WPC 2BPZCourier 10cpi#|xKx6X@8;X@HP DeskJet 500HPDES500.PRSx  @xX,,0=%X@#|x2 ZB   HP DeskJet 500HPDES500.PRSx  @xX,,0=%X@"mo8;^0<8"  confounded by a frequent response of bemused disinterest. Even worse, I found that the preponderance of articles on cults published by the  {O American Journal of Psychiatry showed a procult tilt. What is the problem? There is a blur in people's minds between cults and religions, and many psychiatrists are not interested in religion their families' or anyone else's. There are societies of Catholic, Jewish, and Evangelically oriented psychiatrists, but they are tiny. The "Christian psychiatry" treatment programs that exist around the country have more to do with grassroots interest of patient populations (and hospitals looking for a marketing niche) than leadership from the psychiatric profession. The traditional convocation of the APA's (American Psychiatric Association) annual meeting by a clergyman was discontinued several years ago. As for the psychiatrists who are interested in religion, some come by virtue of their own active religious feelings; some are simply curious. The APA has had an ongoing Committee on Religion and Psychiatry. Several years ago this committee published a report on cults, with contributions from American Family Foundation professionals.  {Oj Since psychiatrists write little on cults, The Divine Archetype is of interest. The author, a member of the psychiatric faculty at Stanford University, is identified as having "written extensively" about religious cults and as having been a consultant to the APA's Committee on Religion and Psychiatry. My interest was further sparked by Dr. Mark Galanter's endorsement of the book. Dr. Galanter is an esteemed addictionologist who deemed cults worthy of careful study because the drug addicts who join them stop abusing drugs. (Dr. Galanter's research on the Moonies, though overly apologetic in my opinion, led him to be viewed as an expert on cults by the psychiatric establishment, resulting in his editing the APA's report on cults.) Dr. Wenegrat came to an interest in cults and religions not through studying drug abuse but rather from studying sociobiology and evolution. Sociobiologists study social behaviors of animals, on the assumption that human behaviors have evolved from lower forms of life by means of evolution over the millennia. This book arranges a marriage of psychoanalytic and neoDarwinian theories to explain the origins of mankind's religions. The author concludes that just as speciesspecific animal behaviors have evolved to enhance adaptation of the species, so hasD8"  mankind evolved religious beliefs to help members of our species sort out sexual conflicts, promote cooperation, and encourage altruism. While the author does praise religious people for opening soup kitchens and hospitals, he takes a wary view of religion. He affirms that some wellknown religions foster psychological hangups, perpetuate social injustice, and demean women. He suggests we come to terms with the failure of Freud's prophecy that religion will disappear; rather we should hope that religions will be modified so that they can keep up the good work with "less personal cost to religious believers." The author cites published writings on cults to support his theories, but he does not add anything new to our understanding of cults per se. While Dr. Wenegrat does not offer definitions distinguishing cults from religions, he does portray cults as having some of the same advantages as religion with added disadvantages of exploitation of their followers. The author misstates the conclusions of one of his citations in order to bolster his contention that certain yeshivas (Jewish seminaries) are "ultraorthodox cults," like the Moonies and Scientology. The actual citation concluded that there are crucial differences distinguishing cults from yeshivas (citation from "Alienated Jewish Youth and Religious Seminaries: An Alternative to Cults?" by S. Levine, in D.A. Halperin, M.D., Ed.,  {O Psychodynamic Perspectives on Religion, Sect, and Cult. Boston: John Wright PSG, 1983.). Aside from being a lapse in scholarship, this perpetuates the stereotype that yeshivas that expose nonorthodox Jews to orthodox Judaism (resulting in some seminarians embracing orthodoxy to the distress of their nonorthodox parents) are simply one more cult that is menacing society. This book has given me insight into why some psychiatrists and other secular gurus refrain from denouncing cultic abuse. If one takes the position that all religions are "made up" (even though they do good things) and adds the fact that more and more the values of secular society are diverging from JudeoChristian values, then, from a secular perspective, traditional Christian and Jewish activity becomes increasingly "deviant." In this environment, why should a secular person pick on cults?  yO  John Hochman, M.D. Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry  yOB UCLA School of Medicine B8"   X #Xt\  PPN;~XP# Les sectes en France (Cults in France). Centre de Documentation, d'Education, et d'Action Contre les Manipulations Mentales. Paris (France), 1991, 175 pages.  