167
Introduction
Facts and values are badly entangled in controversies
over “cults.” Can it be plausibly
maintained that the analysis of social processes
in terms of “brainwashing” or “coercive persuasion”
is primarily an objective scientiﬁc
matter which can be detached from judgmental
ideological and policy considerations?
Concepts such as “brainwashing” or “mind
control” are inherently normative. Szasz
(1976: 10) notes, “We do not call all types of
personal or psychological inﬂuences ‘brainwashing.’
We reserve this term for inﬂuences
of which we disapprove.” The application of
such concepts to a given group necessarily
stigmatizes that group; however, the stigma is
frequently primarily connotative. It does not
derive directly from what is actually empirically
established about the group in question but
from the choice of terminology or the
interpretive framework from which empirical
observations are considered.
This essay will examine the rhetorical conventions,
underlying assumptions, interpretive
frameworks, and epistemological rules which
make possible the brainwashing allegations
against cults, i.e., an exercise in demystiﬁcation.
It is not our contention that authoritarian
and “totalistic” sects do not present some
difﬁculties for American institutions or that
there aren’t “abuses” in a number of areas
perpetrated by some groups, or that legal
measures and controls may not sometimes be
appropriate. We do assume, however, that
there is a certain relativity to “social problems”
which may be viewed as social movements striving
to deﬁne certain aspects of reality as problematic
and requiring social action (Mauss
1975). “It is the conﬂict over the ‘deﬁnition
of reality’ that provides the heart of any ‘social
problem’” (Wolf-Petrusky 1979: 2).1
A
“Politics of reality” operates (Goode 1968).
Allegations of brainwashing and coercive mind
control on the part of cults are thus essentially
interpretive and involve assumptions and
frames of reference which interpenetrate the
“objective facts.” Finally, it is our view that the
overwhelming popular, legal, and scholarly
focus on the processes by which individuals
become and remain committed to cults is misleading
in the sense that it shifts attention
away from what we consider the ultimate
sources of social and professional hostility to
cults. We see the issue of coercive persuasion
in cults as an ideological “superstructure”
which mystiﬁes an underlying “base” entailing
threats posed by today’s movements to various
norms, groups, and institutions.
Underlying Sources of Tension
Beckford (1979), Robbins and Anthony
(1982), Shupe and Bromley (1980), and others
have discussed the underlying sources of
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Constructing Cultist
“Mind Control”
THOMAS ROBBINS
Who am I to say that’s crazy
Love will make you blind
In the church of the poison mind
Culture Club
THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
tension between contemporary religious
movements and various groups and institutions
which appear to be ranged against them.
These factors may be brieﬂy summarized:
(1) Groups such as Hare Krishna or the
Uniﬁcation Church may be said to be incivil
religions which claim a monopoly of spiritual
truth and legitimacy and in so doing contravene
American civil religion qua “religion of
civility” (Hammond 1981; Cuddihy 1978;
Robbins 1984b). (2) Such groups are frequently
communal and totalistic and thus additionally
contravene the norm of personal
autonomy (Beckford 1979) and the value
of individualism, which is central to
modern Western culture. (3) Groups such as
Scientology or the Uniﬁcation Church are
highly diversiﬁed and multifunctional and
therefore compete with and threaten many
groups and structures in modern society
(Robbins 1981, 1984a). (3a) Close-knit, totalistic
“cults” operate as family surrogates and
thus disturb the parents and relatives of converts
(Bromley et al. 1983; Schwartz and
Kaslow 1979), who are also concerned with
converts’ termination of conventional career
goals. (3b) Dynamic religious movements
diminish the pool of young persons available to
participate in conventional churches and
denominations; moreover, religious movements
elicit an intense and diffuse commitment
from converts which contrasts with the limited
commitment of most churchgoers (Shupe and
Bromley 1980). (3c) Gurus and new movements
compete with certiﬁed secular therapists
and healers; moreover, the latter are increasingly
taking advantage of opportunities as
counselors, rehabilitators and quasi-deprogrammers
of “cult victims” and families traumatized
by the “loss” of a member to a
close-knit movement (Robbins and Anthony
1982). The conﬂict between “cults” and
“shrinks” also has an ideological dimension
involving the conﬂict between the socially
adjustive ethos of mental health and the various
deviant visions of transcendence, apocalyptic
transformation, mystery and ecstacy (Anthony
and Robbins 1980; Anthony et al. 1977). (4)
The totalism and multifunctionality of some
movements encourages a strong dependency
on the part of devotees, who may be subject to
exploitation (Robbins 1981; Thomas 1981).
(5) Finally, the totalism, diversiﬁcation, and
transformative visions of cults burst the normative
bounds of a largely “secular” culture,
and in particular, repudiate the expected differentiation
of secular and religious spheres of
action (Anthony and Robbins 1980). Some
new religions do not “know their place.”
These troublesome aspects of “cults” would
cause concern even if individuals entered and
remained in cults voluntarily. However, in
the context of the constitutional guarantee of
“free exercise of religion,” it is difﬁcult to constrain
or control deviant religious movements.
There is a paradox to freedom: one cannot
be truly free unless one is free to surrender
freedom. However, this consideration, and civil
libertarian objections to action against cults,
can be obviated if it is established that in fact
the involvement of converts in offending
movements is involuntary by virtue of “coercive”
tactics of recruitment and indoctrination
plus consequent psycopathology and converts’
diminished rational capacity. The “cult
problem” is thus “medicalized” (Robbins and
Anthony 1982). Cultist claims to “free exercise
of religion” are neutralized by the implication
that cultist religion is not really free because
cults “coerce” their members into joining and
remaining and because the latter may lose their
capacity for decision-making.2
Discourse on
cults is thus displaced to models of conversion
and persuasion, and disputes over how persons
enter and leave (or don’t leave) cults. In effect,
what is considered is not so much the nature
and goals of these groups but their procedures
of recruitment and indoctrination (Beckford
1979).
In the bulk of this essay we will discuss the
assumptions and conventions of reasoning
and rhetoric which constitute the “issue” of
“forced conversion” in religious movements.
We will discuss the following: (1) the simultaneous
employment of critical external perspective
to analyze and evaluate processes
within cults and an empathic internal perspective
to interpret processes entailing the
seizure, “deprogramming,” and “rehabilitation”
of devotees; (2) “epistemological
168
THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
manicheanism,” which imputes absolute truth
to the accounts of hostile apostates and nulliﬁes
the accounts of present cult converts as
insincere or delusory; (3) the use of a broad
and only tenuously bounded concept of “coercion”;
(4) the assumption that it is intrinsically
“coercive” or reprehensible for movements to
recruit or “target” structurally available or
“vulnerable” persons; and (5) exaggeration of
the extent and effect of deception utilized as
a recruiting tactic by some groups.
