Professional Documents
Culture Documents
4, 1999
INTRODUCTION
This article evaluates the scientific status of the cultic brainwashing perspec-
tive of the French psychiatrist Jean-Marie Abgrall, widely considered to be the
leading anti-cult mental health professional in Europe, and as such is playing a
similar formative role in anti-cult activities in Europe that was earlier played in
the United States by American psychologist Margaret Singer (Singer, with Lalich,
1 DickAnthony is a research and forensic psychologist who has often served as a consultant and expert
witness in cases involving allegations of coercive organizational influence.
421
0885-7466/99/1200-0421$I6.00/0 O 1999 Plenum Publishing Corporation
422 Anthony
1995). Abgrall emerged as a key "cult expert" because he was the first psychiatrist
in France willing to embrace brainwashing theories. He has testified or submit-
ted reports in almost all "cult cases" in France and a number in other European
countries. Indeed, Abgrall has been involved in dozens of cases in recent years,
and he has assumed the mantle of the foremost expert on sects and cults in all of
France and even Europe. Abgrall has also had an impact in some former communist
countries as well, particularly through the dissemination of official governmental
reports from France and Belgium that he helped produce.
Abgrall was appointed in 1996 as a member of the official Observatory of
Sects (or Cults) in France, and had testified earlier before the governmental com-
mission that developed a very critical report on "sects and cults" (Commission d'
enquete sur les sectes, 1996), which has been referred to in France and a number
of different countries as a guide to official policy development. (See Introvigne
and Melton, 1996, for a discussion of this report.) Abgrall also assisted in prepa-
ration of another major and quite critical report on new religions in Belgium in
1997 (Chambre des Representants de Belgique, 1997). In both reports he is quoted
prominently both for his mind-control theories and for his criticism of so-called
cult apologists.
Abgrall later rejected the French Observatory of Sects and Cults as not being
critical enough of them and urged the establishment of an official governmental
"Mission to Fight Cults," a recommendation that was accepted by the French gov-
ernment, making it a powerful institution directed at control of minority religions
in France. Abgrall has become perhaps its chief spokesperson in France, together
with the Mission's president, Alain Vivien, working regularly with the media to
promote the task of the Mission. More recently, his ideas about brainwashing were
used as major justification for quite punitive recommendations in the lengthy report
on finances of minority religions in France (Assemblee Nationale, 1999; see also
Richardson and Introvigne, 1999, for discussion of these and other governmental
reports in Europe, and the significant use they make of brainwashing theories,
including that of Abgrall).
Abgrall also wrote another book focusing on the possibility of violence from
cult reactions to the coming millennium (Abgrall, 1999a). This book, which dealt
with alleged "apocalyptic cults" that were ready for violence to help usher in
the new millennium, garnered considerable media attention. The book builds on
Abgrall's very high profile during the time of the Solar Temple murder/suicides
that took place in Switzerland in 1994, and also in France (with a smaller number)
in 1995. Abgrall was appointed as an expert in a legal case arising from the
Solar Temple episodes, and he became a frequent television commentator on the
Solar Temple, although he had never done any field research on the group. (This
episode did lead to Abgrall encountering some difficulty, because it was revealed
in the course of this investigation that Abgrall himself was a former member of
a Freemasonry splinter group within France that has also involved Solar Temple
leader Luc Jouret as a member; see Broussard, 1999.)
"Brainwashing" as Pseudoscience 423
Religion and American Sociological Association et al., 1989), and also by courts
that have ruled on the question of whether testimony based on the brainwashing
theory is admissible as scientific expertise. (For discussions of these amicus briefs
and of court rulings that took them and the perspective expressed in this article into
account, see Anthony, 1996, pp. 224-235; Anthony and Robbins, 1992, 1995a;
Richardson, 1991, 1996b.)
In addition, the perspective originally expressed in my 1990 article has been
widely used in the United States as the basis for legal briefs contending that cul-
tic brainwashing testimony is pseudoscientific propaganda expressing prejudice
against minority religions rather than being based on a genuine scientific theory.
Generally, briefs based on this argument have been successful in excluding testi-
mony based on the cultic brainwashing theory because of its pseudoscientific and
prejudicial character (Anthony 1996, pp. 224-235; Anthony and Robbins, 1995a;
Richardson, 1996a,b; Ginsburg and Richardson, 1998). (I have served as a con-
sultant and expert witness in most of these cases, aiding in preparing motions in
limine and submitting declarations in support of those motions.)
the American CIA (Anthony 1996, p. 62, ftnt. 33). Indeed, the term brainwashing
was coined by Hunter in his books, although apparently the brainwashing theory
expressed by Hunter and Condon was not original with them but was developed
by many covert operatives within the CIA.
