Conan. In this exchange, I was able to clearly and simply express what I have learned that L Ron Hubbard was really up to with Scientology. I appreciate the softballs that Conan threw me which allowed me to finally knock this idea … Read more
When I was young and dumb, I worked with OSA in Illinois. Randy Kretchmar, Carol Brookes and Mary Ann Ahmad were the Office of Special Affairs at the Chicago Org at that time. The Cult Awareness Network had not been infiltrated, taken over and destroyed by OSA yet. They were still the Church of Scientology’s … Read more
The “Father of Deprogramming” Ted Patrick was a devoted Christian who believed he was doing God’s work by kidnapping people & holding them in a room & browbeating them until they denounced their faith. In 1980, he served 1 year in prison and paid a $5000 fine for kidnapping and false imprisonment.
A review of the major problems with the brainwashing theory of recruitment and maintaining membership in a minority religion. By James T Richardson – 2006
A lot of the members of the anti-cult movement want their targeted minority religion to be destroyed for their own religious and ideological reasons.
Of all the books that have been written about Scientology, if you had only one shot to communicate to someone what Scientology was all about, I would give them John Sweeney’s “Church of Fear”.