“Cults,” Coercion, and Control
Rhetoric, Reality, and the Return of “Brainwashing”?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.23218Keywords:
coercive control, new religious movements, “cults”, “Brainwashing”, Cultic StudiesAbstract
In the face of what has been called an epidemic of domestic and family violence (DFV) in several countries, scholarly analysts, journalists, and policymakers have increasingly turned to the matrix of ideas around what Evan Stark has called coercive control, for insights into the dynamics of abusive relationships. In seeking to address this social problem, some commentators—in both the DFV research space and cultic studies— have begun to see a link between New Religions (“cults”) and coercive control, and use the language of coercive control to revive a problematic rhetoric linked to ideas about so-called “brainwashing.” This article highlights some of the commonalities between coercive control, as theorized by Stark and others, and the classic work on coercive persuasion as this was applied—sometimes disingenuously—to a wave of New Religions during the 1970s through to the 1990s. Secondly, this article analyses the rhetorical use of elements of the “cult stereotype” in contemporary popular and academic discussions of DFV and how the language of coercive control has been employed. We conclude that the use of coercive control language in cultic studies is largely superficial and engages in tactical ambiguities which seek to apply various “cultic brainwashing” ideas in a new context and suggest that this approach is unhelpful both to victim-survivors of DFV and those who have experienced abuse in particular New Religions or, indeed, within mainstream religion.
References
Abrahams, Naeemach, et al. 2014. “Worldwide prevalence of non-partner sexual violence: a systematic review.” The Lancet 383 (9929): 1648–1654. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62243-6
Anthony, Dick. 1990. “Religious Movements and Brainwashing Litigation: Evaluating Key Testimony.” In In Gods We Trust: New Patterns of Religious Pluralism, edited by Thomas Robbins and Dick Anthony, 295–344. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
———. 1999. “Pseudoscience and Minority Religions: An Evaluation of the Brainwashing Theories of Jean-Marie Abgrall.” Social Justice Research 12(4): 421–456. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022081411463
———. 2001. “Tactical Ambiguity and Brainwashing Formulations: Science or Pseudo-Science.” In Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field, edited by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins, 215–317. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442677302-009
Anthony, Dick and Thomas Robbins. 1992. “Law, social science and the “brainwashing” exception to the First Amendment.” Behavioral Sciences and the Law 10: 5–29. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2370100103
———. 1995. “Negligence, coercion, and the protection of religious belief.” Journal of Church and State 37(3): 509–536. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcs/37.3.509
———. 2008. “Conversion and ‘Brainwashing’ in New Religious Movements.” In The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, edited by James R. Lewis. 244–298. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195369649.003.0012
Arrow, Michelle. 2022. “Making change, making history, making noise: Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame at the National Press Club.” The Conversation, 9 February, https://theconversation.com/making-change-making-history-making-noise-brittany-higgins-and-grace-tame-at-the-national-press-club-176252
Ashcraft, W. Michael. 2005. “Field Notes: A History of the Study of New Religious Movements.” Nova Religio 9(1): 93–105. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2005.9.1.093
———. 2019. A Historical Introduction to the Study of New Religious Movements. Routledge: London.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). 2020. “Health impacts of family, domestic and sexual violence.” https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-health/health-impacts-family-domestic-and-sexual-violence
Banschick, Mark. 2013. “What awful marriages & cults have in common.” Psychology Today Blog, 28 May, https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-intelligent-divorce/201305/what-awful-marriages-cults-have-in-common
Barker, Eileen. 1984. The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
———. 2007. “Charting the information field: Cult-watching groups and the construction of images of New Religious Movements.” In Teaching New Religious Movements, edited by David G. Bromley, 309–328. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195177299.003.0015
Bartels, Lorana. 2010. Emerging issues in domestic/family violence research. Research in practice no. 10. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1037/e619102012-001
Beckford, James. 1999. “The mass media and New Religious Movements.” In New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response, edited by Bryan Wilson and Jamie Cresswell, 103–120. London: Routledge.
Biderman, Albert. 1962. “The Image of ‘Brainwashing’.” Public Opinion Quarterly 24(4): 547–563. https://doi.org/10.1086/267127
———. 1963. March to Calumny: The Story of American POW’s in the Korean War. New York: Macmillarn.
