Thy Will Be Done

WCCO: Moore Report, Thy Will Be Done January 3, 1980

Produced in 1979 and aired January 3, 1980, Dave Moore hosts a documentary on the rise and controversies of religious cults in Minnesota and across the United States.

Digitized by TCMediaNow a 501c3 dedicated to preserving Twin Cities film and video.

https://youtu.be/kA1Y34QBpek?si=Q6oASpPqv5ln64CB

Shattered: One Woman’s True Story of Trauma, Coercive Control and Survival

Shattered: One Woman’s True Story of

Trauma, Coercive Control and Survival

By Ginger Zyskowski

Amazon

The life of a 32-year-old professional musician, university instructor, and mother of 3, is thrown into chaos when her young children are abducted and she is viciously kidnapped. Being held against her will, she is forced to live under the coercive control of the cult deprogrammer known as “Black Lightning.” Confined by her captors, she vows to do whatever it will take to reconnect with her children and reclaim her life. She gets caught in a web of conflicts and complications caused by lies spoken by her family, her kidnappers, and the FBI. Eventually, with determination, resilience, and courage, she reunites with her three sons and, together, they begin the difficult, yet rewarding journey of recovery after trauma. The author shares her harrowing true story here for the first time.

Description

 

STANDING OVATIONS

Kick off your shoes and find a good reading spot. Shattered, One Woman’s True Story of Trauma, Coercive Control and Survival will give you reason to pause. Every one of us can relate to some of the experiences told in this memoir, but the depth and breadth of Ginger Zyskowski’s life journey is astounding. Growing up with a domineering mother, visits to a “cult” with a friend, and then her horrific experiences being deprogrammed by the infamous Ted Patrick, who truly became her cult leader, are at once fascinating and rattling to read. The emotional trauma pops off the pages, and we cry for her pain and cheer for her victories. The author concludes with a thorough compilation of research that is enlightening to all readers. This compelling and inspiring true story of one woman’s journey is a tribute to the human spirit. Parents, sociologists, psychologists, educators, and general readers will find this book difficult to set aside.

~ Debby Schriver, President, International Cultic Studies Association ~

The so-called cult wars that emerged in America during the early 1970s produced a controversial and sometimes illegal industry called deprogramming. This intimate memoir by Ginger Zyskowski describes her traumatic kidnapping in 1978 by her parents and a deprogramming team that operated under crude basic assumptions about cultic brainwashing and how to cure it. In the author’s case, the cure was worse than the purported disease as she came under the well-meaning though abusive influence of deprogrammer Ted Patrick and her parents for many months after the intervention. We learn that Zyskowski’s meaningful dalliance with the controversial Divine Light Mission group hardly met Patrick’s definitions of hypnotic mind control. Moreover, her parents held rigid views of cults that amounted to a stereotype that they would not reject over time. This book is an absorbing complex trauma as well as a revealing perspective on a problematic new religious movement in America.

~Joseph Szimhart, a cult information specialist who wrote Santa Fe, Bill Tate, and me: How an artist became a cult interventionist ~

This book cautions the reader about the consequences of an unrestrained power. Presenting a riveting story of resilience, Ginger takes the reader on her journey of love, belief, family betrayal, and abuse at the hands of Ted Patrick – the so-called deprogrammer – and his minions. Against all odds, Ginger reclaims her life, her children, the love of writing, and the joy of music. I couldn’t put it down! Bravo!

~ Patrick Ryan, Cult Inverventionist ~

There have been scores of books testifying how victims had been lured into cults where, having apparently been subjected to mind control and unable to leave of their own accord, have been rescued and returned to their ‘normal’ selves by deprogrammers. But this is a story with a twist. Ginger Zyskowski tells us how her overbearing mother, a leading light in the now-defunct Cult Awareness Network (CAN), concluded that her daughter, having shown a mild interest in the Divine Light Mission (DLM) had been brainwashed, despite the fact that Ginger was leading what might seem like a pretty normal life, looking after her three sons whilst engaged in fulltime work – quite independently of the DLM. Imperiously, her mother arranged that Ginger should be kidnapped and deprogrammed by Ted Patrick, widely referred to as ‘Black Lightening’. We read how, under Patrick’s influence, Ginger became actively involved in the ‘anti-cult’ movement, but then having learned from Patrick and CAN about ‘cults,’ brainwashing and deprogramming, she came to recognize that she had indeed been victimized and coerced – by Patrick – and was able to deprogram herself out of his deprogramming cult and piece together her shattered self. A fascinating, page-turning story – with a twist.

~Eileen Barker, Professor Emeritus of Sociology with Special Reference to the Study of Religion, London School of Economics ~

“In her compelling memoir of abduction and survival, Ginger’s honesty offers a captivating glimpse into the resilience and hope that sustained her through unimaginable challenges.

~ Kaitlin Nachtigal, Editor ~

I Have Been…

I have been victimized

But I am not a victim. I have been shamed

But I am not ashamed. I have been guilted

But I am not guilty. I have been used and abused…

But I am not used up!

gz, 6/24/22

CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/27/2024 (Scientology, John Smyth, South Africa, Norway, Jehovah's Witnesses, Legal, Deprogramming)

Scientology, John Smyth, South Africa, Norway, Jehovah's Witnesses, Legal, Deprogramming

Journal  IE: Reports of Church of Scientology recruiting asylum seekers 'deeply concerning', says O'Gorman

"MINISTER FOR INTEGRATION Roderic O'Gorman has said that reports of the Church of Scientology recruiting asylum seekers to volunteer for the church under the guise of helping them with their applications for international protection is "exploitation" and "deeply concerning".

This morning, The Irish Times reported that the controversial church had recruited numerous asylum seekers residing at the tented accommodation in Crooksling to leaflet and volunteer in the church.

The volunteers received certificates for their participation and were told that this volunteer work would aid them in their applications for international protection."

News4: Church in South Africa reeling from John Smyth abuse scandal

Allegations of a cover up of decades of abuse by John Smyth has sparked debate within the Anglican Church in South Africa where Smyth spent the final two decades of his life.

Stop Mandated Shunning: Norwegian Court to Hear Landmark Case Against Jehovah's Witnesses in February 2025

"A historic appeal case will take place at the Oslo Appeal Court from February 3-14, 2025, with critical testimonies scheduled for February 7 and 10. This case, brought by Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) against the Norwegian State, has the potential to reshape how mandated shunning is understood and addressed legally.

The Norwegian State previously revoked JW's status as a recognized religion, stripping the organization of annual financial support of approximately €1.6 million. This decision was largely driven by the efforts of Jan Frode Nilsen, a former Jehovah's Witness and a victim of mandated shunning, who courageously brought the issue to the attention of Norwegian authorities. Through his tireless advocacy, Jan provided the State with insight into the harmful practices of mandated shunning, amplifying the voices of victims who often suffer in silence. His work has made it clear that this is not merely a local issue but a global one, affecting hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide.

Now, Jehovah's Witnesses are appealing the State's decision for the third time in five years, claiming procedural reforms. However, victims and advocates, including Jan, maintain that these changes do little to address the systemic harm caused by mandated shunning."

