Agents of Discord: The North American-European Anticult Connection

Evidence for a North American-European Connection?

For the past several decades, social scientists have sensed or suspected a linkage between postwar European anticultism and its older American counterpart. For example, British sociologist James A. Beckford has claimed such a relationship for ACM groups in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.¹Israeli psychologist Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi found his country's primary ACM group, Concerned Parents Against Cults, using American ACM literature at a workshop and that it was "modeled after similar grass roots family-based groups in the U.S.A."² Dutch religious scholar Reender Kranenborg noted the prevalence of North American ACM pamphlets and other publications in the Netherlands.³ Massimo Introvigne, attorney and director of CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions) in Turin, Italy, summarily declared that "...the most important European post rationalist anti-cult movements --- CCMM and ADFI in France, AIS, CROAS and Pro Juventute in Spain, FAIR in England, ARIS in Italy --- although independently established, now depend, and in some cases would probably not exist without, inspiration and materials from CAN (Cult Awareness Network) and the American Family Foundation.”⁴ American sociologist-attorney James T. Richardson has explicitly viewed the "brainwashing/mind control" metaphor as a North American export in that "the spread of brainwashing claims around the globe and their use in legal actions is explicable in terms of functional theory. The spread of such ideas serve the purposes of those in the United States who have opposed the spread of new groups, with the adoption of such ideas elsewhere being something of a validity check for their use in the United States."⁵

The most explicit suggestion of such North American New World influence has been made by Shterin and Richardson on the Russian situation:

Russian worries and anxieties about NRMs created demands of different kinds: for interpretations, explanations, and social and political arguments. Western anti-cult groups were instrumental in meeting these demands by supplying a particular type of material, and by doing so they sought to secure a particular type of demand. They offered anti-cult concepts of "brainwashing" and "mind-control," negative images of NRMs, and "generalizations" about their alleged anti-social nature. Furthermore, these concepts and images were picked up, through the Russian ACM, by various interested groups -- the media, politicians and state agencies (as had happened also in the West... Both publicity and [official] "approval" were then used by Russian and Western anti-cult groups to support their own claims, the Western information thus being effectively recycled, ... It is worth noting that the recycling continues, with news from Russia, produced in most part from Western sources, now being used as evidence that the menace of "destructive cults and sects" is international.⁶

The "exportation" process, according to these authors, went in leapfrog sequence: North American ACM activists spread the "mind control" imagery to Western/Northern Europe, and from there (with some more direct influence from the U.S.A.) to Eastern Europe, for example, through the Dialog Centre (Denmark) and the Berliner Dialog Centre.

Another source of the Western anti-cult material have been "secular" anti-cult organizations, notably the French ADFI, the British FAIR (Family Action Information and Resource; "R" formerly stood for "Rescue"), the "old" CAN (Cult Awareness Network), and the American Family Foundation (AFF). ...Concepts of "brainwashing" and "mind-control," commonly used by these organizations in their opposition to "cults" or "sects" provide a frame of reference for their counterparts in Russia, and, through the latter, for interested social and political agents. The ideas of that sort were introduced into the Russian discourses mainly by translations of the American popular anti-cult literature and presented to the Russian public as fundamental and widely accepted by the mainstream Western psychological and psychiatric sciences.⁷

Religious counter cult agencies in the West have also been accused of being proselytizers of ACM doctrine:

Numerous evangelical groups regarded it as part of their missionary agenda in Russia to promote negative images of groups they considered to be "dangerous cults." Thus, some evangelical missionary groups from the United States were extremely active not only in getting across their own religious message, but also in disseminating warnings against newer and older NRMs through tens of thousands of copies of literature or through many web sites.⁸

Until recently the dynamics of this cross-cultural, ideological fertilization has been only surmised except by actors in the ACM's "European campaign." Some authors, such as the previous two, have tracked down specific influences of French, Germans, Danes, and Americans on Eastern Europe, for example. And the influence of the American ACM in spreading "mind control" ideology to Europe, as we shall see, can even be dated. With the availability of the post-bankruptcy CAN records on international ACM organizations, moreover, the pattern of "mind control" missionizing can be more directly traced. Though that message went out to a variety of countries (for example, Argentina, Denmark, Austria, South Africa, Russia and Australia, and a number of countries in Eastern Europe), we focus on France and Germany, and to a lesser extent England, where the most virulent political and social effects of these missionizing efforts have been seen. (For that reason also we do not attempt to examine the link between the U.S. and its close northern neighbor, Canada. However, CAN records of correspondence and organizational documents reveal about two dozen Canadian ACM groups during the 1980s and 1990s operative in cities like Montreal, London, Toronto, Calgary, Freelton, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. Like many earlier local U.S. ACM groups, they have held expressive names like Ex-Members' Society, London Cult Awareness Center, Council on Mind Abuse, Inc., and the Edmonton Society Against Mind Abuse. They were in contact for possible coordination with their U.S. counterparts, as CAN correspondence shows.)⁹

We offer one preliminary overview comment on the European "cultanticult" scene:

Compared to those traditions of many European nations, North American religious culture has been one of (relatively) unfettered pluralism. The U.S. Constitution prohibits any official, government-subsidized religious denomination at either the federal or state levels. Instead, U.S. Religious culture represents an open "marketplace" of competing groups and potential "consumers" (to use a capitalist analogy) who may endorse particular group options by their membership and uncoerced donations.

