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Eileen Barker
Eileen Vartan Barker (born 21 April 1938, in Edinburgh, UK) is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics (LSE), and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights. She is the chairperson and founder of the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) and has written studies about cults and new religious movements. Academic career Barker has been involved with the LSE's sociology department, where she received her PhD, since 1970. In 1988, she engaged in research on the preservation of cultural identity in the Armenian diaspora. In the same year, she founded the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury and financial help from the British Home Office. Barker has held numerous positions of leadership in the academic study of religion. She served as the chairperson of the British Sociological Association's Study Group for the Sociology of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cult
Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term has different, and sometimes divergent or pejorative, definitions both in popular culture and academia and has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study. Beginning in the 1930s, new religious movements became an object of sociological study within the context of the study of religious behavior. Since the 1940s, the Christian countercult movement has opposed some sects and new religious movements, labeling them cults because of their unorthodox beliefs. Since the 1970s, the secular anti-cult movement has opposed certain groups, which they call cults, accusing them of practicing brainwashing. Groups labelled cults are found around the world and range in size from small localized groups to some in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Richardson (sociologist)
James T. Richardson (born August 25, 1941) is Emeritus Foundation Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a sociologist with legal training, who has edited and co-edited over a dozen books and has authored more than 300 scholarly journal articles and book chapters. Areas in which he is specialized include the sociology of religion, the sociology of law, religion and human rights, social control of religions, social psychology of law, social and behavioral science evidence, and treatment of Muslims in courts. Richardson has been an outstanding figure in American sociology of religion for decades, and is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in the field of law and religion in the World. He is also a known scientific critic of brainwashing theories. Education and career Prof. Richardson received his B.A. in Sociology from Texas Tech University in 1965, M.A. in Sociology from Texas Tech University in 1966, Ph.D. in Sociol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret Singer
Margaret Thaler Singer (July 29, 1921 – November 23, 2003) was an American clinical psychologist and researcher with her colleague Lyman Wynne on family communication. She was a prominent figure in the study of undue influence in social and religious contexts, and a proponent of the brainwashing theory of cults. Singer's main areas of research included schizophrenia, family therapy, brainwashing and coercive persuasion. In the 1960s, she began to study the nature of social and religious group influence and brainwashing, and sat as a board member of the American Family Foundation and as an advisory board member of the Cult Awareness Network. She was the co-author of the book '' Cults in Our Midst''. Education Singer was born in Denver, Colorado, to Margaret McDonough Thaler and Raymond Willard Thaler. Her mother was a secretary to a federal judge and her father was chief operating engineer at the US Mint. While attending the University of Denver, she played cello in the De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brainwashing
Brainwashing is the controversial idea that the human mind can be altered or controlled against a person's will by manipulative psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subject's ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds, as well as to change their attitudes, values, and beliefs. The term "brainwashing" was first used in English by Edward Hunter in 1950 to describe how the Chinese government appeared to make people cooperate with them during the Korean War. Research into the concept also looked at Nazi Germany and present-day North Korea, at some criminal cases in the United States, and at the actions of human traffickers. Scientific and legal debate followed, as well as media attention, about the possibility of brainwashing being a factor when lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was used, or in the induction of people into groups which are considered to be cults. Brainwashing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theory Of Religious Economy
Religious economy refers to religious persons and organizations interacting within a market framework of competing groups and ideologies. An economy makes it possible for religious suppliers to meet the demands of different religious consumers.Wortham, Robert A. Religious Choices and Preferences: North Carolina's Baskin Robbins Effect? 2004. 27 Sep. 2007/ref> By offering an array of religions and religious products, a competitive religious economy stimulates such activity in a marketplace, market-type setting. The field applies rational choice theory to the theory of religion such that supply and demand are used to model the development and success of organized religions. Major proponents of the theory include William Sims Bainbridge, Roger Finke, Laurence Iannaccone, and Rodney Stark. Major debates The idea of religious economy frames religion as a product and as those who practice or identify with any particular religion as a consumer. But when the idea of belief is bro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Mason University
