Deprogramming lecture
Last worked on:
9/26/95
Leaving New Religious Movements:
The Deprogramming Thesis
Soc 257
New Religious Movements
Lecture Outline
- Deprogramming as Antidote
- The Character of Deprogramming
- Deprogramming and the Law
- The Effects of Deprogramming
Part I.
Deprogrammng as Antidode
Deprogramming as Antidote
- The Presuppositions of Deprogramming Advocates
- The Logic of Deprogramming
The Presuppositions of Deprogramming
Advocates
- Brainwashing is difficult to resist and has powerful
effects.
- Leaders effectively "program" those
whom they lure into the "cult."
- Reversing these effects requires equally powerful
measures.
- Programming can only be reversed by "
"deprogramming."
The Logic of Deprogramming
- Conversion to a new creed via brainwashing involves
deceptive measures including:
- Drugs
- Food and sleep deprivation
- Various other techniques to reduce rational
functioning
- Hypnosis
- Once converted, the individual is enslaved
and unable to act independently of the directives of his/her
manipulators.
The Logic of Deprogramming (con't)
- Commitment to the new religion is not really
a true commitment but, rather, a pseudo-conversion.
- Process reversal (deprogramming)
of he programmed victim is necessary to restore free will and
rational choice.
- Enslaved individuals have no rights because
they have been taken away by the group.
Part II.
The Character of Deprogramming
Deprogramming involves a wide array of
practices ranging from:
- Involuntary (Coercive) methods to
- Voluntary (Noncoercive) methods
Deprogramming involves a wide array of
practices
Involuntary Voluntary
Involuntary Deprogramming (Coercive)
- The abducted person is taken to an isolated location from
which he/she is not free to leave
- The abductors engage in intense, virtually non-stop, interrogation
- The abducted one is compelled to listen to prolonged defaming
of the group and its leader.
- The abducted person is pushed to physical and mental exhaustion..
- Deprogrammers work toward one goal -- forcing the abductee
to renunciation of the group, its leader, and its beliefs
- Initiated by kidnapping or luring an NRM member under false
pretenses.
Voluntary Deprogramming (Noncoercive)
The goal of voluntary deprogramming is the same as involuntary
deprogramming-- to "talk people out" of their new faith
commitment.
- The dividing line between voluntary and involuntary deprogramming
is whether or not the invidiual has agreed to participate.
In reality, there is great variability in how voluntary deprogramming
is conducted. An individual may agree to "talk" about
their new faith and then later discover they have entered a situation
from which it is extremely difficult to exit.
Thus, voluntary deprogramming may vary from coercive-like to a
much kinder, gentler, informal process from which the cult member
may or may not elect to continue memberhip.
Part III.
Deprogramming and the Law
Deprogramming and the Law
- The Lesser of Evils
- Convervatorships
- Covert Deprogramming
The Lesser of Evils
- Not all deprogrammings have been succesful.
- Some NRM members who escaped or faked a renunciation
of the faith sued their parents and/or the deprogrammers for kidnapping.
- Where these individuals were legally adults,
the facts of the case were pretty clear cut.
- The defense of the deprogrammers has been the
"lesser of evils" argument.
- There have been quite a number of convictions,
but sentences have tended to be quite light.
Further obsevation on the
"lesser of evils" defense
- Deprogrammers view their activity as rescuing
innocent victims from the sinister influence of pernicious cults.
- Note the parallelism in this argument and the
leadership of "Operation Rescue," the anti-abortion
movement.
Conservatorships
Conservatorship defined:
a court order granting legal guardianship to one individual over
the affairs of another because the latter is judged to be incompetent
to conduct their own affairs.
Conservatorships and "cults"
As early as 1975 some parents took advantage of conservatorship
laws to have their adult children declared mentally incompetent.
Once a temporary conservatorship was granted by a court, parents
rushed their child off for deprogramming.
Under the protection of the conservatorship, the deprogrammings
were legal.
