Supporting Human Rights by Testifying Against Human Wrongs
Alan W. Scheflin
Santa Clara University School of Law
Abstract1
Experts seeking to testify in court about extreme-
influence processes practiced by clever
influencers against susceptible and vulnerable
influencees have encountered difficulty from
some judges who have hesitated or refused to
hear testimony about brainwashing, mind
control, and thought reform on the grounds, in
their opinion, that these concepts lack scientific
validity. This paper suggests that the legal
concept of undue influence be used as a vehicle
for such testimony. The paper also provides a
Social Influence Model (SIM) to assist an expert
in presenting the extensive science of social
influence to judges and jurors.
No one owns his own personality. Your
ego, or individuality, was forced on you
by your genetic constitution and by the
society into which you were born. You
had no say about what kind of
personality you acquired, and there's no
reason to believe you should have the
right to refuse to acquire a new
personality if your old one is antisocial.
The Constitution does not guarantee you
the right to maintain inviolable the
personality it forced upon you in the
first place
—James V. McConnell (1970, p. 74)
Dr. Paul Martin was a mental-health clinician, a
teacher, a trainer, and a testifier. It is this last
role, as an expert who appeared in courts to
testify about coercive mind manipulation, that
1 The original version of this paper was presented as the Paul
Martin Lecture at the International Cultic Studies Association’s
annual conference entitled Government, Human Rights, and the
Cult Phenomenon in Washington, DC on July 3, 2014. I would like
to thank Dr. Rod Dubrow-Marshall and Dr. Michael Langone for
their assistance with this paper
serves as the subject of my paper. Inside the
courtroom, and outside it as well, Paul fought
diligently for every person’s right to have a free
mind in a free society. No battle is more
important. And no warrior fought harder than
Paul.
Paul would have been appalled by the above-
quoted comment from psychologist James V.
McConnell. I am too. Even McConnell was
forced to backtrack after adverse reaction to his
remarks overwhelmed him.2
Freedom of thought was especially precious to
the Founding Fathers. They knew that, without
it, all other freedoms are relatively meaningless.
And because of its suppression in England,
especially in regard to religious and political
thought, America came into existence. Thomas
Jefferson, on September 23, 1800, wrote a letter
to Dr. Benjamin Rush, whose face now appears
on the seal of the American Psychiatric
Association. The human mind was a subject of
great interest to both gentlemen, the politician
and the psychiatrist. Jefferson wrote, “I have
sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility
against every form of tyranny over the mind of
man.”
Jefferson’s pledge found support a century and a
half later when the General Assembly of the
United Nations passed The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (December 10,
1948). Article 18 of that document, intended to
be a covenant binding all governments and all
people of our planet, states, “Everyone has the
right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion….” These freedoms are the birthright of
being a person.
Jefferson and the United Nations had in mind
the suppression and punishment of political and
2 McConnell (1974) later wrote that he never meant to suggest that
people’s behavior ought to be changed, only that it could be
changed.
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015 69
Alan W. Scheflin
Santa Clara University School of Law
Abstract1
Experts seeking to testify in court about extreme-
influence processes practiced by clever
influencers against susceptible and vulnerable
influencees have encountered difficulty from
some judges who have hesitated or refused to
hear testimony about brainwashing, mind
control, and thought reform on the grounds, in
their opinion, that these concepts lack scientific
validity. This paper suggests that the legal
concept of undue influence be used as a vehicle
for such testimony. The paper also provides a
Social Influence Model (SIM) to assist an expert
in presenting the extensive science of social
influence to judges and jurors.
No one owns his own personality. Your
ego, or individuality, was forced on you
by your genetic constitution and by the
society into which you were born. You
had no say about what kind of
personality you acquired, and there's no
reason to believe you should have the
right to refuse to acquire a new
personality if your old one is antisocial.
The Constitution does not guarantee you
the right to maintain inviolable the
personality it forced upon you in the
first place
—James V. McConnell (1970, p. 74)
Dr. Paul Martin was a mental-health clinician, a
teacher, a trainer, and a testifier. It is this last
role, as an expert who appeared in courts to
testify about coercive mind manipulation, that
1 The original version of this paper was presented as the Paul
Martin Lecture at the International Cultic Studies Association’s
annual conference entitled Government, Human Rights, and the
Cult Phenomenon in Washington, DC on July 3, 2014. I would like
to thank Dr. Rod Dubrow-Marshall and Dr. Michael Langone for
their assistance with this paper
serves as the subject of my paper. Inside the
courtroom, and outside it as well, Paul fought
diligently for every person’s right to have a free
mind in a free society. No battle is more
important. And no warrior fought harder than
Paul.
Paul would have been appalled by the above-
quoted comment from psychologist James V.
McConnell. I am too. Even McConnell was
forced to backtrack after adverse reaction to his
remarks overwhelmed him.2
Freedom of thought was especially precious to
the Founding Fathers. They knew that, without
it, all other freedoms are relatively meaningless.
And because of its suppression in England,
especially in regard to religious and political
thought, America came into existence. Thomas
Jefferson, on September 23, 1800, wrote a letter
to Dr. Benjamin Rush, whose face now appears
on the seal of the American Psychiatric
Association. The human mind was a subject of
great interest to both gentlemen, the politician
and the psychiatrist. Jefferson wrote, “I have
sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility
against every form of tyranny over the mind of
man.”
Jefferson’s pledge found support a century and a
half later when the General Assembly of the
United Nations passed The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (December 10,
1948). Article 18 of that document, intended to
be a covenant binding all governments and all
people of our planet, states, “Everyone has the
right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion….” These freedoms are the birthright of
being a person.
Jefferson and the United Nations had in mind
the suppression and punishment of political and
2 McConnell (1974) later wrote that he never meant to suggest that
people’s behavior ought to be changed, only that it could be
changed.
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015 69
