Deprogrammer

Deprogramming is a controversial tactic that attempts to help someone who has "strongly held convictions," often coming from cults or New Religious Movements (NRM). Deprogramming aims to assist a person who holds a controversial or restrictive belief system in changing those beliefs and severing connections to the associated group (religious, political, economic, or social) which created and controls that belief system.Neal, Lynn S. (2012). "Deprogramming". ''Encyclopedia of Religious Controversies in the United States''. Edited by Bill J. Leonard and Jill Y. Crainshaw. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Denver, CO: ABC-CLIO.

Some methods and practices of people who have deprogrammed (''deprogrammers'') have involved kidnapping, false imprisonment, and coercion, which have sometimes resulted in criminal convictions. Some deprogramming regimens are specifically designed for individuals taken against their will, which has led to controversies over freedom of religion, kidnapping, and civil rights, as well as the use of violence, which is sometimes involved.

Background

The deprogramming that has been practiced over the last half century has typically been commissioned by a person's relatives (often parents of adult children) who objected to the subject's membership in an organization or group. It has been compared to exorcisms in both methodology and manifestation, and the process sometimes has been performed with tacit support of law enforcement and judicial officials. In response to a burgeoning number of new religious movements in the 1970s in the United States, the "father of deprogramming", Ted Patrick, introduced many of these techniques to a wider audience as a means to combat cults. Since then, deprogrammings have been carried out "by the thousands". For example, various atrocity stories served as justification for deprogramming of Unification Church members in the United States.Kurtz, Lester R. (2007). ''Gods in the Global Village: The World's Religions in Sociological Perspective.'' Pine Forge Press. p. 228.

The various methods of deprogramming and autonomy rights of adults has made deprogramming a controversial practice. Some critics of cults and NRMs have denounced deprogramming based on legal and ethical grounds. A similar method to aide someone in leaving a NRM without force is referred to variously as "exit counselling or cult intervention". Sometimes the word ''deprogramming'' is used in a wider (and/or ironic or humorous) sense, to mean the freeing of someone (often oneself) from any previously uncritically assimilated idea. According to Carol Giambalvo, "exit counsellors are usually former cult members themselves".

Various academics have commented on the practice. For example, as defined by James T. Richardson, Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies and Director of the Grant Sawyer Center for Justice Studies, deprogramming is a "private, self-help process whereby participants in unpopular new religious movements (NRMs) were forcibly removed from the group, incarcerated, and put through radical resocialization processes that were supposed to result in their agreeing to leave the group." Law professor Douglas Laycock, author of ''Religious Liberty: The Free Exercise Clause'', wrote:

Beginning in the 1970s, many parents responded to the initial conversion with "deprogramming." The essence of deprogramming was to physically abduct the convert, isolate him and physically restrain him, and barrage him with continuous arguments and attacks against his new religion, threatening to hold him forever until he agreed to leave it.

Shawn McAllister writing in the Thurgood Marshall Law Review quotes John LeMoult, who described practices of deprogramming as being "seized, held against his will, subjected to mental, emotional, and even physical pressures until he renounces his beliefs." LeMoult made the comparison of the break of will and subsequent remorse and "wish to return to their previous position of firm resistance" depicted in ''The Rape of the Mind'' by J. Meerloo, to the testimony of the prisoners of war survivors of Nazi interrogation.

Procedures

There has never been a standard procedure among deprogrammers; descriptions in anecdotal reports, studies, and interviews with former deprogrammers vary greatly. Deprogrammers generally operate on the presumption that the people they are paid to extract from religious organizations are victims of mind control (or brainwashing).

Ted Patrick, one of the pioneers of deprogramming, used a confrontational method, enlisting psychiatrists and psychologists to assist him in the deprogramming process.McAllister, Shawn (1999). "Holy Wars: Involuntary Deprogramming as a Weapon Against Cults". ''Thurgood Marshall Law Review'' 24 (2): 359–85 Patrick was tried and convicted of multiple felonies related to kidnapping and false imprisonment of deprogramming subjects.

Sylvia Buford, an associate of Ted Patrick who has assisted him on many deprogrammings, described five stages of deprogramming:Stoner, Carroll; Parke, Jo Anne (1977). '' All Gods Children: The Cult Experience – Salvation or Slavery?''. Radnor, PA: Chilton.
#Discredit the figure of authority, the cult leader
#Present contradictions (ideology versus reality); "How can he preach love when he exploits people?" is an example.
#The breaking point: when a subject begins to listen to the deprogrammer; when reality begins to take precedence over ideology.
#Self-expression: when the subject begins to open up and voice gripes against the cult.
#Identification and transference: when the subject begins to identify with the deprogrammers, even starts to think as an opponent of the cult rather than as a member.

Violence

The deprogramming accounts vary widely regarding the use of force, with the most dramatic accounts coming from deprogrammed people who returned to the group.

Steven Hassan in his book ''Releasing the Bonds'' spoke against coercive deprogramming methods using force or threats.

Sociologist Eileen Barker wrote that

Although the deprogramming has become less violent in the course of time... Numerous testimonies by those who were subjected to a deprogramming describe how they were threatened with a gun, beaten, denied sleep and food and/or sexually assaulted. But one does not have to rely on the victims for stories of violence: Ted Patrick, one of the most notorious deprogrammers used by CAGs ult-awareness groups(who has spent several terms in prison for his exploits) openly boasts about some of the violence he employed; in November 1987, Cyril Vosper, a committee member of the British CAG, FAIR, was convicted in Munich of "causing bodily harm" in the course of one of his many deprogramming attempts; and a number of similar convictions are on record for prominent members of CAGs elsewhere.

In 1978, John E. LeMoult published in the ''Fordham Law Review'' that

Deprogrammers are people who, at the request of a parent or other close relative, will have a member of a religious sect seized, then hol