MIND-BENDING: Brainwashing, Cults, and Deprogramming in the '80s

by Lowell D. Streiker ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 27, 1984

Sensible, sharp-tongued, and not a little self-serving. Streiker, an ex-Congregational minister and Princeton Ph.D. (in ""religious experience""), runs the Freedom Counseling Center in San Mateo, where he helps cult refugees and their families. He has worked a long time with survivors of the Jonestown massacre, and in general he displays a solid grasp of the cult world. While he sees a prosperous future for ""fanaticism and extremism"" over the next 20 years, he thinks converts will flock to ultrafundamentalist groups, rather than to the Moonies, Hare Krishnas, Children of God, Scientologists, etc., who seem to be fading. In any case Streiker ridicules popular hysteria-mongering about cults (as in Conway and Siegelman's Snapping): cults do not brainwash their members; their methods of persuasion and coercion mirror those of churches and armies everywhere; cultists are not exceptionally prone to mental illness or suicide, etc. He condemns violent deprogramming as both cruel and ineffective. And he argues convincingly that parents or spouses of cult members, since they're almost always part of the problem, must be brought into the therapeutic process. While Streiker downplays the danger of permanent psychic danger from the cults, and sharply questions the testimony of ex-members that they were ""zombified,"" he notes a disturbing pattern of child abuse and death from lack of medical care, especially among Christian cultists. But the best possible solution for these and all other cult-related problems, apart from legislative changes, seems to be a call to the Freedom Counseling Center. (Streiker gives the number and savors his many success stories.) Such self-promotion apart, a shrewd overview of the issue.

Pub Date: July 27, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1984

Categories: NONFICTION