Reconstructing the "Cult" Experience: Post-Involvement Attitudes as a Function of Mode of Exit and Post-Involvement Socialization

Abstract

The principal evidence for the cult stereotype has been derived from the testimony of deprogrammed former members. Although scholars of new religious movements have fiequently observed that deprogrammees are not neutral witnesses, systematic empirical work in this area has been scant. The present paper is a report of a survey of 154 former members of controversial religious movements. The results of this research replicate the conclusions of Trudy Solomon 's study, i. e., that the tendency of ex-members to hold negative, cult-stereotypical attitudes toward their former groups is highly correlated with the extent of their exposure to the socializing influences of the anti-cult movement. In the controversy over cults, the general public has overwhelmingly accepted the brainwashing/mind control ideology which has been propagated by anticult groups opposed to alternative religious movements. The reasons for this largely uncritical acceptance include our society's secular world view and our tendency to utilize such values as economic success as criteria for determining what is reasonable and logical. From this perspective, a more than nominal religiosity which seems to interfere with, or to supplant, more instrumental goals and values is automatically suspect as not quite rational. This cultural bias, combined with the mass media's penchant for sensationalism, has enabled anti-cultists to enlist this powerful ally in their efforts to shape public opinion. The chief support for the notion of cultic brainwashing has been the negative testimony of (usually deprogrammed) former members of controversial religious groups. Accounts by former