Bishop, Charlotte and Vanessa Bettinson. 2018. “Evidencing domestic violence, including behaviour that falls under the new offence of ‘controlling or coercive behaviour’.” International Journal of Evidence and Proof 22(1): 3–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1365712717725535
Boxall Hayley, Anthony Morgan and Rick Brown. 2020. “The prevalence of domestic violence among women during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Statistical Bulletin no. 28. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. https://doi.org/10.52922/sb04718
Blumer, Clare. 2016. “Australian police deal with domestic violence every two minutes.” ABC News, 21 April, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-21/domestic-violence/7341716?nw=0&r=HtmlFragment
Boulette, Teresa Ramirez and Susan Anderson, “‘Mind Control’ and the Battering of Women.” Community Mental Health Journal 21 (2): 109–118. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00754370
Bromley, David G. and James T. Richardson. 1983. The Brainwashing/Deprogramming Controversy: Sociological, Psychological, Legal and Historical Perspectives. New York: Edwin Mellen.
Chryssides, George D. 2021. “Cult critics & cult apologists: Can there be middle ground?” Wuhan Journal of Cultic Studies 1(1): 64–82.
Crown Prosecution Service. 2017. Controlling or Coercive Behaviour in an Intimate or Family Relationship. 30 June. https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-intimate-or-family-relationship
Dawson, Lorne L. 2006. Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dimsdale, Joel E. 2021. Dark Persuasion: A History of Brainwashing from Pavlov to Social Media. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300262469
Doherty, Bernard. 2015. “Colonial justice or a kangaroo court? Public controversy and the Church of Scientology in 1960s Australia.” Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review 6(1): 9–49. https://doi.org/10.5840/asrr201572311
Dunne, Matthew W. 2013. A Cold War State of Mind: Brainwashing and Postwar American Society. Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Dubrow-Marshall, Linda and Rod Dubrow-Marshall. 2017. “When your life is not your own.” Therapy Today 28(9), November, 24–27.
———. 2016. “Cults and mental health.” In Encyclopedia of Mental Health, vol. 1, edited by Howard S. Friedman, 393–401. Oxford: Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-397045-9.00153-1
Duron, Jacquelynn F. et al. 2021. “Observing coercive control beyond intimate family violence: Examining the perceptions of professionals about common tactics used in victimization.” Psychology of Violence 11(2): 144–154. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000354
Ellision, Christopher G., John P. Bartkowski and Kristin L. Anderson. 1999. “Are there religious variations in domestic violence?” Journal of Family Issues 20(1): 87–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/019251399020001005
Fontes, Lisa Aronson. 2021. “Yes, abusive partners brainwash their victims.” Domestic Shelters, 7 April, https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/identifying-abuse/yes-abusive-partners-brainwash-their-victims
Friedman, Esther Ruth. 2020. “Reflections upon attending ICSA’s 2018 conference: Domestic abuse and coercive control.” ICSA Today 11(1): 11–17.
Giambalvo, Carol, Michael Kropveld and Michael Langone. 2013. “Changes in North American cult awareness organizations.” In Revisionism and Diversification in New Religious Movements, edited by Eileen Barker, 227–245. Farnham: Ashgate.
Hassan, Steven. 1990. Combatting Cult Mind Control. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press.
———. 2022. “Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control.” Freedom of Mind Resource Center. https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/
Hassan, Steven A. and M.J. Shah. 2019. “The anatomy of undue influece used by terrorist cults and traffickers to induce helplessness and trauma, so creating false identities.” Ethics, Medicine and Public Health 8: 97–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jemep.2019.03.002
Hill, Jess. 2019. See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse. Carlton: Black.
Hinkle, Lawrence E. and Harold G. Wolff. 1956. “Communist Interrogation and indoctrination of ‘enemies of the state’: Analysis of methods used by the communist state police (A special report).” AMA Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 76(2): 1–60. https://doi.org/10.1001/archneurpsyc.1956.02330260001001
Hood, Ralph W., Peter C. Hill and Bernard Spilka. 2009. The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. Fourth Edition. New York: The Guildford Press.
International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA). 2021. Conference Program. https://www.icsahome.com/events/conferenceannual/forlang
Introvigne, Massimo. 2014. “Advocacy, brainwashing theories, and New Religious Movements.” Religion 44(2): 303–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2014.888021
———. 2022. Brainwashing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jacobs, Janet. 2007. “Abuse in New Religious Movements: Challenges for the Sociology of Religion.” In Teaching New Religious Movements, edited by David G. Bromley, 231–244. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195177299.003.0011
Jenkins, Philip. 2000. Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kent, Stephen. 2001. “Brainwashing programs in The Family/Children of God and Scientology.” In Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field, edited by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins, 349–378. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442677302-011
———. 2007. “Contemporary uses of the brainwashing concept: 2000 to mid-2007.” Cultic Studies Review 7(2): 99–128.
