Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1989, Page 75
has affiliated with a group--after the salesman has left, so to speak. He would reason the
woman in the apartment was a distressed seeker of encyclopedias. For most of his book, in
spite of his forays into theory, he reasons on the basis of a simple “distressed seeker
looking for a group.”
The author, in spite of later noting in his book that groups actively seek out new members,
primarily uses a “seeker looking for a charismatic group” explanation of membership. He
then unidirectionally attributes motivations.
Initially he uses a one-way attribution to explain membership (seekers were looking for,
approached and voluntarily affiliated with a group.) Later in the volume, Galanter reveals
he is not unaware of the subterfuge, deception and other practices that by this point in
history many thousands of observers and former members have revealed about many of the
groups Galanter describes. He says of the Unification Church: “Discussions with church
members from different parts of the country indicated that during the peak recruitment
years of the early 1970s about half the new members were brought into the sect by
deceptive means”(p.135). “In the San Francisco Bay area, the major source of recruits for
the sect, the process was generally surreptitious” (p.133). Having written of the “induction
by subterfuge”(p.134), and the “covert recruitment techniques” (p.135), Galanter describes
in a workshop he observed “communication was regulated...conversations and ideas that
did not bear on the themes under discussion were discouraged...the balance between active
members and non-member recruits during small group discussions also assured control by
the leaders over communication...it was possible to suppress deviant points of view, often
before they were expressed. Potential converts were therefore engaged throughout the two
days in an organized agenda determined by the leadership, and designed to discourage
ideas contrary to the group‟s perspective” (p.137).
The book contains a number of statements that are to say the least puzzling, for example:
“A member‟s decision to leave the Unification Church reflects malfunction in the monitoring
of the church” (p.61). He reports that group has “a center for the management of disturbed
members” (p.172), after strongly positing that group membership produces a “relief effect.”
Of his research methods, he writes that members “answered a structured questionnaire
anonymously and sent their responses to me for computer coding” (p.174). Then (p.175)
he writes: “To learn more about the role of coercion in relation to member‟s attitudes, I
arranged to have the project team designate which respondents had been deprogrammed
based on their knowledge of each one” (p.175). A reader wonders how Galanter defines
“anonymous” if his project team knew who the participants were and had in fact located the
subjects for him. Both this follow-up study and his earlier current member study brings to
awareness the many criticisms made by other researchers that “there are no secrets in the
group.” Thus when a member of a high control group is asked to be a study subject that
member knows the rules and the consequences of violating them. Such a person often is
dependent in all areas of life on the group, knows that deviance monitoring is central and
ever-present, and knows that non-compliance has serious social, emotional, financial, and
other consequences. When management administers a questionnaire, how “spontaneous”
and “truthful” can answers be? How can anonymity be assured, especially in groups where
members have themselves monitored mail, phone calls, and know that a “party line” has to
be expressed to outsiders? Such persons are patently aware of the penalties for deviance
from these prescribed attitudes. Answers to questionnaires administered and collected by
management under conditions in which there is knowledge that deviation is not tolerated
causes those evaluating such research to ask how much credence can be given the answers.
Perhaps some of Galanter‟s own findings help to assess this, especially his contention that
joining charismatic groups reduces distress, but later when ex-members fill out
questionnaires, they reveal that distress was present during their membership.
has affiliated with a group--after the salesman has left, so to speak. He would reason the
woman in the apartment was a distressed seeker of encyclopedias. For most of his book, in
spite of his forays into theory, he reasons on the basis of a simple “distressed seeker
looking for a group.”
The author, in spite of later noting in his book that groups actively seek out new members,
primarily uses a “seeker looking for a charismatic group” explanation of membership. He
then unidirectionally attributes motivations.
Initially he uses a one-way attribution to explain membership (seekers were looking for,
approached and voluntarily affiliated with a group.) Later in the volume, Galanter reveals
he is not unaware of the subterfuge, deception and other practices that by this point in
history many thousands of observers and former members have revealed about many of the
groups Galanter describes. He says of the Unification Church: “Discussions with church
members from different parts of the country indicated that during the peak recruitment
years of the early 1970s about half the new members were brought into the sect by
deceptive means”(p.135). “In the San Francisco Bay area, the major source of recruits for
the sect, the process was generally surreptitious” (p.133). Having written of the “induction
by subterfuge”(p.134), and the “covert recruitment techniques” (p.135), Galanter describes
in a workshop he observed “communication was regulated...conversations and ideas that
did not bear on the themes under discussion were discouraged...the balance between active
members and non-member recruits during small group discussions also assured control by
the leaders over communication...it was possible to suppress deviant points of view, often
before they were expressed. Potential converts were therefore engaged throughout the two
days in an organized agenda determined by the leadership, and designed to discourage
ideas contrary to the group‟s perspective” (p.137).
The book contains a number of statements that are to say the least puzzling, for example:
“A member‟s decision to leave the Unification Church reflects malfunction in the monitoring
of the church” (p.61). He reports that group has “a center for the management of disturbed
members” (p.172), after strongly positing that group membership produces a “relief effect.”
Of his research methods, he writes that members “answered a structured questionnaire
anonymously and sent their responses to me for computer coding” (p.174). Then (p.175)
he writes: “To learn more about the role of coercion in relation to member‟s attitudes, I
arranged to have the project team designate which respondents had been deprogrammed
based on their knowledge of each one” (p.175). A reader wonders how Galanter defines
“anonymous” if his project team knew who the participants were and had in fact located the
subjects for him. Both this follow-up study and his earlier current member study brings to
awareness the many criticisms made by other researchers that “there are no secrets in the
group.” Thus when a member of a high control group is asked to be a study subject that
member knows the rules and the consequences of violating them. Such a person often is
dependent in all areas of life on the group, knows that deviance monitoring is central and
ever-present, and knows that non-compliance has serious social, emotional, financial, and
other consequences. When management administers a questionnaire, how “spontaneous”
and “truthful” can answers be? How can anonymity be assured, especially in groups where
members have themselves monitored mail, phone calls, and know that a “party line” has to
be expressed to outsiders? Such persons are patently aware of the penalties for deviance
from these prescribed attitudes. Answers to questionnaires administered and collected by
management under conditions in which there is knowledge that deviation is not tolerated
causes those evaluating such research to ask how much credence can be given the answers.
Perhaps some of Galanter‟s own findings help to assess this, especially his contention that
joining charismatic groups reduces distress, but later when ex-members fill out
questionnaires, they reveal that distress was present during their membership.
