— Mr. Green links to this story on French efforts to ban a coercive cult: French court asked to ban Paris $cientology church. The French prosecutor pleads:
“The methods of $cientology, its deceitful promises of results which call for large donations of money, amount to a form of mental manipulation,” Forey told the court. “The aim of this organisation is purely commercial.”
I’m with the Froggies on this one,
and with the Germans who have already taken steps to circumscribe the $cienos in their country, much to the dismay of such Hollywood Giants of Intellect as Tom Cruise. Do-your-own-thing libertarians are generally wrong on the cult question, because they underestimate the power that coercive techniques have to rob individuals of the ability to make meaningful choices.
While the principle that “your freedom stops at the other guy’s nose” is valid, the question is where the nose is located and what it takes to encroach upon it. If I can put you in a situtation where I can control all of your social contacts and all the information you get, and I can systematically break down the wall of privacy around your thought process, and I can punish and reward you what you think, I can make you act as I see fit.
During the Korean War, the Chinese Communists developed these techiques and successfully used them to make POW’s denounce the United States (see Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism by Robert Lifton.)
$cieno and other cults, such as the Moonies, the Transcendal Meditationists, and the Boston Movement have adapted and improved on Chinese methods to make robots of thousands of followers world-wide. Organizations that use coercive practices intended to deprive people of the ability to make free choices should be banned or controlled, but it’s hard to draw a line between them and legitimate religious and social and political groups. But the law needs to evolve in this direction so that we aren’t put off of doing what’s necessary in a free society because it’s difficult. For information on cults and anti-cult activities, see The American Family Foundation’s website or read Steve Hassan or Margaret Singer or former Marxist-Feminist cult member Janja Lalich.
Making fun of the $cienos is a good start, but they’ve proven themselves so vicious and destructive over the years, that we can’t stop there. Judicious application of the RICO laws may be the key to controlling them in the USA. One of the heroes of anti-cult litigation is Ford Greene, Esq. of San Anselmo, CA, who has been known to de-program cult followers in the courtroom. Greene argues that cults violate the establishment clause by taking control of their victims’ value systems.
By the way, just by stating these opinions, I’ve opened the door to harassment by $cieno attorneys, who sued one anti-cult organization 50 times in order to drive it into bankruptcy; they then bought the organization’s name from the BK court and have subsequently used it to attract new customers. This is a deceptive technique. They’ve also sued Greene simply for having the gall to criticize them, and they kidnapped the children of former member Dennis Ehrlich when he went public with some of their secret training manuals; they got away with it, since his ex-wife was a member. The the San Diego DA then took his driver’s license away for nonpayment of child support for a child he wasn’t allowed to see. $cienos are evil bastards, differing from Al Qaida only on the finer points.
Putting the word “church” in its name shouldn’t allow the Mafia to run roughshod over the law.
Update: of particular interest are Hassan’s comments on Sept. 11:
The terrorists who rammed passenger jets into the Pentagon and World Trade Center last week displayed behaviors that are reminiscent of cult members and may have been under the influence of destructive mind control when committing their acts, according to a leading cult expert.
“Terrorist cult organizations apparently employ many of the same mind control techniques used by such destructive groups as Scientology,” says Steven Hassan, director of the Freedom of Mind Resource Center in Somerville, Massachusetts. “These include isolation, hypnosis, sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation and the programming of phobias in the minds of members.
“The government and the public may think of the terrorists as radical extremists who were motivated by an intense and driving hatred of America – one cultivated by the militant Muslim leader Osama bin Laden. But there is evidence that at least some of the terrorists underwent a ‘radical transformation’ when they were recruited and were probably manipulated in ways that they were not aware of.”
Why do they hate us? They’re essentially forced to.