The implication is that with no official state religion there are also few targeted state protections for NRMs, so offenses against them (i.e., violations of religious liberty for members) take longest to receive attention by state prosecutors. Hence the task of defending any NRM or its members often falls to private attorneys in civil suits where both NRM and ACM advocates argue over such issues as NRM members' "mental stability," NRMs' alleged deceptive fund-raising, and so forth. In other words, defending the religious freedoms of unconventional groups is often left to private individuals and groups (or private enterprise), not to government.

In Europe generally the case is reversed. There are official state sanctioned religions or at least select "preferred" denominations that receive special recognition and subsidies or privileges that others (particularly NRMs) do not.¹⁰ And the close relationships between certain religious denominations and governments mean that NRMs often confront state investigatory commissions, legal entanglements, and lack of concerns for religious liberties that their American counterparts do not. European governments (often with the blessings of their sanctioned church elites) are much less reticent to interrogate, restrict, and intervene against NRMs.

Thus, one sees a curious but logical disparity in anticultisms between the United States and European countries.

In the United States' religious marketplace, opponents of NRMs largely have to fend for themselves as voluntary associations in mobilizing resources without government support or encouragement, as the history of the grassroots ACM clearly shows. (That is undoubtedly one reason the vigilante practice of deprogramming originated and, for a while at least, thrived in the United States instead of in Europe. Desperate families have had to resort to taking the law into their own hands.) If the ACM movement was to survive, it had to attract a critical mass of advocates and survive the various financial and legal/organization hurdles we have described.

In (often socialist) European countries, by comparison, whose church state separation is rarely as clear as in the U.S., the public as well as state subsidized clergy expect that state to take a proactive role in monitoring and even restricting NRMs. As a result, American ACM groups have had to depend on mass participation without government assistance, while the European ACM effort has received (by American standards) almost immediate government support and never has had to generate a large public constituency. Thus, as three sociologists observed two decades ago in comparing North American and (West) German anticult efforts (and the relevance still stands):

[In Germany] instead of there being any "mass" of organized individuals reacting to social strains who then somehow join together in a concerted effort to achieve a goal, there is a relatively small clique of individuals who hold more or less key positions within important organizations (particularly the Protestant church) who have an effective communications system, and who have ready access to the media. These individuals are able to mobilize the anticult sentiment, or at least speak for it. There is little or no organized "mass" of people behind them (unlike the American situation)... Thus, in contrast to the United States the parents' organizations, insofar as they exist other than on paper, serve mainly as legitimation for the actions of several key individuals than they reflect any widespread parental unrest.¹¹ [Italics in the original.]

For a countermovement such political environmental factors can be important.

European NRM/ACM Conflicts in Legal Context

Unlike the simpler contexts of just the United States or Canada, NRM controversies in Europe are complicated by post-World War Two developments at cooperating and consolidating broad legal commonalities among nations. James T. Richardson refers to the latter as "pan-European institutions" that resemble legal confederations intended to bridge national boundaries, particularly in areas of economics but also in human rights: "The new pan-European institutions have arisen in a unique context which involved the joining together for economic and social purposes a number of societies, virtually of which have official state-sanctioned religions, even if the specific arrangements for support vary somewhat."¹²

The first of these institutions was the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, originating from the Congress of Europe in 1948. That group passed a statute, or resolution, calling for the adherence of all member nations to the lawful, free enjoyment by all citizens of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Out of that statute eighteen months later came the drafting of the Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, ratified by the representatives of ten European nations in 1950. (see ^{http://www.pfc.org.uk/legal/echrtext.htm)} Three years later it became literally a treaty among nations. Currently there are twenty-nine countries pledged to its precepts.

Most important among those precepts are two articles that affect religious liberty. Article 9 states in two parts:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance. [This article is similar to the free exercise clause in the United States Constitution's First Amendment.]
2. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.¹³

 

This second part puts seemingly reasonable, if imprecise, limits on how "free" the exercise of religion can be. There is also an article 14 which explicitly endorses a lack of ethnic and demographic restrictions on this exercise:

14. The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, color, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origins, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.¹⁴

The Convention established a European Commission of Human Rights which, through its staff, can hear and investigate a complaint of violations of the above article after a complainant has already pressed his or her case in a "domestic" (national) court system. If the Commission does not resolve a complaint, the matter then can go to the next level, the Committee of Ministers, made up of all the Foreign Ministers from the member nations of the Council of Europe. And to further complicate matters, any of the nations involved have several months to take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights, (see ^{http://www.echr.coe.int/} ) located in Strasbourg, France. The Council of Europe has a Parliamentary Assembly, composed of representatives from separate national parliaments of those countries in the Court of Europe, which elects members to the European Court.

