Articles and Conference Reports for ICSA E-Newsletter

• Atención e Investigación de Socioadicciones (AIS) & Desenvolupament Communitari (DC). Grupos de Manipulación Psicológica en Cataluña: Situación y Conceptos

• Almendros, Carmen; Carrobles, Jose; Langone, Michael; & Kropveld, Michael. Book of Abstracts: Madrid Conference – 2005

• Furnari, Leona. Born or Raised in Closed, High-Demand Groups: Developmental Considerations

• Garden, Mary. The Potential for Abuse in the Guru-Disciple Relationship

• Langone, Michael D. Academic Disputes and Dialogue Collection: Preface

• Tourish, Dennis. Cultic Dimensions of the London 7/21 Bombings
   

Latest Issue of Cultic Studies Review

Education and Research News

• Looking for Participants in Study on Gender, Sex, and Family in Cults

• Program at the Ninth European Congress on Psychology

• Leadership Conference

• Cuban Psychology Conference

• Hal Mansfield

• Dennis Tourish

• Chatauqua Presentation

• Skeptical Inquire Book Review of Janja Lalich Book

• Rabbi A. James Rudin to Head AJC Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts

• Dana Wehle

• Discovering Psychology by Dr. Philip Zimbardo Now Online / Steve Hassan Interviewed

• News from Ukraine

• News from Info-Cult/Info-Secte

• Premier Ministre, Circulaire / Circular from the Prime Minister’s Office 

• Nouveau Président de la MIVILUDES / New President of French Organization, MIVILUDES

• New Degree Program at French University

• RIP: Winifred Swope

Books, Articles, and Web Sites Brought to Our Attention

• New Journal: Social Influence

• New Book by Ron Enroth

• Report on Growing Up in Isolated Communities

• Psychiatric Times article on Falun Gong

• Of Note from Nova Religio

• From Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

• New Books of Interest from Equinox Publishing (www.equinoxpub.com)

• New Journals from Equinox Publishing

• Ecstatic Stigmatics and Holy Anorexics: Medieval and Contemporary

• Sathya Sai Baba Bibliography

• New Book: Psychotherapy and Religion

• Social and Political Attitudes of New Age Followers

• Assessing the Vatican Assessment of the New Age

• New Religious Movements and the Fear of Crime

• Review of BBC Documentary on Propaganda

• Medication and PTSD

• New Research on Placebo Effect Finds Physiological Effects

• “Bad Karma” Article in New Humanist

• Info-Cult/Info-Secte New Acquisitions

• Moving On Criticizes James Chancellor

• Scales Measuring Religious Belief and Behavior

Group News

• ISKCON Bankruptcy Ruling

• Online Timeline of ISKCON (Hare Krishna) Child Abuse Lawsuit

• Nebraska Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Metabolic Screening

• Mormons - APA Apologizes for “Brainwashing” Characterization

• Colonia Dignitdad - Book Details Crimes

• State Seizes Funds

• Buildings Disappear in Wake of Judgment

• AG Says He Can’t Prosecute Polygamy

• Another Faith Healing Death

• Girl Removed from Guru

• How Abductees Were Conditioned to Become Killers

• Guru Sentenced to Three Years for Manipulating Troubled People

• Leader Wins Defamation Decision

• Narconon Buys Hospital

• School’s Superintendent Asks Scientologists for Help

• Fear of Mass Deaths in Uganda

• University of Bridgeport Reaccredited

• Opus Dei 1950 Constitution Now Available

Name Change Reminder: ICSA (Formerly AFF)

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Books, Articles, and Web Sites Brought to Our Attention

New Journal: Social Influence

Social Influence, New for 2006. Editor: Anthony Pratkanis, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA.  Publication Details: Volume 1, 2006, 4 issues per annum. ISSN Print 1553-4510  ISSN Online 1553-4529. 2006 Subscription Rates: Institutional: US$220/£125; Individual: S$99/£57

Report on Growing Up in Isolated Communities

Friedrich Griess, with assistance from Mireille Degen, has translated into English a report from the Norwegian organization Redd Barna (“Save the Children”).  The introduction to the report states:

A couple of years ago, Save the Children ran a project called "Go On", where young people who had broken out from isolated religious faith communities received offers of help. The project revealed that we in Norway had little knowledge about children growing up in this type of faith community. The report “Regardless of faith” is a continuation of this work thanks to which people who grew up in isolated faith communities were able to tell their stories.

