66 International Journal of Cultic Studies Vol. 4, 2013
was in for more than a year. I managed to
accomplish that feat alone with no coercion and
for no pay whatsoever. Those coincidental
interventions changed five lives for the good by
individual acclaim even years after the
intervention. After some years of unpaid
assistance to help folks both to leave and to
recover from cults, I entered the field of
arranged interventions with deprogrammers by
1986 as a fee-for-service agent for the first time.
I came into the activity late or in its second
phase, 9 years after legal warrants
(conservatorships) for coercive intervention of
cult members effectively ceased after a decision
in Katz v. Superior Court (1977).168 The
unstable field of deprogrammers was already
dwindling by the mid-1980s as the result of
multiple prosecutions and fickle career security
and, as Shupe indicates, most had changed to an
“exit counseling” approach that avoided illegal
detainment of a cult member at any time during
the intervention process. For a limited time
(1986 to 1992) in a minor percentage of my
caseload, I participated in what Shupe calls
coercive deprogramming—the kind that can get
you into legal trouble for improper detainment.
Along with two other deprogrammers, I did
stand trial in 1993 in Idaho for an intervention
that failed in 1991—a jury acquitted me of all
charges including misdemeanors. Shupe draws
from the plaintiff’s testimony in this Idaho case
to support his argument about violent
deprogramming.
Anson Shupe is notable as the expert witness in
a civil case brought by Scientology operatives
against the former, original Cult Awareness
Network (CAN). During his testimony, Shupe
argued that if anything was a cult, it was CAN,
but he minimized such attribution to
controversial NRMs extant in America. The
Church of Scientology lawyers won that case for
an ex-member of a Bible cult who was
kidnapped at age 18 for deprogramming by his
mother and a deprogrammer allegedly “referred”
168 The Court of Appeal in Katz overturned the conservatorship
orders, holding that in the absence of actions rendering the adult
believers “gravely disabled,” the processes of the state could not
“be used to deprive the believer of his freedom of action and to
subject him to involuntary treatment.” [46 Cal.3d 1116] (73
Cal.App.3d at pp. 988–989),
http://www.paulmorantz.com/cult/molko-v-holy-spirit-assn/
by CAN. The result was, as Shupe mentions (p.
408), that CAN lost in court and had to claim
bankruptcy, thus opening the entire nonprofit
office with its files, phone number, and logo for
a legal sale. The primary bidder was
Scientology so in a most ironic twist of fate, a
cult became the operator of the Cult Awareness
Network in 1996. The CAN phone number was
ubiquitous in books and contact information
about cults up to that point, so many hundreds of
folks were sorely misled and upset—many
called me after contacting “CAN” for years after
1996 with their horror stories. I co-presented a
paper about the history of cult intervention in the
late 1990s in New York at the annual meeting of
the Association for the Sociology of Religion.
Shupe was on the panel.
Throughout my deprogramming career, I never
argued, for a host of reasons that I share with
Shupe and his sympathizers, that coercive
approaches to intervention be legalized or
condoned. The concerned families and
intervention specialists they hired were well
aware of the risks, as perhaps half of these
attempts failed to persuade the cult member to
defect. The families and deprogrammers felt
that intervention was their duty, not their right.
Naturally, most victims of failed coercive
intervention gave their own version of the
atrocities they suffered during their
deprogramming ordeals. Shupe, in his article,
takes these atrocity reports at face value without
due representation of conflicting eyewitness
accounts. Of course, Shupe may be excused for
this lapse since his access to those eyewitnesses
has been compromised by his apologetic
reputation regarding NRMs. Why would I, for
example, reveal any facts of a case to a scholar
who could be an easy pipeline to Scientology?
However, I will underscore that Shupe’s
criticism of coercive deprogramming as
“violent” and potentially harmful is, on the
whole, well-deserved and warranted.
No one regulated the “vigilante” (Shupe) field of
deprogramming, and the purported ACM
organizations had no direct control over the
activities of a maverick deprogrammer.