yO #`\  PXN;jP#The Center for Documentation, Education, and Action Against Mental Manipulation (C.C.M.M.) was founded by Roger Ikor (who died in 1986), a famous French writer whose son committed suicide while following a macrobiotic cult. Like many organizations in the U.S. concerned about cults, C.C.M.M. focuses on actions rather than beliefs "the deed not the creed." In an introductory chapter, Ikor states that in fighting cults (the  {OT French word secte in this context is more properly translated as "cult" rather than "sect") "we fight specifically for the liberty and dignity of the human person." According to Ikor, one of the objects of this book is to expose the concrete reality that lies beneath the idealistic masks cults create. This hypocrisy strengthens the cult leader's dictatorial power over his or her followers sometimes by means of an authoritarian, hierarchical organization. Inevitably, this situation results in an implicit, if not explicit, denunciation of the "fundamental values of modern civilization: critical thinking, tolerance, respect for the human person, democratic liberty, belief in the individual's will, initiative, action, and progress." Ikor concludes that besides the damage cults cause to individuals and family, they "represent an effort to destabilize our civilization in a profound way." In the bulk of this book, Ikor's view of cults is applied toward specific groups studied by C.C.M.M. There are substantive analyses of 17 groups. Ranging in length from 6 to 15 pages, the analyses follow a similar structure: history, doctrine, practices, organization, propaganda, material power, and quotes from the leader. Most of the groups discussed are known in the U.S.; they include The Knights of the Gold Lotus, Family of Love, White Universal Fraternity, Invitation to the Intense Life, Hare Krishna, Mahikari, Transcendental Meditation, Unification Church, Raelien Movement, New Acropolis, Sahaja Yoga, Scientology, Nichiren ShoshuSoka Gakkai, Sri Chinmoy, and Zen Macrobiotics. An additional 26 groups, about 50% of which appear to be indigenous to France, are covered in briefer, one or twopage analyses. C.C.M.M.'s structured compilation is very useful as a reference and as a practical way of comparing and contrasting groups. I wish that someone would translate it into English and adapt it to the North American scene.8"  The book's usefulness would be enhanced if lists of available resources (articles, books, videos, organizations, persons) were provided for each group.  {O  Les sectes en France also reports briefly on a survey C.C.M.M. conducted. Unfortunately, C.C.M.M. provides very little information bearing on the survey's methodology. Nevertheless, because we have so few quantitative data relevant to cultic studies, I would like to present some of the survey's findings. Four percent of the respondents had a favorable attitude toward cults. Ten percent had friends or close relatives who belonged to cults. The following percentages had heard of these groups: Unification Church (81%), Jehovah's Witnesses (80%), Krishna (40%), Transcendental Meditation (40%), Church of Scientology (38%). Sixtyeight percent believed that cults were moneymaking machines, 59% believed they imperiled human rights, and 33% believed that cults sought to gain power in the country. Seventyone percent did not feel sufficiently informed about cults. When asked their opinions about what enables cults to exist, respondents listed, in descending order of preference: the world is too materialistic; people cannot live without absolutes or a meaning in life; the need to xavoid daily life; the desire to find places where one can focus on essentials with other people in a fraternal manner.  yOR  Michael D. Langone, Ph.D. Editor  zN Cultic Studies Journal  x   X:  #Xt\  PPN;~XP#La persuasione socialmente accettata, il plagio e il  X# lavaggio del cervello (Socially Accepted Persuasion, Plagio, and Brainwashing). M. DiFiorino. Psichiatria e Territorio,  X Forte Dei Marmi (Italy), 1990, 270 pages.#`\  PXN;jP# This rather long book, based on a conference held in September 1989 in Forte dei Marmi, Italy, examines various aspects of psychological manipulation. Its chapters are organized under the following sections:  {O Plagio Between Reality and Denial; Dynamics of Plagio and Induced Psychosis; Religious Conversion and the "New Cults": Myth and Reality8"  of Brainwashing; Manipulation in Therapeutic Relations; and Manipulation and Mass Media.  {OX The book revolves around the concept of plagio, a word I have refrained from translating because I don't believe it has an exact English equivalent.  {O In Italy plagio was a crime that was declared unconstitutional in 1981.  {O| Xp` hp x (#%'0*,.8135@8: Marmi conference distinguished between plagio, manipulation, and  {O brainwashing. The closest thing to plagio in U.S. law is probably the concept of "undue influence," which is much more nuanced and flexible  {O in its application than plagio and is applicable in civil, not criminal, law. The conference participants, most of whom were mental health professionals, appear to have wrestled with many of the same issues that have troubled their North American counterparts. There is the commonsense recognition that some people, especially those who are suggestible, can be manipulated and exploited to a high degree. The neuropsychiatrist, Mario Gozzano, identifies the following situations that can result in extreme subordination of one person to another: amorous relationships; dependency relationships such as teacherpupil; the psychological influence attendant upon relationships based upon religious faith or political commitment; patienttherapist relationships; and parentchild relationships. The difficulty with Gozzano's list is that such relationships would almost never reach the level of absolute psychological domination that character {O izes plagio. V8" ԌA superficial analysis might indicate that the problem could be easily  {O solved if plagio were made less absolute, for example, if it were defined as "a high level of control of another person." However, as soon as the legal definition depends upon a continuum, specific criteria must be enunciated in order to determine precisely where the behavior becomes  {O criminal. Rosedale (Cultic Studies Journal, 6(1), 1989) addresses this inherent conflict in the law between the need to espouse conceptual absolutes and the need to apply these absolutes to situations that fall on a continuum. He argues that the extreme forms of manipulation seen in some cult conversions demand an explicit acknowledgment of the social values implicitly underlying legal judgments and, therefore, challenge the legal system to become more explicit in its condemnation of behaviors in which, as Gozzano says, "the relationship of dependency can reach diverse levels until it arrives at that state of suggestibility which the Penal Code  {O defines as the crime of plagio." If the law demands an absolute, an either {O or, it runs into the problem the Italians faced when they declared plagio  {O unconstitutional: what constitutes total psychological domination? If the law doesn't demand an absolute, it runs into the problem of experts disagreeing about which point on the continuum is severe enough to warrant the appellation "crime." As with experts in the U.S., the Italian experts at this conference disagreed about this issue. However, unlike any conference or book that I know of in the U.S., Dr. DiFiorino's book addresses the full range of phenomena associated with the continuum of psychological manipulation.  {O In addition to a number of chapters specifically dealing with plagio (the extreme pole that draws attention to the continuum), this book includes chapters on the following subjects: exploitation of the legally incompetent;  {O the relationship of magic, suggestion, and plagio; the use of the Rorschach  {O test to investigate cases of plagio; case studies of induced psychosis and  {O plagio; psychological and psychopathological aspects of seduction; philosophy of the "new age" and psychopathology; psychiatry and brainwashing; insidious aspects of psychological manipulation in a therapeutic community; practical, clinical observation and critical  {O consideration of plagio, fraud, and seduction; Mesmerism; formation, information, and persuasion in psychiatry; membership in emerging cults:  {O4 conversion and/or plagio; and the problem of manipulation in controversial religious movements. My understanding of Italian is not sophisticated enough to provide detailed summaries of the many chapters. Thus, I have focused on whatV 8"   {O I believe is the heart of the book: the notion of plagio. I hope that this modest and inadequate review gives some readers a better appreciation of two facts: (1) cultrelated problems observed in the U.S. exist throughout the developed world; and (2) many thoughtful people have pondered these problems in languages other than English. This places Englishonly speakers at a disadvantage. Due to different standards of education and the demands of internationalism, our counterparts in other countries usually have some knowledge of our work, while we rarely know anything about what they are experiencing and doing. A noble goal would be for us to learn foreign languages. More realistic, perhaps, is to realize that we will only come to learn about the theories, studies, and accomplishments of our counterparts around the world if their work is xtranslated into English. As editor of this journal, I will do my best to facilitate this international flow of ideas.  