The Committee of Ministers may or may not refer a matter to the Court but can take action if it decides that Convention principles have been violated. The end result can be that the Court of Human Rights could hear a full-fledged adversarial trial, with written and oral arguments, witnesses, expert testimonies, and so forth. Any judgment is then returned to the Committee of Ministers. The process is laborious, often taking years and creating an enormous backlog of cases, thereby discouraging individual complaints.

In reality, it would appear that this elaborate international legal structure does not go far beyond providing a paper guarantee of religious liberties to ensure that such liberties are protected. The second part of Article 9 gives nation states a wide interpretation that can subvert the intention of the first part if they should claim a threat or endangerment to some part of the public, or to specific cohorts of citizens, resulting from some practices of religion. As a result, relatively few complaints have made it very far through the system. Richardson notes that from a review of previous governments' interpretations of the religious freedom guaranteed in Article 9's first part,

... it could be argued that Article 9 ends up being used as a way to limit religious freedom, especially for minority religions, not to protect or expand such freedoms. One way Article 9 has been used as an act of limitation on religious freedom has been to focus on the matters raised in paragraph 2 to disallow coverage of the broad concerns of paragraph 1.¹⁵ [Italics in the original.]

In essence, what Richardson terms a "majoritarian" standard has become the norm for interpreting Article 9, permitting the possibility of dominant prejudices by judges and jurists to prevail in assessing the practices and beliefs of unconventional religions. There are, by North American standards, fewer safeguards for minority religions if states decide to intervene in the "interests" of a higher public concern. The European Parliament, made up of 518 representatives from the member nations of the European Community, has not shown itself terribly concerned with the religious liberties issues. (see ^{www.europarl.eu.int)}

When NRMs' freedoms are involved in a controversy, these tend to be obfuscated by other issues. To cite Richardson's conclusion on this matter:

In these new pan-European structures, the treatment of minority religions is to allow control and management by member States, which leads to disregarding most claims based strictly on freedom of religion. The pan-European entities defer to Member States, some of whom have a quite spotty record of protecting religious minorities and freedom of religion.¹⁶

Thus the European notion of religious liberties for NRMs is based on the reality, and sometimes reluctant acknowledgement, of pluralism rather than any celebration of it. Religious toleration in many parts of Europe is, to use two social scientists' words, "the (often grudging) willingness of the State to allow a variety of religious belief and behavior."¹⁷

This distinctly non-American view of religious ferment has been embraced by moral entrepreneurs in the North American ACM where they eventually have found more fertile groups for accepting the dubious notion of "mind control". The phenomenon is a familiar one to "constructionist" sociologists dealing with social movements who have studied the cross-cultural emergence and evolution of social problems in countries linked socially, politically, and economically.¹⁸

The Early ACM Connection

The North American ACM did not inspire or create the initial European reaction to NRMs. Indeed, European countermovement activities were occurring before AFF or CAN even formally existed. These actions were the result of a constellation of concerns: the suspicion of harmful, even socially subversive behaviors by NRM members; understandable nativism and ethnocentrism; the challenge to the hegemony of older denominations by aggressive "upstart" NRMs (the formers’ spokespersons are called sektenexperten, typically German [Lutheran] pastors anxious to stifle competitors); and the relative deprivation and disappointment experienced by families whose offspring abandoned conventional career/domestic trajectories. In the Federal Republic of Germany, for example, where sudden religious conversion is somewhat alien to the general citizen, there was also a widespread fear that what was called the implicit generation contract was in danger of being violated by communal religious groups that removed youthful members out of the job market and thus the social entitlements pool of taxpayers, i.e., that young people would not contribute to the costs incurred by the state in taking care of the older generation in health benefits and retirement, much less for their own future costs.¹⁹

Thus FAIR (Family Action Information and Rescue) was founded in 1975 (four years after the first American regional ACM group coalesced) by a Member of Parliament who had become embroiled in a Unification Church

lawsuit. FAIR has resembled the American-style family-based groups like the older Citizens Freedom Foundation, spinning off regional affiliates.²⁰ Likewise, the French ADFI (Associations pour la Défense de la Famille et de I'Individu) emerged during the early 1970s and achieved a national (federated) style organization by 1975. In 1977 AGPF (Aktion fur geistige und psychische Freiheit) was established in West Germany as a coordinating body for a number of initiatives -- group and individual, public and private -- against NRMs. And about the same time, the latter country's ministries became involved in NRM controversies. The most active was the Ministry for Youth, Family and Health. During the spring and fall of 1978, this agency conducted a pilot study to collect and review "official data" on NRMs. Among other German governmental agencies that became involved and produced policy reports were the Ministries of Labor, Health and Welfare in the state of North Rein Westphalia, the Ministry of Welfare, Health and Sport in Rheinland-Pfalz, and the Standing Committee for Culture and the Standing Committee for Welfare, Health and Family Policy of the Bavarian Senate.²¹

Early North American involvement in ACM efforts seem mainly to have consisted of sympathetic "bridge-building," North American spokespersons answering international queries for information and suggesting future cooperation, and tentative cross-conference attendance. On the first two activities, consider this small (grammatically uncorrected) sample from a much larger volume of early correspondence to and from CFF in the CAN files:

Gracias tambien por la informacion sobre le libra Imperio Moon que yo tengo en mi poder puesto que se ha editado en espanol y se vende en has liberias de Montevido.