From Deprogramming to Thought Reform Consultation - Patrick Ryan, Carol Giambalvo, Joseph Kelly, Hana Whitfield

"  ... In the 1980s many attempts were made by individuals doing interventions to get together to find ways to improve our profession and ourselves. But a difficulty arose in the definition of exit counseling and deprogramming. Some helping organizations at the time contributed to that confusion by maintaining a position that there was voluntary and involuntary exit counseling and voluntary and involuntary deprogramming. As a result, without the ability to establish a clear-cut definition, at those meetings people who called themselves exit counselors but were doing involuntary deprogramming could not be excluded and our work to establish ethical guidelines and a more professional approach spun its wheels, so to speak. A group of individuals who had committed themselves to voluntary interventions only began to meet regularly to share ideas and information and to develop Ethical Standards. We formed an organization of Thought Reform Consultants and eventually published our Ethical Standards. Those Ethical Standards were patterned after the Ethical Codes or Standards of the following organizations:

•        American Association for Marriage & Family Therapy
•        National Association of Social Workers
•        Standards for the Private Practice of Clinical Social Work
•        American Psychiatric Association
•        National Academy of Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselors

We worked diligently to combine those standards with some uniquely necessary to our profession. And we owe our gratitude to the following advisors for their professional support and encouragement:

•        Margaret Singer, Ph. D.
•        Michael Langone, Ph. D.
•        Herbert Rosedale, Esq.
•        David Bardin, Esq. and Livia Bardin, M.S.W.
•        Bill Goldberg, M.S.W. & Lorna Goldberg, M.S.W.
•        Paul Martin, Ph. D.

Thought reform consultation involves much, much more family preparation. It is necessary for a 2-3 day, sometimes more, formal family preparation involving all members of the family team and all thought reform consultant team members. This formal preparation accomplishes the following:

•        The family team experiences how they work together under pressure and how the thought reform consultants work together
•        Enables the thought reform consulting team to observe how the family works together under pressure and who may or may not be appropriate for major roles in the intervention
•        Improves family communication with the group member
•        Enables the family to understand the culture of the group, its teachings and how thought reform techniques impact the group member
•        Prepares the family for how to communicate in the intervention and what practical arrangements should be made
•        Emphasizes the recovery process and their responsibility in it
•        Emphasizes the seriousness of an intervention and all its repercussions
•        Facilitates the family in making a fully informed decision about doing an intervention

Thought reform consultation involves even more assessment, as you see — and places much more responsibility on the family. They realize that a team is not just going to come in and perform some magical process and things will forever be okay.

In both exit counseling and thought reform consulting, the purpose of the intervention is not to get someone out of a cult. While that may be a desired outcome, the purpose is to give the group member the information that enables them to make a fully informed choice."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultEducationEvents.com

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.

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Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations, and related topics.

The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view to promote dialogue.

Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

Inside The Cowboy Industry Of ‘Cult Deprogramming’

SERA BOZZA

Boss Hunting

October 26, 2020

In the 1970s, America quite literally lost its mind. Doomsday cults, satanic sects, and saffron-robed gurus were exerting undue influence upon thousands of Americans with fatal consequences. Desperate families paid a pretty penny for rogue operators to infiltrate cults and rescue their brainwashed loves ones by any means necessary. It spawned the entirely new, highly lucrative, and dubiously ethical industry of ‘cult deprogramming.’

Vigilante ‘deprogrammers’ continue to operate today via covert means and legal loopholes. And their services are in high demand. Cult expert and former cult member himself, Steven Hassan, estimates that over 5,000 cults operate today in the United States alone.

What defines a destructive cult

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, defined destructive, totalitarian cults, as having three key metrics:

1. A charismatic, authoritarian leader, who employs
2. Coercive persuasion to gain absolute influence over followers, using
3. Economic, sexual, emotional, physical or financial abuse and harm.

And yes, the definition can extend to radical political groups, multilevel marketing schemes, and self-help seminars. Even your mate who tried to sign you up to Herbalife.

Cult life (and death)

Fears surrounding absolute devotion to a cult, and its leader are not unfounded.

• The Manson Family – 1969 California, USA Charles Manson ordered his members to carry out gruesome murders. Explored in Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood.”
• The People’s Temple – 1978, Jonestown, Guyana Reverend Jim Jones ordered 900 of his members to commit suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Upon which Leonardo DiCaprio produced this harrowing documentary.
• Heaven’s Gate – 1997, San Diego, USA Marshall Applewhite and 38 of his followers committed suicide to reach a UFO spacecraft.
• NXIVM – 2020, New York, USA Keith Raniere, head of a cult based on the forced sexual abuse of women, was sentenced to 120 years in prison after a New York Times investigation prompted authorities to scrutinize its inner workings.

It is near impossible to change someone’s mind about a cult because they have been indoctrinated into an “us versus them” mentality. In the past, they may have isolated in remote compounds, but today they can just exist entirely in their own echo chambers on the internet.

If an individual does not leave voluntarily, the only other option is to forcibly remove them.

By whatever means necessary

Over the decades, U.S. judges routinely granted parents and cowboy deprogrammers the authorization to (re)kidnap their children without a hearing.

Ted “Black Lightning” Patrick, was dubbed “The Father of Deprogramming.” His skin was in the game after saving his own son from a cult known as The Children Of God. He deprogrammed over two thousand clients via abduction (daylight kidnappings with the assistance of his henchman), snapping (inflicting mental, emotional, and physical abuse to undo the cult’s brainwashing), and releasing (a process of freeing an individual from their trancelike state).

US courts backed Patrick’s argument that, by “artful and deceiving” means, cults were robbing people of their First Amendment Rights to think and choose.

Cult deprogrammers (used to) make serious bank

Although it didn’t crack the highest-earning jobs list – not to mention Patrick had US$60 million in lawsuits pending against him by 1979 – cult deprogramming is highly lucrative. Can families put a price on the freedom of their loved ones?

In the Colombrito vs. Kelly case of 1978, one deprogrammer received a US$25,000 fee (inflating to US$100,000 today and approximately AU$140,000.) It is a niche market, with just a handful of operators carrying out thousands of conversions to date. However, the industry had to go underground following the monumental court case in 1995, Scott vs. Ross.

Deprogrammer Rick Ross was duped by Jason Scott, who faked his deprogramming and pressed charges. Scott’s case was picked up by a powerful backer.

The Church of Scientology, growing frustrated with the anti-cult movement, funded Scott’s civil suit in 1995. It bankrupted Ross and the Cult Awareness Network (CAN). Scientology bought the CAN assets and logo and runs it as a front for their own organisation. The case ended the lawful use of involuntary cult deprogramming.

How cult deprogramming works today

“Exit counselling” has since replaced coercive cult deprogramming, yet consists of many of the same players. Ross compares his counselling sessions to an intervention. It spans three to four days, in eight-hour lengthy sessions, alongside families and loved ones. However, by law, it must be voluntary.

The subject can leave at any time, and the cults have clocked on to it. Cults and questionable self-help groups train their members to sense it coming. Many parents enlist psychologists in covert operations to assist them in gaining conservatorship powers. Through conservatorship, they can explore more coercive measures…

Cult deprogramming techniques used to change someone’s mind

Alongside discrediting the authority of the cult leader and presenting contradictions in the group’s ideology, a strong emphasis is placed on education.

