10 20 ICSA TODAY
About the Reviewer
Joseph Szimhart began research into cultic
influence in 1980, after ending his 2-year devotion
to a New Age sect. He worked professionally as an
intervention specialist from 1986 through 1998.
He continues to assist people with cult-related
problems including consultations via phone
and Internet. In 2016 he received an ICSA Lifetime Achievement
Award at the Annual Conference in Dallas, Texas. Since 1998, he has
worked for an emergency psychiatric hospital as a crisis caseworker.
He maintains an art studio and exhibits professionally. His novel,
Mushroom Satori: The cult diary, was published in 2013, and his
memoir, Santa Fe, Bill Tate, and me: How an artist became a cult
interventionist, was published this year. n
with devotional buildings, a hierarchy soon developed, with
Overseers at the top regulating Workers around the world.
Before the Internet era, the ministry spread by word of mouth,
phone calls, and mail. A few critical books and articles about
the quiet movement appeared during the 20th century. For the
most part, Two-By-Twos, like Latter-Day Saints, blended well into
surrounding society and held common jobs, despite adherence
to some rigorous rules about having a plain appearance and
avoiding popular entertainment, television, and vices such as
drinking alcohol.
Williston was raised to believe that the Truth represented an
unbroken chain of Christian Workers since the Apostles. During
his struggle to resolve internal conflicts, he was shocked to
learn that the founder, Irvine, “died in the same year I was
born—1947” (p. 129). Although a moral dilemma sparked his
disgust with the Worker’s hypocrisies, Williston’s story mirrors a
much larger one: Fundamentalist reactions in all religions to the
emergence of Modernism, especially since the Enlightenment
or so-called Age of Reason. As science methods, inventions,
and theories expanded society’s views of time, space, history,
and culture, the “truth” in ancient, inspired scriptures came
into question. After his devotion shattered on moral grounds,
Williston was free to explore outside the Two-By-Two box—his
Bible became a work of literature and no longer a sacred object
inspired in English by an infallible deification, or a perfect idol,
of King James.
Williston turned to scholars such as Bart Ehrman to learn
how diverse Christianity had been from the very beginning.
He learned that there was no Bible until the 4th century,
under Emperor Constantine. All Christian arguments to find
prophecies for Jesus as Messiah in the Jewish Torah were either
highly flawed or downright mistaken. He turned to the Catholic
Encyclopedia to discover that the Jesus story attributed to St.
Luke, John, and others borrowed heavily from the ancient
Mithraic religion that Roman soldiers followed. Greek ideas
and Pagan rituals fed the formation of Christian theology and
praxis by the 1st century. He learned from Bible researcher
Bart Ehrman that seminarians learn to rationalize conflicts in
scripture and flaws in the Gospel tradition. Williston chose not
to rationalize he adopted an agnostic view and chose to live
with uncertainty. Modernism found another convert. The Two-
By-Twos may have been a comforting belief system as a guide
to his social life, but he could no longer abide by intellectual
hypocrisy. And at age 70, when he is writing this memoir, he
says he is happier for it.
As far as identifying the Truth of the Two-By-Twos as a cult is
concerned: Yes, it has some of the characteristics, he notes
but on page 309, he emphasizes: “The Truth is not a cult in the
newsworthy apocalyptic style. It is minimally cultic … as an
emotionally abusive and controlling cult.” My one criticism,
coming from my long career as a cult interventionist, is with
what he states on the next page, at the end of Chapter 24:
But one thing I will never do is encourage anyone
who is comfortable among the Friends and Workers
to leave. First of all, they’re comfortable and I don’t
believe they’re deceived into an eternity of damnation.