My thesis, which is shared by other scientists (i.e., Richardson and Kilbourne,
1983; James, 1986; Spanos, 1996), is that cultic brainwashing testimony as devel-
oped by its leading proponents, simply adopted the CIA brainwashing theory and
applied it to new religions. Cultic brainwashing theory was not based on system-
atic research on new religions, but rather simply transferred this pseudoscientific
brainwashing theory to an ideological attack on new religions. Consequently, the
scientific standing of cultic brainwashing theory depends on the scientific credibil-
ity of the CIA theory. Research and analysis that demonstrate the pseudoscientific
character of that brainwashing theory, therefore, also demonstrates the pseudo-
scientific character of cultic brainwashing theory. Before I turn to my discussion
of such research, in the next section of this article I document that Abgrall bases
his theoretical approach on the same CIA brainwashing theory that later became
the basis of the cultic brainwashing theory in the United States, as expressed by
Margaret Singer and others.
In his book La Mecanique des Sectes (Abgrall, 1996, pp. 19-20), Abgrall says
quite explicitly that his theory of cultic mental manipulation is based on Hunter's
brainwashing theory, which he regards as having described communist indoctrina-
tion practices around the time of the Korean War. He indicates that in his use, the
terms brainwashing, mental manipulation, and psychic conditioning are synony-
mous or interchangeable terms for the indoctrinational process used by the North
Korean and Chinese communists against Western prisoners so as to overwhelm
their free will and turn them into obedient communists. At a later point in his book,
he states that: "Coercive [communist and cultic conditioning] methods are called
brainwashing, mind control, mental handling, coercive persuasion, indoctrination,
thought reform, forced conversion, replacing of the thinking process and so on"
(Abgrall, 1999, pp. 125-126).
AbgralPs use of the term brainwashing for his theory of mental manipulation
is itself significant in indicating that his theory and the CIA theory are essentially
the same (see Anthony, 1990, pp. 299-302). Reputable researchers on communist
indoctrination have repeatedly rejected the CIA brainwashing analysis because it is
pseudoscientific, ideological, and misleads the public because it has a propaganda
rather than a scientific function (Schein, 1961; Lifton, 1961; Biderman, 1962;
Scheflin and Opton, 1978).
Abgrall (1999, pp. 19-20) quotes Hunter as claiming that the goal of brain-
washing is to "radically change a mind, so that the individual becomes a living
426 Anthony
puppet, a human robot, without the atrocity being visible on the exterior, the ob-
jective being to create a tool in flesh and blood, furnished with new beliefs and
new thought processes inserted into a captive body."
Abgrall claims that the communist brainwashing techniques described orig-
inally by Hunter are now used by cults, and even though they are not completely
effective in creating robots, they are powerful enough in achieving their aims to
deserve being studied and condemned, a task, according to him, with which the
remainder of his book is concerned. He states (1999, p. 20) "Today's [cultic] brain-
washing techniques do not always succeed in creating the perfect robot, even if
they prove to be sufficiently effective and dangerous to warrant study and censure.
These 'imperfect' techniques I shall now attempt to describe."
In a section entitled "Education by Brainwashing," Abgrall explicitly claims
that his theory of mental manipulation by cults is an application of the CIA re-
search on brainwashing, particularly that conducted by a Dr. Cameron at McGill
University (Abgrall, 1999, pp. 125-128). Abundant research has demonstrated
that the CIA program never produced techniques that are useful in indoctrinating
people against their will (Marks, 1980; Scheflin and Opton, 1978). Consequently
the CIA's popularization of the brainwashing theory (through Edward Hunter's
books) as an interpretation of communist indoctrination of Western prisoners was
purely a propaganda device, as is AbgralFs use of the same paradigm to attack
new religious movements (see Anthony, 1996, pp. 58-85, and below; Anthony and
Robbins, 1998).
As we would expect, then, from his claim that his book transfers the CIA
brainwashing paradigm to cults, both his book (Abgrall, 1996) and his written
testimony (Abgrall, 1990) follow the outlines of Hunter's paradigm and the anti-
cult brainwashing adaptation of it, described in Anthony (1990). That is, Abgrall's
theory of cultic mental manipulation consists of a description of a program of
coercive social influence consisting of the same interrelated themes as that of
Hunter's original brainwashing theory, and of the adaptation of it to so-called
cults by leaders of the American anti-cult movement. These interrelated themes
are: (1) dissociation/hypnosis/suggestibility; (2) psychological stress/debilitation;
(3) conditioning; and (4) defective thinking/deception (Anthony, 1990).
Conversion: Theory, Research, and Treatment (Clark et al., 1981) is one of the
seminal American statements of the anti-cult brainwashing theory that became
the central ideology of the anti-cult movement. The booklet expresses the inter-
related dimensions of the CIA theory (hypnosis/debilitation/false belief-defective
thought/conditioning) and applies them to an analysis of cultic influence.
John Clark, a psychiatrist and first author of this manifesto, was at the time
of its publication executive director of the Center on Destructive Cultism. He tes-
tified in several of the important early cultic brainwashing cases as well as in some
legislative hearings on cults. However, his career as an expert witness in anti-cult
cases was eventually curtailed when he was formally reprimanded by the Disci-
plinary Board of Medicine in Massachusetts for improper use of thought reform
and mind control as diagnostic categories, and for basing his analysis on "mere
membership" in a religious organization in a cultic brainwashing case (Richardson,
1992a). Clark had filed an affidavit in a conservatorship hearing that led to the in-
carceration in a mental hospital of a convert to the Hare Krishna. Clark claimed
that the person was mentally incompetent with little basis for his conclusion other
than the fact that this person had converted to the movement. Clark had only a
15-minute conversation with the person 9 months prior to filing his affidavit.