Margaret Singer, PhD psychologist advocates for “showing them how their own decision-making power had been taken away from them.” It can include:

• Naming the group’s indoctrination techniques, and helping the victim to reference the ways they were used against them during their indoctrination period.
• Asking thoughtful questions, prompting the victim to think in a critical, independent way, such as “How can the group preach X, but exploit Y? And then providing significant praise when they do.
• Reintroducing objects and individuals from the victim’s pre-cult past to prompt an emotional connection.

What is the measure of success?

Cult brainwashing techniques can permanently damage an individual’s cognitive ability, and not everyone snaps out of it. Harvard psychiatrist, Dr John G Clark, told the New York Times, ”the destructive effects of cult conversions amount to a new disease in an era of psychological manipulation.”

Cult deprogrammers and exit counsellors measure their success by the individual’s ability to think critically and exercise free will, which can take years of counselling to achieve.

https://www.bosshunting.com.au/culture/inside-cult-deprogramming/

Jury Break: Interview with Patrick Ryan

Deliberations
April 26, 2019

"Cult Mediation Specialist Patrick Ryan revisits us to discuss interventions and alternative strategies for exiting cults."

In bad faith: Korean woman dies during forced conversion

Anjuly Mathai
The Week
February 19, 2018

More than 1,20,000 people gathering in Seoul and the other major cities of South Korea on January 28 to protest against coercive conversion

On December 29 of last year, a 27-year-old woman, Ji-in Gu, was killed while she was being held captive at a secluded recreational lodge in Hwasun, Jeonnam, South Korea. On January 18, the parents of the woman were held responsible for the murder. According to the police department of Hwasun, they bound and gagged their daughter, leading to suffocation. The autopsy revealed a “high possibility of cardiopulmonary arrest due to hypoxic hypoxia”. The death has ricocheted from a ‘family matter’ to a national issue, with more than 1,20,000 people gathering in Seoul and the other major cities of South Korea on January 28 to protest against coercive conversion, of which the woman was a victim.

Coercive conversion is apparently a wide-spread phenomenon in South Korea. It is conducted by the Counselling Centre of Cult, which was established under the leadership of Pastor Yong-Shik Jin. Its pastors are from the Protestant churches in the country. They try to forcibly convert people from what they call “cult” churches, like the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, established in 1984, which Ji-in Gu was a member of. They allegedly enlist the aid of the family members of the person to kidnap her and take her to secluded places, where she is forced to undergo coercive conversion education, often through violent means.

The victim had earlier, in July 2016, been confined at a Catholic abbey in the city of Jangseong for 40 days. She had said that although she had escaped from the abbey, she lived in constant fear of being kidnapped again and could no longer trust her family who had colluded with the pastors to kidnap her. After that, she had sent a formal petition to the President of the Republic of Korea asking for the closing down of the Counselling Centre of Cult and to legally punish coercive conversion education pastors. “Please help innocent people by legislating a new law that does not discriminate against religions,” she had written.

“I used to occasionally see her in church,” says Sun Woo Kim, another member of the Shincheonji Church. “She was a very bright girl. More than anything, she wanted peace in her family. That’s why she returned to them even after being kidnapped and made to undergo forcible conversion.”

He says that these pastors go to various churches and conduct seminars. They corrupt the family members and demand money in exchange for converting to Protestantism their children or spouses who have joined other churches.

“More than a conflict between two churches, this is a case of human rights violation,” says Kim. “The politicians consider these pastors as vote banks and hence take no action against them. The police say that conversion is a private matter to be settled within the families and hence refuse to interfere. Ten years ago, a similar case had taken place in which a woman was killed by her husband. While the husband was imprisoned, the pastors went scot-free.”

He says that the pastors use brutal methods to indoctrinate the victims, who are mostly women. “They use sleeping pills to kidnap you,” he says. “Then with duct tape and handcuffs, they subdue you. The victims will be kept close watch over. They’re not even allowed to close the door while using the washroom to prevent them from escaping.”

Sun Woo Kim, another South Korean who vociferously opposes coercive conversion, gives some figures. More than 1,000 people have come out as being victims of these programmes, with 663 claiming to have been kidnapped and 541 beaten. “So, this is more serious than simply being a ‘family matter’,” she says.

“Who gave these pastors the authority to confine, shackle, beat, and murder people for their faith?” reads a petition by the Association of Victims of Coercive Conversion Programmes. “Their disguise is holy and pious, but their actions show that they are willing to commit murder to arbitrarily convert people’s beliefs. The authorities must face reality and take appropriate action against this practice. We should thoroughly investigate the recent death and reveal the true facts. We should root out the real culprit and cause for destruction of this family. Justice should be served, and conversion pastors must be held accountable for their actions. The constant violation of people's universal human right to freedom of religion through abduction, confinement, suffocation and many other forms of physical abuse and violence must come to an end.”

http://www.theweek.in/news/world/in-bad-faith-korean-woman-dies-during-forced-conversion.html

Opinion Don’t imprison ISIS kids, deprogram them

Judit Neurink

Judit Neurink
Rudaw
February 23, 2017

Opinion

Now that the battle of Mosul is gearing up again, western states are alarmed about children who might return home from ISIS territory, or will be sent to commit suicide attacks in the West.

During the years of ISIS’ rule, many local people in Iraq and Syria were indoctrinated into following the group and fighting their battle.

Amongst them are many young boys who were schooled into the ISIS brand of Islam, and trained in gun use and warfare, from as young as six years old.

The problems these Cubs of the Caliphate will cause, has been discussed before, but now that mounting losses and desperation are forcing ISIS to actually use them, the issue needs all our attention.

Some of the boys are Yezidis, who were captured when ISIS took over their towns and villages in the Sinjar province over two years ago, and were then put through ISIS’ indoctrination program.

Boys who had managed to escape told me how they daily would have to watch videos of executions, were trained to wear a suicide belt, and how some of their former friends seemed to have adopted their captor’s religion and behavior with vigor.

Recently, ISIS posted photos and videos of two Yezidi teenagers on their way to commit their suicide attacks, talking between them how ‘they left the darkness of their faith for the light of Islam’.

They showed the extent of their indoctrination, repeating slogans, boasting how they had made the right choices.

We don’t know if they did actually commit the attacks, but it is clear that of all suicide bombers the group uses, at least a third (and probably more) are under eighteen.

Videos of foreign ISIS fighters instructing their own children to get ready for the jihad, have shown us the danger these youths may pose too, as they have never learned anything but the ISIS doctrine.

But local kids also pose a threat to their communities, having been sent to the ISIS schools and training camps, been prepared for the battle and promised the paradise.

What to do with them; how to prevent them from obliging their peers in ISIS?

Indoctrination needs to be fought through deprogramming, and not by imprisoning; just remember how Al Qaida was able to recruit and grow inside the prisons where its members were kept, and not in the least in those of the Americans in Iraq.

Yet some teenagers who were with ISIS are now being held together in a youth prison in Duhok — as far as I know without being subject to any de-radicalization program.

What we need is creativity, and humanity.

A policeman who recently returned to work in Mosul, told me how he and his colleagues decided to take care of a fifteen-year-old he had to question about his ties to ISIS.