And pragmatically, you can’t convince a believer of
anything. (p. 310 italics are the author’s)
A true Modernist would avoid saying never in certain terms
when it comes to human choice in matters of the heart and
mind. The author might meet a truth Friend who could benefit
from a challenge someday, and thus be encouraged to step
aside from the group. In a way, Bob Williston has already done
enough to convince ambivalent believers to leave the Two-By-
Twos by writing this book. In my experience, believers in any
cult or religion have periods of ambivalence over time, just as
the author did. n
…his intent is to honestly clarify
his defection from a relatively
obscure new religious movement
when he “lost” his faith at age 56
after four decades of devotion.
Alan Scheflin, Professor Emeritus at Santa Clara University,
makes me cry.
Not on purpose, of course. He would never do that. At an
imposing 6’2”, he is a big, strong, teddy bear of a man, warm,
charming, and considerate in one-on-one conversation. His
talks and lectures are both enlightening and engaging.
Mr. Scheflin is an early supporter of ICSA, a past president, and
a current board member. The importance of his contribution to
the field of cultic studies cannot be overstated.
Among the highlights in his more than 40-page resume are
his BA with High Honors in Philosophy from the University
of Virginia, a JD with Honors from the George Washington
University School of Law, an LLM from Harvard University
Law School, and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Santa
Clara University. He has given more than a hundred talks
and lectures all over the world, received numerous awards
and honors, contributed chapters to books, and written or
cowritten six books. His Bar memberships include the US
Supreme Court and the District of Columbia. He has been an
expert witness or consultant in more than forty-five cases,
including the appeal of Sirhan Sirhan, who was convicted
of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and in the trial of
Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh. Alan’s resume concludes
with a personal letter of praise and congratulation from former
Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Alan began an ICSA talk he gave in New York in 2018 by
explaining that, early in his career in the 1960s, he managed
to get copies of writings that had been smuggled out of the
Soviet Union into the hands of Amnesty International. These
translated documents were the writings of dissidents who
had been taken into custody by the Russian government
and imprisoned in Russian mental hospitals for the specific
purpose of reprogramming their minds through techniques of
brainwashing, thought reform, and coercive persuasion. Many
of the dissidents were public intellectuals and writers, so this
method of silencing them was particularly sadistic.
At this early stage of the talk, which I watched remotely, I
panicked. The subject of mental hospitals is daunting for me:
I was born in a mental hospital where my mother had been a
patient for 7 years. Taken from her immediately, I nevertheless
have spent most of my life fearing I might also “go crazy.” The
image I had of what it meant to go crazy was the lunatic in
the tower room from Jane Eyre. I could never really look at
this aspect of my life. I could risk only quick, furtive glances or
sidelong gazes, never full-on. And so, at first, this discussion of
the absolute horror of Russian mental hospitals paralyzed me
with fear.
But there was something about Alan Scheflin’s solid, calm
presence that filled me with the confidence that it would be
all right to go on this perilous journey to the underworld. I felt
he was completely trustworthy and would hold my hand and
bring me back safely.
He shared that reading these smuggled missives, so awful, so
horrific, was frightening for him. Nevertheless, after reading
them, he resolved to make the study of mind manipulation
an important part of his life, which it has been for the past 50
years.
Alan’s work on government attacks on mental freedom
underwent a change in the 1980s when he was introduced to
ICSA. He learned that the techniques he had been studying
were being used in the private sector, and he resolved to find
a way to help victims of these carefully coordinated, individual
attacks on their mental freedom.
He explained that “remedies were not available because
courts had no interest in brainwashing.” To bring a case, you
must have a cause of action for which the court can grant
relief. Since courts would not recognize brainwashing as an
acceptable cause of action, Alan set himself the task of finding
one that the courts would recognize.
He succeeded when he hit upon the concept of undue
influence, which, he explained to us, was 500 years old. The
1121
Profile On...
Edited by Mary O’Connell
Alan Scheflin
VOLUME 11 |ISSUE 1 |2020
Who else but Alan Scheflin
could give you Doris Day in
the middle of Dante’s inferno?

22
next task was to update the concept to make it relevant for
victims of government-sponsored experimentation, cult
survivors, and others who had suffered harm. He struggled
with this thorny problem until…Doris Day came to the rescue!