yO  Michael D. Langone, Ph.D. Editor  zNJ Cultic Studies Journal x  X #Xt\  PPN;~XP# The Satanism Scare . Edited by James T. Richardson, Joel Best, & David Bromley. Aldine de Gruyter, New York, 1991, 320 pages. #`\  PXN;jP# To date, "politically correct" propagandizing among aging academics left over from the 1960s has been confined, for the most part, to the conventional fields of literature, art history, anthropology, and psychology. But now this peculiar intellectual pathology seems to have wormed its way into provisionally defined, and historically marginal, fields such as sociology of religion with its alleged "empirical" and "scientific" strategies of inquiry and reflection. Although the charge of "PC" has been overused, and frequently abused, within the mounting popular polemics against the intellectually shallow politicization of the American university, the phenomenon should not be construed lightly. So long as the "politically correct" were nothing more than hypercultivated Milton scholars, or inordinately arcane modelbuilders fascinated with class, ethnicity, and gender, who happened to be obsessed with the socially fashionable causes of a bygone era, the problem could be easily circumscribed. However, when a bald and scarcely concealed political agenda masquerades as cool, "objective" science, it is quite another matter. 8" Ԍ {O ԙThe Satanism Scare has an extensive list of contributors. Therefore, one could get the impression that the book constitutes a cross section of academic opinion on the subject of Satanism and occultrelated crime. Nothing could be farther from the truth. To the contrary, the book is a rather laborious, threehundredpageplus, blinking and bleeping parade of sophistic reasoning, non sequiturs, spurious appeal to authority, and systematic disfigurement and denial of the sheaves of actual evidence about Satanism and occultrelated crime. If the authors had been sufficiently honest to say, "There is a good deal of hype, misinformation, confusion, and questionable claims by unqualified experts in the area" which is true it would be one thing. If they had been honest enough, moreover, to draw from this tangle of circumstances the inference that the terrain of research is craggy and cratered and that much work and sorting of the evidence are needed in order to (1) determine the real character, scope, and ramifications of the problem and (2) make careful distinctions between witness accuracy, cultmotivated criminal coverup, and ideological blinders and enthusiasms, it would be quite another matter. However, with the exception of historian Jeffrey Burton Russell, whose published work on belief and folklore pertaining to the demonic in Western culture is exemplary, virtually all of the essays take a rather straight "party line." The party line can be summarized as follows: h ©There is no such thing as a "bad" satanist or an occultconnected crime.d h ©Virtually every incident of occult criminality, including such notorious cases as "The Night Stalker" (Richard Ramirez), is not at all what it appears to be.d h ©The attribution of negative characteristics to Satanism can be blamed on the persecutory campaigns of Christian fundamentalists, smalltown district attorneys and law enforcement officials, newspaper editors and television anchorpersons, psychiatrists in general, and a routinely "hysterical" public that is snorting and pawing to trample the rights and prerogatives of religious oddballs who are simply minding their own business.d z 8" Ԍh ©The facts about Satanism, which have been delineated and reported copiously in the media, can be explained away as rumors, "urban legends," deepseated psychological projections, fantasies, and "social constructions" of a populace that is undergoing various stresses from rapid social change.d In other words, society as a whole is "sick" and hallucinating. Only the Satanists those who are alleged to burn babies, consort with drug traffickers, impale cats in ceremonies, and drink blood from time to time emerge with their reputations fully intact. At least the authors did not wheel out "The Myth of the Six Million."  {O` The Satanism Scare is to serious religious scholarship what 2 Live Crew is to family entertainment. The bald flaunting of prejudices and spurious inferences, along with the flagrant omissions of hard data from court records, police files, psychiatric transcripts, and casework documents, is more numerous than the loves of Don Juan. The gangrenous flaws of the book's socalled methodology can be found in the article, "Law Enforcement and the SatanismCrime Connection: A Survey of Cult Cops," by Ben M. Crouch and Kelly Damphouse. The essay sets about to "prove" that widespread police concern about occultconnected criminal activity is overblown because these "cult cops," as the authors call them (referring to those law enforcement professionals who take the problem seriously), are ipso facto driven in their zeal by preexisting conservative or Christian evangelical biases. As it happens, there is absolutely no way, given the way the authors set up their research boundaries, that they could have reached any other conclusion whatsoever. The authors state, "Conducting a survey of law enforcement perceptions of the Satanismcrime link proved extremely difficult. The first problem was identifying an appropriate sample" (p. 193). For the "sample," the authors "located" two mailing lists: one from a police lieutenant in Boise, Idaho, named Larry Jones and the other from a roster of attendees at a Texas police academy, nearly all of whom