Epistemological Issues: Internal and
External Interpretive Frameworks
Many elements involved in controversies over
alleged cultist brainwashing involve transvaluational
conﬂicts. Behaviors and processes
which might otherwise be seen mainly as
indications of intense religious commitment,
zeolotry, and dogmatic sectarianism are
reinterpreted as signs of pathological mind
control. Repetitive chanting, “obsessive
prayer,” repetitive tasks, evocations of sin and
guilt, and “intense peer pressure” are viewed
as “coercive” (or even “hypnotic”) processes
which paralyze free will and enslave the
devotee (e.g., State of New York 1981).
Speaking in tongues is considered by some
clinicians as an aspect of coercive mind control
(Mackey 1983). Cult-induced psychopathology
and “thought disorders” are inferred
from a convert’s unconcern with conventional
career goals, stereotyped and dogmatic
responses to questions (Delgado 1977), and
from an alleged pattern of absolutist and
polarized thinking which impairs cognition
such that “the thinking process is limited to a
black–white totalistic perspective where everything
external to the cult is evil and everything
within is good” (Rosenzweig 1979: 150–1.
Any social process can be evaluated from
two perspectives: an empathic internal or
actors’ phenomenological perspective or an
external critical observer’s perspective. As we
have seen, evocations of sin and guilt, repetitive
chanting, and “obsessive prayer” are interpreted
as “coercive processes” which destroy
free will, although the application of an
alternative perspective would yield different
interpretations.
It is arguable that the case against cults with
respect to brainwashing is grounded in the
simultaneous employment of a critical external
perspective to interpret processes within
religious movements, and an empathic internal
perspective to evaluate activities in which
movement participants are pressed to deconvert
and guided in the negative reinterpretation
of their experiences in stigmatized
movements. However, it is also arguable that
defenses of cults against mind-control allegations
tend to entail the combination of a
critical external perspective on deprogramming
and an empathic “inner” or phenomenological
perspective on processes within
controversial new movements.
Defenders of controversial religious groups
have protested the radical transvaluation
implicit in some applications of external perspectives.
A civil liberties lawyer criticizes “the
name calling which is typical of programs of
denigration.”
A religion becomes a cult; proselytization
becomes brainwashing; persuasion becomes
propaganda; missionaries become subversive
agents; retreats, monasteries, and convents
become prisons; holy ritual becomes bizarre
conduct; religious observance becomes
aberrant behavior; devotion and meditation
become psychopathic trances. (Gutman
1977: 210–11)
Another legal writer maintains that
arguments in support of deprogramming
essentially transvalue the intensity of faith in
inferring psychopathology or coercion from
items such as total involvement in a movement,
unconcern with public affairs, dualistic
thinking, etc. Converts who “subordinate
their reason to imperatives of faith” and
“demonstrate the depth of their commitment
by insisting upon their beliefs as ultimate concerns,
should not ﬁnd the intensity of their
faith being used as proof of their incompetence”
(Shapiro 1978: 795).
In legal terms, Shapiro is arguing that the
use of allegations of polarized thinking or
unconcern with public affairs as rationales for
169
THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
state intervention violates the absolute quality
of freedom of belief. But, whatever the
legalities, clinicians may still insist that certain
behavorial and thought patterns are objectively
coercive or pathological or constitute
mind control, notwithstanding legal constraints
on the use of such allegations or the
traditional quality of behavior such as glossolalia.
On the other hand, some sociologists
have argued that the behavioral and linguistic
patterns from which clinicians have inferred a
general “depersonalization” or a basic alteration
of personality may really be indicative
of situationally speciﬁc role behavior (Balch
1980). The different conceptual frameworks
of sociologists, civil libertarian lawyers, and
students of religion produce different interpretations
of the same phenomenon.
It is important to note that conﬂicts of
internal vs. external perspectives also emerge
with respect to counter-cult activities. A clinical
psychologist who supports the practice of
deprogramming comments, “Although lurid
details of deprogramming atrocities have been
popularly supplied by cults to the press, the
process is nothing more than an intense period
of information giving” (Singer 1978: 17).
Alternatively, deprogramming has been externally
viewed as coercive persuasion (Kim
1978) or even something akin to exorcism
(Shupe et al. 1978).
Many elements involved in controversies
over alleged cultist brainwashing entail transvaluational
conﬂicts related to alternative internal
vs. external perspectives. The display of
affection toward new and potential converts
(“love bombing”), which might be interpreted
as a kindness or an idealistic manifestation of
devotees’ belief that their relationship to spiritual
truth and divine love enables them to
radiate love and win others to truth, is also
commonly interpreted as a sinister “coercive”
technique (Singer 1978). Yet successfully
deprogrammed ex-devotees have enthused
over the warmly supportive and “familial”
milieu at post-deprogramming “rehabilitation”
centers such as the Freedom of
Thought Foundation (e.g., Underwood and
Underwood 1979). Could this also be “love
bombing”? One study indicates that processes
of deprogramming, intervention, and therapy
appear to exert inﬂuence on ex-cultists in
the direction of assisting them to reinterpret
their experiences in terms of brainwashing
(Solomon 1981). In this connection, the
literature of sociology is replete with “external”
conceptualizations of psychotherapy as a persuasive
process, a process of thought reform, a
context of conversion, a context of negotiation
and bargaining in which the greater power of
the therapist is crucial, or a social control device
(Frank 1980; Schur 1980).
The case against cults with respect to
alleged brainwashing tends to be grounded in
the simultaneous employment of a critical external
perspective to evaluate and analyze processes
within movements and an emphatic internal
perspective to interpret the activities outside of
religious movements through which devotees
are physically coerced, pressed to de-convert, or
guided in the reinterpretation of cultist experiences.
Likewise, the polemical defense of cults
tends to combine a critical external perspective
on deprogramming and anti-cult activities
with an emphatic internal orientation toward
what goes on in cults (e.g., Coleman 1982).
Since so many cult issues involve transvaluational
conﬂicts, one’s evaluation of conﬂicting
claims may be largely a function of one’s a
priori interpretive framework or perspective.
Epistemological Manicheanism
An additional aspect of the epistemological
dimension of cult-brainwashing controversies
is the issue of who is a credible witness. This is
the problem of evaluating the conﬂicting testimonies
of present devotees and apostates.
