Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2, 1998, page 81
United States. He cites the lengthy Scientology vs. IRS litigation as one example. He also
cites the lawsuit brought by the Local Church of Witness Lee vs. the ―anti-cult‖ group, the
Spiritual Counterfeits Project.
The final chapter, ―Counseling and the new religious movements‖ covers several forms of
therapeutic interaction with members of the cults, including deprogramming, exit counseling
and psychotherapy. Saliba points out that counseling professions assume that fringe groups
are dangerous institutions. Most counseling, he says, tends to be a strategy to attack the
new religion and persuade the cultist to leave it because it is a form of ―religious pathology‖
(p. 199). Again he decries the ignorance about sociological literature by anti-cultists:
―...sociology has provided a method for getting reliable information on the practices and
ideologies of these movements‖ (p. 201). He states that the first responsibility of counselors
should be ―to sift through the information on new religious movements and to present their
clients with a balanced picture...‖ (IBID.). He suggest that the client be alerted of any
dangerous situations ―without exaggerating or sensationalizing those relatively few
occurrences that are a cause for concern‖ (IBID.).
His advice follows sound counseling strategies that respect the client in every way.
Saliba‘s considerable effort to remain ―balanced‖ in his approach to new religions is
commendable but not without a serious flaw. He speaks of ―perception‖ many times and
how that can mislead people about the harmful nature of new and marginal groups. In this
we cannot disagree as rumors and panics about what a group may or may not do, or even if
it exists, are well-known in our recent history. Consider the ―satanic panics‖ of a decade ago
that have nearly faded away. But perception, not scholarly accounting, seems to guide his
reactionary stand against the ―moral crusaders‖ of the anti-cult ranks.
In a few patronizing passages he quotes from that camp to show that they too recognize
that some good can come from a cult experience, and that a calm, objective approach is
most useful in counseling.
Saliba takes issue with advice given by Madeleine Tobias (co-author of Captive Hearts,
Captive Minds) who suggests screaming in a car and fantasizing ―revenge‖ might help
relieve post cult-anxieties. ―The first suggestion is rather ridiculous, the second is conducive
to violence,‖ says Saliba (p.223). The perception he gives of Tobias‘s text is just as cranky
as the worst of anti-cult perceptions about new religions. Here Saliba echoes only what has
been previously written in a review (his) about Captive Hearts in the Journal for Scientific
Study of Religion (December, 1995). Saliba also states that exit counseling is only
deprogramming without coercion (p. 233), that it aims to persuade a cultist away from a
group while not examining objectively the facts of conversion and social issues surrounding
the conversion. He implies that exit counselors and deprogrammers attempt and succeed at
―brainwashing‖ their clients while turning them into ―moral crusaders‖ against all new
religions.
Two serious problems come to mind with this view: 1. While arguing that brainwashing is
hardly a fact-the vast majority of seekers leave their cults voluntarily, so where‘s the
brainwashing (p. 87)-he implies that the exit counselor is an effective brainwasher because
the majority of interventions work. 2. Saliba omits mention that a paucity of objective
research about deprogramming or exit counseling exists. To come to the conclusions he
does is merely a bias based on reactionary literature produced by scholars horrified by
deprogramming. One should agree with Saliba that coercive interventions cannot be
condoned as a general policy by any organization, but there is no reliable ―science‖ that has
analyzed the negative and perhaps positive effects of interventions of any kind. Non-
coercive exit counseling might be more than a mere deprogramming without security
guards, and the very anti-cultists he derides might be more sympathetic with his
recommendations for intervention counseling than he realizes.
United States. He cites the lengthy Scientology vs. IRS litigation as one example. He also
cites the lawsuit brought by the Local Church of Witness Lee vs. the ―anti-cult‖ group, the
Spiritual Counterfeits Project.
The final chapter, ―Counseling and the new religious movements‖ covers several forms of
therapeutic interaction with members of the cults, including deprogramming, exit counseling
and psychotherapy. Saliba points out that counseling professions assume that fringe groups
are dangerous institutions. Most counseling, he says, tends to be a strategy to attack the
new religion and persuade the cultist to leave it because it is a form of ―religious pathology‖
(p. 199). Again he decries the ignorance about sociological literature by anti-cultists:
―...sociology has provided a method for getting reliable information on the practices and
ideologies of these movements‖ (p. 201). He states that the first responsibility of counselors
should be ―to sift through the information on new religious movements and to present their
clients with a balanced picture...‖ (IBID.). He suggest that the client be alerted of any
dangerous situations ―without exaggerating or sensationalizing those relatively few
occurrences that are a cause for concern‖ (IBID.).
His advice follows sound counseling strategies that respect the client in every way.
Saliba‘s considerable effort to remain ―balanced‖ in his approach to new religions is
commendable but not without a serious flaw. He speaks of ―perception‖ many times and
how that can mislead people about the harmful nature of new and marginal groups. In this
we cannot disagree as rumors and panics about what a group may or may not do, or even if
it exists, are well-known in our recent history. Consider the ―satanic panics‖ of a decade ago
that have nearly faded away. But perception, not scholarly accounting, seems to guide his
reactionary stand against the ―moral crusaders‖ of the anti-cult ranks.
In a few patronizing passages he quotes from that camp to show that they too recognize
that some good can come from a cult experience, and that a calm, objective approach is
most useful in counseling.
Saliba takes issue with advice given by Madeleine Tobias (co-author of Captive Hearts,
Captive Minds) who suggests screaming in a car and fantasizing ―revenge‖ might help
relieve post cult-anxieties. ―The first suggestion is rather ridiculous, the second is conducive
to violence,‖ says Saliba (p.223). The perception he gives of Tobias‘s text is just as cranky
as the worst of anti-cult perceptions about new religions. Here Saliba echoes only what has
been previously written in a review (his) about Captive Hearts in the Journal for Scientific
Study of Religion (December, 1995). Saliba also states that exit counseling is only
deprogramming without coercion (p. 233), that it aims to persuade a cultist away from a
group while not examining objectively the facts of conversion and social issues surrounding
the conversion. He implies that exit counselors and deprogrammers attempt and succeed at
―brainwashing‖ their clients while turning them into ―moral crusaders‖ against all new
religions.
Two serious problems come to mind with this view: 1. While arguing that brainwashing is
hardly a fact-the vast majority of seekers leave their cults voluntarily, so where‘s the
brainwashing (p. 87)-he implies that the exit counselor is an effective brainwasher because
the majority of interventions work. 2. Saliba omits mention that a paucity of objective
research about deprogramming or exit counseling exists. To come to the conclusions he
does is merely a bias based on reactionary literature produced by scholars horrified by
deprogramming. One should agree with Saliba that coercive interventions cannot be
condoned as a general policy by any organization, but there is no reliable ―science‖ that has
analyzed the negative and perhaps positive effects of interventions of any kind. Non-
coercive exit counseling might be more than a mere deprogramming without security
guards, and the very anti-cultists he derides might be more sympathetic with his
recommendations for intervention counseling than he realizes.
