Introduction
Brainwashing is the reduction of people to near zombie-like status through psychological manipulation in the religious and related domain. Allegations of brainwashing were projected by the Anti-Cult Movement (ACM) during the 1980s and 1990s who posited that cults were using advanced forms of psychological manipulation of their members. The ACM groups alleged that members joining cults were trapped not to escape through the tactics referred to as totalism, mind control, thought reform, coercive persuasion and brainwashing.
The United States allegedly contain the largest number of religious group than any other country in the world. About 20 million people have reportedly fallen victims of negative impartation through coercive mind control imposed by cults in the United States for a period of ten years, according to Margaret Singer (qtd. in Ontario Consultations on Religious Tolerance, 2007). The proposition of brainwashing in religion has largely been faulted, and in deed can to date, for lack of scientific support. The acceptance of evidence of brainwashing into court testimony and subsequent admission can be questioned on the basis of the problematic nature of scientific support for the brainwashing based theories, according to James Richardson and Gerald Ginsburg.
Hypothesis
Brainwashing in religion lacks the support of science and research which finds insufficient evidence in the allegation. This makes the allegations unjustifiable and inadequate. Furthermore, those theories supported by the Anti-Cult Movement have been faulted for not only lacking logical credibility, but also research credibility.
Objective
To analyze the claims of brainwashing in religion, literature evidence (or lack of it) and draw necessary conclusions as relates to analyzed information.
Literature Review
A report publicized by the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey report that the greatest gaining group in the analysis of religious affiliation of the United States was the group of the unaffiliated, i.e. those who said that they were not affiliated to any particular group. In other words, this unaffiliated group was gaining more numbers than that of the affiliated category as religious changes take place in the country. The margin of the two groups was indicated to be about three to one respectively. The unaffiliated group consisted of 16.1% of the participants and this number was more than double to that number who said they were not affiliated as children. One out of four of those survey participants aged 18-29 were not affiliated to any particular religion.
The number of those reported to be Protestants stood at 51% and was diverse and fragmented. The greatest losers of religion affiliation in the United States were the Catholics with less than one-in-four (24%) describing themselves as Catholics despite the fact that about 31% were brought up in catholic faith. Among the foreign-born adult populations, Catholics were more than Protestant (46% to 24%) while the reverse was true among the native-born Americans (55% to 21%) (The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2009).
The presented data may be used to indicate the likelihood of faiths transition in the United States or its inability, conditions which may favor development of cults or cultic practices as movements try to attract members, in addition to competition among religions for followers. In addition, the field may be rated as more dangerous and the rate of exposure high as many religious groups emanate, leading to hardship in determining the non-cultic ones.
Brainwashing was required to have someone join a cult according to 38% of those who participated in a public opinion survey involving 383 adults from a western U.S state in 1990s. 78 of these viewed that brainwashing existed.
The Unification Church has been involved in a 1994 court case under allegations of “brain washing” or “coercive persuasion” (Molko v. Holy Spirit Association) in relation to the conversion practices of the denomination.
Although the modern forms of brainwashing could be advanced form as compared to those used in the primitive ages, they have been faulted on a number of reasons. The brainwashing experiments by the CIA who investigated mind-control by the use of drugs and electroshock failed to produce even one Manchurian Candidate according to Bob and Gretchen Passantino analysis of the ACM belief systems about New Religious Movements (qtd. in Ontario Consultations on Religious Tolerance, 2007).
Although the use of brainwashing attempts was made in the Korean War, they failed, and the Communist military organizations were forced to use torture to achieve success. In addition to these reported failures, the ideology of brainwashing has been doubted on the fact that professionals failed in its attempt after years of indoctrination, and this puts a question whether the current relatively uneducated New Religious Movements can really succeed in its implementation.
ACM promoters have tried to recruit people into their programs with little success with reports indicating that only 8% out of 1000 people persuaded by the Moonies (Unification Church) to attend an overnight program joined for more than a week” (Barker, 1989; Bob and Gretchen Passantino, 1994). Bob and Gretchen Passantino have contested the data used by the ACM promoters on the fact that they are not reliable, non-representative (small sample size) and disproportionate.
The authors doubt the practicality of collecting data before, during and after one has been in a New Religious Movement and view that such data was obtained from former members of religious organizations after they are convinced through ACM counseling “that they have been victims of brain-control” (Ontario Consultations on Religious Tolerance, 2007).
ACM Movements and Cults
The cult groups or the new religious movements were accused of using deceptive techniques to recruit large number of young people into their groups. The ACM movements held that religious cults would influence the people and affect mainly the young adults and the youth through endangering their followers such as induction of some to have their members commit suicide. In addition, these groups would destroy the ability of their members to think critically and become unable to make decisions independently.
