Day Two

CESNUR's

11th International Conference

Day Two

At the opening plenary session of the conference's second day, H. Christina Steyn of the University of South Africa delivered a paper on South African New Age Prophets: Past and Present, in which she sketched the careers and views of Johanna Brandt of the World Harmony Movement and former South African prime minister Jan Christiaan Smuts, who wrote an early esoteric work entitled Evolution and Holism in 1926.

In the plenary session on "Eschatology and Catastrophism East and West" which followed, Kent P. Jackson (Brigham Young University) delivered a paper on Mormon Folk Eschatology and the Approach of the Year 2000, which he described as a study of "the interplay between popular beliefs and official responses." He focused on rumors about Gordon B. Hinckley before he became president of the LDS Church; rumors promoted by LDS author Elwood G. Norris; unrealized hopes among right-wing sympathizers for the presidency of Ezra Taft Benson; the influence of Bo Gritz during his ten-year (1984–1994) stint as a Mormon; and the apocalyptic writings of Avraham Gileadi, whose book The Last Days was published by the church's Deseret Book Company but quickly withdrawn a few weeks later. (Although Gileadi was excommunicated by the church, his membership has since been reinstated, although he remains "out of view.") Jackson also noted that in Mormon theology there is no belief in an Antichrist.

Next came a paper by David Piff & Margit Warburg (University of Copenhagen) on Millennial Catastrophism in Popular Baha'í Lore. Millennial speculation is widespread in the movement, and Piff, a member of the Baha'í faith, has collected more than 1,000 "unofficial ideas" and rumors about the end times from among adherents.

In a session on "The Family and Religious Controversy in the United Kingdom," Andri Soteri (London School of Economics) noted in her paper, God Does Not Have Grandchildren, that two-thirds of Family (aka Children of God) members in the United Kingdom are second- and third-generation and claimed that the number of new members in the UK is extremely small or nonexistent. (UK Family representative Gideon Scott suggested that this is because converts tend to quickly relocate to foreign fields.) Soteri is researching Family parents' reactions to their children leaving the movement. She noted that while at one time a child's decision to go inactive or defect might have required the parent to leave the movement, this is no longer the case. Amanda van Eck Duymar van Twist (also LSE) presented preliminary research on The Family's Children and Their Perception of the End-Time, finding that minors interviewed thus far pretty much believe what they've been taught. In the discussion that followed it was suggested that successful socialization of children in The Family may be due to their being given leadership responsibilities at a young age and to their isolation from secular influences.

The evening session opened with Massimo Introvigne's paper, Beelzebub's Tales to European Governments: A Crash Course on How to Reduce Religious Liberty to an Empty Shell. Introvigne focused on three points:

1) The legal concept of "public order," often regarded as "the sum of the existing laws." This idea is presently changing in southern Europe and the US. Introvigne - himself a Catholic - noted that the new Roman Catholic catechism makes specific reference to the debate in the US (citing paragraph 2109, "We cannot accept that the right to religious liberty is limited by 'public order'"). He explained that around 1963 the US Supreme Court changed the standard from "public order" to "compelling state interest" (i.e., key laws, such as those against homicide and rape). Introvigne noted in an aside that "Religious liberty doesn't cover, for example, the sacrifice of virgins - willing or otherwise.") But, in the view of many, in 1990 the concept of compelling interest was "buried" by the Supreme Court in the Smith/peyote decision - and an attempt was made to override that judgment with the 1993 passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which restored compelling interest until the Supreme Court struck it down in June. Introvigne noted that in the view of the Rutherford Institute (which had organized a European conference on religious freedom the weekend before the CESNUR event), while compelling state interest "isn't good enough," it's a better standard than public order. He further explained that there is now ambiguity on what constitutes "public order" in post-totalitarian (WWII) Europe; it doesn't mean the same thing now as it did in the mainline legal reasoning of the 1940s & 50s.

2) The idea of how narratives on NRMs are socially constructed. Introvigne said that the principle of "garbage in, garbage out" was perfectly illustrated in the Belgian parliamentary commission report, illustrating with examples of dubious sources used by both French and Belgian parliamentary commissions. He was especially critical of materials and accusations reportedly supplied to the authors of those reports by well-known anti-cult groups in those countries.