Uruguay, 1981

Please supply me with following: Your free leaflet -- Destructive Cults: Mind Control and Psychological Conversion.

Waitara, New Zealand – 1982

Your pamphlet on Destructive Cults may come in handy, will try and have it photocopied. We have been asked to talk to high school girls about cult involvement, but didn't have much to hand out.

New Zealand – 1982

My 22 year-old daughter ... went to the University of Edinburgh about three years ago... Her studies suffered, we think it was because of the association with the Moonies and went to live at the Moonie home.

Republic of Botswana, South Africa -- 1982

I am interested in receiving information on the programs you are involved with in the Anti-cult arena, We are developing materials and techniques at our school in Jerusalem. We want to link up with other organizations who do similar work.

Jerusalem, Israel -- 1982

Greetings from a kindred organization. A number of individuals who have tried to counter the influence of the cults separately have united to form this organization. If the name [Free Mind Foundation] resembles yours it is because our aims are probably the same. will be happy to exchange with you any items of information and reports of techniques and strategies.

Wellington, New Zealand -- 1982

Your center has been mentioned as one good source which can provide us information and advice about cults
and its damages to young people and student... I'm a Catholic priest working as a school chaplain.

Bhopal, Philippines – 1983

Being a young organization, the task that lies ahead of us is very enormous. Thus a request that you assist us in whatever way you can establish our infrastructure.

Kampala, Uganda -- 1985.

Such requests for information from around the globe look remarkably like the ones CAN was receiving over a decade later. For example: I write to you in the hopes that you can help me with the situation presenting itself. My daughter has become involved with the Hare Krishna ISKON movement and I look to you to help me face this issue and advise me as to the best approach.

Cape Town, South Africa -- 1995

We reviewed letters to CAN from persons wanting to establish working relations from countries as diverse as Israel, Canada, South Africa, Uganda, Australia-New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Malta, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Argentina, Ireland, Belgium, Chile, and Venezuela. Just as the first North American ACM activists formally began with only narrow interests in the Children of God NRM but soon expanded to monitor a much broader array of groups,²² so CFF and later its successor CAN began to network internationally. For example, CFF and CAN spokespersons (usually the presidents or executive directors, rarely staff members) responded to letters in the following ways:

We are most encouraged to hear of your good luck [in Tokyo], have put your name on our newsletter mailing list, and hope you will do the same for us. ...If there is any specific help that I or CFF might offer you, please do not hesitate to call on me.

June 21, 1982

We would most definitely appreciate establishing a link between CFF and South Africa.

October 5, 1982

Thank you for your letter of January 6. 1 wish I could send you many names of members of the Psychiatric Association (APA) who support our position. Unfortunately, few psychiatrists understand mind control here in the United States.

February 11, 1983

Letters soliciting information as well as help in NRM issues are often paired with CAN replies in the former group's files. Thus, Priscilla D. Coates Director of CFF's National Office and later to be CAN's Director, replied to the Deputy Consulate General of the Swedish Consulate in New York on a matter of returning a NRM member to her parents that she (Coates) had access to extensive files "on a number of groups" and offered future assistance to him. ^{[Document #1]}A Belgian anticultist traveling to the U.S. on a data gathering mission interviewed deprogrammer Ted Patrick and offered to arrange for videotaped deprogrammings (at Patrick's suggestion) to be placed in CFF's library. ^{[Document #2/1] [Document #2/2]} Iin response to a request from an employee of an affiliate of ADFI seeking information on rebirthing as a possible cultic behavior, Coates offered to find information on the practice but called it "pop," "pseudo," "quack" -- "perhaps even fake or false" -- "amateur" psychology, "a foolish, worthless and possibly dangerous gimmick" because the potential for ego destruction could be very great.^{[Document #3/1] [Document #3/2]}

CAN stored boxes of such correspondence from a multitude of nations, most European as time went on. Because so many of the larger NRMs were international in their missions, many queries originating from overseas were from persons seeking information on family members recruited by missionaries there but who had migrated to the U.S.