Michael Langone, Clark's major coauthor, who has also testified several times
in anti-cult brainwashing cases (Langone, 1998), is at the present time the execu-
tive director of the American Family Foundation. Margaret Singer, the most impor-
tant proponent of brainwashing theories in America, and several other prominent
American anti-cultists have long been on the Board of Advisors of the American
Family Foundation. Abgrall also cites the definition of cultic mind control that was
produced at a conference sponsored by the American Family Foundation as part
of the theoretical foundation for his viewpoint (Abgrall, 1999, p. 69).
Hypnosis
In the preceding quote, we see that Abgrall views the religious experiences and
beliefs that result from auditing, the central Scientology ritual, as hallucinations
and delusions. He regards the state of consciousness in which such false beliefs
seem true as defective or delusional. (Compare the similar allegations of Singer as
described in Anthony, 1990, pp. 311-316, and in Richardson, 1991, in a major case
involving the Hare Krishna, as well as other groups.) Abgrall contends that belief
in such false doctrines is induced in subjects against their free will only because
the auditing/hypnosis has placed them in a primitive state of consciousness in
which they are highly "suggestible" and thus unable to resist indoctrination into
the Scientology worldview. He states:
Considering the relative fragility of some patients, they appear extremely malleable by
the auditor who can implant behaviors or ideas in them. The phenomenon of suggestibility
creates in the patient the illusion of former lives or paranormal experiences without enabling
him to review the reality of these experiences and without warning him against the wild
and hallucinatory side of these behaviors. Whatever the credit given to the psychic and
extrasensory phenomena, nobody would have the idea of voluntarily continuing to live in
a waking state, a dream started in a state of sleep, and even more so if this dream creates
anguishes, it is however part of the technique applied by Scientology. (Abgrall, 1990, p. 56,
emphasis mine)
extended discussion of the relation between primitive thought and belief in false
doctrines that he believes is characteristic of alleged cults (1996, pp. 133-153),
as well as for additional discussion of this alleged interaction between primitive
thought and false doctrines in cults (1996, pp. 91-95), and for an argument that
the whole worldviews of cults are false and based on primitive thought (1996,
pp. 155-162).
By contending that the Scientology theology is a false belief involuntarily
induced only because the Scientology convert is in a primitive cognitive state of
heightened suggestibility, Abgrall attempts to disguise the fact that he is asking
the government to rule that some religious beliefs are false and therefore illegal.
On the surface, Abgrall claims to be demonstrating that brainwashing exerts in-
voluntary influence over converts through its distinctively coercive techniques of
persuasion. As we shall see, however, he fails to demonstrate that there is anything
distinctively coercive about Scientology's (and other new religions') techniques
of social influence. Shorn of such pseudoscientific rhetoric of coercive techniques,
it is rather easy to see that the heart of Abgrall's argument is that Scientology's
doctrines deviate from the conventional beliefs that he thinks should be normative
for everyone in French society.
Abgrall claims that his testimony demonstrates scientifically that Scientol-
ogy's techniques of influence are distinctively coercive. What he actually claims
is that Scientology's doctrines are false. Abgrall is accusing Scientology of heresy
relative to mainstream beliefs, and he is speaking not as a scientist, but as a moral
entrepreneur and inquisitor for his status quo view of the world. (For similar
demonstrations with respect to American anti-cult testimony involving Scientol-
ogy as well as other groups such as the Unification Church and the Hare Krishna,
see Anthony, 1990, pp. 311-322; Anthony and Robbins, 1995, pp. 524-536;
Richardson, 1991, 1992a.)
Psychophysiological Stress/Debilitation
Conditioning
2 INSERM is the French national institute for health and medical research, which is under the admin-
strative control of the Minister of Education. Its members are primarily researchers and academics.
3 Although I am not a medical doctor, Abgrall's purely medical allegations relative to the purification
rundown also seem farfetched. I was a research associate at the University of North Carolina Medical
School for 6 years and later served as a Consulting Research Psychologist to the Metabolic Research
Unit of the University of California Medical School at San Francisco, where I supervised a research
program in psychosomatic medicine and was senior author of two articles reporting our research on the
psychiatric effects of metabolic disorders published in distinguished medical journals (see Anthony
et al., 1973, 1974).
"Brainwashing" as Pseudoscience 431
In this passage, as in the sections of his argument focused on the other di-
mensions of the alleged brainwashing process, Abgrall contends that belief in the
value of auditing, and in the value of the use of the E-meter, is false, and that
its use overwhelms free will. However, as with allegations that belief in auditing
and other Scientology practices is based on hypnosis, debilitation, and defective
thought, his contention with respect to behaviorism and conditioning theory as
the scientific foundation for his mental manipulation theory is a purely semantic
allegation with no generally accepted scientific basis.