All the stories are based on growing up in Christian free-church communities, communities which traditionally are part of the Norwegian cultural and religious reality. It is important for Save the Children to emphasise that their choice of the focus is not, in any way meant to criticise religion. We want to attract attention to the limitations and violations of the law which often characterise growing up when communities hinder free thought and opinion and withdraw from the natural environment. The independent right of children to freedom of speech and religion must be discussed and assessed against the freedom of parents to decide for them, and their rights and duty to accompany and set limits for their children. History tells us that these isolated environments greatly hinder the possibility of securing children’s rights regarding freedom of thought, belief and speech, as stated in the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, and in Norwegian law. For “Save the Children”, an organisation which wishes to protect children’s rights, this is a reason for serious concern. The rights of children must also be considered in the light of the schooling available to children living and growing up in faith communities, schooling which is based on these communities’ biased view of the world,

We thank “Health and Rehabilitation” for their economic support of the project. We thank the witnesses for their clarity, honesty and courage. These case histories give us increased insight on childhood in isolated environments. This is important knowledge.

We hope that this report and the witnesses’ clear opinions and experience will create a basis for reflection and discussion.

Gro Brækken

Secretary General

March 2005

http://www.reddbarna.no/default.asp?FILE=items/2210/109/DOCS-34940-v1-Til%20_tross_for_tro.pdf
 

New Book by Ron Enroth

Enroth, Ronald (Ed.). (2005). A guide to new religious movements. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity press. ISBN: 0808-2381-6.  Includes chapters on what is a new religious movement, Jehovah’s Witnesses, yoga and Hinduism, Unification Church, Latter-day Saints, astral religion and the new age, Tibetan Buddhism, neopaganism, Baha’I, the Nation of Islam, and evaluating new religious movements.

Psychiatric Times article on Falun Gong

Stone, Alan A. (2005, May). The China psychiatry crisis: Following up on the plight of the Falun Gong.  Psychiatric Times, 22(6).

Of Note from Nova Religio

Ashcraft, W. Michael. (2005). Field notes: A history of the study of new religious movements. Nova Religio, 9(1), 93-105.

The study of New Religious Movements (NRMs) has evolved over the last thirty to forty years by both design and chance. Beginning in the 1970s, scholars interested in NRMs studied specific groups, read one another's work, and ultimately met one another to fashion a "coalition of the mind," or scholarly yet interdisciplinary field of study, focused upon NRMs. The story of this development largely depends on the accounts provided by NRM scholars in interviews conducted by the author.

Dorman, Benjamin. (2005). Pana Wave: The new Aum Shinrikyô or another moral panic? Nova Religio, 8(3), 83-103.

Since the Aum Shinrikyô affair of 1995, the Japanese authorities have been quick to demonstrate that they are firmly in control in situations involving religious groups that espouse millennial ideas, or other groups rumored to be acting against social norms. In April 2003 the Japanese mass media began reporting intensely on a virtually unknown new religious movement named Pana Wave. A massive police investigation was launched immediately on the premise that the group appeared to resemble Aum Shinrikyô in its early days. Although the press coverage and police involvement again raised the public's fears over dangerous religious groups, the media dropped the story quickly after the investigation yielded little more than vehicle violations. The Pana Wave affair represents a post-Aum Shinrikyô moral panic in which the reaction to the perceived threat far outweighed the reality of the situation.

Robbins, Thomas. (2005). Perspective: New religions and alternative religions. Nova Religio, 8(3), 104-111.

A degree of incoherence has marked discourse about "new religions." This is partly related to the tendency to equate "new religions" with "alternative religions," as if they were identical phenomena. Intrinsic conceptions of "new religious movements" emphasize internal properties such as first generation membership. Extrinsic, relational conceptions shift the focus to the group's lack of alignment with dominant sociocultural patterns. But some "misaligned" groups may not be chronologically "new," while some "new" groups may actually be well aligned. Lack of alignment should be treated as the hallmark of "alternative religions," which may or may not be (intrinsically defined) "new religions." However, in the relatively tolerant United States, persisting religions tend to become aligned quickly, such that it is mainly organizationally new religions which lack alignment.

Salter, Richard. (2005). Sources and Chronology in Rastafari Origins. . Nova Religio, 9(1), 5-31.

Rastafari began in Jamaica in the 1930s and has since spread to many other countries. As it spread it drew on local sources and traditions to develop in distinctive new ways. Though most scholarship on Rastafari deals specifically with Jamaican forms of the religion, it often does so without recognizing the variety of local histories and forms that the movement actually takes. Consequently there has been an ongoing trend for Jamaican Rastafari to be normative for the movement as a whole, thus homogenizing what is really a diverse movement. This arti-cle explores the history and sources for a local form of Rastafari, the Dreads, in the eastern Caribbean island of Dominca. Particular attention is paid to how the Dreads formed, what their relationship with other, more normative, forms of Rastafari has been, and how they continue to negotiate a separate identity for themselves within the movement.

Shepherd, Gary, & Shepherd, Gordon. (2005). Accommodation and reformation in The Family/Children of God. Nova Religio, 9(1), 67-92.