Some critics of cults seem to embrace a kind
of epistemological manicheanism whereby the
accounts of recriminating ex-devotees are
acceptable at face value while the accounts of
current devotees are dismissed as manifesting
false consciousness derivative from mind
control or self-delusion.3
However, defenders
of cults have been criticized – perhaps justly –
for too readily discounting the testimonies of
ex-converts because they are allegedly under
the inﬂuence of new anti-cult reference groups
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THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
or their recriminations against cults are selfjustifying,
while naively accepting the accounts
of current devotees (Zerin 1982c). Doubts
have been cast on the accounts of fervent
devotees (Schwartz and Zemel 1980), and
knowledgeable circumspection has also been
urged with respect to the accounts of exconverts
whose interpretations have been
inﬂuenced by deprogrammers, therapists,
parents, and anti-cults activists (Beckford
1978; Solomon 1981) and whose current
interpretations may function to disavow
deviant stigma and facilitate social and
familial reintegration. Epistemological
manicheanism often characterizes both fervent
indictments and defenses of cults. One’s analysis
can too easily be predetermined by one’s
implicit epistemological exclusionary rule.4
Construction of Coercive Persuasion
Claims Through Assumptions
and Deﬁnitions
It is our view that debates about mind control
and brainwashing in cults are inherently
inconclusive. Arguments on either side
depend upon arbitrary or a priori assumptions,
interpretive frameworks, and linguistic
conventions. Our argument does not imply
that reprehensible manipulative practices and
strong peer pressures are not present in the
proselytization and indoctrination repertoires
of some movements. However, it is implied
that certain key issues are assumptive, deﬁnitional,
or epistemological, and thus in a sense
ideological and not susceptible to decisive
empirical resolution. Propositions may sometimes
hinge on the arbitrary use of terms.
Coercion
Arguments to the effect that religious movements
“coerce” their participants to remain
involved generally depend upon broad
conceptions of “coercion” which need not be
tangible (e.g., physical), and of which the
“victim” need not be aware (Ofshe 1982).
Thus, a bill passed by the New York State legislature
identiﬁed an individual’s subjection to
“a systematic course of coercive persuasion”
as a necessary condition legitimating the
appointment of a guardian over a member of a
communal group. “Systematic coercive persuasion”
may be inferred from a variety of indices
speciﬁed in the bill, including “control over
information” or the “reduction of decisional
capacity” through “performance of repetitious
tasks,” “performance of repetitious chants,
sayings or teachings,” or the employment of
“intense peer pressure” to induce “feelings of
guilt and enxiety” or a “simplistic polarized
view of reality” (State of New York 1981).
Can persons be “coerced” by repetitious
chanting or by peer pressure in a formally
voluntary context? Perhaps, but what has
emerged is a relatively broad and unbounded
conception of coercion which transvalues as reprehensible
“coercive” activities which have
otherwise been viewed as innocuous religious
staples (e.g., repetitious chanting). What pressure
cannot be viewed as “coercive” along
these lines?
In general, no distinction between “coercive”
and “manipulative” processes seems to
be made by critics of cults. Disparate processes
and pressures arising in cults are labeled “coercive.”
It is arguable, however, that in common
linguistic usage, the term “coercive” is
employed to denote a situation in which an
order and a threat are communicated such that
the “coercee” is aware that he is being pressured
and that his action is involuntary. Subtle
manipulative inﬂuence via information control
or seductive displays of affection (i.e., Moonist
“love bombing”) would ordinarily he viewed
as manipulative rather than coercive processes.
Thus, Loﬂand and Skonovd (1981)
distinguish between the manipulated ecstatic
arousal or “revivalist” techniques of the
“Moonies” and true “coercive conversion” or
brainwashing. “Coercion,” however, has a
stronger negative connotation of the overriding
of free will, and is thus an ideologically
superior term. Broad conceptions of coercion
inevitably have rhetorical and ideological signiﬁcance
because they generalize a negative
connotation to disparate situations and
groups, which become psychologically and
morally equivalent. Formally voluntary associations
such as religious movements are some-
171
THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
times acknowledged to embody a different
form of coercive persuasion compared to
POW camps, but are then viewed as essentially
equal in coerciveness or even more coercive
than the latter because seductive cultist proselytizing
may indeed sometimes be more
effective than the techniques used to indoctrinate
prisoners. On the other hand, it is
arguable that seductive appeals are often more
effective than persuasion of captives in part
because they are less coercive and thus do not
elicit the crystallization of a prisoners’ adversary
culture or resentment syndrome.
The concept of “coercive persuasion” has,
in fact, been used in some signiﬁcant research.
A respected model of c.p. is the one developed
by Edgar Schein and his colleagues (1961).
Schein argues that if the notion of coercive
persuasion is to achieve objectivity, it must be
seen as transpiring in a wide range of – often
culturally valued – contexts, e.g., conventional
religious orders, fraternities, mental hospitals,
the army. Coercive persuasion is generally stigmatized
only when its goal is detested, e.g.,
producing communists or Moonies.
Schein’s analysis strives for stringent ideological
neutrality. Nevertheless, he may have
contributed somewhat to a subjective and
stigmatizing use of the concept of coercive
persuasion by downplaying an essential
distinction between forcible physical restraints
(e.g., as in the prisoners of war he studied) and
the more voluntaristic contexts to which he
aspired to generalize the concept. Notwithstanding
this effect, it is important to realize
that assumptions about free will are external
to Schein’s model and some other models
(Solomon 1983). “Coercively persuaded”
subjects are not necessarily helpless robots
(Shapiro 1983).
In rhetorical applications of c.p. models an
unexamined and arbitrary assumption is often
made with regard to the involuntary nature of
the involvement of persons involved in movements
allegedly utilizing coercive persuasion.
References to “forced conversions” and
similar notions arise (e.g., Schwartz and Isser
1981), although the inference as to absence of
volition is not warranted by the mere technical
applicability of c.p. models (Shapiro 1978,
1983; Solomon 1983). Interesting in this
respect is the use by Singer (1979) and Zerin
(1982a) of the vocabulary of “technologies”
of coercive persuasion employed by cults, as if
inﬂuence processes in cults involved precise
instruments or machines operating automatically
on passive cogs. In short, arguments as
to the involuntary quality of involvements are
often supported more by connotative imagery
and rhetorical reiﬁcation than by sophisticated
applications of models of coercive persuasion
or thought reform.