George Mason University (GMU) is a Public university, public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Located in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., the university is named in honor of George Mason, a Founding Father of the United States. The university was founded in 1949 as a northern branch of the University of Virginia. It became an independent university in 1972, and it has since grown into the largest public university by student enrollment in Virginia. It has expanded into a residential college for traditional students while maintaining its historic Commuting, commuter student-inclusive environment at both Undergraduate education, undergraduate and Postgraduate education, post-graduate levels, with an emphasis on combining modern professional education with a traditional Liberal arts education, liberal arts curriculum. The university operates four campuses; the flagship campus is in Fairfax, Virginia. Its other three campuses are in Arlington ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurence Iannaccone
Laurence Robert Iannaccone ( ; born May 24, 1954) is a Professor of Economics at Chapman University, Argyros School of Business and Economics, Orange County, California. Before moving to Chapman in 2009 he was a Koch Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He has established "Religion, Economics, and Culture", an interdisciplinary "Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture" (ASREC), and a new "Consortium for the Economic Study of Religion" (CESR). He is currently working on two books on the economics of religion. He is considered one of the pioneers of the field, and one of its most staunch advocates. Iannaccone's education includes an MS in mathematics and a 1984 PhD in economics from the University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moonie (Unification Church)
The Unification Church of the United States is the branch of the Unification Church in the United States. It began in the late 1950s and early 1960s when missionaries from South Korea were sent to America by the international Unification Church's founder and leader Sun Myung Moon. It expanded in the 1970s and then became involved in controversy due to its theology, its political activism, and the lifestyle of its members. Since then, it has been involved in many areas of American society and has established businesses, news media, projects in education and the arts, as well as taking part in political and social activism, and has itself gone through substantial changes. History in the United States In the late 1950s and early 1960s, missionaries from the Unification Church of South Korea came to the United States. Among them were Young Oon Kim, Sang Ik-Choi, Bo Hi Pak, David S. C. Kim, and Yun Soo Lim. Missionary work took place in seven Mid-Atlantic states (including New Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unification Church
The Unification Church () is a new religious movement, whose members are called Unificationists or sometimes informally Moonies. It was founded in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon in Seoul, South Korea, as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC; ); in 1994, the organization changed its name to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU; ). It has a presence in approximately 100 countries around the world. Its leaders are Moon (prior to his death) and his wife, Hak Ja Han, whom their followers honor with the title "True Parents". Moon's book, ''The Divine Principle'', informs the beliefs of the Unification Church. Moon list of messiah claimants, considered himself the Second Coming, Second Coming of Christ, claiming to complete the mission Jesus Christ was unable to because of his crucifixion: beginning a new ideal family, and a larger human lineage, free from sin. The Unification Church is well known for its Collective wedding, m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choice Or Brainwashing?
A choice is the range of different things from which a being can choose. The arrival at a choice may incorporate motivators and models. Freedom of choice is generally cherished, whereas a severely limited or artificially restricted choice can lead to discomfort with choosing, and possibly an unsatisfactory outcome. In contrast, a choice with excessively numerous options may lead to confusion, reduced satisfaction, regret of the alternatives not taken, and indifference in an unstructured existence; and the illusion that choosing an object or a course, necessarily leads to the control of that object or course, can cause psychological problems. Types One can distinguish four or five main types of decisions, although they can be expressed in different ways. Brian Tracy breaks them down into: # command decisions, which can only be made by you, as the "Commander in Chief", or owner of a company # delegated decisions, which may be made by anyone. Decisions for example can be: The c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Cultic Studies Association
The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) is a non-profit educational and anti-cult organization. It publishes the ''International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation'', "ICSA Today", and other materials. History ICSA was founded in 1979 in Massachusetts as the American Family Foundation (AFF) – one of several dozen disparate parents' groups founded in the late 1970s by concerned parents. For a time it was affiliated with the Citizens’ Freedom Foundation (CFF) which later became the Cult Awareness Network (CAN). It also developed links with Christian counter-cult movements such as the Christian Research Institute. In December 2004, it changed its named from American Family Foundation to International Cultic Studies Association. Publications Print magazines In 1984, the American Family Foundation's early print magazine, ''The Advisor'', was replaced by the ''Cult Observer'' and the ''Cultic Studies Journal''. ''Cultic Studies Review'' In 2001, pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
