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He then concludes that ―the real sociological issue ought not to be whether brainwashing
ever occurs but rather whether it occurs frequently enough to be considered an important
social problem.‖5 This scholar, however, suggests focusing the study of this phenomenon,
not on the recruiting methods used by groups, but on the processes which make it
enormously difficult to leave them, and which continue to condition people even after they
have left: ―Does something occur to create, in the mind of the person, a social-psychological
prison without guards or walls?‖6
These suggestions can help serious scholars avoid confusing ideology, philosophy, and
culture with a scientific approach. Why after all should we totally deny the possibility that
certain groups, under certain conditions, can actually practice some form of mental
conditioning? How can we otherwise explain cases of collective suicide or mental illnesses
which recur constantly among people who join such groups, or why ―normal‖ people can
firmly believe absurd and unimaginable things and go on doing so even when it is proved
that these do not exist?
What is worrying is the attempt to minimise such episodes and to downplay their enormous
seriousness. Unfortunately, even the case of Aum Shinrikyo, which carried out a poison gas
outrage in the Tokyo subway, has received this ―softening down‖ treatment from religion
scholars who raised an outcry about persecution of the group led by Shoko Asahara.
Here are the words of Haifa University psychologist Benjamin Beit Hallahmi, who, after
describing the sarin outrage in Tokyo on March 20, 1995, which led to the death of 13
people and injury to many others, says:
According to media reports, four Americans arrived in Tokyo to defend Aum
Shinrikyo against charges of mass terrorism. Two of them were NRM
scholars. According to these reports, they stated that Aum Shinrikyo could
not have produced the gas used in the attack, and called on Japanese police
not to ―crush a religion and deny freedom‖ (Reid, 1995 Reader, 1995).7
Actually, the author of the article says, the Japanese authorities had been rather negligent
before, if not actually conniving with, the criminal operations of Aum Shinrikyo, precisely
because it was an NRM. The author complains of the ostentatiously favorable attitude of his
colleagues, and says that this kind of behavior not only involved Aum Shinrikyo, but recurs
constantly among NRM scholars, and is in his opinion deplorable.8 A Cult Observer summary
of a Washington Post article indicated that the American scholars‘ ―visit was not well
received in Japan‖9 because it had been widely reported that Aum had paid for their ticket
to Japan and because the Japanese public believed it already knew more than enough to
consider Aum guilty.
Concerning this matter, it should be said that ―actually, at the opening of the press
conference held in Japan, J. Gordon Melton [one of the American scholars to whom Beit-
Hallahmi refers] stated that the travelling expenses --‗but no kind of fee‘ --had been paid
for by Aum Shinrikyo.‖10 Whoever gave out the news, the facts stand and speak for
themselves.
What we wish to stress is that tragedies like those we have just mentioned invite all of us,
scholars included, to look for a plausible explanation of the phenomenon and for possible
ways to prevent others from happening. Sticking one‘s head in the sand like an ostrich is of
no use. One should lift up one‘s head, open up one‘s eyes and ears, and use one‘s brain
without making exceptions for anybody, if the safety of human lives, and their
psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being depends on this.
Going back to those who are trying to understand and investigate these issues honestly and
without prejudices, we find a proposal by Zablocki interesting. He says that the notion of
―brainwashing‖ should be defined again, and then treated like any other notion of social

Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 87
psychology. The idea that ―brainwashing‖ must involve the denial of free choice is based on
wrong premises. ―Brainwashing‖ does not in fact state that people are not able to choose
freely, but they choose freely on the basis of values that are different and which have been
totally restructured according to the viewpoint of the group and its leader. Zablocki holds
that there is a sequence of events that can be observed in the notion of ―brainwashing‖ and
that sometimes lasts for years. ―This visible and relatively unambiguous sequence consists
of four steps: (1) affiliation, (2) lifestyle modification, (3) disaffiliation, and (4)
disenchantment.‖11
Zablocki‘s main hypothesis is that under certain circumstances a person can be subjected to
a form of persuasion that can transform his or her values of reference and notion of
personal identity. This is a special kind of persuasion that is performed within a strongly
united group, which largely or totally controls the environment around the individual, and
which uses stress and disorientation to exercise its influence. The peculiarity of this kind of
persuasion lies in the fact that it persists even after the individual has left the group, as well
as in the terror of leaving the group it brings about, as if the very life of the individual
depended on his or her belonging to the group. Of course, even though these aspects are
easy to observe, there is no reason to think they are present, or have the same intensity, in
every group. There may also be individuals who are hard to condition, since the process
varies from individual to individual.
Zablocki also says that, in his opinion, ―...brainwashing is likely to always remain a
relatively rare phenomenon because of the difficulty of achieving the high degree of mileu
control and charismatic influence necessary to make it effective.12
We believe that the problem is that of identifying the level of conditioning a person must be
subjected to before we can speak of brainwashing. This problem of definiton arises because
there are several levels or degrees of conditioning inside different movements, as well as
different sensitivities and reactions on the part of individuals subjected to environmental
stimulation. Zablocki holds that ―brainwashing‖ is a relatively rare affair, and he does so on
the basis of his experience and of his assessment categories. Other scholars hold that it
does not exist at all, yet others imply that it happens quite frequently. The frequency of this
phenomenon is still harder to establish when we are dealing with children or very young
people, or with people who have psychological problems. The controversy about the
existence, frequency, and intensity of mental manipulation inside NRM‘s has also been dealt
with in committees of various European parliaments, which have drawn up reports after the
recent mass suicides.
European Governmental Committees
Concerning this issue, it is worth while to remember what Massimo Introvigne had to say
about the committee of the Belgian Parliament:
This committee claims to have ―taken note of the division in the academic
world,‖ and to have decided to choose sides. ―On the basis of its own
proceedings (and especially on hearings of dozens of former victims) the
committee comes to the conclusion that it cannot share the conclusions of the
group of sociologists of religions, since the latter clearly underestimate the
potential dangers which cultic organizations pose, due to a restrictive and
unilateral approach that such sociologists adopt.‖ Especially, the sociologists -
-and CESNUR --deny the existence of ―mental manipulation,‖ whereas the
committee has ―been presented with several testimonies on this matter‖
which have convinced them that the opposite holds true. The committee also
takes the liberty of preaching to the sociologists, since it ―deplores the
conclusions of this type of analysis which refer to ‗new religious movements‘
being published without a thorough examination. From an ethical point of