came from southern and southwestern states. They then "randomized" the names on the lists. Such samples are about as representative of the total police  {O" population involved in occult crime as the readers of Millie's Book (about Barbara and George Bush's dog) could be said to constitute a cross section of the national electorate. The authors themselves point out that Lt. Jones is "known in the cult cop network for his strong Christian anticult orientation" (p. 194). This type of approach is tantamount toD 8"  undertaking a supposed scientific examination of how many ordinary citizens hold proenvironmental beliefs by "randomly" interviewing participants at a Sierra Club convention and a Greenpeace rally. However, this ridiculous and obviously rigged sampling method does not preclude the authors from generating impressive tables of statistics and making sweeping conclusions about who "cult cops" really are. They are "often from smaller towns, with less education and income, and more religious, officers who perceive a greater threat appear to live and work in a relatively modest and conservative setting" (p. 202). Next one might survey the authors of this particular book and draw the dazzling conclusion that, in light of this sample, sociologists "on the whole" tend to think like Norman Lear and the organization People for the American Way. On the other hand, one may wonder whether these selfprofessed experts on the "scare" even read the newspapers or the law enforcement journals. According to one of the authors, Hicks, "the satanic crime model  {OH coalesced from several unrelated events: the publication of Michelle  {O Remembers . . . the identification of multiple personality disorder (MPD) as a dissociative disorder in the third edition of the American Psychiatric  {O Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and allegations of child abuse at the McMartin Preschool and other daycare centers (beginning in 1983)" (p. 176). This rather odd generalization makes little sense insofar as none of the episodes or cases cited by Hicks had anything much at all to do with police investigative models furthermore, from the outset, they were all considered problematic by serious researchers. In fact, all of these socalled benchmarks concerned hypnotic recall of strange events by subjects in psychotherapy. Hicks's account is akin to saying that strategic thinking about the Cold War coalesced from the  {O> McCarthy hearings, interviews with J. Edgar Hoover, and the book None  {O Dare Call It Treason. Hicks goes on to cite what he dubs "the seminal conference on satanic crime in Colorado in September 1986," at which only one police officer appeared on the program. Precisely how a conference that Hicks himself criticizes for lacking criminal justice expertise could have become ipso facto the basis of the elaboration of a "police paradigm" defies logic. Interestingly, Hicks fails to mention such experienced police officers as Ohio's Dale Griffis or Chicago's Jerry Simandl, who belong to a ratherJ 8"  sophisticated network of practicing law enforcement professionals and are generally regarded as leading authorities on the problem. The gambit is the model for most of the essays in the book: play up the frivolous and loony cases, along with the poorly credentialed "experts," while completely scanting any reference to legitimate evidence or significant research. Overall, by means of cheap, but transparent, rhetorical subterfuges, the reader is left with the impression that the entire matter is not worthy of intelligent consideration. Ironically, the approach here is not much different from the tack taken by  {O the National Inquirer, albeit with a reverse spin. We would not be far  {O from the mark if we were to call it tabloid sociology. It is characteristic of tabloid sociology to constantly trundle out rampant popular superstitions, intemperate rumors, and alleged media "atrocities," as if this prurient spectacle were somehow the sum and substance of the "evidence." Indeed, tabloid sociology consistently spews out its own myths and folk legends, which are nothing more than grievous overdeterminations of incidental, or even dubious, "facts." For example, Hicks says that "cult seminars assert [which, by the way, is like saying "ministers preach" or "all doctors say"] that satanic crime is increasing . . . . With no dependable statistics, cult seminars include estimates of up to 50,000 human sacrifices per year" (p. 183). Such a canard has been used routinely by tabloid sociologists and their less academically distinguished hangerson, who often claim to be "experts in the occult." It is not clear who, if anyone, ever made such an estimate. But this "example" is ceremonially unfurled to point up the foolishness and gullibility of all who might take the occult problem seriously. The absurdity of this approach can be found in Thomas A. Green's article, "Accusations of Satanism and Racial Tensions in the Matamoros Cult Murders." The Matamoros Cult murders, discovered in the spring of 1989 at an isolated ranch in Mexico just