Models of “coercive persuasion,” “brainwashing,”
and “thought reform” vary in
the stringency of their existential criteria
(Richardson and Kilbourne 1983). Sargent
(1961) interprets religious revivals as a form of
brainwashing. Schein (1961) model is the
broadest and is clearly applicable to cults, as
well as to college fraternities, reputable religious
orders, etc. Lifton’s well-known model
(1961) of “thought reform” is applicable to
various cults (Richardson et al. 1972; Stoner
and Parke 1977: 272–6), and is probably
applicable to any authoritarian and dogmatic
sect. Recently, Loﬂand and Skonovd (1981)
have argued that Lifton’s criteria embody “ideological
totalism,” which is a broader phenomenon
than true brainwashing or coerced
conversion. The latter, according to Loﬂand
and Skonovd, is delineated by the more stringent
criteria employed by Somit (1968), which
would exclude practically all formally voluntary
groups. Given the array of diverse models of
varying restrictiveness, cults can “brainwash”
and be “coercive” depending upon which model
is employed. Polemicists tend to conﬂate different
models or shift back and forth between
models (Anthony, in preparation).
Finally, neither the growing number of
studies reporting that the Uniﬁcation Church
and other cults exhibit substantial voluntary
defection rates (Skonovd 1981; Barker 1983;
Beckford 1983; Ofshe 1976), nor studies indicating
that there is a substantial “failure rate”
in cultist indoctrination and recruitment
(Barker 1983; Galanter 1980), can settle the
debate about cultist coercion. Voluntary
defectors and non-recruits can be said to lack
the “vulnerability” traits which allow coercive
172
THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
pressures in cults to operate (Zerin 1982a).
The basic issue is largely deﬁnitional and is not
susceptible to empirical resolution.
Targeting the “vulnerable”
One of the characteristics of cultist recruitment
and proselytization which is widely
excoriated is the alleged tendency of cults to
exploit the “vulnerability” of young persons
who are lonely, depressed, alienated, or drifting
away from social moorings. Cultist mind
control is held to be differentiated from
respectable, innocuous monasticism by the
reluctance of the latter to “concentrate, as do
religious cults, on the weak, the depressed, or
the psychologically vulnerable” (Delgado
1977: 65). “Cult recruiters tend to look for
the ‘loners,’ the disillusioned or ﬂoundering
ones and those who are depressed” (Schwartz
and Kaslow 1979: 21).
The above allegations concerning the nature
of cultist recruitment are not false. Social
movements in general tend to recruit individuals
who are “structurally available” and who
are not integrated into “countervailing networks”
which would operate to inhibit recruitment
in a new movement (Snow et al. 1980).
This is the case with respect to those “authoritarian”
movements in which participation is
exclusive in the sense that “core membership
may even be contingent upon the severance
of extra-movement interpersonal ties” (ibid:
796). Movement organizations of this type
tend to proselytize in public places and to
recruit relatively unattached persons who are
“more available for movement exploration and
participation because of the possession of
unscheduled or discretionary time and because
of the minimal countervailing risks or sanctions”
(ibid: 793). In contrast, groups with
less exclusive participation patterns exhibit a
greater tendency to “attract members primarily
from extramovement interpersonal associations
and networks, rather than from public
places, i.e., existing members recruit their preconversion
friends and associates.” Although
some stigmatized “cults” such as the Divine
Light Mission of Guru Maharaj-Ji (Downton
1979) appear to be of this latter variety and to
have recruited largely from existing interpersonal
networks, it appears likely that relatively
authoritarian and totalistic groups such as Hare
Krishna or the Uniﬁcation Church recruit
many unattached individuals whose lack of
binding ties and commitment render them
structurally available.5
It is arbitrary, however, to stigmatize this
mode of recruitment as coercive or reprehensible.
Clearly social movements and proselytizing
religious sects will “target” the more
“vulnerable” potential participants. Young
persons occupying transitional and ephemeral
statuses (e.g., students) bereft of consolidated
careers, salaries, dependents, spouses, and
children, and not harmoniously nestled into
other afﬁliative structures such as fraternities
or clubs, will surely be prime “targets.” Such
individuals have less to lose in joining a communal
sect or a messianic movement than
other persons. A greater proportion of “available”
persons relative to unavailable persons
recruited to a movement would seem to this
writer to be indicative of a voluntary rather
than a “forced” quality of participation. Some
sort of hypnotic or “coercive” device might
be indicated if a disproportionate number
of “unavailable” middle-age executives with
large families, numerous dependents, and satisfying
social afﬁliations were recruited.6
It also seems rather plausible that unhappy
or “alienated” persons who are dissatisﬁed
with either themselves or “the system” are
more likely to be recruited to messianic movements
than complacent “pharisees.” The
special importance of messianic religion for
“miserable sinners” is a rather traditional evangelical
theme. While some persons may be
more “vulnerable” to cultist involvement than
others (Zerin 1982b), it seems arbitrary to
view the “targeting” of such persons as
illegitimate or as indications of the involuntary
or irrational quality of involvement.7
Demonology of deception
The role of deception in the proselytizing of
cults is receiving increasing emphasis in allegations
of cultist mind control. There appears
to be some tendency to treat deception as a
173
THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
functional equivalent to the raw physical coercion
which is used to initially bring individuals
into POW or concentration camps. The absence
of the physical coercion, which is a deﬁning
attribute of classic brainwashing contexts such
as POW camps, is thus neutralized as an indicator
of voluntariness or lack of coercion.
The writings of Richard Delgado on cults
express succinctly a clear and coherent conception
of the crucial role and signiﬁcance of
deception of in cultist mind control:
The process by which an individual becomes
a member of certain cults appears arranged in
such a way that knowledge and capacity, the
classic ingredients of an informed consent, are
maintained in an inverse relationship: when
capacity is high, the recruit’s knowledge of
the cult and its practices is low; when knowledge
is high, capacity is reduced. (Delgado
1980: 28).8
The potential recruit, attending his ﬁrst
meeting, may possess an unimpaired capacity
to make rational choices. “Such persons, if
given full information about the cult and their
future life in it, might well react by leaving.
For this reason, the cult may choose to keep
secret its identity as a religious organization,
the name of its leader or messiah, and the
more onerous conditions of membership until
it perceives that the victim is ‘ready’ to receive
this information. These details may then be
parceled out gradually as the newcomer, as
a result of physiological debilitation, guilt
manipulation, isolation, and peer pressure,
loses the capacity to evaluate them in his ordinary
frames of reference” (Delgado 1980:
28–9). The necessary conditions for voluntariness
are knowledge and capacity; however,
the cult convert “never has full capacity and
knowledge at any given time; one or the other
is always impaired to some degree” (ibid: 29).