Behaviorism is the name for an outmoded general theory of human learning
that maintained that all learning resulted from external influence rather than au-
tonomous reasoning. From the behaviorist perspective, all influence is based on
conditioning by external influence. Therefore, behaviorism provided no criteria
for distinguishing between allegedly mild and allegedly coercive conditioning.
How could it while maintaining that all human behavior resulted from external
influence rather than internal imagination and spontaneity? From the behaviorist
perspective, all behavior is determined by external influence and free will is an
illusion. See Skinner's book Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972) for an extended
argument along these lines. See also Watson (1924) for the initial statement of the
behaviorist deterministic viewpoint.
What scientific value is there then in claiming, as Abgrall does, that behav-
iorism supplies a scientific basis for his claim that only Scientology's influence is
based on external conditioning and overwhelms free will? From the behaviorist's
perspective, if this were true of Scientology it would be completely unremarkable
because behaviorists believe that all behavior is determined by external social influ-
ence and that all free will is an illusion. Again, as with the other alleged dimensions
of the CIA brainwashing theory, Abgrall has failed to provide a scientific basis
434 Anthony
for his theory that Scientology's social influence on its converts is distinctively
coercive.
Examples [of atypical dissociative disorder] include trance-like states, derealization unac-
companied by depersonalization, and those more prolonged dissociative states that may
occur in persons who have been subjected to periods of prolonged and intense coercive
persuasion (brainwashing, thought reform, and indoctrination while the captive of terrorists
or cultists). (American Psychiatric Association, 1980, p. 260)
Singer testified in one of her brainwashing cases that she herself had written
this sentence and gotten it included in this edition of the manual (Singer, 1986,
pp. 585-586). The sentence seems to imply not only that cultic brainwashing
causes dissociation and perhaps is accomplished by means of dissociation, but
also that a victim of cultic brainwashing can be held captive against their will by
means of brainwashing and without physical coercion, a key contention of anti-cult
brainwashing theory that conflicts with generally accepted research on coercive
persuasion. Singer's authorship of this sentence and its inclusion in the DSM III
through her efforts was a significant coup for anti-cult experts, who have used this
fact to argue that their testimony was based on a theoretical foundation that was
generally accepted in the relevant scientific community.
Contrary to Singer claims on this point, however, Edgar Schein had previously
noted (1959) that dissociation and/or hypnosis was claimed to be a constituent fea-
ture of so-called brainwashing by the robot brainwashing theorists Meerloo (1956)
and Huxley (1958) and that this claim was contradicted by generally accepted
"Brainwashing" as Pseudoscience 437
4
As I have discussed elsewhere (1996, p. 42, footnote 19), APA and ASA eventually withdrew from
their sponsorship of the amicus curiae briefs opposing Singer's testimony in Molko and Leal that
Judge Jensen took into account in forming his opinion in the Fishman decision that Singer and
Ofshe's cultic brainwashing theory is not generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. In
forming this opinion. Judge Jensen reviewed affidavits from officers of these organizations regarding
the circumstances of their withdrawals, and determined that the withdrawals did not indicate that
the organizations had changed their judgments that Singer's proposed testimony in Molko lacked
scientific merit. With respect to the ASA brief, that organization withdrew from its sponsorship only
in the face of the threat of a lawsuit by Richard Ofshe, and only after the U.S. Supreme Court had
denied the writ o/certeriori that the brief was supporting. ASA's pro forma withdrawal at that point
had no legal relevence as the brief had no remaining legal standing with the court. In addition, the
executive council of ASA refused to pass a motion, as Ofshe had demanded, stating that ASA had
never officially sponsored the brief in the first place, and that it repudiated the opinions expressed in
the brief. See my article (Anthony, 1990a, pp. 322-324) for a discussion of the circumstances under
which APA withdrew from its brief and for a description of an associated subsequent formal action
by the APA that again repudiated Singer's cultic brainwashing theory. The APA had clearly stated in a
memo made public at the time of its withdrawal from the brief that it withdrew for "procedural and not
substantive reasons" and that it did not intend its withdrawal to indicate a repudiation of the opinions
it had expressed in the brief. See also the set of materials documenting the APA's actions with respect
to Singer's brainwashing theory that are available at http://www.cesnur.org/testi/se.brainwash.htm,
especially Massimo Introvigne's article, Liar Liar, available at that site, which is the most complete
discussion of the controversy concerning the APA's actions concerning cultic brainwashing theory.
"Brainwashing" as Pseudoscience 439
against his will, (2) "commit mail fraud" against his will, (3) be unable to comprehend the
moral significance of his criminal acts... (pp. 41-43)
Singer and Ofshe thus claimed in these lawsuits that their cultic brainwashing
theory is not based on the CIA robot theory—which maintains that brainwashing
overwhelms free will by means of hypnosis—but is based rather on the theories
of Schein and Lifton. Therefore, according to Singer and Ofshe, the claim in
these briefs and publications, as well as in my declaration in Fishman, that their
theory is not generally accepted is false and defamatory. (They specifically cited
the decision in the Fishman case as an example of the damaging impact that the
briefs and publications had had on their careers.) Responding to these claims in
my own declaration, I provided detailed evidence that both Singer and Ofshe had
in fact submitted reports in the Fishman case that asserted a cultic brainwashing
theory focused around the claim that Fishman had been hypnotized by Scientology
auditing procedures, and that therefore he had committed mail fraud against his
will. Both of these suits against me and others were dismissed on initial motions
as being without legal merit (but not without difficulties and some expense: see
Richardson, 1996b, and Anthony, 1996).