He kept the boy with him, and spoke with him a couple of hours daily about the kid’s convictions and ideas for his future life.

The boy was allowed to go home, on the condition he would go to school and show good results, and would report back regularly to the police office.

This police team was doing something extra-ordinary, out of caring for a boy that they knew would only turn more radical in jail.

They tried to give him a chance to change back into a normal boy who would be able to live with his family in his community – even though they knew the chances were slim, they preferred it to sending him to jail.

We know that that many more teenage boys will be found and captured, and that there is no policeman like my friend for every one of them.

Even though the dilemma was clear, we are not prepared: there are no special institutions in Iraq to attempt to cure their radical views.

De-radicalisation is not an easy concept, as was seen for instance in Saudi Arabia, where a special program for Al Qaida convicts showed that some of the recipients of the de-radicalisation were still to end up in the top of Al Qaida.

In the West, some countries have developed programs to try and win back the minds and souls of those indoctrinated by radicals and sects.

What makes it extra hard is that those who are indoctrinated, usually are not interested in life, as they have already lost it, as experts have told me.

The fact that they deem their lives so painful and worthless that they do not want to continue makes them extremely dangerous, for they can be used as robots to kill, as long as they get killed themselves too.

If putting them in jail is dangerous and leaving them out is also, there is only one possibility left for boys involved, even if that is not fool-proof either.

Give these kids a chance and treat them for what they are: kids that have been pressed into believing something that is killing them, and who need help to deprogram their brains into wanting to live again.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
 
http://www.rudaw.net/NewsDetails.aspx?pageid=284762

Moonchild

Watch Moonchild

by Carlson, Chris, 1952-; Pyramid Film & Video
Directed and produced by Ann Makepeace
Published 1981

Run time 0:50:38
Producer Carlson, Chris, 1952-
Production Company Santa Monica, CA : Pyramid Film & Video

The film is 36 years old now but I have just watched it for the first time as had never heard of it before. I have seen a similar movie - Ticket to Heaven - which deals with the same subject and is also quite good but I feel not quite as authentic as this one, which was made by ex-moonies who know the subject firsthand. For a film made by non-professional actors I was surprised at how good it is. - I was a moonie myself in Boonville and San Francisco just a little earlier than the period shown in this film, and I remained a follower of Moon much longer than the people in the film -- so I know the subject quite well, too. The only part I really don't know is the deprogramming. I never experienced that but instead lost faith gradually. 



https://archive.org/details/moonchild_201606

Moon followers draw 80 to event at West Chester YMCA

Daily Local News
December 15, 2016

#TBT: Moon followers draw 80 to event at West Chester YMCA

By: Bruce Monday of the Local News Staff Editor’s note: Looking back to the December 24,1977 issue of the Daily Local’s archives.

DAILY LOCAL NEWS ARCHIVES

A car drives through West Chester promoting the Unification Church event Dec. 23, 1977

Members of the Unification Church met picketers, persons handing out adverse literature, skeptics and the curious last night at the YMCA in West Chester.

In the end, officials of the controversial Rev. Sun Myung Moon's church felt they had a productive evening. The beliefs and teachings of Moon were introduced to more than 80 citizens of West Chester.

Members of the local clergy, a cult deprogrammer, a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union, Unification Church members, YMCA staff, many members of borough council, mayor-elect Tom Chambers, interested residents and five West Chester policemen turned out for the hour long talk by Marc Lee, director of the Unification Church in Pennsylvania.

Before the meeting started, members of the church were afraid some persons might try to disrupt Lee's talk. Earlier this month, a church meeting in Valley Forge was disrupted by a number of pickets and a former member of the church.

After Lee's speech, a small disturbance took place when Lee D. Kellett, a deprogrammer tried to open a public question and answer period with Lee. Church member Jim Comey earlier said questions could be asked of individual members of the church but a public answering session wouldn't be held.

At the same time, Andrew Aharonian jumped up and said, "The Holy Bible is the only true word. Rev. Moon is a father of the devil. He is a thief and a robber."

In a short time, the persons wanting to continue discussion or arguments broke off with members of the church. Lee was cornered for a long period answering questions from a number of persons in the audience.

The only other problem came when a person who was later arrested for public drunkenness tried to crash the meeting. West Chester police Det. Tom Yarnell said the man wouldn't leave when asked and resisted arrest. "If he would have got upstairs (to the meeting) there would have been trouble," Yarnell said.

A confrontation with police and members of the church almost took place yesterday afternoon. Church members had been using a sound system on Wednesday and yesterday to advertise last night's meeting.

Church member Johann Kienberger said the police ordered him to stop using the system. Police Chief John Green said he had been receiving complaints about sound level and since the system was in use for a day, the church members would have to stop.

Kienberger said the borough had no laws prohibiting the use of the sound system and he was going to defy the chief's order. Before a confrontation took place, Green relented and allowed the church members to continue until 5:30 p.m.

Before entering the Y last night, persons had to go past two picketers, Patrick and Margaret Corcoran of Walnut street, West Chester.

"Our kids are being ripped off" and "Moon talks to Jesus and we lose our children" were the signs being carried by the couple.

Patrick Corcoran said this is the first time they have picketed a meeting. He said he just had a daughter come out of another cult, The Divine Light Mission of Guru Maharaji Ji.

He said "peer pressure" was the cause of kids going into cults, Corcoran said he would stay until midnight, despite the cold, if he had to do it. "If Moon wants my son, he will have to fight me for him," Corcoran said.

Next to picketers, a group associated with local clergy were passing out literature denouncing the church's claims to Christianity.

A number of the clergy have signed a letter giving their stance against the Unification Church. A copy of the letter appears on page four of today's paper.

Chambers said he was there because"it's a happening and a mayor ought to be here," Chambers was joined by a number of borough council. One person quipped, "The borough council doesn't draw this kind of crowd."

Come started the meting by giving a brief history of Moon before introducing Lee, who has worked as an assistant to the South Korean born Moon,57.

Lee recounted some of his experiences during the seven years he has belonged and plunged into the reasons Moon came to America and what the church's goals are.

Lee claims God called Moon to America to start a spiritual revival. He spent some time pointing out America is in sad shape because of immorality, suicide, the breakdown of the family unit, drugs and crime.

"The reason Moon is in America is to raise a group of young leaders to take charge to put their lives on the line for what they believe."

Lee said his talk wasn't meant to be of gloom but hope and Moon's message is of hope. Lee claims in the future the church will do things that now seem impossible. Changes in America will take place through new leaders, according to Lee.

Lee talked about other religious suffering persecution. he also talked about the life of jesus.

At the beginning of the talk, Lee said he had a feeling West Chester is a "real community" and people are taking an interest in the community. He said he didn't receive a warm reception, but did't expect one.

After the meeting, Jackie Ashworth, director of public affairs for the church, also said people from the community were concerned. She said she was pleased with the turnout and was glad the church members had a chance to present the church's views.

