It is widely acknowledged that the United States has al- ways
provided fertile ground for the growth of new religious movements
and cults, but modern organized efforts to oppose and restrict them
have been less well understood. In Agents of Discord, Anson Shupe
and Susan E. Darnell offer a groundbreaking analysis of the
operations and motives of these oppositional groups, which they
generally group under the umbrella term of the anticult
movement.
Historically there have always been parallel groups opposed to
certain religious movements, whether these be anti-Quaker,
anti-Roman Catholic, or anti-Mormon. The authors establish the
cultural context of such movements in the nineteenth century. They
point out the link between modern anticult movements and nativist
movements in American history. Turning to the postwar era, the
authors discuss the rise of anticult movements and focus
specifically on one of the most prominent, the Cult Awareness
Network (CAN). CAN was a two-tiered organization. Partly composed
of volunteers, donors, and families affected by cult movements, it
also included what the authors call an "inner sanctum" of
behavioral science professionals, attorneys, and deprogrammers.
Using never-before-reported data on CAN's activities, the authors
cite an extensive history of financial impropriety that finally led
to the organization's bankruptcy. They offer a pointed critique,
informed by current scholarship, of the "brainwashing" model of
mental enslavement presented by the anticult movement that has been
a central assumption undergirding its activities. At the same time,
they show how increasing professionalization has gradually begun a
shift of such movements to a therapeutic model of exit counseling
that rejects the crude methods of earlier intervention
strategies.
In their analysis of the anticult movement nationally and
internationally, Shupe and Darnell merge sociological concepts and
social history to make unique sense of a heretofore relatively
unexplored phenomenon.
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