This article presents a case study analysis of recent institutional changes occurring in The Family, a well-known international movement originally called The Children of God. The Family is now flourishing well into its third generation in spite of intense external opposition that portrays it as an insidious cult. During the past ten years since the death of its founder, David Berg, The Family has dramatically changed many of its organizational modes of operation. These new developments have rational democratizing, and worldly accommodation implications that enhance organizational viability and prospects for success, while simultaneously threatening the group's internal standards and moral identity. Family leadership has imposed several retrenchment campaigns on Family homes worldwide to offset what are seen as the corrupting consequences of too much worldly accommodation. Tensions generated by these changes and reactions to them are analyzed in this article within sociological models of religious accommodation. The data for this article were obtained from extensive interviews with Family co-leaders Maria and Peter, and from close readings of key Family documents.

Walliss, John. (2005). Making sense of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God.  Nova Religio, 9(1), 49-66.

In March 2000, approximately 540 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God (MRTCG) died in what initially appeared to be collective suicide. Subsequent police investigations, however, discovered the bodies of an additional 240 members who showed signs of having met a violent end prior to the apparent suicide. As well as discussing the history and apocalyptic beliefs of the MRTCG, in this article I focus particularly on the various theories that have been put forward to account for the murder-suicides. In doing so, I argue that although various facile similarities may be drawn between the MRTCG and other recent examples of "cult suicides," the MRTCG traversed a radically different "apocalyptic trajectory" prior to its denouement than its most obvious contemporaries. In particular, I will highlight the role of internal factors within the MRTCG in precipitating the deaths.

Book Reviews (Vol. 9, Number 1)

• Alternative Religions: A Sociological Introduction – by Stephen J. Hung

• Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion – by David H. Brown

• Cults, Religion and Violence – by David G. Bromley & J. Gordon Melton

• The Rise and Fall of Synanon: A California Utopia – by Rod Janzen

• Aliens Adored: Raël’s UFO Religion – by Susan Palmer

• The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth Century America – by Sarah Barringer Gordon

• Doomsday Prophecies: A Complete Guide to the End of the World – by James Lewis

• Keepers of The Flame: Interviews With Elders of Traditional Witchcraft in America – by Morganna Davies & Aradia Lynch

• Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism – by Mattias Gardell

• Sexuality and the World’s Religions – by David W. Machacek & Melissa M. Wilcox

• The Hare Krishna Movement: The Postcharismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant – by Edwin Bryant & Maria L. Ekstrand

• Christian Millenarianism: From the Early Church to Waco – by Stephen Hunt & David Martin

Book Reviews (Vol. 8, Number 3)

• The End time Family: Children of God – by William Sims Bainbridge

• Understanding New Religious Movements – by John A. Saliba

• Seventh-day Adventism in Crisis: Gender and Sectarian Change in an Emerging Religion – by Laura L. Vance

• Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion – by Hugh B. Urban

• Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition – by Yvonne P. Chireau

From Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

Bierman, Alex. (2005). The effects of childhood maltreatment on adult religiosity and spirituality: Rejecting God the Father because of abusive fathers? Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 44(3), 349-359.

Current theories can support conflicting accounts of the effects of childhood maltreatment on adult religiosity. However, in the relevant empirical research there are few examples of probability sampling or a focus on nonsexual forms of abuse. It is also uncommon to control for risk factors for abuse, which may themselves also affect adult religiosity. This study attempts to overcome some of these limitations by examining the effects of physical and emotional abuse on adult religiosity and spirituality in a U.S. probability sample of adults at midlife. Neither maltreatment from mothers nor from outside the family has an effect on religiosity, but abuse committed by fathers is related to decreases in religiosity, and abuse from outside the immediate family is related to increases in self-ratings of spirituality. Possible explanation for these results may be related to the image of God as father, which leads victims of abusive fathers to distance themselves from religion.

Lu, Yufeng. (2005). Entrepreneurial logics and the evolution of Falun gong. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 44(2), 173-185.

This article documents the shift of Falun Gong from a primarily secular healing system to a new religion centering on salvation. Emerging as a qigong organization in China in the early 1990s that provided immediate healing treatments to practitioners, Falun Gong eventually developed into a salvation-oriented religious firm. Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, played a vital role in promoting the movement's transition. Facing the competitive qigong market, Mr. Li decided to differentiate Falun Gong from other competing qigong movements by offering a theory about salvation. He also adopted other organizational and doctrinal mechanisms that are useful in sustaining practitioners and preventing potential schisms. These strategies partly accounted for the growth of Falun Gong in the 1990s. This case study indicates that the religious economy model is helpful in understanding the evolution of Falun Gong, a new religion in contemporary China.