Ash worth said some persons were afraid the church was going to pull people off the corner to join the church. Untrue, "we didn't expect and concerts," she said.

http://www.dailylocal.com/events/20161215/tbt-moon-followers-draw-80-to-event-at-west-chester-ymca

Deprogrammed - Reviewed by Joseph Szimhart

Documentary film by Mia Donovan, 2015
Eye Steel Film, Canada

 

Reviewed by Joseph Szimhart, 2016

Watch 

In 2011 someone posted this on a religion chat group: “What ever happened to deprogrammer Ted Patrick?” The writer, Snapdragon, had read Let Our Children Go by Patrick and Dulak (1976) and Snapping: America’s Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change by Flo Conway and Jim Segalman (1978). Snapdragon noted no news in twenty years about Patrick. One response to Snapdragon indicated that cults were no longer big news and that the Children of God sex-for-Jesus cult, one of the big five or six new religions targeted by Ted Patrick in the 1970s, had morphed into a smaller, tamer version restyled as The Family. Mia Donovan’s documentary film Deprogrammed goes a long way to answer Snapdragon’s query (not in the film). Donovan offers intimate insights into the origins of and controversies surrounding deprogramming Ted Patrick style, which often involved abduction of the cult member and indecorous debate about cult beliefs and leaders.

Patrick, now 86, began his cult intervention career in 1971 in San Diego. He inadvertently initiated a shadowy industry of interventionists as well as several anti-cult organizations. The latter found in Patrick’s approach something concrete to do about thousands if not millions of mostly young adult seekers suddenly taken in by controversial new religions and unmoderated self-help movements. Simply put, families could kidnap a cult member and hire deprogrammers, hopefully to break the “spell” of the cult, thus curing the problem. It was not that easy, of course, and Donovan’s careful film makes that very clear. Coercive deprogrammers operated in America and abroad for perhaps two decades—Patrick attempted one of his last kidnap-style interventions in the early 1990s. The majority of his attempts occurred between 1971 and 1980. Donovan’s interest in this topic was personal. One of her main subjects in the film was her step-brother, Matthew Robinson, who was one of Patrick’s last, if ill-advised interventions. It failed and Matthew was yet embittered by the interaction with Patrick around 1993.

By way of disclosure, I have had some skin in this deprogramming game. I stood trial in Idaho for one month in 1993 for criminal charges of allegedly abducting a cult member—I was acquitted. My formal intervention career began in 1985. That was when I first agreed to assist two seasoned deprogrammers in an intervention. That intervention was semi-coercive. There was no security save a husband and his parents and the thirty-degrees below zero weather in Minnesota at the time. We stayed indoors. The wife, age 31, had become immersed in a large New Age sect, one that I had been devoted to for over a year until I defected in 1980. So, I was the token ex-member there to explain why I defected. My reputation grew. Subsequently, I got caught up in the intervention business and made most my living as a cult interventionist from 1986 through 1998. Most cases involved no illegal coercion. The last case I did that involved coercion was in 1992 with a naïve, female college student who fell under the sway and sexual abuse of a bizarre music teacher, aged 55, who manipulated her with Applied Kinesiology, a bogus channeling technique. The family members would not allow the young lady to leave the house the first night. The next morning, she agreed to stay and talk with me for three days. That intervention was successful.

Donovan concentrates on several individuals who encountered Patrick decades ago as subjects of deprogramming. We hear from them currently as well as from them on archival news videos with Patrick confronting them. Patrick regularly used the curious news media to get his message out. One subject was in the Unification Church or Moonies, another followed Swami Rudrananda or “Rudi” who was of German heritage, and another was in the Christ Family led by Lightning Amen. The last man, now elderly, is yet a believer living on the dwindled group’s communal grounds after the leader died. After Patrick freed the son of Sondra Sachs from the Hare Krishna movement in 1973, she became his secretary. Sachs appears in the film to tell her story. Professor of sociology Stephen Kent of the University of Alberta offers a social science perspective on the cult phenomenon and the impct of deprogramming. We also meet Flow Conway and Jim Segalman, mentioned above, the researchers who met with Patrick and dozens of ex-members. As brought out in this film, their 1978 book Snapping utilized subjects of Patrick’s interventions for much of the data. Snapping may have been science deficient, but it did address a very real problem that no journalist had tackled to that date. The problem was “information disease,” a phrase the authors coined to indicate the content of mind in converts influenced by deceptive, controversial movements.

Richard Dawkins, the famed atheist, in 1976 coined the neologism “meme” (imitated idea) that reinforces the possibility of information disease. Memes, per Dawkins, can “go viral” using an evolutionary or biological model, so flawed, dangerous, or “diseased” memes can go viral. This is another way of saying that cult members participate in a shared delusion. The evidence was noted by Patrick in his nephew and his friends who nearly got recruited by a local Jesus cult and when Patrick infiltrated that cult in 1971. Within days, Ted said he felt his mind giving in to the ideas of the cult despite feeling armored against it going in. Patrick called it hypnotism or a spell—he was not far off though his grasp of cognitive function lacked sophistication. Patrick sorely lacked training or education about social influence. His limitations led to his often-abusive tactics to “break” someone of a cult “spell” and that got him into legal trouble often. Conway and Segalman called this sudden change process “snapping” indicating that moment when someone snaps into or out of a powerful conversion. The film brings out deprogramming controversy when it portrays Patrick as a kind of crusader with good intentions if not the best of techniques. Social scientists viewed Patrick’s “cure” as more harmful than the “disease.” The film exposes that the worse Patrick could paint the cults, the more heroic he could appear. Nevertheless, Patrick had a direct hand in freeing many hundreds of cult members from cult memes or information disease.

I first met and spoke with Ted Patrick late in his career in the early 1990s at a national cult awareness conference that had, years before, moved to reject all forms of coercive intervention or deprogramming. Not everyone attending these conferences agreed, especially the old guard of Patrick devotees who felt that deprogramming was necessary to truly un-brainwash a cult member. Among these devotees were fundamentalist Christians, who in one survey that I recall, were more inclined than other demographic groups to approve of coercive deprogramming. Fundamentalists are especially invested in saving a cult member’s soul by bringing them back to the true Gospel.

In the film, we learn that Patrick grew up with Black church, Protestant values as well as a recognition that the Black churches had their share of bad cult leaders like Father Divine and Billy Sunday. Patrick revealed his myopic vision of cult history when he affirms that as a Black man he already knew of this cult phenomenon that lately, around 1970, hit White America. The film does not bring out why Patrick had a string of successful deprogrammings in mid-career. People I knew that worked with him were all ex-members that might employ for relatively low fees to assist on cases. At his peak, Patrick had many cases going on simultaneously or overlapping, so he tended to show up days into the interaction with a captive cult member. Often, by that time, the ex-members had done their job well, but Patrick would come in, interact with the now ex-member for a day or less, take credit for the success, and collect the lion’s share of the fees. Patrick created a business model, a machine that made him famous and that many came to believe was the only way to free brainwashed people.