In addition to the graduate co alignment of ideologies and commitment to fight "cults," face-to-face interaction began to occur at the iniative of ACM groups on both sides of the Atlantic (and Pacific). To name several early examples:

In 1978 the German Union for Child Psychiatry (also translated as the German Association for Children's and Youth Psychiatry), along with the Federal Conference for Educational Advice, hosted a seminar in Hanover on NRMs, or as the German referred to them, "youth-religions." Among those speakers invited were two American psychiatrists who were to become close to the AFF as leaders and/or supporters: Harvard University's Dr. John G. Clark, Jr. (Founder of the Center for the Study of Destructive Cultism) and Yale University's Dr. Robert J. Lifton (coiner of the term "thought reform" and whose work on the subject has been used as the gospel of "mind control" ideology of the North American ACM).^{[Document #4]} According to Yehuda Bauer in his unpublished paper, "Euthanasia, Nazism and Psychiatry,"

This was a conference directed at the suppression of expanding religious groups. The German Union of Child Psychiatry brought up a new term for these growing religious movements when they defined them as "youth religions."²³

(The two American psychiatrists may not have been aware of some of their hosts in the Union. Several had been accused of being active pro-euthanasia psychiatrists in the Nazi movement during World War Two: Dr. H. A. Schmitz, Dr. Buger Prinz Dr. Hildegard Jetzer [who is alleged to have had over 2000 Polish children destroyed in concentration camps], and Dr. Franz Kapp, who in 1939 wrote a piece entitled "On the Sterilization of Hereditary Mentally Deficients and Its Meaning in the Fight Against Criminality.,,)²⁴

In December, 1980 in Paris ADFI held a conference (Colloque International) on NRMs (also referred to as "Extremist Cults") attended by approximately sixty persons from fourteen countries, including Japan, India, the U.S. Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Holland, Scotland, Spain, and Switzerland. One of the participants from the U.S. was California pre-CFF ACM activist Henrietta Crampton. Familiar European ACM names, such as Denmark's Dialog Center's Johannes Aagaard and Germany' s Thomas P. Gandow and F. W. Haack, were in attendance.^{[Document #5/1] [Document #5/2]} A news release from the conference proclaimed in terms distinctly unfriendly to religious pluralism:

It was noted that these new movements' religious claims often defend them from criticism by a public which believes all religion to be good. In fact, with their elitist and totalitarian claims, they are a threat to freedom. ...These movements use the term "religious freedom" to attack the individuals who criticize them. For the sake of their own closed communities they destroy normal family relations. ^{[Document #6]}

It is instructive to note that the complaints against NRMs in the longer news release were that they were anti-democratic and anti-family. Nothing was said of mind control or mental enslavement or psychological incapacitation. But out of this conference came the preliminary plans for some sort of trans-national association to oppose "cults." Its constitution named it the International Committee (for short), or the I.C.C.N.T.I.R.O. (International Committee Concerned with New Totalitarian Ideological and Religious Organizations). Thereafter, however, its proponents simply referred to it as the International Committee. ^{[Document #7]}

In October, 1982 the Executive Committee of the international coalition centred on ADFI (composed of Haack, Aagaard, and representatives from France, England, and Belgium) journeyed to CFF's annual meeting in Washington, DC to caucus with their American counterparts on pursuit of an International Association for coordinated ACM activities. Keeping with ADFI's past structure, this International Association would have a General Assembly, representatives elected (one each) by member ACM associations and a Board of Director elected by the General Assembly, one representative per country. Future correspondence, it was decided, would be forwarded to AGPF in Germany, and the proposed date of the second international meeting was set for the following October, 1983. ^{[Document #8/1] [Document #8/2]}

In September, 1984 Robert Lenz, an officer in CFF and a university chemistry professor, had travel plans with his wife in Europe at the time of annual meetings of England's FAIR in London and West Germany's AGPF in Bonn. He volunteered to CFF director Priscilla Coates to represent CFF at both. He also wrote to the organizer of the Bonn conference, Ingo Heinemann, asking to participate ^{[Document #9]} His report to CFF’s Board of Directors show Lenz was asked by FAIR's chairperson, Peter Broadbent, to speak on the subject, "What's Happening on the Cult Scene in the U.S.A?" (He also mentions that during his talk, "The FAIR people bristle at the word ‘deprogrammers,’ which implies violent conversions methods to them.") Lenz's report provides a view of the European ACM for England and Germany) somewhat similar to the American scene (minus government involvement), with the ACM activists feeling like underdogs in their struggles to arouse public alarm over ACMs and enlist political allies. (FAIR at the time had almost 800 total members among its affiliates and was seeking to maintain financial solvency.) At the AGPF annual conference there were discussions "of the supportive and extensive activities of the West German government" by a sociologist who was also the Government Minister for Youth and a talk by a representative from the Evangelical (Protestant) Church. On one panel Lenz represented CFF while Daphne Green, a long-time ACM activist whose son had become involved in the Unification Church, represented AFF.

There were various testimonies by ex-NRM members, of course, but the important point is that that significant networking was occurring, laying the groundwork for future international coordination. Lenz optimistically concluded his report:

I will send to the CFF Board the names and addresses of the representatives as soon as I have more time to organize my notes on the meeting... It is expected that the meeting will generate much greater interaction and cooperation between the cult awareness groups in the different Western European countries, and CFF has an excellent opportunity to establish closer bonds with the organizations. I will submit recommendations on such contacts as soon as possible. ^{[Document #10/1] [Document #10/2] [Document #10/3] [Document #10/4]}

Thus, some twenty-five years before recent religious liberties controversies surfaced in France, Germany and elsewhere, an organizational alliance that could realistically be termed an international anticult movement was forming.