In addition, the judge who dismissed the second lawsuit then granted a Strate-
gic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) motion, a California remedy
for lawsuits that have no hope of ultimate success but simply are motivated by
an attempt to suppress freedom of speech by imposing large legal costs on the
defendants. When a SLAPP motion is endorsed by the court, as was the case in
the second lawsuit, the unsuccessful plaintiffs are required (as a penalty for their
misuse of the legal process) to pay the legal costs of the defendants. As a result.
Singer and Ofshe were required to pay the fees of the professional associations as
well as those of the individual defendants.6
It appears that the legal decisions in which Singer's and Ofshe's opinions
were ruled to be outside of generally accepted scientific opinion has discouraged
them from claiming research on communist mental coercion as the foundation for
their testimony in subsequent cases. In several cases since the Fishman decision,
Richard Ofshe abandoned his attempts to base his mental coercion argument on
research on communist thought reform. Singer, however, has not been very active
in brainwashing cases since the lawsuits described above, perhaps because of the
damages to her professional reputation that she complained of in her lawsuits.
Brainwashing arguments are also sometimes made in other countries, with mixed
success (Richardson, 1996a), but where they have been disallowed (e.g., Argentina,
Spain, Australia), it has generally been because of acceptance by the courts of the
arguments made herein.
6
Because of the nature of Singer's and Ofshe's attempts to suppress my scientific analysis of their cultic
brainwashing theory, which seemed intended to suppress my constitutional rights of free speech as
well as to threaten academic freedom more generally, my defense was conducted by the American
Civil Liberties Union.
"Brainwashing" as Pseudoscience 441
The first phase of the development of the CIA brainwashing argument was its
use as a CIA disinformation and anti-communist propaganda campaign during the
McCarthyist period in American political life, and its use also as a rationalization
of illegal vigilante kidnappings and deprogramming of converts to new religions in
the late 1970s and early 1980s (and even more recently, especially in countries other
than the United States); see Bromley, 1983; LeMoult, 1978; Shupe and Bromley,
1980; and Anthony and Robbins, 1995a, for developments during this phase.
The second phase of the career of the brainwashing paradigm was its use as
a basis for civil suits against cults for alleged brainwashing. It was characterized
by lawsuits and testimony that claimed to be based on a theoretical foundation of
research on communist brainwashing. This was the phase that has been described
herein thus far which culminated in U.S. v. Fishman and other lawsuits in which
the cultic brainwashing argument was excluded as unscientific, as well as Singer's
and Ofshe's lawsuits against APA and ASA, with myself and other scientists as
codefendants.
Once some key professional associations and courts accepted research con-
clusions demonstrating that the CIA brainwashing paradigm was pseudoscientific
and not generally accepted in the scientific community, American anti-cultists
442 Anthony
scientists, lawyers, and judges. Singer, also, in her 1995 book on cultic brain-
washing written for a popular audience, boldly claims that her theory is related to
communist brainwashing research as expressed by Edward Hunter (Singer, 1995,
pp. 52-82, especially pp. 53-56). This was long after she started avoiding these
claims in her legal testimony, apparently well aware that such claims would be
challenged as unscientific in a legal setting, perhaps leading to exclusion of her
testimony. Apparently, Singer still thinks (as does Abgrall) that there is value in
using brainwashing terminology and Hunter's books as the theoretical foundation
for her mind control theory in popular books because the general public is unaware
of the pseudoscientific character of the CIA brainwashing term and paradigm, and
this terminology and claimed theoretical foundation continues to have a potent pro-
paganda value with the public (see Bromley and Breschel, 1992, and Richardson,
1992b, for data on acceptance of such ideas by the general public).
In addition to his abandonment of the claimed theoretical foundation and ter-
minology of the CIA paradigm in his testimony, Abgrall also attempts to claim other
theoretical foundations for his mental manipulation theory therein. For instance,
he claims that his paradigm is based on addiction research (1999, pp. 17-18,257-
260) and also on the psychoanalytic theory of regression and transference (1990,
pp. 119-120; 1999, pp. 158-159). The addiction and regression/transference con-
cepts have been common substitutes for the CIA brainwashing paradigm as the
claimed theoretical foundation of mental coercion allegations in third-phase pub-
lications and testimony (see Singer, 1995, pp. 158-159; Martin, 1993; Tobias
and Lalich, 1994; Zablocki, 1998; Tobias, 1996; Heckers, 1997; Langone, 1997,
1998;Rutter, 1989,1997; Cooper-White, 1995,1997). Like the components of the
CIA paradigm (i.e., hypnosis, conditioning, debilitation, defective thought), these
concepts also have the characteristic of deterministic connotations with vaguely
nonspecific denotations. They are "buzz words" that imply coercion emotionally,
but supply no clearcut criteria for drawing the line between examples of social
influence that qualify and those that do not. I expand on these contentions later,
but first want to address the empirical disconfirmation of the use of hypnosis per
se as the theoretical foundation of mental manipulation arguments.