One of my peers in this intervention business, Rick Ross, appeared in the film to address the evolution of Patrick’s model into the non-coercive exit counseling approach. The latter approach allowed the targeted cult member to refuse to talk and to leave the intervention at any time. Ross claimed that Patrick laid the foundation for what later became the non-coercive model. Other peers were consulted including David Clark and Steve Hassan who appear only in credits at the end of the film. No, I was not among those not consulted, but had I been I would argue that the so-called exit-counseling model existed long before Patrick and Galen Kelly (not mentioned in the film) employed kidnapping to deprogram in the early 1970s. Uncounted thousands in the late Sixties entered and defected from cults either on their own or through contact with ex-members, concerned families, and ministers. One study conducted by the United Kingdom sociologist Eileen Barker indicated that fully 80% of Unification Church converts (Moonies) defected within a year by means mentioned above. Others might take several years, even decades before defection. Some die as believers. Being under a spell or brainwashed is never a fixed state—that is not how the human brain works. Of course, there are exceptions with some people stubbornly holding onto a conversion no matter what. The clear majority of my many hundreds of interventions over the years were done through an educational model and without coercion. That model was uniquely defined by Steve Hassan with the publication of Combatting Cult Mind Control (1988).

The purpose of this film was quite simple. It concentrated on the legacy of Ted Patrick. As I mentioned above, the filmmaker’s step-brother Matthew was the spark that brought Donovan into this project. She had not seen him in 20 years until she learned of her father hiring Patrick in the mid-1990s to deprogram Matthew out of what appeared to be a devotion to Satanism. Matthew, a heavily tattooed man who employs the F-word liberally, as a youth was troubled, rebellious, into heavy metal music, and most likely suffered from social anxiety and other disorders that were never properly diagnosed or treated. As we learn in the film, Matthew’s allusions to Satan were more for effect than devotion (there was no cult), so Patrick’s kidnap technique was totally misguided. It essentially failed after eight days of verbal and emotional assault on the young rebel. The intervention may have done harm if we believe Matthew decades later.

In sum, the film was much better than I envisioned. It captures a unique era of the so-called cult wars when America was more focused with concern over bourgeoning new religious movements and therapies. The movements have not all gone away and new, radical ones continue to emerge. If nothing else, Ted Patrick helped to bring attention to a serious problem despite not coming up with the best or legal solutions. The problem has not gone away and viable solutions are still lacking. The film reminds us that the problem is complex as might be any solution. The film captures a unique aspect in the history of social reaction to radical new movements.

http://ask.metafilter.com/192171/What-ever-happened-to-deprogrammer-Ted-Patrick

jszimhart@gmail.com

http://jszimhart.com/book_and_film_reviews/deprogrammed_2015

Movie review: Mia Donovan's Deprogrammed cracks cult appeal

T'CHA DUNLEVY, MONTREAL GAZETTE
June 16, 2016
Deprogrammed

✮✮✮1/2
Documentary
Directed by: Mia Donovan
Running time: 85 minutes

Cults don't have much to do with most of our day-to-day lives. They make the headlines from time to time, but to the average person they don't hold any relevance. So a documentary on cults could seem like a random choice. To Montrealer Mia Donovan, it was anything but.

Donovan hadn't seen her stepbrother Matthew in 20 years when she embarked on her second documentary, Deprogrammed, and decided to track him down. A rebellious teen with a penchant for heavy metal and all its trappings, Matthew was kidnapped by his father and a group of men and confined in a motel room for eight days to try to rid him of his evil ways.

Leading Matthew's captors was Ted Patrick, the pioneer of "deprogramming." A former aide to governor Ronald Reagan, he became known as Black Lightning in the '70s for the speed with which he would track cult members, pull them off the street and shake some sense into them.

After reconnecting with the heavily tattooed, all-grown-up Matthew on a makeshift shooting range on a country road, Donovan goes on a search for Patrick and the many people he helped, and didn't help (Matthew appears to fall in the latter category), over the past several decades.

His methods were controversial. "In some cases, you have used physical force, coercion, deception, harassment to break a person and bring them back to 'sanity,' " he is told in an archival news segment.

It all sounds rather questionable, but things begin to click when Donovan takes us back to the early '70s in California, where within the flower-power movement there emerged a preponderance of "Jesus-centred communes."

Through revealing footage of deprogramming attempts from the era, Donovan shows the extent to which some of these groups took hold of the minds and bodies of their members.

Many ceased to think for themselves and could spout only the spoon-fed dogma of their leaders. Enter Patrick, who caught on to what was happening and conceived controversial methods to get beyond the robotic platitudes.

It involved sequestering alleged victims and questioning their every presumption until they began to crack. And while it didn't always work — Donovan gives voice to a few former deprogrammees who were more hurt than helped by the interventions — Patrick's unconventional techniques paved the way for the cult deprogramming movement for years to come.

Donovan's film would have been interesting enough if it were just a history lesson, but it goes deeper, exploring the eerie disconnect that takes place when people hand over the reins of their brains to an outside force.

tdunlevy@postmedia.com

http://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movies/movie-review-mia-donovans-deprogrammed-cracks-cult-appeal

Losing my religion: life after extreme belief

‘I weep thinking about how callous and unmerciful I was’:
 Megan Phelps-Roper.

Shahesta Shaitly
The Guardian
April 10, 2016

Megan Phelps-Roper, 30, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church

My first memories are of picketing ex-servicemen’s funerals and telling their families they were going to burn in hell. For us, it was a celebration. My gramps was the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, so it wasn’t just our religion – it was our whole life. I don’t remember much before the picketing. I was allowed to mix with other kids early on, but over time my world shrank.

We believed it was a Good vs Evil situation: that the WBC was right and everybody else was wrong, so there was no questioning. It was a very public war we were waging against the “sinners”. I asked a lot of questions as I got older, but there’s a big difference in asking for clarification and actually questioning the beliefs you’re taught. I spent so much time reading the Bible, trying to see the world through this very particular framework, that to have truly considered [it was wrong] was inconceivable. I’d seen members leave in the past, including my brother, and the thought of ever leaving the church was my worst nightmare.

 ‘I knew straightaway I was not a part of the church  any more. I was out. I miss my family every single day’: Megan Phelps-Roper with her mother Shirley at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Megan used social media to spread the church’s message.

The WBC loves and thrives on publicity, so I joined Twitter in 2009 to run the church’s account. I was very zealous and adamant that my beliefs were the truth, but I began to realise that the 140-word limit meant I had to drop the throwaway insults or conversations would die. Over time, I found I was actually beginning to like people: to see them as human beings rather than people to condemn. For the first time, I started to care about what people outside the WBC thought of me. As my feelings towards my faith wavered I’d boomerang between thinking “none of this makes sense” to “God is testing me and I am failing”, but it was only in the four months before I left in 2012 that I actually started to make a plan. I cornered my sister in our room one evening and told her I was going to leave and asked her to come with me. She initially said no and told me I was being silly, but over time we’d have stolen conversations about it and she came round to the idea.

My mom was so broken by the news – I’d never seen her face like that before
Leaving was unbearably sad. Having dinner with my grandparents or bouncing on a trampoline with my brother for the last time; asking my parents about their history in detail because I knew I’d never be able to ask them about it again: I was consciously saying goodbye to my family while they had no idea. I was trying to keep as much of it as I could. On the day, my younger sister and I sat down with my parents after they’d heard that we had planned to leave. They were really upset and my mom was so broken by the news – I’d never seen her face like that before. We told them we didn’t believe anymore, then went to pack. The adrenaline pumping through me made my hands shake as I stuffed my things into bags. Word spread among the family and several of my aunts and uncles turned up to talk us out of it. It started with: “You know better than this” and spiralled into shouting as we left. I went back the next day to pick up the rest of my stuff and knocked on the front door of the house I grew up in for the first time. The cold was immediate. I knew straight-away that I was not a part of the church any more. I was out. I miss my family every single day.