Book Review: Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet (Edited by Lorne L. Dawson & Douglas E. Cowan).  Reviewed by Richard Flory.  In Vol. 44, No. 3, p. 364.

New Books of Interest from Equinox Publishing

• Von Stuckrad, Kocku. (2005). History of Western astrology. London: Equinox.

• Von Stuckrad. (2005). Western esotericism: A brief history of secret knowledge. London: Equinox.

• O’Leary, Stephen, & McGhee, Glenn (Eds.). (2005). War in heaven / heaven on Earth: Theories of the apocalyptic. London: Equinox.

• Karaflogka, Anastasia. (2005). E-religion: A critical appraisal of religious discourse on the World Wide Web. London: Equinox.

New Journals from Equinox Publishing

• Fieldwork in Religion.  Editors: Christopher Partridge and Ron Geaves. Reviews Editor: George Chryssides. ISSN 1743-0615 (print); ISSN 1743-0623 (online). 3 issues/year. Individual rate $80.00  “. . . a new, peer reviewed, interdisciplinary journal seeking engagement between scholars carrying out empirical research in religion. . . A further important aim of the journal will be to encourage the discussion of methodology in fieldwork either through discrete articles on issues of methodology or by publishing fieldwork case studies that include methodological challenges and the impact of methodology on the results of empirical research.”

• Implicit Religion.  Edited by Edward Bailey.  ISSN 1476-8690 (print); ISSN 1743-1697 (online). 3 issues/year. Individual rate $65.00  “Implicit religion refers to those aspects of ordinary life which seem to contain an inherently religious element within them—whether or not they are expressed in ways traditionally described as ‘religious.’”

Ecstatic Stigmatics and Holy Anorexics: Medieval and Contemporary

This paper by Sharon Kalyman Farber, Ph.D., B.C.D., was originally published in Journal of Psychohistory, 31(2), 2003, 182-204. It is also available at www.psychematters.com (click on papers and scroll down to Dr. Farber’s name). Dr. Farber is the author of: When the Body is the Target: Self-Harm, Pain, and Traumatic Attachments.  As has been shown and explained, the stigmata and other mortifications of the flesh can serve as survival tools for someone who has been severely traumatized, devout Christian or unbeliever alike. When Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed, this nonreligious woman came to be regarded by her admirers as a popular saint who wanted nothing more than to help and serve others. Despite her wealth, she became a waif in the popular imagination, and like many others who suffered great psychic pain, she too inflicted further pain and suffering on herself through starving herself, bingeing and purging, and cutting herself. This suffering was her visible stigmata, inspiring great popular devotion. When she died, millions cried, carrying candles in the streets as they listened to Elton John’s song to this suffering woman whose light flickered “like a candle in the wind”.  

Sathya Sai Baba Bibliography

Brian Steel has informed us that he has posted an Annotated Working Bibliography for Research on Sathya Sai Baba, in Three Parts.

New Book: Psychotherapy and Religion

Jason Aronson Publishers, Inc. (A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.) has announced this new book, edited by Marcella Bakur Weiner, Paul C. Cooper, and Claude Barbre.  Chapter titles include: The Spiritual Self in Psychoanalytic Therapy; Buddhism and Psychoanalysis; Psychotherapy and the Sacred; Sufi Meditations on Psychotherapy; A Christian Self Psychological Perspective.

Social and Political Attitudes of New Age Followers

Hollinger, Franz. (2004). Does the counter-cultural character of new age persist? Investigating social and political attitudes of new age followers. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 19(3), 289-309.  From its beginnings in the 1960s up to the present, the New Age movement has undergone considerable change. Originally, it was a counter-cultural movement, interacting with other counter-cultural movements of that time, such as the ecology, hippie, and commune movements. During the last decades, spiritual and esoteric methods have been popularized and commercialized by an expanding market of literature and workshops. This has made New Age a socially accepted phenomenon and it has thus lost much of its anti-modernist and culture-critical character. In this article, I will show by means of quantitative empirical analyses that in spite of the transformations, the affinity between New Age activism and culture-critical attitudes persists to a certain degree. This is particularly the case for persons aiming at self-perfection by means of spiritual exercises and alternative health methods. Among persons who are primarily interested in esoteric methods, such as astrology and Tarot cards, hedonistic and authoritarian attitudes are, however, more widespread.

Assessing the Vatican Assessment of the New Age

Dinges, William. (2004). The new (old) age movement: Assessing a Vatican assessment.  Journal of Contemporary Religion, 19(3), 273-288. This article examines the recent Vatican document "Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the 'New Age' ". This official Catholic response to a diverse and polycentric religio-spiritual phenomenon reveals problematic conditions and core institutional concerns surrounding religion in the culture of postmodernity. These concerns--which are both cause and effect of the diffusion of Catholic identity--include pollution motifs, the impact of relativism, pluralism, privatized religiosity, and waning institutional control of religious symbols. Attention is also directed to the efficacy of doctrinal formulations as a boundary maintenance mechanism and to the way in which the Vatican response to the New Age movement exemplifies church/sect dynamics within contemporary Catholicism.