In short, gross deception lures the victim on
to the premises where he is fairly quickly
relieved of his mental capacity. It is claimed
that by the time the veil of deception drops,
the disoriented convert is not in a position to
take advantage of his knowledge (see also
Schwartz and Zemel 1980).
Let us examine some issues arising from
Delgado’s formulation. First we need to consider
the question of generality. How typical
is Delgado’s account?
Let us examine three examples. (1) Firstly, it
would be difﬁcult for someone to become
involved with the Hare Krishna sect without
knowing at the very outset that he had encountered
a very eccentric and somewhat regimented
communal sect. The Krishnas are known to
solicit funds deceptively, donning wigs and
business suits to solicit in airports (Delgado
1982). Such ruses are employed for the
purpose of soliciting funds – not warm bodies.
Devotees seem relatively straightforward with
respect to acknowledging the stringent membership
requirements and they do not place
intense pressure on marginal hangers-on who
attend festivals at the Krishna Temple to
become encapsulated in the communal sect.9
A six-month screening period allows persons
who cannot take the discipline to self-select
themselves out (Bromley and Shupe 1981).
(2) During the middle 1970s one of the most
controversial cults in the northeast was the
Church of Bible Understanding (COBU), formerly
the Forever Family.10
Several members
were deprogrammed and rehabilitated at the
Freedom of Thought Foundation in Tucson,
Arizona. Members of this movement wore
large buttons saying GET SMART GET
SAVED. They would accost one on the streets
and inquire. “Do you know the Lord?” The
author was invited to visit the loft which a large
number of devotees were occupying. After
“hanging around” the group for a few days,
certain properties of the group were rather
obvious (and, in the opinion of the writer,
would have been readily apparent to anyone).
Though not as well-organized as the Krishnas
or “Moonies,” the sect was regimented and
authoritarian. Large numbers of converts lived
in decidedly unhygienic conditions in lofts
from which they were later evicted on health
grounds. The members were expected to take
odd jobs and relinquish their pay to the leaders,
who researched and publicized available jobs.
The group focused on the Bible and had
an eccentric exegetical technique of “color
coding” scriptural passages. Doubtless, there
174
THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
were salient aspects of the movement’s lifestyle
and interactional process which escaped the
writer during his brief observation. What is signiﬁcant,
however, is that a number of rather
unpleasant aspects of the group were immediately
apparent. These were not elaborately or
effectively concealed. It would be impossible to
be fooled into thinking that this was a discussion
club or a respectable church outreach
program. Recruits were presumably individuals
who were willing to sacriﬁce amenities and
“take risks” of various sorts to pursue truth and
salvation.
(3) Finally, the writer attended a three-day
indoctrination workshop sponsored by the
Uniﬁcation Church in 1974. There was a
salient element of deception: the link to
Reverend Sun Myung Moon was not emphasized,
and the writer was struck by the absence
of pictures of the leader of the movement,
whom the writer already knew to be an object
of devotion to followers. But other elements of
the workshop were relatively straightforward.
There was not real concealment of the eccentric
“religious” character of the group. Lectures
commenced on the ﬁrst day and dealt
with the nature and relationship of God and
man, and other matters derived from church
doctrine. The regimented character of the
movement could easily be inferred from the
disciplined and ascetic quality of the workshop;
men and women were separated; participants
were awakened at 7:00 for calisthenics. There
were 5–8 hours of lectures each day. There was
clearly a manipulative quality to the workshop,
although it seemed relatively crude and heavy-
handed.11
But extreme deception entailing concealment
of the basic nature of the group simply
did not seem to have been the case.
It does not seem likely that deception in the
above groups was of sufﬁcient magnitude to
account for the initial involvements of participants.
The latter would likely be aware of the
eccentric, authoritarian, and ascetic aspects of
these groups from the outset.
Another implication of Professor Delgado’s
analysis needs to be considered. It is clear that
Delgado believes that the pre-convert loses his
or her “capacity” during the period in which he
is denied knowledge, i.e., deceived. How long is
that period? In the above examples, which
involved very authoritarian communal sects,
thorough deception as to the nature of the
movement and its internal milieu was not
really accomplished. It seems to be the case,
however, that some Moonist groups, particularly
the “Oakland Family” operation at
Booneville, California, utilized a greater
degree of deception than that experienced by
the writer in New York (Bromley and Shupe
1981). But how long does deception last? No
estimates this writer has heard involve a period
longer than three weeks. The question thus
arises as to whether a person can actually “lose
capacity” during this period? Conceivably,
there might be methods involving brutality
and torture which could “break” a person in
a matter of weeks or even days. But these
methods are not used. Scheﬂein and Opton
(1978) argue that cults do not really utilize
extreme brainwashing or coercive persuasion
methods: “Some might do so if they could,
but they cannot, for dehumanization is excrutiatingly
painful. Most people who were not
prisoners, or tied to the group by strong
bonds of loyalty, or by lack of anywhere else
to go, would leave” (ibid: 60).12
Given the likelihood that unmotivated
persons will shun a stringently regimented
authoritarian milieu, supporters of mindcontrol
allegations are heavily dependent upon
claims with regard to deception. Yet it is problematic
whether deception is as widespread,
extreme, or signiﬁcant as the inﬂuential
Delgado model suggests. Cultist deception is
really a (reprehensible) foot-in-the-door tactic
and cannot plausibly provide the motivation
for a person to tolerate otherwise objectionable
conditions.13
One additional point is worth noting. The
Moonist indoctrination center at Booneville,
California once utilized deception to a degree
which exceeds the manipulation experienced by
the author at another Moonist indoctrination
center. As Bromley and Shupe (1981) note, the
modus operandi of the Uniﬁcation workshop at
Booneville has been generalized by opponents
of cults and by the media to “cults” in general.
Indeed, the pervasive general stereotype of the
deceptive cult which lures unwary youth to
175
THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
totalistic communes under false premises is
largely based on the Uniﬁcation Church, and in
particular, its operation at Booneville (Bromley
and Shupe 1981; Robbins and Anthony 1980).