I still momentarily flinch when I come across someone or something the WBC would disapprove of. Two men kissing on the street, a drag queen – anything that takes me back to what I believed for so long. I still encounter those old feelings and then I have to process it: “That’s what the old me would have felt” – it’s an ongoing process of deep deprogramming.

I see the world in split screen now. I remember feeling like we at WBC were a persecuted minority, triumphant in the face of evil people “worshipping the dead” as we picketed funerals or rejoiced at the destruction of the Twin Towers. But beside that memory is the one where I weep thinking about how callous and unmerciful I was to so many people who’d just lost a son or a daughter. I’m ashamed of that now, and it’s still really difficult to think about the harm I caused. It’s overwhelming sometimes.

 ‘By denying who I really was, I was slowly killing myself’: Deborah Feldman. Photograph: Steffen Roth for the Observer
The Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism I was born into was founded by Holocaust survivors who wanted to reinvent the Eastern European shtetl in America. Before I learned anything else, I learned the Holocaust had happened because Jews were bad and that the way we lived was different from the rest of the world because if we didn’t, the Holocaust would happen to us again.

Growing up in such a strict community meant we had no contact with the outside world. It still amazes me to think that was and is possible in the Bronx. The only time I’d get a glimpse was if I were ill. Tonsillitis meant a car journey to the doctor, where I’d watch, from the window, people living their lives freely.

I hit my teens and figured out what I needed to do to survive in the community. I’d drawn the wrong sort of attention to myself as a young girl. I’d been rebellious. Asking “why?” was forbidden and I’d be yelled at, ostracised; kids stopped talking to me at school. Women and girls belonged in the kitchen, my grandfather often reminded me. Soon I figured out how to live a double life: I had the version of me that fitted in with the community, and then I had my interior life that no one knew about. As soon as I pretended I was going along with it all, things got easier for me. I got married to someone from the sect when I was 17 and had my son. The most difficult thing was the constant lying. By denying who I really was, I was slowly killing myself.

I lived a double life: I had the version of me that fitted in with the community, and then I had my interior life
Leaving wasn’t about courage or strength for me. It was all much more practical than I thought it would be. Some of it was perhaps biological: as soon as my son was born I had this driving instinct to get him out. It took three years of planning and at the very end, when I had everything lined up – money in the bank, a small network of friends on the outside, a divorce lawyer working on the custody of my son – I still couldn’t quite cross the boundary. I was too scared.

What happened next was fate. I was in a car accident I shouldn’t have survived and I walked away without a scratch. As I got out of the car, the Jewish girl in me thought: “God is punishing me and telling me I shouldn’t go”, but as I walked away from the wreck, I thought: “Hang on, if I can survive this, I can survive leaving.”

I have no contact with my family now. The backlash was immense. My family wrote me threatening letters, and later on when I wrote a book about my experiences, the community said I was a hysteric, a liar. I don’t know that I’ll ever be fully deprogrammed. I didn’t just leave a religion, I left a sect that was based on inherited trauma and incorporated antisemitism. Many of the [antisemitic] ideas my grandparents heard in Europe got integrated into their beliefs about themselves and then passed on to their children. I grew up believing we were genetically inferior. They didn’t see that as a bad thing – they’d sit me down and explain: “We’re special to God. Our souls are special, but our genes are inferior, just like they said about us.” How do you even begin to unstitch that?

 ‘There are vivid moments where I miss my mother. I can’t afford to get emotional about it’: Imad Iddine Habib. Photograph: Katherine Anne Rose for the Observer
I was born on a Friday at prayer time, which was seen as an auspicious sign in my community. Growing up in Morocco I was constantly told I was to become a religious scholar. My name is translated as “pillar of religion”. I was enrolled into a Salafi Koranic school at four, but I had trouble reading and reciting verses of the Koran, as I was so dyslexic. This was seen as a big disappointment in my family, so I learned most of the Koran by heart to save myself any grief. By the time I left the Koranic school at 13, I knew I didn’t believe.

Our lives were based around a single version of a much bigger religion. Disagreements were frowned upon. We weren’t to voice questions. I couldn’t understand why no one debated or discussed the opinion of the scholars and imams – we were expected to blindly follow. Many of the students from my school went to Afghanistan and Syria – that had been their life’s purpose, and though I was interested in Islam as a religion from an academic viewpoint, I knew I wasn’t a Muslim.

I was scared, but I also felt it was my duty
My faith finally ruptured at 14. I told my parents I didn’t believe, and I also came out as pansexual. I felt, and still feel, that I was looking at the bigger picture, but they weren’t open to it. I couldn’t be a part of a faith that kept changing the rules depending on the situation. My family’s reaction was typical: a lot of violence and threats initially, and when that didn’t work, my mum got “sick” for 40 days, saying I was being banished from heaven and making her suffer. I was resolute, so they kicked me out. I became homeless and I’ve not seen or heard from them since. In a way I feel I may have shut the emotion of losing my family away somewhere. I try not to feel. There are vivid moments where I miss my mother: her face, her cooking, knowing what she is thinking about, but I can’t afford to get emotional about it.

I moved from place to place and stayed with friends. I got an education: I have a baccalaureate in Islamic sciences and I then founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco. The resistance is small, but we have a voice. I have had to live in hiding and have received countless death threats. In Morocco, Islam is the state religion, and the state considers you a Muslim by default. You can be jailed for eating in public during Ramadan, so you can imagine what my future there looked like. There is a wide belief that all apostates should be killed.

I attended a public conference in 2013 and spoke out about my beliefs. I was scared, but I also felt it was my duty. I called Islam a virus, which I knew would be inflammatory. Secret services began investigating me and I heard that they contacted my family and questioned my father. I was asked to attend court. My father would later testify against me on the count of an apostasy charge. When it all got too heavy, I knew I had to come to England as a refugee and start over. Not long after I arrived here, I was sentenced to seven years in prison in absentia. I gave up everything and everyone I know, but I’m free.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/losing-my-religion-life-after-extreme-belief-faith

From Deprogramming to Thought Reform Consultation

Presentation by Carol Giambalvo; Discussants: Joseph Kelly, Patrick Ryan, Hana Whitfield

AFF Conference, Chicago, IL  November 1998

Deprogramming

Early on, according to what some "old-timers" have told us, groups such as the Children of God allowed parental access -- even visits to the group -- until a number of parents were successful at convincing their adult children to leave the group. Then the Groups began severely restricting parental access. 

In the mid-1970s parents began reporting their adult children's involvement in new religious (and some non-religious) groups that many call cults. They reported rapid personality changes and concerns that their loved ones were dropping out of school, shunning previous friends and family and devoting themselves full time to working for these strange new groups to which they pledged their total allegiance. Many parents concluded that their children had been brainwashed. 