Kent, Stephen A. and Kelsey Lindquist. 2019. “Contextualizing Debates About Brainwashing Within the Discipline of Sociology.” International Journal of Cultic Studies 10: 14–31.
Lalich, Janja. 2004. Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520231948.001.0001
Langone, Michael D. 1993. “Helping cult victims: Historical background.” In Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse, edited by Michael D. Langone, 22–50. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
———. 2000. “The two “camps” in cultic studies: Time for dialogue.” Cultic Studies Journal 17: 79–100.
———. 2005. “Cult awareness groups and NRM Scholars: Toward depolarization of key issues.” Cultic Studies Review 4(2): 146–168.
Lifton, Robert Jay. 1967 [1961]. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China. Ringwood: Penguin Books.
———. 2019. Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry. New York: The New Press.
McCloud, Sean. 2004. Making the American Religious Fringe : Exotics, Subversives and Journalists, 1955–1993. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2005.9.1.109
McGorrery, Paul and Marilyn McMahon. 2020. “Criminalising coercive control: An introduction.” In Criminalising Coercive Control: Family Violence and the Criminal Law, edited by Marilyn McMahon and Paul McGorrery, 3–32. Springer: Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0653-6_1
Melton, J. Gordon. 2000. “Brainwashing and the cults: The rise and fall of a theory.” In The Brainwashing Controversy: An Anthology of Essential Documents, edited J. Gordon Melton and Massimo Introvigne (Marburg: Remid, 2000). https://www.cesnur.org/testi/melton.htm
Mulkerrins, Jane. 2018. “From high-flyer to sex slave: Cults that prey on successful women.” MailOnline, 17 June, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-5835661/From-high-flyer-sex-slave-Cults-prey-successful-women.html
Nancarrow, Heather. 2021. Coercive Control in Domestic Relationships. Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, https://20ian81kynqg38bl3l3eh8bf-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ANROWS-Coercive-control-discussion-paper-Submission-96.pdf
Nancarrow, Heather, et al. 2022. “The power in understanding patterns of coercive control.” Australian Institute of Family Studies, 19 January. https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/webinars/power-understanding-patterns-coercive-control
New South Wales Government. 2020. Coercive Control Discussion Paper. https://www.crimeprevention.nsw.gov.au/domesticviolence/Pages/coercive-control-discussion-paper.aspx
Okun, Lewis. 1986. Woman Abuse: Facts Replacing Myths. New York: State University of New York Press.
O’Sullivan, Teresa et al. 2020. “NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team Report 2017–2019.” NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team: Sydney. https://www.coroners.nsw.gov.au/coroners-court/resources/domestic-violence-death-review.html
Our Watch. 2022. “The cycle of domestic and family violence.” https://workplace.ourwatch.org.au/video/the-cycle-of-domestic-and-family-violence/
Phillips, Janet and Penny Vandenbroek. 2014. “Domestic, family and sexual violence in Australia: An overview of the issues.” Parliament of Australia Research Papers, 14 October. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1415/ViolenceAust
Piper, Alana and Ana Stevenson. 2019. Gender Violence in Australia: Historical Perspectives. Melbourne: Monash University Publishing.
Powell, Ruth and Miriam Pepper. 2021. National Anglican Family Violence Research Report: Top Line Results. NCLS Research Report. NCLS Research.
Puttick, Elizabeth. 1997. Women in New Religions: In Search of Community, Sexuality and Spiritual Power. London: Macmillan Press.
———. 1999. “Women in New Religious Movements.” In New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response, edited by Bryan Wilson and Jamie Cresswell, 143–162. London: Routledge.
Richardson, James T. 1996a. “ ‘Brainwashing’ Claims and Minority Religions Outside the United States: Cultural Diffusion of a Questionable Concept in the Legal Arena.” Brigham Young University Law Review 4: 873–904.
———. 1996b. “Sociology and the New Religions: ‘Brainwashing,’ the Courts, and Religious Freedom.” In Witnessing for Sociology: Sociologists in Court, edited by Pam Jenkins and Steve Kroll-Smith, 115–134. London: Praeger.