The overgeneralization of the Booneville
Moonist modus operandi to contemporary
deviant religious movements in general has
been partly a product of fortuitious circumstances
(Bromley and Shupe 1981) and partly a
deliberate tactic of anti-cultists (ACLU 1977)
to exploit the notoriety of the Moon sect. The
allegation of widespread cultist mind control
is thus constructed in part through an overgeneralization
of the extreme deceptive
proselytization of one group.14
Conclusion
While the manipulative and heavy-handed
recruitment and indoctrination practices of
some groups cannot be gainsaid, arguments
imputing extreme mental coercion, mind
control, and brainwashing to cultist practices
tend to depend upon arbitrary premises, deﬁnitions,
and interpretive and epistemological
conventions. Arguments in this highly subjective
area are too often mystiﬁcations which
embellish values and biases with the aura of
value-free science and clinical objectivity.
As acknowledged in this essay, there are
many difﬁculties and conﬂicts associated with
cults. These conﬂicts would be legitimate objects
of concern even if commitments to troublesome
movements were acknowledged to be voluntary.
Rhetorical mystiques about mind control have
the consequence of implying that cultist
involvements are involuntary and that devotees
are not fully capable of making rational
choices. In consequence, these arguments
serve as a rationale for legitimating social
control measures which treat devotees as if
they were mentally incompetent without
formally labeling them as such and without
applying rigorous criteria of civil commitment
(cf., State of New York 1981).
The debate over cultist brainwashing will
necessarily be inconclusive. The contending
parties ground their arguments on differing
assumptions, deﬁnitions, and epistemological
rules. Nevertheless the debate will continue.
The medicalized “mind control” claim articulates
a critique of deviant new religions which
not only obviates civil libertarian objections to
social control but also meets the needs of the
various groups which are threatened by or
antagonistic to cults: mental health professionals,
whose role in the rehabilitation of
victims of “destructive cultism” is highlighted;
parents, whose opposition to cults and willingness
to forcibly “rescue” cultist progeny
are legitimated; ex-converts, who may ﬁnd it
meaningful and rewarding to reinterpret their
prior involvement with stigmatized groups as
basically passive and unmotivated; and clerics,
who are concerned to avoid appearing to
persecute religious competitors. An anti-cult
coalition of these groups is possible only if
medical and mental health issues are kept in the
forefront (Robbins and Anthony 1982) and if
the medical model is employed in such a way
as to disavow the intent to persecute minority
beliefs and to stress the psychiatric healing of
involuntary pathology.
As argued above, the debate over whether
cult devotees are “coerced” via “mind
control” and “psychologically imprisoned”
will necessarily be inconclusive. To some
degree one can choose from an array
ofbrainwashing/coercive/persuasion/
thought reform models with existential criteria
of varying stringency, and, by then selecting
appropriate background assumptions,
imagery, and epistemological rules, “prove”
whatever one wishes. The argument will
persist, however, because it articulates an
“acceptable” indictment of cults which is
arguably compatible with respect for religious
liberty, and which avoids a direct confrontation
with the underlying issue of the limits
of “church autonomy” in the context of the
increasing diversiﬁcation of the functions
(e.g., educational, political, healing, commercial)
of various kinds of religious groups.
Because they use “mind control,” it has been
argued that cults can be set apart from
other religious organizations (Delgado 1977),
which arguably are not threatened by constraints
on cults. Medicalization of deviant
religion compartmentalizes issues involving
176
THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
“cults” and obscures some of the underlying
conﬂicts and broader implications of conﬂicts
over contemporary movements. A shift of
focus will be necessary to transcend the inconclusive
psychologism of debates over brainwashing.
Such a shift will not isolate cults as
a special theoretical compartment but will
reconsider the uneasy general boundary of
church and state in the 1980s.15
Notes
The author wishes to thank Dick Anthony, whose
collaboration with the writer over a number of years
contributed to the development of perspectives
which are reﬂected in this essay.
1 Dr. Wolf-Petrusky’s unpublished paper, “The
Social Construction of the ‘Cult Problem’,”
represents a pioneering formulation, which
bears some similarities to the present analysis.
However, the present writer’s analysis of the
construction of anti-cult claims through a
priori premises, epistemological rules and definitional
parameters diverges somewhat from
Dr. Wolf-Petrusky’s natural history approach,
which follows Mauss (1975) more closely. The
present writer has only been slightly inﬂuenced
by the earlier work of Dr. Wolf-Petrusky.
2 Interestingly, the medical model is less salient
in conﬂicts over cults in France and West
Germany where norms of civil liberties and
religious tolerance are weaker and deviant cults
can be directly attacked as anti-social and culturally
subversive (Beckford 1981).
3 A recent survey distributed by anti-cult activists
(Conway and Siegleman 1982) of psychopathological
symptoms among ex-converts
made no attempt to include “returnees” or excultists
who had returned to their religious
groups in their sample. Schwartz and Zemel
(1980) suggest that converts’ allegations of
lack of deception in their recruitment are not
credible because acknowledgment of deception
would be cognitively dissonant with their
present fervent belief. The authors do not
apply a cognitive dissonance argument to the
claims of recriminating ex-cultists for whom a
lack of deception and manipulation may be
dissonant with their present disillusionment,
anger, and activism.
4 It is worth noting in this connection that
several recent studies (Skonovd 1981; Wright
1983) have indicated that there are substantial
numbers of ex-cultists who do not recriminate
against cults or interpret their experiences in
terms of brainwashing in the manner of those
embittered deprogrammed apostates whose
testimonies and allegations have been widely
publicized. The absolute contrast of devotees’
and ex-devotees’ accounts is an appearance
which arises from the fact that more public
attention has been focused on a subset of
ex-devotees who have usually been deprogrammed
and have become assimilated to
an anti-cult subculture or social network
(Solomon 1981).
5 Snow et al. (1980) present data comparing
Hare Krishna with the less totalistic Nicheren
Shoshu movement, which supports their argument.
A more recent study of Hare Krishna by
Rochford (1982) came up with somewhat different
ﬁndings. Krishna recruitment patterns
varied from city to city, and overall, there was
signiﬁcant recruitment from social networks.
See Wallis and Bruce (1982) for a conceptual
critique of the “structural availability” concept.
6 Interestingly, elderly persons also appear to be
prime “targets” for cults (see, for example,
ABC-TV’s 20/20 program, November 24,
report on an eternal life cult). Elderly persons,
like young persons, are often poorly integrated
into the occupational structure. Such marginality
qua “rolelessness” may enhance one’s
susceptibility to the appeals of extraordinary
groups.
7 The concept of “vulnerability” seems to have
an interesting affective connotation, i.e., one
isn’t considered “vulnerable” to something
positive such as a promotion. The implicit
imagery is mildly medicalistic, i.e., a “vulnerable”
person is like a weakened organism whose
defenses against germs have been impaired.
