Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1, 1994, Page 79
which are also settings for indoctrination in which strong social support (love bombing?),
authority figures, emotional fervor, and sometimes physical captivity are integrated into
persuasive processes. Dr. Galanti simply takes at face value the self-serving formulations of
deprogrammers to the effect that their methods work purely on the intellectual level-
rational dialogues with “clients” in which emotionalism and nonrational influences are totally
absent. Her uncritical and psychologically unsophisticated orientation toward processes of
anticult activism and activists‟ accounts strongly resembles the simplistic and naive
orientation toward converts and their accounts allegedly exhibited by “cult apologists” such
as myself.
Whether deliberately or inadvertently, the author gives the impression that cults are the
exclusive repository of emotional appeals, nonrational processes of spiritual persuasions,
and conversionist influences mediated by the lower and more primitive brain structures. Yet
as historian Elie Halevy points out, early Methodist preachers such as John Wesley and
George Whitfield aimed their sermons “at generating violent emotions in their listeners.”
They sought to evoke in their listeners “a crisis of despair followed by a sudden revelation
and a mood of blissful peace” (The Birth of Methodism in England, pp. 36-37). Is this the
reptilian origins of Methodism? I believe Dr. William Sargent has referred to early Methodist
revivals in terms of Pavlovian conditioning of salivating dogs.
There is a whole tradition of analyses of experiential, intuitive or emotional religiosity as
modes of psychopathology. The analyses may reveal more of the biases and secularism of
the analysts than they do of the religions being typified. From the perspective of such
analyses the only legitimate religion is that in which spiritual experience is limited to
attending a sedate church service once a week, putting something in the collection plate,
and hearing an edifying sermon. Religions involving emotional fervor, mysticism, and
experiential ritual such as meditation, repetitive chanting, or speaking in tongues would
probably be labeled “high coercion” religions.
Dr. Galanti emphasizes the role of ritual as a key nonrational factor consolidating the
commitment of devotees on a subintellectual level. As an anthropologist, Dr. Galanti is
surely aware of Clifford Geertz‟s definition of religion in his well-known essay, “Religion as a
Cultural System” in which he envisions ritual as a vital means whereby religion fulfills its
essential nature in creating “moods and motivations” linked to a general conception of
existence which ritual helps to reify and thus to appear uniquely valid and real. In a ritual
setting, religion “engulfs the total person, transporting him ...into another realm of
existence.” What is depicted by crusaders against cults as a pathological aberration may be
more akin to the traditional function of religion and religious ritual.
Finally, Dr. Galanti stresses the Moonist emphasis on learning without questioning doctrinal
tenets. But similar emphases have long appeared in accounts of parochial schooling, and
more recently published analyses of evangelical “Christian schools.” By implicitly treating
cults as modes of psychopathology and as standing apart from “normal” and “healthy”
institutions, Dr. Galanti perpetuates a reductionist tradition in which stigmatization of
intense, fervent, emotional and dogmatic religion really implies a stigmatization of religion
itself as regressive and as pertaining to the primitive and prerational, even reptilian residues
of human consciousness.
Thomas Robbins, Ph.D.
which are also settings for indoctrination in which strong social support (love bombing?),
authority figures, emotional fervor, and sometimes physical captivity are integrated into
persuasive processes. Dr. Galanti simply takes at face value the self-serving formulations of
deprogrammers to the effect that their methods work purely on the intellectual level-
rational dialogues with “clients” in which emotionalism and nonrational influences are totally
absent. Her uncritical and psychologically unsophisticated orientation toward processes of
anticult activism and activists‟ accounts strongly resembles the simplistic and naive
orientation toward converts and their accounts allegedly exhibited by “cult apologists” such
as myself.
Whether deliberately or inadvertently, the author gives the impression that cults are the
exclusive repository of emotional appeals, nonrational processes of spiritual persuasions,
and conversionist influences mediated by the lower and more primitive brain structures. Yet
as historian Elie Halevy points out, early Methodist preachers such as John Wesley and
George Whitfield aimed their sermons “at generating violent emotions in their listeners.”
They sought to evoke in their listeners “a crisis of despair followed by a sudden revelation
and a mood of blissful peace” (The Birth of Methodism in England, pp. 36-37). Is this the
reptilian origins of Methodism? I believe Dr. William Sargent has referred to early Methodist
revivals in terms of Pavlovian conditioning of salivating dogs.
There is a whole tradition of analyses of experiential, intuitive or emotional religiosity as
modes of psychopathology. The analyses may reveal more of the biases and secularism of
the analysts than they do of the religions being typified. From the perspective of such
analyses the only legitimate religion is that in which spiritual experience is limited to
attending a sedate church service once a week, putting something in the collection plate,
and hearing an edifying sermon. Religions involving emotional fervor, mysticism, and
experiential ritual such as meditation, repetitive chanting, or speaking in tongues would
probably be labeled “high coercion” religions.
Dr. Galanti emphasizes the role of ritual as a key nonrational factor consolidating the
commitment of devotees on a subintellectual level. As an anthropologist, Dr. Galanti is
surely aware of Clifford Geertz‟s definition of religion in his well-known essay, “Religion as a
Cultural System” in which he envisions ritual as a vital means whereby religion fulfills its
essential nature in creating “moods and motivations” linked to a general conception of
existence which ritual helps to reify and thus to appear uniquely valid and real. In a ritual
setting, religion “engulfs the total person, transporting him ...into another realm of
existence.” What is depicted by crusaders against cults as a pathological aberration may be
more akin to the traditional function of religion and religious ritual.
Finally, Dr. Galanti stresses the Moonist emphasis on learning without questioning doctrinal
tenets. But similar emphases have long appeared in accounts of parochial schooling, and
more recently published analyses of evangelical “Christian schools.” By implicitly treating
cults as modes of psychopathology and as standing apart from “normal” and “healthy”
institutions, Dr. Galanti perpetuates a reductionist tradition in which stigmatization of
intense, fervent, emotional and dogmatic religion really implies a stigmatization of religion
itself as regressive and as pertaining to the primitive and prerational, even reptilian residues
of human consciousness.
Thomas Robbins, Ph.D.