However, Shupe’s research indicates that
hundreds if not thousands of deprogramming
interventions originated with calls to ACM-
was in for more than a year. I managed to
accomplish that feat alone with no coercion and
for no pay whatsoever. Those coincidental
interventions changed five lives for the good by
individual acclaim even years after the
intervention. After some years of unpaid
assistance to help folks both to leave and to
recover from cults, I entered the field of
arranged interventions with deprogrammers by
1986 as a fee-for-service agent for the first time.
I came into the activity late or in its second
phase, 9 years after legal warrants
(conservatorships) for coercive intervention of
cult members effectively ceased after a decision
in Katz v. Superior Court (1977).168 The
unstable field of deprogrammers was already
dwindling by the mid-1980s as the result of
multiple prosecutions and fickle career security
and, as Shupe indicates, most had changed to an
“exit counseling” approach that avoided illegal
detainment of a cult member at any time during
the intervention process. For a limited time
(1986 to 1992) in a minor percentage of my
caseload, I participated in what Shupe calls
coercive deprogramming—the kind that can get
you into legal trouble for improper detainment.
Along with two other deprogrammers, I did
stand trial in 1993 in Idaho for an intervention
that failed in 1991—a jury acquitted me of all
charges including misdemeanors. Shupe draws
from the plaintiff’s testimony in this Idaho case
to support his argument about violent
deprogramming.
Anson Shupe is notable as the expert witness in
a civil case brought by Scientology operatives
against the former, original Cult Awareness
Network (CAN). During his testimony, Shupe
argued that if anything was a cult, it was CAN,
but he minimized such attribution to
controversial NRMs extant in America. The
Church of Scientology lawyers won that case for
an ex-member of a Bible cult who was
kidnapped at age 18 for deprogramming by his
mother and a deprogrammer allegedly “referred”
168 The Court of Appeal in Katz overturned the conservatorship
orders, holding that in the absence of actions rendering the adult
believers “gravely disabled,” the processes of the state could not
“be used to deprive the believer of his freedom of action and to
subject him to involuntary treatment.” [46 Cal.3d 1116] (73
Cal.App.3d at pp. 988–989),
http://www.paulmorantz.com/cult/molko-v-holy-spirit-assn/
by CAN. The result was, as Shupe mentions (p.
408), that CAN lost in court and had to claim
bankruptcy, thus opening the entire nonprofit
office with its files, phone number, and logo for
a legal sale. The primary bidder was
Scientology so in a most ironic twist of fate, a
cult became the operator of the Cult Awareness
Network in 1996. The CAN phone number was
ubiquitous in books and contact information
about cults up to that point, so many hundreds of
folks were sorely misled and upset—many
called me after contacting “CAN” for years after
1996 with their horror stories. I co-presented a
paper about the history of cult intervention in the
late 1990s in New York at the annual meeting of
the Association for the Sociology of Religion.
Shupe was on the panel.
Throughout my deprogramming career, I never
argued, for a host of reasons that I share with
Shupe and his sympathizers, that coercive
approaches to intervention be legalized or
condoned. The concerned families and
intervention specialists they hired were well
aware of the risks, as perhaps half of these
attempts failed to persuade the cult member to
defect. The families and deprogrammers felt
that intervention was their duty, not their right.
Naturally, most victims of failed coercive
intervention gave their own version of the
atrocities they suffered during their
deprogramming ordeals. Shupe, in his article,
takes these atrocity reports at face value without
due representation of conflicting eyewitness
accounts. Of course, Shupe may be excused for
this lapse since his access to those eyewitnesses
has been compromised by his apologetic
reputation regarding NRMs. Why would I, for
example, reveal any facts of a case to a scholar
who could be an easy pipeline to Scientology?
However, I will underscore that Shupe’s
criticism of coercive deprogramming as
“violent” and potentially harmful is, on the
whole, well-deserved and warranted.
No one regulated the “vigilante” (Shupe) field of
deprogramming, and the purported ACM
organizations had no direct control over the
activities of a maverick deprogrammer.
However, Shupe’s research indicates that
hundreds if not thousands of deprogramming
interventions originated with calls to ACM-