(1969), a leading researcher on hypnosis, is the scientific basis for his claim that
alleged mental manipulation by new religions is based on hypnosis (Abgrall, 1996,
chap. 8, ftnt. 15).
However, it is well established in the relevant scientific communities (i.e.,
psychology and psychiatry) that hypnosis is not an effective technique for causing
people to engage involuntarily in conduct that is immoral, illegal, or against their
own self-interest (see Barber, 1961, 1969; Conn, 1982; Orne, 1961, 1962;Erikson,
1939;Moss, 1965, pp. 32-36; Fromm and Shor, 1979, pp. 6, 12). Strangely, someof
the best known research for demonstrating this fact was reported in the 1969 book
by Barber that Abgrall claims as the scientific foundation for his testimony. It is
interesting, then, that one of the few scientific experts whose work Abgrall cites as
foundation for his own opinions regarding the allegedly hypnotically overwhelmed
will of the supposed victims of new religions—namely, Barber (1961, 1969)—
actually holds opinions that are precisely the opposite of Abgrall's on this issue.
This is one of the most well-researched questions in the history of hypno-
sis research, and it is the consensus of informed scientific opinion that hypnosis
cannot be used effectively for overwhelming free will or for substituting the will
of the hypnotist for the will of he hypnotized. The myth of overwhelmed will by
means of hypnosis is a staple of stage hypnotism that has long been repudiated
by scientific research. Moreover, the idea that hypnosis could be used to impose
a false personality on another and establish long-lasting control over their whole
lifestyle is so farfetched that it is found only in popular science fiction on the topic
of brainwashing such as the book The Manchurian Candidate (Condon, 1958).
Indeed, the idea that participating in a new religion changes one's basic person-
ality is itself unsupported by empirical research (see Paloutzian, Richardson, and
Rambo, 1999).
In this connection, Nicholas Spanos, perhaps the most distinguished scien-
tific researcher on hypnosis, evaluated the claimed role of hypnosis in causing
involuntary influence, especially as it has been alleged to occur in the CIA brain-
washing theory and in cultic brainwashing. See Spanos (1996, pp. 49-53) in which
he criticizes Hunter as the originator of the CIA brainwashing paradigm and also
criticizes the use of the CIA paradigm as a basis for allegations that cults brainwash
converts by using hypnosis. He states (1996, p. 52):
The idea that people can be transformed into robots in this manner [i.e., through brain-
washing] is a cultural myth that grew out of the Korean conflict and subsequent cold war
tensions. The myth was reinforced both by simplistic notions concerning Pavlovian con-
ditioning and by even older cultural myths concerning the coercive "power" of hypnosis.
The robot mythology was maintained because it served a number of useful propaganda
purposes, and it continues to serve such purposes today for those who use notions like
"brainwashing," "mind control," "spot hypnosis," and "cult programming" to explain why
people sometimes join new religious movements such as the Unification Church (Moonies)
and the Hare Krishna sect (Anthony and Robbins, 1992).
Note that in this passage Spanos cites approvingly in support of his viewpoint
Anthony and Robbins (1992). Note also that Spanos' book was published by the
"Brainwashing" as Pseudoscience 445
Now that third-phase cultic mental coercion testimony usually does not claim
to derive from research on communist brainwashing, there arises a need for criteria
other than those referring to research on alleged communist brainwashing for evalu-
ating the scientific standing of such testimony. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Daubert
v. Dow Chemical, recently defined such general guidelines for distinguishing be-
tween genuinely scientific and pseudoscientific foundations for allegedly scientific
testimony. According to the court, only testimony based on a scientific foundation
that fulfills criteria of scientific adequacy can be admitted in federal courts. (Most
state courts in the United States also accept the federal standard or something quite
similar.) According to this major decision, such guidelines include the following:
(1) general acceptance by the relevant scientific community; (2) falsifiability—has
the theory been tested or can it be tested; in particular, can it be shown to be false
if its predictions are disconfirmed? (3) error rate of classifications under the the-
ory; and (4) publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals. (See Ginsburg and
Richardson, 1998, for another systematic application of the Daubert guidelines to
cultic brainwashing testimony.)
As the court documented in its decision, and as subsequent legal and scientific
commentary on the decision has generally agreed, these criteria are not specific
to the American scientific community, but represent international standards that
are generally accepted by knowledgeable philosophers of science and scientific
communities in most industrialized countries. For instance, Sir Karl Popper, who
developed the widely influential falsifiability criterion for differentiating science
from pseudoscience, did his important early work on this "demarcation criterion"
in Austria, his country of origin. He later completed work on the concept in England
after he had emigrated, where he was knighted and elected to the Royal Society
for his development of this very important criterion for differentiating science
from pseudoscience. (For discussions of the international character of Popper's
career and of his widespread influence, see Magee, 1985; O'Hear, 1980.). I briefly
consider the role of each of these scientific demarcation criteria in turn as they
have an impact on Abgrall's testimony.
