Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 90
power. This happens whenever a category or a definition is abused. Equal over-use has
been made of the term ―deprogramming.‖ Nobody denies that in the past, some made use
of violent techniques and kidnapped people in order to make them leave a ―religious‖ group.
Those who used such methods merely put another kind of ―brainwashing‖ into practice,
equally unacceptable and injurious to personal freedom. But, without going so far, there are
also people who --while entirely disapproving of deprogramming --believe that certain
―religious‖ organisations apply a high degree of conditioning on their followers. One could
also ask those who refuse to believe in the reality of ―brainwashing‖ to consider what
deprogrammers do to people. How can one accuse deprogrammers of using coercive
techniques similar to ―brainwashing‖ when these techniques are not supposed to exist?
What kind of scientific theory is this, which claims a phenomenon exists only when applied
by a certain category of people (deprogrammers in this case)? If ―brainwashing‖ exists, it
exists, whether it is applied by charismatic leaders or by deprogrammers if it does not
exist, then we can accuse nobody of practicing it.
Someone might object that, whereas deprogrammers kidnap their ―prey,‖ people who join a
religious movement do so freely. We believe this method of affiliation, which Zablocki
considers to be unimportant in terms of defining ―brainwashing,‖ deserves some comments.
If it were true that joining a group always took place with full respect for the freedom of
the individual, we would certainly agree with this approach. But things are actually quite
different. Let us consider a few concrete examples:
1. A person looking for a job lands up in an employment agency, where he is put
through ―capacity‖ tests, in order to investigate his capacities for a future job. If he
then found himself, without realising it, a member of a psycho-religious group, he
could walk away, but what if he has already been conditioned, and has already been
subjected to pressure from the group, which has become his emotional point of
reference? Can we still say the individual has joined the group freely? And what if
part of the doctrine were kept hidden from the person, to be revealed only when he
is held to be ―ready‖ by the leaders? In this case, could we still say that the person
was fully aware of what lay ahead of him at the moment he made his choice?
2. A student with problems studying a foreign language receives an attractive invitation
with cartoons to a church where he will receive language lessons from mother-
tongue teachers. He goes there, and after a while, he is presented with ―strange‖
texts in the foreign language, which tell the life of the founder of a religion, and how
he was granted the ―great revelation,‖ and the teachers begin to praise the virtues of
this figure, saying they are his followers. If this were followed up by kind invitations
to take part in religious services, chant special prayers, would it not be right to say
that the person approached the group for entirely different reasons, and was then
gently (i.e., without kidnapping) led elsewhere?
3. A Christian is approached by a friendly ―missionary‖ who offers him a free home
study of the Bible. This Christian could well accept in order to try to take a deeper
look at his own faith. But suppose the ―bible‖ studied at home were not the Bible
after all, and the homeowner too uninformed to realize it? If the alterations in the
text led him to abandon his previous religion to embrace the one offered by his
―teacher,‖ in such a case could we still say that the person freely and with awareness
chose a religion, or would it be better to say he had simply been tricked?
Countless examples of this sort could be made. They lead us to think that ―kidnapping‖ may
take many forms. Current laws rightly punish some kinds of kidnapping, others
(unfortunately, in our opinion) do not. However, they take place every day, right under our
eyes.

Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 91
Who Finances Research on New Religious Movements?
Scientific research is always partial because it is human and hence limited however, one
can well imagine how partial it can be when, as in this case, it is affected by prejudices or
when some suspicions exist even as to its integrity and objectivity. Zablocki says:
With regard to finances, a major obstacle toward the sort of progress desired
is the cloud of secrecy that surrounds the funding of research on NRMs. The
sociology of religion can no longer avoid the unpleasant ethical question of
how to deal with the large sums of money being pumped into the field by the
religious groups being studied and, to a lesser extent, by their opponents.
Whether in the form of subvention of research expenses, subvention of
publications, opportunities to sponsor and attend conferences, or direct fees
for services, this money is not insignificant, and its influence on research
findings and positions taken on scholarly disputes is largely unknown...I know
there will be great resistance to opening this can of worms, but I do not think
there is any choice. This is an issue that is slowly but surely building toward
a public scandal...I am not implying that it is necessarily wrong to accept
funding from interested parties, whether pro or anti, but I do think there
needs to be some more public accounting of where the money is coming from
and what safeguards have been taken to assure that this money is not
interfering with scientific objectivity.18
To provide an example, Zablocki gives some details on the funds he himself used for his
research.19 Some might say that such insinuations are unfounded and are part of a
campaign of defamation against certain scholars. Zablocki, however, bases his statements
also on a document dated December 20, 1989, which he received himself:
I was one of the recipients on the mistaken belief that I would be sympathetic
to the ideas expressed. Even though the email message has been widely
distributed and is famous throughout the discipline, I see no need to
embarass the author by citing his name.20
This message includes an account of
a meeting of a few sociologists of religion in 1989 shortly after an incident
(discussed below) which resulted in their failure to get the American
Sociological Association to endorse a statement to the United States Supreme
Court denying the scientific validity of the brainwashing conjecture.21
In fairness, it should be noted that this memo was prepared by one of the meeting‘s
participants and sent to others, some of whom disagreed with certain points in the memo.
Nevertheless, the tone of the memo and the subject matter of the meeting clearly indicate
that this was not a group of dispassionate scholars seeking truth, but advocates seeking to
promote a point of view that tends to gloss over, if even acknowledge, the destructive
aspects of some new religious movements.
Beit-Hallahmi mentions this same message:
I have before me a piece of evidence which reveals significant collusion
between researchers and NRMs. This is a confidential memorandum, dated
December 20, 1989, and authored by an NRM researcher, who stated that he
was writing on behalf of two other leading researchers, all of them
sociologists. Copies of this document have been circulated by an anti-NRM
group, and its authenticity is beyond any doubt. It is significant that this
document has been sent to a long list of sociologists by email, and has been
cited before. It is embarrassing to refer to a confidential memo written by a