The White-Hot Phase

"Social movements," writes sociologist John Lofland, "differ in the level at which they are mobilized at any given moment, at various periods of their careers, and over their life histories taken as a whole."²⁵ Viewing movement mobilization as a variable rather than a dichotomy, Lofland posits a "'white-hot' state of maximum mobilization" when a certain critical mass of resources and motivation come together to create a qualitatively greater spurt of expansion. From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s this is precisely what the North American-European ACM coalition experienced. In particular, this time period was the most productive phase of the American effort to proselytize its "mind control" ideology abroad and forge an international alliance.

Rather than present a strict chronology of this decade-long proselytization -cooperative phase, we separate samples of the documentary evidence into four dimensions of exchange and influence: (1) continued sympathetic requests for assistance and informational exchange; (2) visits to Europe by North American ACM representatives; and (3) international ACM conferences and organizations. While in some respects there is overlap within (1)-(3), we believe the narrative is easier to follow using this scheme.

Continued Sympathetic Requests for Assistance and Informational Exchange

In 1985 CFF's Robert W. Lenz thanked an AGPF contact from his 1984 visit to Bonn, Germany and honored her request for a state-by-stated list of CFF chapters and "cult exit counselors." He reminded her that CFF was the "principal source of information on cults and counseling throughout the United States" and pledged the future cooperation of CFF and director Priscilla Coates. ^{[Document #11]} This type of correspondence was to become a trend in the North American-European ACM connection: no longer just individuals with isolated NRM problems but more so an increasing number of representatives of other European ACM groups (or persons referred by these groups ) contacting CAN with requests for information or possible co alignment. CAN records are replete with such correspondence. We interpret this as one sign of the growing reciprocity among ACM social movement organizations on two continents. Here we can only provide a few (grammatically uncorrected) cases. For example,

We are writing because we have been contacted just recently by parents who have a daughter who joined the Kenneth Copeland ministries in England ... But who is now back in Barcelona and in contact with the group. .../ seem to recall that Kenneth Copeland is a TV preacher in the States although we would appreciate any information you could send us on it since it is very new here in Spain.

Association Pro-Juventud, Barcelona, Spain – 1989 ^{[Document #12]}

We have an urgent need for data on The Schiller Institute. It is at present infiltrating Danish farmers' organizations. ... You would help us by faxing the most important data to us immediately and more substantial material by mail. If you want us to send back to you the collected data which we compile, we will certainly do that in return.

Johannes Aagaard, Institut For Missionstelogi Og Okumenisk Teologi, Denmark -- 1990 ^{[Document #13]}

With growing alarm I have read in your newsletter about the relentless attacks against you by Scientologists. I have meant to write before to say that we think of you a lot and that we feel for you very much... Obviously CAN is singled out for all this attention because it is effective. We console ourselves with this positive attitude when we find smears and libelous comments about FAIR in the Moonie press.

Family Action information Rescue (FAIR), London, England -- 1992

I'm a French journalist. I come and solicit you for collaboration. I've got your address by the French association ADF1 in Paris. I'm going to publish one article about fight against sects in Europe.

Brest, France -- 1993 ^{[Document #14]}

I am writing to you regarding our recent conversation over the phone. ...Because of political situation in our country it is very difficult for us to operate. So we would appreciate if you can consider a possibility for us to be a branch of American organization CAN.

Belgrade, Yugoslavia – 1993 ^{[Document #15]}

We are holding a three-day seminar.. We would like to have a speaker from C.A.N....

Republic of Malta -- 1993 ^{[Document #16]}

I would like to establish contact with you. Please send me any materials you have about Mormonism. / am ... a cult fighter.. but I can't have any effective "fight" without contacts with you and other similar organizations.

Sofia, Bulgaria – 1994 ^{[Document #17]}

There were more direct trails of correspondence that point to cross-fertilization. In a March 22, 1988 letter to West Germany's premier anticultist, the Rev. Friederich W. Haack (Commissioner of Apologetics, Lutheran church of Bavaria), AFF's Michael D. Langone (a psychologist and Director of Research and Education) asked Haack for his opinions about whom to invite to serve on the AFF Public Policy-International Committee (which AFF previously had asked Haack to chair). Langone suggested as possible nominees Daphne Vane (of England's FAIR), a French woman from ADFI, a Member of the British Parliament, and the head of the Spanish Pro Juventud. This committee would, among other things, organize the next International Congress. Daphne Vane was considered a good candidate, in Langone's opinion, since she was already planning to come to the AFF’s annual convention the following September. He wrote: "In forming such a committee, AFF hopes to be a catalyst. ^{[Document #18]} An associate of Rev. Haack responded to Langone's letter and wrote that Haack had suggested Wurtzburg, West Germany as a meeting location for the Congress. ^{[Document #19]}

Later, in a November 3 letter of that same year Langone write Haack a "Dear Fritz" letter in which, among other topics, he addressed the issue of Haack developing AFF's International Subcommittee of the Education Committee:

