Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2008, Page 13
(Siegel, 2003:1 Eichel, 2004:1). These diagnoses were in line with the Diagnostic and
Statistical Disorder IV-TR, which gives as an example of ―Dissociative Disorder Not
Otherwise Specified‖: ―States of dissociation that occur in individuals who have been
subjected to periods of prolonged and intense coercive persuasion (e.g., brainwashing,
thought reform, or indoctrination while captive)‖ (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
In the Washington Post, reporter Don Oldenburg used the Malvo case to highlight other
recent cases in which the brainwashing concept appeared. After he mentioned the Manson
family murders, Jonestown, and the Heaven‘s Gate suicides, Oldenburg indicated:
When Islamic extremists flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, some speculated brainwashing. The mother of ‗shoe bomber‘
Richard Reid and the father of American Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh
said their sons were brainwashed. When kidnapped Elizabeth Smart was
reported to have strangely complied with her abductors, her father said she
had been brainwashed. (Oldenburg, 2003)
Throughout the rest of the article, Oldenburg used insights from Benjamin Zablocki, Philip
Zimbardo, Robert Lifton, Dick Anthony, and James Richardson, all of whom are important
people in the brainwashing debate, to provide an overview of the controversy surrounding
the term. It is doubtful, however, that Malvo‘s trial changed any of these disputants‘ views
about the brainwashing issue.
Alleged Chinese Governmental Human Rights Violations Against Falun Gong
In the classic research on brainwashing, conducted in the 1950s by Lifton, Schein, and
others, the actions of Communist China came under close scrutiny. The Communists ran re-
education or brainwashing programs for members of society (especially intellectuals) in
attempts to indoctrinate them into the Party line, and the Communists collaborated with the
North Korean brainwashing programs against captured United Nations soldiers. In the
contemporary period, the Communist Chinese appear to be using camps again in efforts to
indoctrinate a defiant segment of its population—those persons who practice Falun Gung.
Numerous Falun Gung websites speak about brainwashing programs and facilities used
against practitioners who run afoul of the law (for example, Falun Dafa, 2007:Falun Gong
Human Rights Working Group, 2003-2007: 2 FalunInfo.net, 2007:2 Friends of Falun Gong
USA, 2004:2), and an article in the Washington Post seems to confirm these sites‘ basic
assertions. In August 2001 the newspaper reported:
After a year and a half of difficulties in suppressing the movement, the
government for the first time this year sanctioned the systematic use of
violence against the group, establishing a network of brainwashing classes
and embarking on a painstaking effort to weed out followers neighborhood by
neighborhood and workplace by workplace, the sources said. They said the
crackdown has benefited from a turn in public opinion against Falun Gong,
since five purported members set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square,
leading many Chinese to conclude the group is a dangerous cult (Pomfret and
Pan, 2001:A1).7
Worth noting is that—at least on the surface---these classes have parallels to the
Communist brainwashing programs in the 1950s.
So, too, does the current regime‘s development of labour camps resonate with techniques
that Chinese Communists implemented in the early years of its regime. Mentions of
contemporary ―labor camps‖ appear throughout Falun Gung‘s literature, as indicated by the
account of a woman who reputedly ―was detained at the Fenghuangtai Office for one month
of brainwashing, then illegally sent to a labor camp‖ (FalunInfo.net,2007:3). Of course, the
(Siegel, 2003:1 Eichel, 2004:1). These diagnoses were in line with the Diagnostic and
Statistical Disorder IV-TR, which gives as an example of ―Dissociative Disorder Not
Otherwise Specified‖: ―States of dissociation that occur in individuals who have been
subjected to periods of prolonged and intense coercive persuasion (e.g., brainwashing,
thought reform, or indoctrination while captive)‖ (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
In the Washington Post, reporter Don Oldenburg used the Malvo case to highlight other
recent cases in which the brainwashing concept appeared. After he mentioned the Manson
family murders, Jonestown, and the Heaven‘s Gate suicides, Oldenburg indicated:
When Islamic extremists flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, some speculated brainwashing. The mother of ‗shoe bomber‘
Richard Reid and the father of American Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh
said their sons were brainwashed. When kidnapped Elizabeth Smart was
reported to have strangely complied with her abductors, her father said she
had been brainwashed. (Oldenburg, 2003)
Throughout the rest of the article, Oldenburg used insights from Benjamin Zablocki, Philip
Zimbardo, Robert Lifton, Dick Anthony, and James Richardson, all of whom are important
people in the brainwashing debate, to provide an overview of the controversy surrounding
the term. It is doubtful, however, that Malvo‘s trial changed any of these disputants‘ views
about the brainwashing issue.
Alleged Chinese Governmental Human Rights Violations Against Falun Gong
In the classic research on brainwashing, conducted in the 1950s by Lifton, Schein, and
others, the actions of Communist China came under close scrutiny. The Communists ran re-
education or brainwashing programs for members of society (especially intellectuals) in
attempts to indoctrinate them into the Party line, and the Communists collaborated with the
North Korean brainwashing programs against captured United Nations soldiers. In the
contemporary period, the Communist Chinese appear to be using camps again in efforts to
indoctrinate a defiant segment of its population—those persons who practice Falun Gung.
Numerous Falun Gung websites speak about brainwashing programs and facilities used
against practitioners who run afoul of the law (for example, Falun Dafa, 2007:Falun Gong
Human Rights Working Group, 2003-2007: 2 FalunInfo.net, 2007:2 Friends of Falun Gong
USA, 2004:2), and an article in the Washington Post seems to confirm these sites‘ basic
assertions. In August 2001 the newspaper reported:
After a year and a half of difficulties in suppressing the movement, the
government for the first time this year sanctioned the systematic use of
violence against the group, establishing a network of brainwashing classes
and embarking on a painstaking effort to weed out followers neighborhood by
neighborhood and workplace by workplace, the sources said. They said the
crackdown has benefited from a turn in public opinion against Falun Gong,
since five purported members set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square,
leading many Chinese to conclude the group is a dangerous cult (Pomfret and
Pan, 2001:A1).7
Worth noting is that—at least on the surface---these classes have parallels to the
Communist brainwashing programs in the 1950s.
So, too, does the current regime‘s development of labour camps resonate with techniques
that Chinese Communists implemented in the early years of its regime. Mentions of
contemporary ―labor camps‖ appear throughout Falun Gung‘s literature, as indicated by the
account of a woman who reputedly ―was detained at the Fenghuangtai Office for one month
of brainwashing, then illegally sent to a labor camp‖ (FalunInfo.net,2007:3). Of course, the