New Religious Movements and the Fear of Crime

Possamai, Adam, & Lee, Murray. New Religious Movements and the Fear of Crime.  Journal of Contemporary Religion, 19(3), 337-352. Anti-cult movements have had a significant influence on the creation of the 2001 Anti-Cult Law in France. For the first time, a state apparatus has been put into place against new forms of religion with the possible consequences of limiting religious freedom and tolerance in France. Even though the socio-political situation is different in Australia, the French case might serve as a platform for the anti-cult network to pursue a strict governance of cults via state agencies. By bringing a theory of the fear of crime to the cult/anti-cult debate, this article hopes to shed more light on this issue.

Review of BBC Documentary on Propaganda

Mandell, Charlie.  (2005, March 16).  Engineering reality: A century of self.  Get Underground.  The psychological methods for understanding and controlling the masses is the meat of what is explored in the four-part BBC documentary "Century of Self". Directed and produced in 2003 by filmmaker Adam Curtis, the film traces the emergence of Freudian psychoanalysis and the expanding role psychoanalysis played in American propaganda throughout the 20th Century.  Freud’s revelations in psychology provided the tools for American propagandists to effectively mold American culture into the world’s dominant culture. While "Century" pays Freud his due, he plays only a supporting role. The star of the documentary is Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays, who used Freud's psychological analysis in service to propaganda, ultimately fathering the field of public relations and becoming a chief architect of how we Americans perceive ourselves and the world around us. 

Medication and PTSD

Begley, Sharon. (2005, August 19). A spotless mind may ease suffering, but erase identity.  Science Journal.  “Recalling a traumatic memory, scientists now think, does something even worse than trigger the disabling physiological response the woman suffered: It "reconsolidates" the memory, wiring it more strongly into the mind.  Emerging evidence that remembering a trauma strengthens that memory is inspiring controversial studies in which people take a drug that may block memory reconsolidation, leaving the memory intact but weakened, and extinguishing the emotion associated with it. That raises a troubling question: Will the drug rob people of an essential, even defining, aspect of their selves?” 

New Research on Placebo Effect Finds Physiological Effects

Cowen, Robert C. (2005, August 31). Science plumbs placebo effect. Christian Science Monitor (in “Science Notes: An Occasional Column”).  “When an inert placebo acts like a drug, is it just a psychological illusion? Or is it a real biological effect? Research reported last week suggests that it's both. The mere belief that they had received a pain killer was enough to release the brain's natural painkilling endorphins in the patients tested, scientists say.”  See Aug 24 study in Journal of Neuroscience by Jon-Kar Zubieta et al.

“Bad Karma” Article in New Humanist

Garden, Mary. (2005, July). Bad karma. New Humanist. Article on child abuse in ISKCON.

Info-Cult/Info-Secte New Acquisitions

The most recent (June 2005) acquisitions can be found at: NEW ACQUISITIONS
For an integrated list of recent and past acquisitions please go to: SELECTED HOLDINGS

Les acquisitions les plus récentes (Juin 2005) se retrouvent à la page suivante: NOUVELLES ACQUISITIONS
Pour la liste complète et à jour de nos acquisitions, veuillez aller à: EXTRAITES DE LA COLLECTION

Moving On Criticizes James Chancellor

Moving On, a Web site of second-generation ex-members, has an interesting exchange of comments between former members of the family and Dr. James Chancellor, author of Life in the Family: An oral history of the Children of God. 

Scales Measuring Religious Belief and Behavior

The June, 2005 issue of Religion Watch includes a note on recent work with measures of religious belief and behavior: “As more social scientists study religion, there has been a significant growth of new scales and measurements to gauge religious beliefs and practices-- enough to make it difficult for scholars to communicate with each other. Science & Theology News (June) reports that it is especially in the burgeoning field exploring the connections between faith, spirituality and health where these “spiritual scales” have proliferated. Popular measures include the R-COPE scale, which gauges how patients use religious beliefs to cope with illness and trauma, the “daily spiritual experiences scale,“ which evaluates spirituality in people’s everyday life, and the new SpReuk scale, originating in strongly secular Eastern Germany and designed to capture non-theistic and non-institutional beliefs. These attempts to make the scales as broad as possible may not allow them to capture much of anything of value concerning how religion and spirituality impacts people’s lives, says Thomas Plante, who founded his own “Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire.“ The more scales will make it harder for researchers to share data effectively, and eventually they may be consolidated into a smaller number, writes Julia Keller. (Science & Theology News, P.O. Box 5065, Brentwood, TN  37024).”