Richardson, James T. and Brock Kilbourne. 1983. “Classical and contemporary applications of brainwashing models: A comparison and critique.” In The Brainwashing/Deprogramming Controversy: Sociological, Psychological, Legal and Historical Perspectives, edited by David G. Bromley and James T. Richardson, 29–45. New York: Edwin Mellen.
Scheflin, Alan W. and Edward M. Opton. 1978. The Mind Manipulators. New York: Paddington Press.
Schein, Edgar H. with Inge Schneier and Curtis H. Barker. 1961. Coercive Persuasion: A Socio-psychological Analysis of the “Brainwashing” of American Civilian Prisoners by the Chinese Communists. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Seed, David. 2004. Brainwashing: The Fictions of Mind Control–A Study of Novels and Films Since World War II. Kent: Kent State University Press.
Shupe, Anson D. and David G. Bromley. 1980. The New Vigilantes: Deprogramming, Anti-Cultists, and the New Religions. Beverley Hills: Sage Publications.
Shupe, Anson D. and David G. Bromley, eds. 1994. Anti-cult Movements in Cross Cultural Perspectives. New York: Garland.
Singer, Margaret T. 1995. Cults in Our Midst. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishing.
Snell, Liz. 2020. “Criminalising coercive control: Why we need a thorough consultation process on how to effectively address coercive controlling violence.” Women’s Legal Service NSW. https://www.wlsnsw.org.au/criminalising-coercive-control/
Stark, Evan. 2007. Coercive Control: The Entrapment of Women in Personal Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stein, Alexandra. 2002. Inside Out: A Memoir of Entering and Breaking Out of a Minneapolis Political Cult. St. Cloud: Northstar Press.
———. 2017. Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems. London: Routledge.
———. 2020. “Cults and Coercive Control.” Yoga Union U.K., 24 November, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIO4IFtxzHQ
Taylor, Kathleen. 2004. Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tobias, Madelaine Landau and Janja Lalich. 1994. Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships. Almeda, CA: Hunter House.
Tu, Jessie. 2022. “Consultation period for the Draft National Plan to End Violence Against Women & Children extended after backlash.” Women’s Agenda, January 18. https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/consultation-period-for-the-draft-national-plan-to-end-violence-against-women-children-extended-after-backlash/
Vaughan C. et al. 2020. What Works to Address Violence Against Women and Family Violence within Faith Settings: An Evidence Guide. Parkville: University of Melbourne.
Victorian Government. 2021. “What is family violence.” https://www.vic.gov.au/what-family-violence
Wallis, Lynne. 2014. “‘I wash brainwashed by a cult’: How one woman escaped and rebuilt her life.” MailOnline, 15 December. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2871432/I-brainwashed-cult-one-woman-escaped-rebuilt-life.html
Ward, David. 2000. “Domestic violence as a cultic system.” Cultic Studies Journal 17: 42–55.
Women’s Aid. 2021. “What is coercive control?” https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/coercive-control/
Women’s Safety NSW. 2020. “Submission to the House Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs.” Parliament of Australia, 14 August, https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=85236c3c-7127-452d-b8fc0ca811755caa&subId=691164
World Health Organization (WHO). 2013. “Global and regional estimates of violence against women: prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence.” https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/85239
———. 2021. “Violence against women.” 9 March, https://www.who.int/newsroom/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women
Wright, Stuart A. 2009. “Reframing religious violence after 9/11: Analysis of the ACM campaign to exploit the threat of terrorism.” Nova Religio 12 (4): 5–27. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2009.12.4.5
Young, John L. and Ezra E.H. Griffith. 1992. “A critical evaluation of coercive persuasion as used in the assessment of cults.” Behavioral Sciences and the Law 10: 89–101. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2370100109
Zablocki, Benjamin D. 1997. “The blacklisting of a concept: The strange history of the brainwashing conjecture in the sociology of religion.” Nova Religio 1(1): 96–121. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.1997.1.1.96
———. 1998. “Exit cost analysis: A new approach to the scientific study of brainwashing.” Nova Religio 1(2): 216–249. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.1998.1.2.216
———. 2001. ‘Toward a Demystified and Disinterested Theory of Brainwashing.’ In Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field, edited by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins, 159–214. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442677302-008
Zablocki, Benjamin and Thomas Robbins, eds. 2001. Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442677302