8 See also Delgado (1977, 1982).
9 The author conducted preliminary participant
observation among Hare Krishnas in 1969–70
in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A close colleague
and collaborator conducted observation
in Berkeley during 1970–2.
10 F. E. Galler, “Inside a New York Cult,” New
York Daily News series (Jan. 1–4, 1979).
The author brieﬂy observed this group in the
middle 1970s.
11 For a description of the workshop as observed
by the author, see Robbins et al. (1976).
12 Some cult critics have acknowledged that it is
social bonds which “incapacitate” a devotee to
leave the group. By the time a neophyte
Moonie is undeceived as to the identity of the
177
THE “BRAINWASHING” CONTROVERSY
group he has joined, he is “bonded” to the
group and its members one cannot leave
(Edwards 1983). But do we generally consider
social bonds to nullify free will, e.g., is
someone who loves his spouse a “prisoner” in
his or her marriage?
13 A Superior Court judge in San Francisco
recently issued a 30-page opinion granting
summary judgment for the defendants in a case
in which two former “Moonies” sued the Uniﬁcation
Church for “false imprisonment”
(through mental coercion) and fraud. The exconverts
had initially been deceived as to the
identity of the group, and claimed that by the
time the deception was lifted (after 2–3 weeks)
they had become psychologically dependent
upon the group and were not capable of
choosing to leave voluntarily. The court found
that, initial deception notwithstanding, the
plaintiffs’ lengthy subsequent involvement
with the church was essentially voluntary;
moreover, coercive persuasion without force or
threat of force was not sufﬁcient to establish
actual imprisonment. See Molko and Leal vs.
Holy Spirit Association For The Uniﬁcation of
World Christianity, et al., California Superior
Court. City and County of San Francisco,
Department No. 3, Order No. 769–529. The
facts of this case, involving both deception and
alleged “coercive persuasion,” closely correspond
to the model used by Delgado (1982)
in proposing a civil remedy for cultist mind
control.
14 See Schwartz and Kaslow (1982) for a description
of a “typical” cultist recruitment scenario,
which appears in fact to be a description of the
Notorious Moonist “Camp K” at Booneville,
California; which, in our view, is of limited
generality.
15 It has recently been argued (Robbins 1984a)
that a general crisis of church and state is
emerging in the United States because of three
converging factors: (1) the increasing state regulation
of “secular” organizations, from which
“churches” are exempt; (2) the increasing
functional diversiﬁcation of religious groups
which increasingly perform functions similar to
those of secular organizations; and (3) the
failure of the liberal ideal of providing goods,
services, and meanings essential to enhance the
“quality of life” under state auspices. As religious
groups such as evangelicals or cults strive
to “ﬁll the gap” they increasingly become
embroiled in conﬂicts with other groups and
institutions (e.g., minorities who feel dependent
upon public services). The debate over
“mind control” obscures the linkage between
controversies over cults and other “church
autonomy” conﬂicts.
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7–9 in Cultic Studies Newsletter 1 (1).
——1982c. “Reply to Dr. Robbins,” Cultic Studies
Newsletter, forthcoming.
180
181
Popular awareness of NRMs is probably most
closely associated with a handful of incidents
of mass violence involving “cults” that have
occurred over the last several decades (see
table). The controversies surrounding NRMs
readily attract media attention, but nothing
matches the negative publicity generated by
the episodes of murder–suicide discussed in
this section of the book. For many today the
very word “cult” most quickly calls to mind
the grisly image of the Branch Davidian compound
in Waco, Texas, engulfed in ﬂames at
the end of the single largest police action in
US history. For 51 days the FBI lay siege to
the compound following the deadly shootout
between the Davidians and the agents of the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
As the world watched through daily media
reports, the FBI slowly tightened the noose on
the Davidians. In the end, 74 “cult” members,
men, women, and children, died in the conﬂagration.
In the face of the fear and mistrust
created by such tragic events scholars have
tried to gain an accurate picture of what happened
in each of the episodes of cult-related
violence and to learn about the social and
psychological processes that precipitated the
violence.
Contrary to popular suspicions, NRMs are
not prone to violence (see Melton and
Bromley 2002). In fact violent behavior
may well be more rare amongst NRMs than
the general population – at least in America.
At any given time there are many thousands
of NRMs operating in the world. Yet only a
tiny handful of these groups has systematically
reverted to violence to serve its ends, and with
one exception (Aum Shinrikyo), this violence
has been directed primarily at the group’s own
members. From the scholarly perspective,
however, the rarity of these occurrences simply
increases the importance of understanding
what went so horribly wrong in these religions.
We must come to grips with the causes
of violence in each case in order to derive
broader principles through comparative analysis
that might help to prevent future tragedies.
To do this effectively we cannot rest content
with vague and alarmist talk of mad and
corrupt cult leaders and brainwashed and
helpless followers. There are no “destructive
cults,” just NRMs that come to be destructive.
In each instance, we now appreciate, the
violence stems from a complex interaction of
factors that set a cycle of deviance ampliﬁcation
in place that heightens the possibility of
extreme behavior. But these factors need not
result in violence, if appropriate measures are
taken. The internal beliefs and practices of
some NRMs raise the suspicions of the outside
world, while simultaneously leading the
members of these groups to be fearful of
and hostile towards the larger society. With
time, interactions based on mutual fear can
induce a measure of paranoia that takes on
a life of its own, severely aggravating the
VI
Violence and New
Religious Movements
VIOLENCE AND NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
182
Cult tragedies
NRM Location and year Number of deaths Research literature
Peoples Temple Jonestown, Guyana, 918 (mostly suicide) Hall (1987, 2000a);
November 1978 Chidester (1988);
Maaga (1998)
Branch Davidians Waco, Texas, 80 (murder–suicide) Tabor and Gallagher
April 1993 (1995);
Wright (1995);
Hall (2002)
Solar Temple Switzerland, Québec, 53 (murder–suicide); Mayer (1999);
and France, 16 (suicide); Introvigne (2000);
October 1994, 5 (suicide) Hall and Schuyler
December 1995, (2000);
March 1997 Introvigne and
Mayer (2002)
Aum Shinrikyo Tokyo, Japan, 12 (murdered on Lifton (1999);
May 1995 subway and 1000s Reader (2000);
injured); Hall and Trinh
23 (or more) previous (2000);
murders Reader (2002)
Heaven’s Gate San Diego, California, 39 (suicide) Hall (2000b);
March 1997 Balch and Taylor
(2002)
Movement for the Uganda, March 2000 780 (murder–suicide) News sources, and
Restoration of the Mayer (2001);
Ten Commandments Melton and
Bromley (2002)
misinterpretations and distrust that mark the
relations between some NRMs and the rest of
society (e.g., Dawson 1998, 2002; Richardson
2001). With informed judgment, however,
the agents of social control in our societies can
break or at least retard this cycle of mounting
tension and avert its worst consequences (e.g.,
Kliever 1999; Rosenfeld 2000).