Send information on noteworthy new books, articles, and Web sites  to Dr. Langone at mail@icsamail.com.

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Group News

ISKCON Bankruptcy Ruling

ISKCON (Hare Krishna) press release on the organization’s bankruptcy (includes statement from judge).

Online Timeline of ISKCON (Hare Krishna) Child Abuse Lawsuit

Nori Muster has posted a timeline of the Children of ISKCON vs. ISKCON lawsuit, which was recently settled.  It lists all the important dates and events, along with documentation.

Nebraska Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Metabolic Screening

The newsletter of Children’s Healthcare is a Legal Duty, Inc. (CHILD) reports in Number 1 of 2005:

On March 25, the Nebraska Supreme Court unanimously upheld a state law requiring metabolic screening without an exception for religious beliefs.  Douglas County v. Anaya, 269 Neb. 552, is the nation’s first reported court ruling on whether a state has the right to require a health screening over religious objections.

Nebraska requires all babies to be tested for six metabolic disorders within 48 hours after birth. Birth certificates are not issued until the tests have been done.

CHILD filed an amicus brief supporting the law.

Mormons - APA Apologizes for “Brainwashing” Characterization

The American Psychological Association (APA) has apologized to the Utah Psychological Association for saying the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) uses “brainwashing,” “mind control,” and “powerful psychological techniques” to retain members and motivate missionaries. The statements about the major Mormon denomination in the U.S. were made to promote the documentary, “Get the Fire,” screened at the annual APA meeting last year. (Carrie A. Moore, Deseret Morning News, Internet, 4/30/04)

Colonia Dignitdad - Book Details Crimes

A forthcoming book by two Chilean journalists, detailing the sexual abuse and other crimes of Paul Schafer’s paramilitary religious commune, Colonia Dignidad, indicates that the number of young victims may number in the thousands, including the children of the German immigrants who settled there as well as the children of local Chilean farming families who attended the settlement’s agricultural school. The book will also say that every branch of the Chilean state is “guilty of omission” in preventing Schaeffer’s arrest for four decades. Human rights groups say that the commune served as a secret torture and detention center during the Pinochet dictatorship. The book is to be published this fall by Random House Mondadori.

Author Claudio Salinas says commune members “were under a spell cast by a leader who is neither a psychopath nor brutish, but a charismatic man, and also a homosexual who only likes boys.”  Co-author Hans Stange says Schaeffer “did not allow the commune members to have a private life or freely associate among themselves, and they had to work between 12 and 14 hours a day without speaking with anyone.

The authors say the youngest members of the commune can’t go to school because most don’t speak Spanish, and won’t be able to find jobs since the only thing they’ve ever done is work on the farm. “They should be protected . . . [but] they don’t fit into our society or into modern-day German society.”  (Maria Cecelia Espinosa, Inter Press Service News Agency, Internet, 5/3/05)

State Seizes Funds

A Utah court has temporarily frozen $100 million in land, housing, and other assets of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) because of “sufficient evidence” that FLDS head Warren Jeffs, and several of his associates in a controlling trust, committed a breach of faith by selling property to church insiders at less than market value. The attorney general of Arizona, which is home to an FLDS community, called the ruling “a major step toward reducing the arbitrary power of Warren Jeffs and protecting the trust from his manipulation, liquidation [Jeff’s appears to be moving his headquarters settlement to Texas], and misuse.” (Robert Anglen, Arizona Republic, Internet, 5/28/05)

Buildings Disappear in Wake of Judgment

Two buildings in the adjoining Arizona and Utah communities of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have been dismantled and carted away in the wake of a Utah judge’s order to freeze the assets of the trust that controls most of the property and assets in the polygamous communities. (AP in KSL NewsRadio 1160, Internet, 6/2/05)

AG Says He Can’t Prosecute Polygamy

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says, “There’s no way we have the resources” to prosecute polygamy in Utah. The number of polygamists in the state, between 30,000 and 40,000, are too many to move against and put in jail, he explained. And the upshot, if the state were to act, he said, would be to leave 20,000 children without parents.

“Shurtleff’s comments seem particularly disingenuous in light of the fact that Utah has in the past found resources to create a porn czar, and regularly puts away people for significant periods of time for crimes as small as drug possession.” His claim that action against polygamists would put thousands of children on the welfare roles ignores the fact that many are already on welfare, fraudulently. (The Spectrum, So. Utah, Internet, 6/5/05)

Another Faith Healing Death

In the past three decades more than 300 children around the country have died from medical neglect motivated by religious beliefs, according to Dr. Seth M. Asser, a critical care pediatrician at the University of California San Diego who has studied the phenomenon. His comments come in the context of the case of Maleta and Dewayne Schmidt, members of the General Assembly and Church of the First Born, in Morgantown, IN, who were recently convicted of reckless homicide because they didn’t seeking medical help for their seriously ill newborn, but relied instead on faith healing.