across the Rio Grande River from Brownsville, Texas, turned out for many occult investigators to be a dramatic smoking gun. This case confirmed not only that cultrelated homicides take place but also that they are of a singularly gruesome quality. In this instance, a Houstonarea college student, Mark Kilroy, was kidnapped late at night during a spring break blowout; he was transported to the ranch where previously there had taken place numerous grisly sacrifices of victims by satanic cultists, who were also drug traffickers. Kilroy was murdered and dismembered with the whacks of a machete.D8"  Bodies of the cult's victims were unearthed by a team of North American federal agents and Mexican national police, and the perpetrators confessed their crimes in front of international media. Despite the graphic evidence, Green attempts, with chutzpa and pseudologic, to explain the Matamoros horrors as a cryptoracist plot on the part of the press, the police, the government, the academic establishment, and virtually the entire American populace who viewed the cultists' cauldron of human blood and body parts on primetime television. Green writes: h By focusing such social anxiety on a particular set of religions practiced by the allegedly threatening group, popular authors and the regional media gave form to the fears of the area, and provided a means for rationalizing these fears. . . .Behavior seen as aberrant by the dominant system is interpreted within preexisting frameworks, rather than leading to a reorganization of the dominant group's worldview. (p. 245)d In other words, the death of Kilroy and numerous nameless Hispanic victims, some of whom were tortured in the most brutal and inhumane manner, is alchemized through the syntax of a relatively sophisticated sociobabble into some kind of collective dementia on the part of the public at large. Other essays throughout the book take much the same tack: the public is either malicious or crazy; the experts are all enmeshed in their own conspiracy to whip up hysteria aimed at socially marginal groups; the cults are innocent despite whatever evidence can be mustered; "we" the experts (that is, the authors) know that to be the case. The curious thing about all these putatively authoritative analyses is that they present no evidence to support their own tacit claim that the public reaction to the problem of Satanism is out of line. What they offer instead are currently discredited, poppolitical, 1960sstyle New Left "grand theories," arguing that (1) satanic cult participants are de facto stigmatized and vilified because they are "different" and (2) this stigmatization is attributable to virtually everyone in power or with a social or professional position, especially the media. As graduate students Laurel Rowe and Gray Cavendar state: h In the past years, the media covered Satanism in lighthearted Halloween interviews with the Church of Satan's Anton LaVey. Today, however, television news and newspapers cover satanic@8"  crime, ranging from sensationalistic national stories of ritual murders to local coverage of vandalism in cemeteries. Because they present "hard news," the mainstream media lend legitimacy to allegations that satanic activity is on the rise, posing a threat to society. However, stories about Satanism, like all news stories, represent the media's social construction of reality through news frames. (p. 264)d The implication is clearly that somehow the media make up stories about Satanism, or at least radically distort the real picture. This argument is, of course, rather sophomoric and would not be held by any credible sociologist, let alone a media analyst. The media are notorious for subtly editorializing and flaunting their biases, for ignoring or even censoring certain subject matter. Journalists, however, rarely fabricate stories. When they do, immediately, they are held up to public disrepute or they may be threatened with actual prosecution, as happened in 1991 when a television reporter in Colorado allegedly helped set up an illegal pit bull dogfight.  {O In sum, The Satanism Scare substitutes a tiresome stream of political ideology for documentary evidence, while in the same breath systematically accusing American opinion makers of inventing what information is available. Also, some of the few facts in the book are presented horribly wrongly. These falsities are not mere trifles; they turn out to be effective forms of character assassination against credible experts. For instance, American Studies professor Bill Ellis (Pennsylvania State University at Hazleton) characterizes Dale Griffis as a mildmannered crackpot "driven by emotions created by his personal life and his professional fears" (p. 289). Supposedly, these emotions were inflamed "after his teenage son @committed suicide, allegedly `in the name of Satan'" (p. 289). In fact, Griffis's son is very much alive and has never been involved in Satanism. One breathlessly awaits the next volume on the whereabouts of Elvis.  yO  Carl Raschke, Ph.D. Professor of Religious Studies  yOZ University of Denver @