Who else but Alan Scheflin could give you Doris Day in the
middle of Dante’s inferno?
It was while watching an old Doris Day/Clark Gable movie,
Teacher’s Pet (1958), that he was inspired with the idea of
how to make the extremely difficult-to-prove cause of undue
influence understandable to both judges and juries. Only
a brilliant mind such as his could hit upon such a simple,
explanatory tool. Alan realized that lawyers could use the basic
journalistic technique of establishing the who, what, where,
when, why, and how of a situation in court to prove harm in
cases in which undue influence had occurred. This insight
changed things completely and represented a quantum leap
forward in the ability of victims to secure justice.
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Since his first introduction to the terrible reality of mind
manipulation, Alan has advocated for people who have
suffered harm, travelling all over the world to educate people
about this dark subject. He has not averted his gaze. And he
did all this while maintaining his job as a full-time, tenured
law professor and being a devoted husband and an involved
father. While teaching full time and doing consulting work,
Alan earned his MA in Counseling Psychology because he
wanted to learn how psychology was used to benefit people
rather than abuse them.
With his staggering erudition and gravitas, he could have
chosen to focus on any aspect of the law. Instead of following
a conventional route, he stepped off the beaten path
and focused on areas of brainwashing and mind-control
experimentation, which many either denied or scoffed at. As
he explained, “There was a robust literature, but I had to spend
a lot of my time in specialized university libraries to unearth it.”
Most fortunately for those of us who have, unfortunately,
encountered thought-reform techniques, cults, and other
all-too-real horrors, he chose to devote himself to getting
justice for victims. His presence in our lives is invaluable. He is a
national treasure.
Alan Scheflin makes me cry. Tears of gratitude.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Following, Alan shares some thoughts and insights from his
altogether fascinating life:
MO: When did you decide to be a lawyer?
AS: In college. I originally enrolled in engineering courses
because I was good at math and science. But I soon realized
that I wanted a different kind of intellectual challenge, and law
school provided the opportunity to think and help people. I
liked the Socratic Method (unlike most of the other students)
because it forced me to think and to be prepared to argue for
my beliefs. During my final year of college, I had no courses.
I met with individual professors who assigned me to write
a paper a week. Then I had to defend what I wrote in a one-
to-one session with the professor who assigned the paper. I
suppose that’s why law school was so appealing: I had already
had a year of advanced Socratic interactions. In order to
graduate from college, I had to write a thesis, take 11 hours
of comprehensive examinations written by professors from
other schools, and then defend everything I wrote before those
professors, who were brought in to question me in person. It
was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. I graduated
with High Honors, one of only four to do so that year. Law
school was much easier because of the education I had
received at college.
MO: What has been the most challenging thing you’ve dealt
with?
AS: Dismay. The realization that so many people needed help,
and the resources to help them were insufficient. I felt like a
polio clinic with only 10 percent of the vaccines available to
protect the victims. It made me sad to realize that doing bad in
this world can be very lucrative, but the efforts to raise money
for good work produces pennies when dollars are needed.
MO: How have you found time to do all you’ve done/do?
AS: I don’t know. I just did what I could do and, over time,
I wound up producing many publications and speaking at
conferences around the world. Intellectually, I loved what I was
doing and emotionally, it was tremendously gratifying to help
people. Because I loved my work, I did not pay much attention
to the time it took to do it.
MO: What motivates you?
AS: I am motivated by helping people in need. To do so, I have
to be the best Alan I can be. What motivates me? There’s still
work that needs to be done.
MO: When dealing with such incredibly dark issues, how do
you keep from being depressed?
With his staggering erudition
and gravitas, he could have
chosen to focus on any aspect of
the law. Instead … he stepped
off the beaten path and focused
on areas of brainwashing and
mind-control experimentation…
ICSA TODAY
AS: I have had to learn to live on the dark side because the
forces of evil are more powerful, and the number of people
needing help grows each year. I have had to reconcile with the
fact that we each can do only what we can, and we can hope
that there are enough of us to make a difference. By the way, I
have never learned to avoid being depressed. What I try to do
is reframe it into working even harder to help.