In states like Ohio, the Schmidt’s would not have been indicted because religious based neglect that leads to death is exempt from prosecution. Even in Indiana, parents who shun medical treatment won’t be charged so long as the child survives, no matter the severity of the disability that remains.

Iowan Rita Swan, a former Christian Scientist who now heads Children’s Health Care is a Legal Duty, says she was taught as a child that adult diseases stemmed from parents’ sins. (Robert King, Indianapolis Star, 5/15/05)

Girl Removed from Guru

A former South African policeman, identified only as André, has told how he rescued a 16-year-old Warmbaths girl who ran away two years ago to be with Amadon, the Oregon-based head of the Living Life Fellowship (LLF). The law officer came forward in the wake of news reporting on the case of another South African girl, Diane McMillan, whom Amadon recently recruited over the internet and allegedly married when she arrived in the U.S.

The former policeman said he got no help from South African Interpol or the U.S. Embassy, but found an American policeman to assist him in confronting Amadon at his Oregon farm and threatening to arrest him for possession of pornography if he did not produce the girl. “She was definitely there against her will because, when we told her she had to come with us, she did not argue. Amadon gave us her passport, which he had kept. . . She had to have extensive counseling. . .  We found out that she had been sexually abused.”

Cult expert Luke Lamprecht describes LLF teachings as “idle ramblings” that appeal to teenage angst. “The girls who are lured would be white, achievers at school, very religious, and exceptionally bright—people looking for the meaning of life, and love. This guy (Amadon) provides it.” (Keshiefa Ajam, IA, Independent Online, in Johannesburg Star, Internet, 5/7/05)

How Abductees Were Conditioned to Become Killers

Forcing them to kill other abducted children, or be killed themselves, served effectively to gain the loyalty of thousands of young people kidnapped during the last 18 years by the Lord’s Resistance Army of Joseph Kony, in northern Uganda. The results of the LRA experience [detailed here through interviews with the victims and first hand observations] have been psychologically devastating and often physically ruinous. (Melanie Thernstrom, New York Times Magazine, Internet, 5/8/05)

Guru Sentenced to Three Years for Manipulating Troubled People

Arnaud Mussy, guru of the apocalyptic Néo-Phare cult, has been sentenced to three years in prison, under a law passed in 2001, for the physical and psychological subjection of several followers, one of whom committed suicide (while six others attempted suicide). The prosecution argues that the unrepentant Mussy’s control techniques interfered with his victims thought processes and altered their judgment. (Tageblatt, Luxembourg, Internet, 6/7/05)

Leader Wins Defamation Decision

Chino Shokokai, the parent organization of Panawave, and leader Yuko Chino, have been awarded two million yen by a Tokyo District Court that ruled the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshan had defamed Panawave by claiming the cult was to blame for a railway disaster in 1998. The magazine said it was only reporting what authorities said at the time. Panawave gained great attention when it traveled through central Japan last year “covering areas completely in white cloth as it crawled along.” (Mainichi Shimbun, Internet, 5/14/05)

Narconon Buys Hospital

The two-year-old Stone Hawk rehabilitation center, run by Scientology’s Narconon drug treatment program, near Battle Creek, MI, has purchased the bankrupt former Trillium Hospital, in Albion, for use as a 100-bed drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. The CEO of Foote Hospital, which earlier took over the failed Trillium, said Stone Hawk has “proven to be a tremendous neighbor and business partner in the Battle Creek community.” (Bradley Flory, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Internet, 4/26/05)

School’s Superintendent Asks Scientologists for Help

Speaking to a gathering convened by the Scientology-inspired Florida Citizens for Social Reform, at the church’s Fort Harrison Hotel, Pinellas County, FL, schools superintendent Clayton Wilcox called on Scientologists to join in helping the district solve its problems. Members of the local political elite who attended the meeting included three school board members, two state representatives, the sheriff, a judge, and a Clearwater City counselor.