The readings provided in this section of the
book simply open the door to understanding
some of the incidents of mass violence and the
interpretive issues they raise. In chapter 12,
“The Apocalypse at Jonestown,” John Hall
provides us with an excellent case study of the
ﬁrst and still the largest instance of cult-related
violence in modern times. In November of
1978, 913 members of the Peoples Temple
committed mass suicide by drinking poison
at their small religious compound, called
Jonestown, deep in the jungle of Guyana,
South America. Earlier in the day some of
their members had assassinated a US congressman
and several members of his
entourage following their investigative visit to
Jonestown. The Peoples Temple, which had
begun in the 1960s, was a fairly successful new
Christian group dedicated to racial integration
and service to the poor in the United States:
It was also, however, very much under the
control of its creator, the highly charismatic
and rather unstable Reverend Jim Jones. The
church espoused an unusual blend of socialist
and apocalyptic beliefs, mixed with the often
extreme and sometimes illegal aspirations and
actions of its leader. In the wake of some negative
publicity Jones had built Jonestown in
Guyana to escape persecution by his enemies,
both real and perceived. He and his followers
sought to fashion a religious utopia free from
outside interference. But their troubles, both
within and without the organization, only
worsened with the move and tragedy soon
ensued.
Hall’s chapter provides an overview of every
aspect of this movement, its history and
nature, its accomplishments and failings, as
well as the precise circumstances of its violent
demise. His analysis pinpoints some of the
“necessary preconditions” for the group’s selfdestruction
in terms of six internal features of
the group. He argues, however, that its violent
end depended more on the impact of three
additional “precipitating factors” born of the
efforts of the group’s opponents (i.e., some
of the relatives of members and some
ex-members). Many other groups share the
preconditions he delineates for the Peoples
Temple, but they have never contemplated
undertaking an act of “revolutionary suicide.”
In the face of perceived persecution, the
people of Jonestown rehearsed their collective
suicide. Through Hall’s careful and complete
analysis we can begin to understand how “the
souls that Jones had lifted to a new self-respect
and vision of hope could decide that it was
better to die for their beliefs, and with their
community, than to stand by and witness the
defeat of their dreams and the destruction of
their new extended family” (Dawson 1998:
156).
In chapter 13, “‘Our Terrestrial Journey is
Coming to an End’: The Last Voyage of
the Solar Temple,” Jean-François Mayer provides
another excellent case study, this time of
the Solar Temple. The Solar Temple and the
Peoples Temple were markedly different
groups. The latter, for example, drew most of
its members from the underprivileged blacks
of America’s inner cities, though the organization
was led by a coterie of middle-class,
relatively young, well educated, and disaffected
white women. The former group, in
contrast, drew its members from the middle
to the upper classes, from middle-aged professional
couples, with French-speaking and
predominantly Catholic backgrounds, in
Europe and Québec. Yet, in the end, their
fates were much the same.
The Solar Temple was a small but very prosperous
group, founded in Switzerland, that
believed itself to be the contemporary embodiment
of a long mystical and esoteric tradition
within Christianity. They claimed to be the
spiritual descendants of the Knights Templar,
a wealthy medieval order of warrior monks
whose members were ultimately convicted of
heresy and burned to death by the Catholic
Church. They infused this mystical tradition
with other ideas drawn from New Age
philosophies, homeopathic systems of healing,
and prophecies of ecological doom. In the
year or so prior to its demise the group had
experienced internal turmoil and attracted
some negative publicity. But no one foresaw
the ritual death of 53 of its members in three
different locations over the course of one day
in October of 1994. Why the deaths happened
remains more obscure than in the case of
the Peoples Temple. But as Mayer’s analysis
reveals, these deaths were carefully planned
and justiﬁed in terms of the ideology of the
group. His essay provides a detailed account
of the nature and history of the group, as well
as the events leading up to the tragedy. He
uses the statements that the leaders of the
group left behind to provide insight into the
worldview of the Solar Temple, documenting
their seemingly sincere belief that their deaths
were only a “transit” to a higher plane of existence,
and in service of a greater purpose to
which they had dedicated their lives. Whatever
our own lack of comprehension or sheer skepticism
of this purpose, it is telling that some
remaining members later repeated the ritual
suicide twice in order to join their departed
colleagues. If nothing else, it is clear that the
bonds forged in the Solar Temple were
remarkably strong.
With some insight into at least two of the
episodes of mass violence involving NRMs in
hand, readers may wish to consult a few of the
efforts made to isolate a set of common factors
facilitating the turn to violence in NRMs.
The onset of violence is inﬂuenced by both
VIOLENCE AND NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
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VIOLENCE AND NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
184
external and internal factors, working in different
combinations in each of the cases. In a
well-known initial analysis Thomas Robbins
and Dick Anthony (1995) concentrate on
three crucial endogenous variables: (1) a
strong commitment to apocalyptic belief
systems and millennial visions of the imminent
end of the world; (2) a strong investment in
charismatic, and even more messianic, forms
of leadership; and (3) becoming socially
isolated and encapsulated. Each of these conditions
has unanticipated behavioral consequences
that support the eventual legitimation
of acts of violence. But no one of these factors
is sufﬁcient to foster the violence, since they
are shared by many other nonviolent religious
groups as well. These are necessary factors for
the emergence of violence. It is their combined
effect, however, that can be lethal, especially
for groups who sense that their mission
has failed or that they are being persecuted.
These ideas have been developed further by
Robbins and Anthony (e.g., Anthony and
Robbins 1997; Robbins 2002) and others
(Dawson 1998, 2002), and David Bromley
(2002) provides a sophisticated overview of
the social dynamic by which “cults” descend
into violence, tracing the ways in which relatively
minor sources of conﬂict or latent tensions
escalate into situations where either a
religious movement or some segment of the
dominant social order think that “the
requisite conditions for maintaining their
core identity and collective existence are being
subverted” and that the only tolerable
response is “a project of ﬁnal reckoning” to
restore “what they avow to be the appropriate
moral order” (Bromley 2002: 11).
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