These temporary conservatorships were challenged by the religious
movements.
The deprogrammers and their supporters, in turn, sought conservatorhips
legislation with broader powers.
The battle for broader conservatorships
The battle ground for broader latitude in conservatorship
legislation took place in New York state where as legislator named
Leshner introduce a broad sweeping bill.
- Nearly identical legislation was introduced in
approximately 35 states
The Leshner Bill was twice passed by the NY legislature,
but First Amendment proponents rallied and two different governors
vetoed the bill.
- As a result, the conservatorship legislation
failed to make inroads across the nation.
Covert deprogramming
- Deprogramming is alive and well in America today,
but most of it is ostensibly voluntary.
- Involuntary deprogramming has become a precarious
business -- but it still exists.
- Galen Kelley convicted of kidnapping .in Northern
Virginia in 1993.
Part IV.
The Effects of Deprogramming
The Effects of Deprogramming
- Deprogrammers Have High Levels of Success
- Why Is Deprogramming Successful?
- What Are the Psychological Consequence of Leaving?
Deprogrammers Have High Levels of Success
- In 1987 David Bromley was able to obtain data
from the files of the Unification Church on 400 members who were
deprogrammed.
- This profile of Unification Church members is
the only data of its kind that has ever been publically available.
- It offers some important clues both about the
demographics and the success rates of deprogramming.
Unification Church deprogrammings by
year
1973-1986
2
10
81
108
32
14
23
25
50
30
16
4
0
1
396
Who is deprogrammed?
Age:
- Minors 21.5%
- Adults 78.5%
Sex:
Length of membership
- < 1 year 49.5%
- > 1 year 51.5%
Deprogramming success rates
Success Failure
Deprogramming outcome 64% 36%
Age at deprogramming
<18- 21 76% 24% 21-25
60% 40%
26+ 54% 46%
Sex of deprogrammee
Male 61% 39%
Female 68% 32%
Membership length
< 1 yr 86% 14% 1-3 yrs
61% 39%
3 yrs + 41% 59%
Why is Deprogramming Successful?
- May already have doubts
- May be burned out by the hectic, demanding life-style
of the group
- May feel acute guilt/grief over turmoil family
has experienced
- Deprogrammers present shocking information about
the unsavory behavior of the individual's group and leader.
- The individual is identified as a victim of
brainwashing perpetrated by the "cults."
- The beliefs of the group are presented as heretical
to their family's faith tradition.
- Deprogrammers seek to capitalize on all of these
factors, especial guilt.
What Happens to People Who Leave Cults
and Sects?
James Lewis study of former NRM members who left groups by
three routes:
- Own volition
- Voluntary exit counseling
- Involuntary exit oounseling
locate and reinsert slide
duplicate slide and insert labels
Lewis concludes:
- People who leave NRMs involuntarily do suffer
a mental disorder found ins DSMIII
Post tramatic Stress Syndrome
- But the cause is not membership, bua the trama
people are subjected to as a result of deprogramming (exit counseling)
Next topic:
The Anti-Cult Movement
unfinished notes for possible future use
What Happens to People Who Leave Cults
and Sects?
- Points to be included:
- Anti-cultist's view: freqently suffer sever emotional
disorders
- Medicalization of an ideological controversy
- DSM-III-R "Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise
Specified"
- Conway & Siegelman -- "information disease"
- James Lewis' data
- [USE TABLE SLIDES -- PRESENT ONCE AS GROUP A,
B, & C AND THEN PRESENT A SECOND TIME WITH LEAVE STATUS ON
SLIDE]
- CONCLUDE HERE TO PICK UP NEXT TIME
- ALSO CONSIDER -- presentation of B&S paper
on deprogramming as exorcism
- PRESENTATION INCLUDES VIDEO TAPE ON DEPROGRAMMING
- Need to contact CBS 48 Hours to see if we can
get another copy
- Get some Ted Patrick tapes from Bromley and find
a small segment to edit