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In the 2018 30th Anniversary Edition, Hassan changed many instances of mind control to "undue influence." Though this emerged as a legal term, he finds it more helpful because efforts to change the minds of cult members are often not fully effective and much more easily thought of as a type of pressure or influence that makes individuals more likely to agree with cult doctrine than disagree.
Brainwashing [a] is the controversial idea that the human mind can be altered or controlled against a person's will by manipulative psychological techniques. [1] 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, [2] as well as to change their attitudes, values, and beliefs.
The academic study of new religious movements has been noted to be unusually hostile, with scholars holding strong opinions as to the influence of cults on society. [1] [2] A 1998 article in the magazine Lingua Franca reported on the acrimony of the scholarly debate on the topic; in the "cult-anticult debate", [3] scholars have been described as exhibiting a "toxic level" of suspicion toward ...
Destructive cult is a term frequently used by the anti-cult movement. [18] Members of the anti-cult movement typically define a destructive cult as a group that is unethical, deceptive, and one that uses "strong influence" or mind control techniques to affect critical thinking skills. [32]
The APA asked Margaret Singer, a leading theorist in cults and coercive persuasion, to chair a task force to "expose cult methods and tactics". Some examples that led to the task force's creation were the Manson family murders, Patty Hearst kidnapping, and the Jonestown massacre. [1]
She later came to realize that the group was a cult. Lalich recalls that during her time in the group she stored questions and doubts in the back of her mind, unable to express them. [4] Lalich became a high-ranking member of the group working long hours with little contact outside the immediate members.
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.
The review in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease observes that the book "looks at cults from the perspective of ex-cultists and the mental health specialists who help them to break away and, equally difficult, to pick up and integrate the threads of normal living once again." It notes that the work begins "with an introduction and ...