3) Resurfacing of brainwashing/mind control claims/theories in some European countries. Introvigne said that "brainwashing" and "mind control" concepts are being promoted under different names (e.g., mental destabilization - see, for example, his French-language article on CESNUR's web site, "Le Fantome de la Liberte: Les controverses sur les 'sectes' et les nouveaux mouvements religieux en Europe"). Introvigne asserted that "even Margaret Singer" admits that the concept of brainwashing per se "doesn't apply to religious groups," as there is typically no physical restraint or coercion employed. He noted that Italy eliminated its brainwashing statute 16 years ago, adding that at that time famed novelist Umberto Eco called brainwashing "an invisible weapon" and argued that, since it is invisible, "no one can prove that they do not possess it." Introvigne stressed that "We should use common laws against criminal activities by religious groups."

Introvigne was followed by Boris Falikov (Russian State University of Humanities, Moscow) and his presentation on New Religious Movements in Contemporary Russia: A Historian's View. After citing a June 1996 Moscow opinion poll in which 47% of respondents affirmed belief in witchcraft and the evil eye, Falikov described the prospects of NRMs in Russia as good - especially among the young. Even in the early 1980s, when Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy visited Russia, he observed much "new age" activity and interest there.

Falikov identified two main sources for alternative spirituality: (1) indigenous influences (i.e., pagan, folk), and (2) foreign influences (including elements of Byzantine belief, ideas from the Bogomils, and the Jewish Kabbalah). Pagan practices were favored by the poor, while foreign-style occultism appealed to the upper classes. He described the tremendous impact of freemasonry on the Russian upper classes in the late 18th century, after which the Rosicrucian ritual was introduced. Falikov then reviewed the history of the Castrators, Doukhobors ("spirit-wrestlers"), noting that at the end of WW I there were 35 registered occult groups (most of them near St. Petersburg). Until the end of the 1920s, alternative religions briefly enjoyed some greater freedoms as the Bolsheviks concentrated their attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church, but soon they, too, came under persecution.

Falikov evidently believes that the White Brotherhood movement of Maria Devi Xristos and the Mother of God Center are both in irreversible decline. He stated that the three kinds of movements that have the best chances of prospering are:

1) Neo-Oriental (e.g., Buddhism and ISKCON) Falikov mentioned in passing that in its proselytizing ISKCON uses claims that Vedic culture originated in the Ural mountains! He has requested, but has yet to receive, some hard proof of this from the movement.

2) Neo-Pagan (attempts to reconstruct the Russian pagan past; many have neo-fascist overtones)

3) Occult (e.g., New Age movement)

Next came a presentation by Marat Shterin (London School of Economics) which was announced as Religious Liberty in Eastern Europe (with Eileen Barker listed as co-presenter) but which focused exclusively on the 1997 libel trial of Russian Orthodox anti-cult activist Aleksandr Dvorkin.

[To the best of my knowledge, the basic background to the case is as follows: In 1995 Dvorkin wrote a brochure entitled 10 Questions to an Obtrusive Stranger, or a Handbook for Those Who Do Not Want to Be Recruited into a Destructive Cult, which was published by the Dept. of Religious Education and Catechism of the Moscow Patriarchate. Dvorkin was sued by former Russian Orthodox priest and member of parliament Gleb Yakunin on behalf of members of aggrieved NRMs listed in the brochure - especially those belonging to ISKCON and Scientology. The number of co-defendants reportedly grew to three: Dvorkin, and the Orthodox Church's Dept. of Religious Education and Catechism and its Publications Council. The case was decided in favor of the plaintiffs around May 22, 1997 and is said to be on appeal.]

Shterin contrasted the strategies of the plaintiffs and defendants in the proceedings. In his interpretation, while the plaintiffs emphasized human rights, the defendants cast the controversy in terms of social awareness. While the plaintiffs sought to focus on the Russian dimension of the controversy, the defendants considered the issues part of an international problem in which evidence from other countries was acceptable (a view the judge came to adopt). Shterin further contrasted the anti-cultists and theologians, who testified on behalf of the defendants, with the academics ("mainly sociologists") who spoke on behalf of the plaintiffs. Shterin also described a public-relations campaign by the defendants to discredit the plaintiffs and made reference to some sort of physical violence in or around the courtroom.

During the question-and-answer session which followed, Johannes Aagaard of the Dialog Center International, who appeared as an expert witness on behalf of the defendants, pointedly challenged Shterin's account of the case.