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Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field

1st Edition

Edited by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins

Misunderstanding Cults provides a uniquely balanced contribution to what has become a highly polarized area of study. Working towards a moderate ‘third path’ in the heated debate over new religious movements (NRMs) or cults, this collection includes contributions both from scholars who have been characterized as ‘anticult’ and from those characterized as ‘cult apologists.’ The study incorporates diverse viewpoints as well as a variety of theoretical and methodological orientations, with the stated goal of depolarizing the discussion over alternative religious movements. A large portion of the book focuses explicitly on the issue of scholarly objectivity and the danger of partisanship in the study of cults. The collection also includes contributions on the controversial and much misunderstood topic of brainwashing, as well as discussions of cult violence, child rearing within unconventional religious movements, and the conflicts between NRMs and their critics. Thorough and wide-ranging, this is the first study of new religious movements to address the main points of controversy within the field while attempting to find a middle ground between opposing camps of scholarship.

About the Authors

Benjamin Zablocki is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University.

Thomas Robbins is an independent scholar and lives in Rochester, Minnesota.

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Series: Heritage Paperback: 538 pages Publisher: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division; 1 edition (December 1, 2001) Language: English ISBN-10: 0802081886 ISBN-13: 978-0802081889

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Contents

Preface ix Caveat xiii

Introduction: Finding a Middle Ground in a Polarized Scholarly Arena 3 Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins

PART ONE: HOW OBJECTIVE ARE THE SCHOLARS?

1 ‘O Truant Muse’: Collaborationism and Research Integrity 35 Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi

2 Balance and Fairness in the Study of Alternative Religions 71 Thomas Robbins

3 Caught Up in the Cult Wars: Confessions of a Canadian Researcher 99 Susan J. Palmer

4 Pitfalls in the Sociological Study of Cults 123 Janja Lalich

PART TWO: HOW CONSTRAINED ARE THE PARTICIPANTS?

5 Towards a Demystified and Disinterested Scientific Theory of Brainwashing 159 Benjamin Zablocki

6 Tactical Ambiguity and Brainwashing Formulations: Science or Pseudo Science 215 Dick Anthony

7 A Tale of Two Theories: Brainwashing and Conversion as Competing Political Narratives 318 David Bromley

8 Brainwashing Programs in The Family/Children of God and Scientology 349 Stephen A. Kent

9 Raising Lazarus: A Methodological Critique of Stephen Kent’s Revival of the Brainwashing Model 379 Lorne L. Dawson

10 Compelling Evidence: A Rejoinder to Lorne Dawson’s Chapter 401 Stephen A. Kent

PART THREE: HOW CONCERNED SHOULD SOCIETY BE?

11 Child-Rearing Issues in Totalist Groups 415 Amy Siskind

12 Contested Narratives: A Case Study of the Conflict Between a New Religious Movement and Its Critics 452 Julius H. Rubin

13 The Roots of Religious Violence in America 478 Jeffrey Kaplan

Appendix 515

Contributors 521

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Contributors

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi received a PhD in clinical psychology from Michigan State University in 1970, and since then has held clinical, research, and teaching positions in academic institutions in the United States, Europe, and Israel. He is currently professor of psychology at the University of Haifa. Among his best-known publications are Despair and Deliverance (1992), The Psychology of Religious Behaviour, Belief, and Experience (1997), and the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Active New Religions (1998).

Janja Lalich specializes in the study of charismatic relationships, ideology, and social control, and issues of gender and sexuality. She received her PhD from the Fielding Institute in Santa Barbara, California, and currently teaches in the Department of Sociology at California State University, Chico. Her works include ‘Crazy’ Therapies; Cults in Our Midst; Captive Hearts, Captive Minds; and Women Under the Influence: A Study of Women’s Lives in Totalist Groups. Her forthcoming book, Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Commitment (University of California Press), is based on a comparative study of Heaven’s Gate, the group that committed collective suicide in 1997, and the Democratic Workers Party.

Benjamin D. Zablocki is a professor of sociology at Rutgers University. He received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University and has taught at the University of California – Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, and Columbia University. He has published two books on cults, The Joyful Community (University of Chicago Press 1971) and Alienation and Charisma (The Free Press 1980). He has been studying religious movements for thirty-six years, with sponsorship from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Currently he is working on a twenty-five-year longitudinal study of religious belief and ideology.

Stephen A. Kent is a professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Alberta. He received his BA in sociology from the University of Maryland (College Park) in 1973; an MA in the History of Religions from American University in 1978, and an MA (in 1980) and PhD in Religious Studies from McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) in 1984. From 1984 to 1986 he held an Izaac Walton Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Sociology. He has published articles in Philosophy East and West, Journal of Religious History, British Journal of Sociology, Sociological Inquiry, Sociological Analysis, Canadian Journal of Sociology, Quaker History, Comparative Social Research, Journal of Religion and Health, Marburg Journal of Religion, and Religion. His current research concentrates on nontraditional and alternative religions.

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Preface

We deliberately gave this book an odd title. Misunderstanding Cults is not, of course, a guidebook on how to misunderstand cults. Rather it is a book about what makes cults (or ‘new religious movements’ as they are sometimes called) so hard to understand. Its purpose is to better comprehend why these groups are so often comically or tragically misunderstood by ‘experts’ as well as by the general public. Specifically, we have focused on the problem of academic misunderstanding and its correlative polarization of academic experts into opposing camps holding mutually hostile points of view. Our hope is to make a contribution towards overcoming this polarization and introducing a greater degree of cooperation and humility into the study of a subject matter that would be difficult to comprehend even under more collegial investigatory conditions. ...