MO: What issues concern you the most?
AS: I am concerned with the fact that my research started with
government mind control, then went to the private sector, with
cultic issues. Today, a third shift is necessary, as mind-control
research has infected all of our daily lives, especially politics.
Even restaurant menus are victims: There is now a science for
how to prepare a menu so people will buy the most. No part
of our daily lives is unaffected by mental manipulation. We are
all now in a B.F. Skinner box, like it or not. Even worse, we don’t
know it because the forces of manipulation are so carefully
hidden. As for me, however, I’ll stick to what I have been doing:
helping people whose attitudes and beliefs are under assault.
MO: Have there been mistakes you’ve made that you learned
from?
AS: Yes, of course. Too many of them! Every experience
instructs us how to do it better the next time the depression
reminds us of the importance of the work we do.
MO: Do you have hobbies? How do you relax?
AS: I collect movies. I love researching obscure films and
tracking them down. It’s like a never-ending Easter egg hunt.
MO: Did you have a mentor or role model?
AS: I was fortunate to have several mentors. One was a college
professor who first exposed me to the Socratic Method and the
importance of doing one’s own thinking rather than following
the crowd. The second was a law professor named Monroe
Freedman. I encountered him in my first week of school and
he has remained an inspiration for the rest of my life. Monroe
was a Civil Rights lawyer who used the Socratic Method in the
classroom.
Students disliked him and tried to get switched into other
classes because he required them to think and did not simply
tell them what to write down in their notebooks. He taught me
to use my mind and not just carry it around with me. He was
thoroughly dedicated to help the downtrodden. The hours I
spent with him are among the most stellar of my life.
MO: What has been the main goal of your professional life?
AS: To educate and help people to be themselves. We are all
unique, and the one job we have is to protect that uniqueness.
I often think of what they say in airplanes: in the event of an
emergency, put your oxygen mask on first and then help
others. At first, it sounds selfish, but, in fact, it is an important
survival skill for everyone.
MO: Favorite books, music, film…?
AS: Most of my reading is academic. With regard to music:
in California, I was part of a group that met once a month to
share obscure music. I got exposed to artists and music I would
never otherwise have known about. The music cut across many
diverse musical styles, but mostly was “roots” music expressing
the aspirations, desires, and tragedies befalling ordinary
families in a wide diversity of cultures. Where else would I have
heard of Mongolian Throat Singers, or southern Sacred harp
singers?
I like lots of music from the twenties and thirties when blues,
jazz, swing, country, and gospel styles were being created. I
also like the early years of rock music. I was fortunate to spend
time backstage with the rock group Cream during part of their
last tour in the late 1960s. And a dear friend of mine was Roy
Buchanan. Indeed, the Rolling Stones wanted to hire him. Roy
Buchanan was an obscure guitar player often rated as one of
the best. PBS did a documentary about him in 1971, which is
unusual because he was so obscure. But, no one could make
a guitar weep and cry, or soar to the skies, the way he could. I
was honored to write the liner notes for one of his CDs.
MO: Can you say a little about your present family life?
AS: Happy. Mostly healthy. Having moved from California to
New Jersey to be with our extended family, we are mostly
consumed with settling in. Our daughter, Hallie, has a
wonderful job adjacent to the show business world, where
she continues to pursue acting and writing projects. My wife,
Janie, and I have been together for 37 years, and I must say
having a wife who is also my best friend has turned out to be a
wonderful thing for us both. n
...early in his career in the
1960s, he managed to get
copies of writings that had
been smuggled out of the
Soviet Union ...the writings
of dissidents who had been ...
imprisoned in Russian mental
hospitals for the specific
purpose of reprogramming
their minds...
23 VOLUME 11 |ISSUE 1 |2020