The audience, mostly Scientologists, responded very favorably to Wilcox’s espousal of educational philosophies that seemed congruent with the teaching of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. (Thomas C. Tobin, St. Petersburg Times, 6/5/05)

Fear of Mass Deaths in Uganda

Police in Central Uganda have arrested “Prophet” Ssali [sic] Kilimba Mwaka, suspecting that he may be leading his following toward a disaster of the kind that occurred several years ago when almost 1,000 devotees of a doomsday cult in Kanungu, Northern Uganda, died. There were so many gathered at Kilimba’s healing center, a “Holy Rock” where he talks to God, said police, that “We could not wait for another Kanungu to happen, so we moved in and arrested him, and he is about to face the law.” (Herbert Ssempogo [sic], New Vision, Kampala, Internet, 5/5/05)

University of Bridgeport Reaccredited

The University of Bridgeport, which the Unification Church purchased more than a decade ago, has been reaccredited for five years by the Connecticut Board of Governors for Higher Education. Board member William Bevaqua said he was glad the University no longer depended on the Professor’s World Peace Academy, a church-connected organization through which it financed the university. “There were some suggestions,” Bevaqua said, “that there would be an attempt to influence curriculum and student mindset at the time. That obviously never materialized.” He also noted that the university is gaining support from the Bridgeport community. University president Neil Salonen says enrollment is up and the institution is operating in the black, thanks in part to donations from alumni. (Linda Conner Lambeck, Connecticut Post, Internet, 6/16/05)

Opus Dei 1950 Constitution Now Available

“The secret 1950 Constitutions of Opus Dei, erecting Opus Dei as a Secular Institute, have just recently been made public in the English-speaking world, both in Latin and in English. This document is important because the 1982 Statutes, which erected Opus Dei as a Personal Prelature, do not tell the whole story. The 1982 document was necessary because Opus Dei changed its canonical status from a Secular Institute to a Personal Prelature. . . the statutes do reveal a lot about Opus Dei which show they are much more focused in the direction of a "lay religious order" than being just like the lay faithful in the rest of the Church that they claim to be. Having both documents available for review lends a lot more credibility to the complaints of ex-members, which are denied categorically and with significant ambiguous nuancing by Opus Dei.”

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International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) is New Name for AFF (American Family Foundation)

In December 2004 AFF (American Family Foundation) officially changed its name to International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA).  The change of name had been discussed for many years.  Until a few years ago, those who felt that "AFF" had established an identity and was "known" had prevailed.  However, several factors tilted the name-change decision in favor of those wanting a new name.

First of all, the constituency of the organization has changed over the past 25 years.  Initially, nearly everybody who contacted AFF for help did so because he/she had a child involved in a cultic group.  AFF's unique role was to bring these parents into contact with helping professionals, increasing numbers of whom became interested in and/or involved with AFF as time passed.  By the early 1990s, however, the majority of people contacting the organization were former group members who had left their groups without an intervention ("walk-aways").  By the late 1990s, AFF and people associated with the organization had completed a sizeable body of research and an increasing number of researchers began to get involved with the organization.  Moreover, at some recent conferences 25% of the attendees were from outside the U.S.  Today, we speak of our four international constituencies of family members, former members, researchers, and helping professionals (including mental health, law, clergy, educators – some of whom are also former members of groups or family members of involved persons).  Consequently, although "family" may have reflected the organization's focus in its early years, it no longer is THE focus, though it still remains a vital concern.

Most people favored "cultic studies" because it expressed the organization's interest areas without being so narrow and precise as to exclude phenomena that might be similar but not equivalent to those associated with the admittedly vague concept "cult."  Many high-control or abusive groups from which people leave are not necessarily "cults" in a strict sense, but they may nonetheless resemble "cults" in some ways.  "Cultic studies" also gives us a link to the past, for our journal has used that term since 1984 and our main Web site has used the term for the past several years.

The growth of the Web has also influenced the name change in that nearly everybody who contacts the organization today found out about us through a Web search.  And these people rarely ever heard of "AFF" or "American Family Foundation."  Therefore, a name that more accurately reflects what concerns the organization will more effectively "welcome" Web surfers than a name that many people associate with right wing political organizations, despite the fact that AFF/ICSA has always included people from across the political and religious spectrums.

We have begun modifying our Web sites to reflect the name change, a project that will take some time to complete.  We hope you will be patient

About ICSA and Overview of the Issues

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Remember to Refresh Your Browser

When you visit a Web site, such as www.culticstudiesreview.org, you should refresh your browser because sometimes your Internet browser shows you the Web page from “memory,” so to speak.  The browser may have to be told to show any changes that have been made to the page since your last visit.  In Microsoft’s Internet Explorer you do this by clicking “View” at the top of your screen and then clicking “Refresh” in the drop-down menu that comes up.  Hence, if we send you a notice that there are new postings on www.culticstudiesreview.org, you may have to hit “Refresh” before your browser will show you the changes.

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The information in this newsletter is designed to keep subscribers abreast of developments in the field and does not reflect ICSA's, its directors', staff's, or advisors' positions on issues or endorsement of events or points of view described in the newsletter. News summaries are time-sensitive; readers should keep in mind that subsequent news stories or events could present different findings.