Last winter you agreed to chair the subcommittee. The precise charge of that subcommittee is yet to be defined. Daphne Vane has suggested that some thought be given to forming -- or laying the groundwork for forming -- an "International Family Foundation' which could serve as a federation of sorts for the various cult education organizations around the world. In Barcelona you and I discussed the possibility of organizing an International Conference in Munich in 1989 or 1990.²⁶

Langone's letter went on to suggest a possibly smaller international meeting of CAN, AFF, and select invitees from Europe and expanded the list of possible members of the subcommittee (beyond those already listed) to include Johannes Aargaard, Robert W. Lenz (at that time already on CAN's board of directors), and at least one unnamed representative from Israel (among other countries). (Copies of the letter were cc'd to AFF President Herbert L. Rosedale, CAN's Robert W. Lentz, and FAIR's Daphne Vane.) ^{[Document #20/1] [Document #20/2] [Document #20/3]} And in a further indication of this international bridge-building, Robert W. Lenz wrote in a December 3, 1988 letter to AFF's Michael D. Langone thanking him for the invitation to join the AFF Advisory Board and to participate on the International Subcommittee of the Education Committee. His words:

Your proposals for organizing an international federation of cult education organizations, for organizing an International Conference, and for establishing an annual newsletter for the federation are all most exciting. These activities would be of tremendous benefit for increasing cult awareness and for providing education and family support opportunities around the world. I would be most pleased to work with Rev. Haack and the other members of the committee. ^{[Document #21]}

At the end Lenz added an offer to serve as ACM ambassador: "...I continue to travel extensively, and indeed I expect to be in Europe on at least three separate occasions in the coming year. Perhaps on one of these I could meet with Rev. Haack." Langone replied later that month, pleased that Lenz had accepted the AFF International Committee's position and cc'd the letter to Freiderich W. Haack as well as to Daphne Vane. ^{[Document #22]}

In sum, by the late 1980s to early 1990s the populist identity of CAN (and to a similar extent, AFF) as worldwide clergy houses of NRM advice and information was established. Activists were in more that casual or occasional communication. A network was in place. ^{[Document #23]}

The next several sections identify more of the process by which this was achieved.

Visits to Europe by North American ACM Representatives

We have already referred to several appearances in North America by European ACM activists. There were others. Alternately, visits to European anticultists by North American ACM representatives of course provided opportunities for the latter to expose the former to the panoply of quasi-behavioral science terms for NRM involvement, such as "brainwashing," ii mental servitude," "menticide," thought reform," and "psychological incapacitation." Aside from North American ACM spokespersons' presence at international meetings (reviewed in the next section), there were a number of key individual visits, or literal "tours," similar to those of the previously mentioned travels of CFF's Robert W. Lenz in 1984 (and after), which were intended in part to spread the "mind control" ideology.

In November, 1989 AFF's Michael D. Langone wrote ADFI's founder Claire Champollion concerning a possible Paris location for an upcoming international ACM congress. He also remarked that Marcia and Rabbi James Rudin (authors of a popular ACM book Prison or Paradise: The New Religious Cults)³⁰ "will be coming to Europe on vacation in March [1990 and] would like to talk to Jim's alleged contacts at the Vatican to persuade them to send a representative."³¹ Also in the same month California psychologist Margaret T. Singer, long-time advocate and member of both CAN and AFF and a perennial speaker at their annual conventions, was the featured guest speaker at FAIR's annual meeting in London and addressed "an invited audience in the house of Lords." ^{[Document #24]}

In her April, 1990 written report to CAN's Board of Directors, executive director Cynthia S. Kisser related that her "April 20-29 trip to Europe on behalf of CAN proved to be a productive and interesting experience.³² She chronicled her first stop (along with CAN activist Rachel Andrews) in London and a meeting with FAIR's Daphne Vane. ^{[Document #25]} Then she described her trip to Paris where she attended a conference of international "cult education groups" sponsored by AFF and UNADFI (Union nationale des associations pour la défense des familles et de l'individu, an extension of ADFI) and chaired by AFF's Herbert L. Rosedale and UNADFI's M. M. Lasserre. Also attending from the U.S. were AFF/CAN's Robert W. Lenz, AFF's Michael D. Langone, and others. Kisser summarized the fruits of her trip as follows:

As a result of this trip, I was able to speak in detail with representatives from Spain, France, England, Canada, and Switzerland, and to a lesser degree with all the other representatives. I anticipate a closer working relationship with many of the groups I met as a result of this trip. ^{[Document #26/1] [Document #26/2] [Document #26/3]}

Yet she encountered cultural barriers to a united international ACM front, apparently in the universal acceptance of the "mind control" model:

The international organization was not able to form during the conference, in part because of a division within Europe between those organizations with a religious affiliation and those which are secular in their origins and purpose. While a collective statement on the dangers of cult activity in Eastern Europe was drafted, language barriers and a diversity in the cultural frames of reference for defining the cult problem presented a commonly agreed upon public statement from being finalized in the short period of time the conference allowed.

