Deprogramming - Background

Background

Steven Hassan, a former deprogrammer, wrote:

• In the early 1970s, Ted Patrick—a man with plenty of street smarts but, at the time, no formal training in counseling—believed that members of his family were being brainwashed by David Berg, the leader of a group called the Family International, now known as "The Family." Patrick was determined to take action. He reasoned that since cults use indoctrination methods that "program" beliefs through hypnosis, repetition, and behavior modification techniques, he would reverse the process. He called the new procedure "deprogramming."
• Deprogramming is essentially a content-oriented persuasion approach that sometimes involves abduction and typically involves forced detention. The actual deprogramming takes place when it is deemed possible to "pick up" the cult member, and when it is convenient for the deprogrammer. Typically, the cult member is driven to a secret location and guarded 24 hours a day, often with no privacy, even in the bathroom. Windows are sometimes nailed shut to prevent escape. The deprogramming continues for days, and sometimes weeks, until the cult member snaps out of the cult's mind control (or successfully pretends to do so).

Law professor Douglas Laycock, author of Religious Liberty: The free exercise, 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.

Legal scholar Dean M. Kelley called deprogramming "protracted spiritual gang-rape"