The members of these groups would be exposed to highly refined and severe mind-control processes that were first developed in the communist countries. The new religion groups were perceived as being particularly efficient in making normal, intelligent and older teens and younger adults to belong permanently to their groups, accept the teachings they availed without criticism conform to their behavioral restrictions and donate much of time and efforts to these groups. The ideas have not only been supported by the psychologists specializing in mind-control, but also disillusioned former members of the new religion movements.
The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance notes that the public perception about the efficiency of brainwashing has been influenced by misinformation of the techniques used by communists during the Korean War and techniques allegedly used by the CIA. In addition the ICM beliefs are synchronous with the mind-control themes projected in “The Manchunian Candidate (1962; remake 2004) and similar horror movies” according to this author. Acceptance of these imaginative works as reality may also have affected the public perception on brainwashing.
Richardson James theorizes that there is “first generation” and the “second generation” brainwashing where the first involved the use of techniques for physical coercion and the second depicted by the “psychological coercion”. In the latter case-which is actually effective than the former-people are manipulated through affection (with simple group pressures and emotion-laden tactics being more effective than physical coercive tactics in the Russian and other cases), guilt and other psychological influences and no need for physical manipulation.
The ACM beliefs are also partly reinforced by the belief in the existence of the Satanic Ritual Abuse by some conservative Christians-a belief which lacked study support after a decade-and-a-half study on the existence of the SRA failed by mid-1990s. The belief in the ACM theory has gained support among parents of children who are members or who become members of the new religious movements because they find it easier to blame the latter for any feelings of personal guilt (Ontario Consultations on Religious Tolerance, 2007).
Contest against Brainwashing
There is almost near consensus among the mental health professionals and academics studying religion that psychological means cannot achieve the type of mind-control projected earlier on. Members who join the new religious movements leave the groups latter after their continued membership is no longer a positive experience, even after joining the groups because of the belief certainty and emotional support supplied by the groups (Ontario Consultations on Religious Tolerance, 2007).
As mentioned in the literature review section, the Unification Church was involved in allegations of brainwashing and recruitment technique. The academic society did not remain silent on the matter. According to reports, a brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court on the aforementioned case that the allegations of brainwashing would threaten the integrity of scientific research and infringe the religious practices of the petitioner, was supported by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the American Sociological Association who became signatories to the brief in 1989 (Enroth, 1994; qtd. in Ontario Consultations on Religious Tolerance, 2007).
The brief was filed in 1987 by the American Psychological Association, behavioral scientists and scholars, and they noted that brainwashing theory lacked scientific support, according to the aforementioned author. The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion noted that, in addition to lacking sufficient research to build “consensus on the nature and effects of nonphysical coercion and the control” it asserts, techniques implied in the nonphysical coercion process should not be automatically equated to those in the physical coercion process.
According to this institution, further designed research was important to enable building of scholarly consensus on this issue (Zimbardo, n.d; qtd. in According to reports, a brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court on the aforementioned case that the allegations of brainwashing would threaten the integrity of scientific research and infringe the religious practices of the petitioner, was supported by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the American Sociological Association who became signatories to the brief in 1989 (Enroth, 1994; qtd. in Ontario Consultations on Religious Tolerance, 2007).
The credibility that presently relatively uneducated leaders of modern New Religious Movements could succeed in the use of brain-control technique even after the failure of highly educated professionals in the history, has been contested as seen earlier in the literature review section of this paper. The data used by the ACM promoters have been contested as seen earlier in the aforementioned section.
Conclusion
The presented data may be used as evidence to instability or mobility of the faiths transition in the United States. Cults may therefore thrive under these conditions as they try to absorb members and more members, whereas groups may develop cultic practices in these conditions with the rising competition. Although brainwashing has been projected as an allegation being used by the cult movements to influence membership and recruitment, the theories supporting this ideology lacks research and logical credibility.
References
Bob and Gretchen Passantino, Overcoming The Bondage Of Victimization; A Critical Evaluation of Cult Mind Control Theories. (1994). Web.
D.B. Bromley, A.D. Shupe, Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare, Beacon Press, Boston, (1981).
D.G. Hill. Study of Mind Development Groups, Sects and Cults. Toronto (1980).
Eileen Barker. New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, UK, (1989).
James T. Richardson. Brainwashing” Claims and Minority Religions Outside the United States: Cultural Diffusion of a Questionable Concept in the Legal Arena. Brigham Young University Law Review circa. (1994). Web.
Massimo Introvigne. Liar, Liar’: Brainwashing, CESNUR and APA. Web.
Ontario Consultations on Religious Tolerance. (2007). Allegations of brainwashing by new religious movements (a.k.a. “cults”). Web.
Philip Zimbardo. What messages are behind today’s cults? Cults are coming. Are they crazy or bearing critical messages?. Web.
Ronald Enroth. “Friend of the Court or Friend of the Cult?” Christian Research Institute Journal. (1994). Web.
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. (2009). Religious Beliefs & Practices/Social & Political Views. Web.
“The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion: SSSR Resolution on New Religious Groups“ SSSR Newsletter, 1990-DEC. Web.