Nevertheless, she felt that progress was being made.

Bridges of organization cooperation and support were being constructed. And European anticult representatives were becoming more visible at anticult gatherings in the U.S. For example, CAN's Robert W. Lenz contacted a Mr. M. Jansa of the Research Institute of Lutheran Church in Finland with a copy of the 1990 CAN national conference (held in Chicago), inviting him as a representative to the meetings. THE CAN Board of Directors had authorized Lenz to offer M. Jansa a waiver of the $250 registration fee and usual conference expenses. ^{[Document #27]} Not all could come when they wanted, however. Ingo Heinemann, director of Germany's AGPF, wrote Robert Lenz in September, 1990 that although he had attended the 1982 CFF annual meeting, division within AGPF and lack of funds meant that he could not afford to attend this time.^{[Document #28/1] [Document #28/2]}

Meanwhile, North American ACM spokespersons were busy in Europe and/or with Europeans. In September 1990, for example, CAN's Robert Lenz contacted an editor at "Speak Up," a television program in Milan, Italy concerning a request for an interview. Lenz informed the editor that it would be convenient since he was going to be visiting the University of Bologna at the suggested time for a series of guest lectures.^{[Document #29]} The CAN files also show similar prosaic correspondence, such as a journalist for the French magazine Speakeasy, an English language-learning publication, planning an arrival in Deerfield, Illinois in 1993 to interview Cynthia Kisser for an article on cults. ^{[Document #30]}

Perhaps the best example of North American ACM visitations in Europe and related attempts to proselytize the "mind control" message was Cynthia Kisser's speaking engagement in the German city of Stuttgart, Germany, in November 1994. Along with ACM psychologist Margaret T. Singer, Kisser was invited to speak at a symposium hosted by the ministry for Culture and Sports. ^{[Document #31]} Her arrival in Stuttgart was anticipated by German ACM activists. ^{[Document #32/1] [Document #32/2]} In addition, Kisser sought to take advantage of the opportunities to promote the notion of "mind control" in NRMs. For example, in a fax memo to FAIR's Daphne Vane Kisser asked, "Do you think I should try and meet with anyone, either in England, France, or elsewhere while I am on that side of the ocean? If so, I would want to meet prior to my presentation to include new information about cult activity in Europe..." ^{[Document #33]}Similarly, she alerted her host at the Ministry for Culture and Sport that not only would she attend the symposium but that she was also generally available for speaking on the subject of "cult dangers:"

I also am willing to make my time available while in Stuttgart to meet with any other officials or professionals whom you feel it would be beneficial for me to meet with on the topic of cults. I am also willing to speak to high school or college students if there would be an interest in such a presentation. ...I will let you advise me further should you wish to consider any such meetings. ^{[Document #34]}

Kisser's symposium paper was entitled "Destructive Cults and the Problems They Pose to Children and Youth." It was contained vintage ACM examples of defining destructive cults:

A destructive cult always exhibits two characteristics. First, a destructive cult is unethical and deceptive in how it recruits and indoctrinates its members... Second, a destructive cult uses strong influence techniques, often called mind control techniques, in a concerted manner, without the informed consent or knowledge of the recruit, to affect the recruit's critical thinking, sense of self identity, and/or value system. ^{[Document #35/1] [Document #35/2] [Document #35/3] [Document #35/4] [Document #35/5] [Document #35/6] [Document #35/7] [Document #35/8] [Document #35/9] [Document #35/10] [Document #35/11]}

Explaining the North American ACM mantra allegedly based on Liftonian thought reform, she then went on in her paper to portray hypothetical ill effects of cults, their victims, and horrific case studies. There were only six references in her bibliography, all ACM publications. The audience was precisely the sort the ACM would want for its exposition on the "brainwashing" model:" "working groups on issues of [cult] prevention," of whom approximately 80 persons were mostly school teachers interested in "youth sects" and "psycho groups." ^{[Document #36/1] [Document #36/2]}

This sample of correspondence and related documents concerning North American ACM activities in concert with their European counterparts is not presented to "prove" a connection between the two: rather, it illustrates the reality of that connection. The indisputable facts are that North American anticultists were seeking and finding common ground in the culture wars against NRMs, just as they had done within the United States in the 1970s. Moreover, an effort was being made to create an even larger, worldwide umbrella organization or confederation than just CAN or AFF. Finally, American ACM spokespersons were aggressively promoting to a more receptive audience what to most American behavioral scientists and scholars was a seriously flawed psychological interpretation of religious conversion and commitment.

International Conferences and Organizations

We do not mean to imply that European ACM groups have been dependent on their North American counterparts for motivation, mobilization, or tactics to opposed and/or monitor NRMs. To use a biological metaphor, North American ACM input on "mind control" has acted more as an enzyme to stimulate and reinforce concern where it already existed. European anticultists often have had the advantage of government sponsorship or at least have not had to face the reluctance of state interveners and inspectors as have North American anticultists, "burdened" as the latter have been by a legal and cultural tradit