In the United States, this criterion is generally referred to as the Frye Standard,
after U.S. v. Frye, the 1923 legal case in which it was first used to exclude testimony
446 Anthony
not based on a theoretical foundation that was generally accepted in the relevant
scientific community. Most of the brainwashing cases in which brainwashing tes-
timony was excluded toward the end of phase two (e.g., U.S. v. Fishmari) did so
on the basis of the general acceptance criterion or Frye standard. Basically, these
courts accepted the argument expressed to them by me and others that the CIA
brainwashing theory is not generally accepted as a valid scientific theory by the
relevant communities of scientists. Herein, I have adequately demonstrated that
Abgrall's testimony, like that of the American anti-cultists to which it is essentially
identical, does not satisfy this important criterion of scientific adequacy.
Above, I show that Abgrall's use of the alleged coercive conditioning con-
cept specifies no clearcut criteria for distinguishing coercive conditioning from
any other sort of social influence. If an allegedly scientific concept does not supply
"Brainwashing" as Pseudoscience 447
precise empirical criteria for when it applies and when it does not, it is unfalsifiable
and results in irrefutable allegations. Interestingly, Noam Chomsky, generally rec-
ognized as the world's leading expert in the science of linguistics, and who is also
a recognized expert on the role of language in social influence and social control,
has argued that the conditioning/behaviorism concept, especially as used by B.F.
Skinner (whose work Abgrall cites as the theoretical foundation for his use of the
conditioning concept), is an ideological rather than scientific concept (Chomsky,
1987; see also Machan, 1974, on this point). Chomsky convincingly demonstrates
that the conditioning concept as developed by Skinner cannot be falsified, because
it has no well-defined criteria of application. Furthermore, Chomsky shows that
Skinner's argument that all behavior is conditioned by deterministic social influ-
ence and that free will is a myth is a pseudoscientific argument that is the basis of
totalitarian propaganda to influence people into giving up the freedom that would
otherwise be theirs. If Chomsky's argument is generally accepted in the relevant
scientific community, which it is, then Abgrall's use of Skinner's conditioning
concept would seems also to be a form of totalitarian propaganda that is concerned
with restricting freedom (e.g., freedom of religion, speech, association) rather than
protecting freedom.
position. Interestingly, T.X. Barber, whose research Abgrall claims as the scientific
foundation for his testimony on hypnosis, is the most prominent scientist whose
research has tended to demonstrate that the hypnotic trance is a myth. In the forward
to the 1995 edition of Barber's book (which was a revised edition of Barber's 1969
book, which Abgrall cited as support of his testimony), Irving Kirsch (1995, p. v)
wrote:
During the 1960's Barber conducted an extensive series of experimental studies challenging
the assumption that hypnotic phenomena are due to an altered state of consciousness.
He demonstrated convincingly that all of the effects of hypnosis, including heightened
suggestibility, could be produced without a hypnotic induction. Hypnotic responses can
be explained by people's motivations, attitudes, and expectancies, the same variables that
produce nonhypnotic behavior.
At first, the radical nature of Barber's proposals led to a division of the hypnosis
community into two warring camps. However, the great state debate has come to an end.
Almost all contemporary researchers now agree that the impressive effects of hypnosis
stem from social influence and personal ability—not from a trancelike state of altered
consciousness. This transformation of the field of hypnosis has been aptly termed the
Barber Revolution by historian Alan Gauld (1992).
In addition to his use of the cultic brainwashing theory as the foundation for
his allegations of involuntary conversion and commitment to Scientology, Abgrall
claims as a part of his scientific foundation the transference of childhood depen-
dency needs to L. Ron Hubbard and the church and regression to a state of childish
dependency on the church. The transference/regression theory is an aspect of psy-
choanalytic theory, which was developed by Freud, whose book Totem and Taboo
(1953-1974a) Abgrall cites as part of his theoretical foundation. However, it was
Freud's view that all religious belief is based on transference of and regression
to childhood dependency. The use of this theory, therefore, to contend that any
particular form of religious influence is based on transference and regression is
unfalsifiable, because the theory supplies no empirical criteria for differentiating
religious belief that results from such influence and religious belief that does not.
Moreover, Karl Popper himself, the originator of the falsifiability concept, demon-
strated that Freudian psychoanalytic theory in total, and not merely with respect
to its transference/regression theory of religious influence, is one of the clear-
est examples of an unfalsifiable and thus pseudoscientific theory (Popper, 1963,
pp. 34-39; for extended applications of Popper's analysis of psychoanalysis as
inherently unfalsifiable and pseudoscientific, see Grunbaum, 1984; Cioffi, 1998;
Timpanaro, 1998). Finally, contemporary scientific research has shown that the
"Brainwashing" as Pseudoscience 449
Abgrall's claim, involvement in minority religion clearly does not fit the definition
of addiction in DSMIV. That manual's only treatment of the concept of addiction
is in the chapter entitled Substance-Related Disorders (APA, 1994, pp. 175-272;
see especially the table entitled "Criteria for Substance Dependence" on p. 181
that follows the generally accepted definition of addiction discussed above).