Parents were doing what they could to rescue their children from what were perceived as dangerous situations. Through trial and error, the controversial process of deprogramming developed. In the 1970s it became the preferred means of rescuing a cult member, as to many it was perceived as the only way a cult member could leave a cult. As we witness today, this is a misperception as thousands of cult members walk away from cults annually. In fact, in very unofficial polls taken at conferences and AFF recovery workshops, the majority of people attending are walkaways. But at the time, families based their decisions on the prevailing information. And a good part of that decision was based on the fact that in some groups, members were zealously protected from parents, often having their names changed and moved from location to location. 

We must add here that not all deprogrammings were "rescue and hold" situations. There were some where the group member was free to leave at any time and there were some where ex-members sought voluntary deprogramming. 

But for our purpose today, and in our thinking, we will use the term deprogramming to mean an involuntary situation, exit counseling to mean a voluntary situation, and thought reform consultation to mean an entirely different approach and we will seek to explain the differences and the history. 

Media coverage -- even to some extent today -- hyped the drastic deprogramming approach and further spread the concept that it was parents' best, if not only, option. 

Deprogramming was controversial because it involved forcing a group member to listen to people relate information not available in the cults. Some state legislatures  passed conservatorship legislation to legalize the process, one of which was vetoed by the governor. Later the opposition to deprogramming and the recognition of the effectiveness of less restrictive alternatives grew. 

In deprogramming, group members were sometimes abducted from the street; although more commonly they were simply prevented from leaving their homes or a vacation cabin or motel. Deprogramming often succeeded in extricating the family member from the cult; nevertheless it failed more often than many realized and sometimes lawsuits were filed against parents and deprogrammers. In a few cases arrests and prosecution resulted. 

The actual process of a deprogramming, as we see it, differs a great deal from voluntary exit counseling. Some of the ideas about cults and brainwashing prevalent at the time contributed to that process. It was believed that the hold of the brainwashing over the cognitive processes of a cult member needed to be broken -- or "snapped" as some termed it -- by means that would shock or frighten the cultist into thinking again. For that reason in some cases cult leader's pictures were burned or there were highly confrontational interactions between deprogrammers and cultist. What was often sought was an emotional response to the information, the shock, the fear, and the confrontation. There are horror stories -- promoted most vehemently by the cults themselves -- about restraint, beatings, and even rape. And we have to admit that we have met former members who have related to us their deprogramming experience -- several of handcuffs, weapons wielded and sexual abuse. But thankfully, these are in the minority -- and in our minds, never justified. Nevertheless, deprogramming helped to free many individuals held captive to destructive cults at a time when other alternatives did not seem viable. 

Exit Counseling 

Gradually, not only did the understanding of the process of thought reform grow, but the voluntary approach of exit counseling proved to be effective -- and less risky psychologically as well as legally. A few individuals committed themselves to doing exit counseling and refused to do "involuntaries." 

Even within the exit counseling field, further branching off has occurred. Some tend to be technique-oriented and/or advance a particular religious perspective. Others are information oriented. They introduce themselves as individuals with important information. Although they may have a preference regarding how the group member chooses to respond to that information, they take pains to avoid manipulating the group member. 

One model for the process is described in the book Exit Counseling: A Family Intervention. The primary difference in exit counseling is its voluntary nature but there are other differences as well. Much more emphasis is placed on assessment, using a pre-intervention interview and information form that enables the exit counselor to determine the concerns specific to the family and the group member and to weed out interventions wanted by families for an agenda not appropriate to the undertaking of a serious intervention in an individual's life; for example, Johnny is about to marry someone in the group of a different race or culture or Johnny isn't attending xyz church any longer. These examples, by the way, are few and far between. For the majority of the time we see responsible families seeking help for legitimate concerns. We need, however, to be careful that we are not placing those concerns there or exaggerating them. There are some situations where an intervention is not possible under the present conditions, for example the family has no access to the group member. Some families are referred to knowledgeable mental health professionals for some work prior to planning an intervention. Emphasis is placed on family communications with the group member and education about the specific group, what it teaches, what thought reform is and how it works, and the recovery process. 

The process itself differs from deprogramming, in our opinion, because it is a much more respectful approach, it is non-confrontational, the exit counselors have to prove their credibility, there is much more interaction with the information and it seeks a primary cognitive rather than a primary emotional response. Very seldom is a visible "snapping" moment seen -- but a gradual increase in interest, interaction, and feedback with the information -- often accompanied with an increase of interest in and interaction with the family. 

Let me also say here that exit counselors realize that an intervention is only the first step. If the person decides to leave the group there is a long road to recovery, that can take leaps and bounds if the individual is afforded the opportunity to attend Wellspring, but they need much more emotional, psychological and cognitive support and if there is no system set up for that support, it may be unethical to do an intervention. 

Thought Reform Consultation 

In the 1980s many attempts were made by individuals doing interventions to get together to find ways to improve our profession and ourselves. But a difficulty arose in the definition of exit counseling and deprogramming. Some helping organizations at the time contributed to that confusion by maintaining a position that there were voluntary and involuntary exit counseling and voluntary and involuntary deprogramming. As a result, without the ability to establish a clear-cut definition, at those meetings people who called themselves exit counselors but were doing involuntary deprogramming could not be excluded and our work to establish ethical guidelines and a more professional approach spun its wheels, so to speak. A group of individuals who had committed themselves to voluntary interventions only began to meet regularly to share ideas and information and to develop Ethical Standards. We formed an organization of Thought Reform Consultants and eventually published our Ethical Standards. Those Ethical Standards were patterned after the Ethical Codes or Standards of the following organizations: 

• American Association for Marriage & Family Therapy
• National Association of Social Workers
• Standards for the Private Practice of Clinical Social Work
• American Psychiatric Association
• National Academy of Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselors

We worked diligently to combine those standards with some uniquely necessary to our profession. And we owe our gratitude to the following advisors for their professional support and encouragement: 

• Margaret Singer, Ph. D.
• Michael Langone, Ph. D.
• Herbert Rosedale, Esq.
• David Bardin, Esq. and Livia Bardin, M.S.W.
• Bill Goldberg, M.S.W. & Lorna Goldberg, M.S.W.
• Paul Martin, Ph. D.

Thought reform consultation involves much, much more family preparation. It is necessary for a 2-3 day, sometimes more, formal family preparation involving all members of the family team and all thought reform consultant team members. This formal preparation accomplishes the following: 

• The family team experiences how they work together under pressure and how the thought reform consultants work together
• Enables the thought reform consulting team to observe how the family works together under pressure and who may or may not be appropriate for major roles in the intervention
• Improves family communication with the group member
• Enables the family to understand the culture of the group, its teachings and how thought reform techniques impact the group member
• Prepares the family for how to communicate in the intervention and what practical arrangements should be made
• Emphasizes the recovery process and their responsibility in it
• Emphasizes the seriousness of an intervention and all its repercussions
• Facilitates the family in making a fully informed decision about doing an intervention

Thought reform consultation involves even more assessment, as you see -- and places much more responsibility on the family. They realize that a team is not just going to come in and perform some magical process and things will forever be okay. 

In both exit counseling and thought reform consulting, the purpose of the intervention is not to get someone out of a cult. While that may be a desired outcome, the purpose is to give the group member the information that enables them to make a fully informed choice.