Abgrall's attempt to extend the definition of addiction to cultic membership
is part of a general popular movement to redefine addiction as any nonphysio-
logically based habit of which the observer disapproves. This pop-psychological
redefinition of addiction has become the central ideology of a widespread social
movement, sometimes referred to as the recovery movement, which has been much
been much discussed and much criticized by scientific observers and journalists.
For descriptions of this social movement and scientific critiques of the nonfalsifi-
able and pseudoscientific misinterpretation of the concept of addiction that is the
basis its ideology, see Rapping, 1996; Kaminer, 1992; Tavris, 1992; Katz and Liu,
1991; and Peele, 1989.
One of the key components of this popular "recovery" ideology is the claim
that allegedly addicted individuals are not morally or legally responsible for habits
that they wish to disavow. See Seeburger (1996) for a philosophical analysis and
critique of this aspect of recovery ideology. The most common scapegoat for
such shifting of responsibility for personal choices are parents, who allegedly are
responsible for the undesirable adult behavior of their children because of poor
parenting. Abgrall's and other anti-cultists" definition of cultic involvement as an
addiction that overpowers converts' free will is part of this pop-psychological social
phenomenon, as is shown both by their disavowal of the free will of cult converts
and also by their replacement of the generally accepted, falsifiable definition of
addiction for the indeterminate definition favored by the recovery movement.
One trend in the anti-cult movement, the attribution of alleged multiple per-
sonality disorder to parents having abused their children through their involvement
in Satanic cults, combines both the general recovery ideology that blames parents
for all of their adult childrens' problems and the more specific ideology that blames
psychological problems on allegedly involuntary cultic brainwashing. (For doc-
umentation and critique of the pseudoscientific character of the ideology of the
"satanic ritual abuse" division of the anti-cult movement, see Richardson, Best,
and Bromley, 1991; Victor, 1993; Nathan and Snedeker, 1995.)
Further evidence that Abgrall situates his definition of cultic involvement as
addiction within the recovery movement ideology is shown by his claim that cultic
addiction is comparable to addictions to "work," "sex," and "compulsive shop-
ping" (Abgrall, 1999, p. 258). Clearly, when the concept of addiction becomes
so widely extended, its boundaries are indeterminate and thus unfalsifiable, and
everyone may be regarded as an addict of some sort or other. It is this indetermi-
nate and unfalsifiable characteristic of the pop-psychological concept of addiction
that has been one of the central criticisms made by scientific observers of the
unscientific uses of the addiction term by the recovery movement. In his reliance
on thus vague and indeterminate pop-psychological concept of addiction, then,
"Brainwashing" as Pseudoscience 451
Error Rate
Error rate refers to the accuracy with which a particular scientific methodol-
ogy can empirically identify a phenomenon of interest. For instance, with respect
to Abgrall's theory of mental manipulation, the error rate would be the percentage
of instances that identification of social influence as mental manipulation fails to
be accurate. False positive is a term referring to the percentage of the time that
Abgrall would identify such coercive social influence when it was not present.
False negative refers to the percentage of instances that a method fails to identify a
phenomenon when it is present. Logically, the concept of error rates is only relevant
when a scientific proposition/theory is falsifiable. When theories are unfalsifiable,
the error rate is indeterminate, but is potentially infinite because unfalsifiable theo-
ries are of no value in accurately identifying instances of the phenomenon at issue.
With respect to Abgrall's theory of mental manipulation, by use of which he claims
to be able to identify instances and noninstances of coercive religious conversions
and subsequent obedience that is against the free will of the victim, my demon-
stration that his theory is unfalsifiable has also shown that his theory applies just as
plausibly to all forms of religious commitment and belief as it does to participation
in NRMs. Therefore, his theory is of no use in identifying distinctively coercive
religious influence.
For instance, I think it would be relatively easy to show that his theory ap-
plies just as plausibly to the Roman Catholic Church as it does to the Church
of Scientology, the Unification Church, or the Hare Krishnas. As Anthony and
Robbins (1995, pp. 532-534) demonstrate, a cultic brainwashing argument that
is essentially identical to Abgrall's was recently used as the basis for testimony
in a cultic brainwashing case that a religious retreat conducted by the Catholic
Church used cultic brainwashing. The application of Abgrall's theory to a par-
ticular group, therefore, is based on religious prejudice or bias rather than iden-
tifiable empirical characteristics, and prosecutions based on it are instances of
"selective prosecution," apparently designed to extend the power of the state
against religious minorities so as to suppress freedom of belief, rather than de-
signed to protect citizens against clearcut and distinctive forms of coercive
influence.
Abgrall has never published his cultic mental manipulation theory in respected,
peer-reviewed scientific journals. Moreover, as shown herein, Abgrall's citation of
research that has been published in such journals, such as T.X. Barber's research on
hypnosis (1969), is inaccurately cited as a foundation for his theory because such
research actually contradicts rather than supports his theory. Furthermore, Abgrall
does not appear to have conducted any systematic scientific research of any sort on
social influence in new religions, nor to have had an academic appointment where
such research would normally be expected to be conducted.
CONCLUSION
Acknowledgments
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