Editing Deprogramming (section)

==Background==
In the United States in the early 1970s, there was an increasing number of [[New Religious Movement]]s. [[Ted Patrick]], the "father of deprogramming", formed an organization he called "The Citizens' Freedom Foundation" and began offering 'deprogramming' services to people who wanted to break a family member's connection to an NRM. Patrick's methods involved abduction, physical restraint, detention over days or weeks while maintaining a constant presence with the victim, food and sleep deprivation, prolonged verbal and emotional abuse, and desecration of the symbols of the victim's faith.<ref name="holywars">McAllister, Shawn (1999). "Holy Wars: Involuntary Deprogramming as a Weapon Against Cults". ''[[Thurgood Marshall Law Review]]'' '''24''' (2): 359–85</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=LeMoult |first=John |date=1978-01-01 |title=Deprogramming Members of Religious Sects |url=https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol46/iss4/1 |journal=Fordham Law Review |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=599}}</ref>

Deprogrammers justified their actions by applying a theory of "[[brainwashing]]" to New Religious Movements.<ref name="Chryssides">{{cite book|title=Exploring New Religions|last=Chryssides|first=George|publisher=[[Continuum International Publishing Group]]|year=1999|isbn=0-8264-5959-5|pages=346–348}}</ref><ref>[[George Chryssides|Chryssides, George D.]]; Zeller, Benjamin E. (eds.) (2014). ''The Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements.'' Bloomsbury Companions. London: [[Bloomsbury Publishing]].</ref> Brainwashing theory denied the possibility of authentic spiritual choice for an NRM member, proposing instead that such individuals were subject to systematic mind control programs that overrode their capacity for independent volition.<ref name="Bromley">{{cite book |editor1-first=Eugene V. |editor1-last=Gallagher |editor1-link=Eugene V. Gallagher |editor2-first=W. Michael |editor2-last=Ashcraft |title=Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America : Volume 1 : History and Controversies |year=2006 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=0275987132 |ol=10289608M |chapter=Affiliation and Disaffiliation Careers in New Religious movements |first= David G. |last=Bromley |author-link=David G. Bromley}}</ref>{{rp|56}} Ted Patrick's theory of brainwashing was that individuals were hypnotized by brainwaves projected from a recruiter's eyes and fingertips, after which the state was maintained by constant indoctrination, a totalistic environment, and self-hypnosis.<ref name="Bromley"/>{{rp|59}} Most academic research, however, indicated that the reasons for people joining, remaining in, or leaving NRMs were complex, varied from group to group and individual to individual, and generally reflected the continued presence of a capacity for individual responsibility and choice.<ref name="Bromley"/>{{rp|43, 61}}

The Citizens' Freedom Foundation, which later became known as the [[Cult Awareness Network]], became the most prominent group in the emerging national [[anti-cult movement]] of the 1970s and 80s. The anti-cult movement lobbied for state and national legislative action to legitimize its activities, and although this had very limited success, the movement was nevertheless able to forge alliances with a number of governmental agencies. This was primarily on the back of its propagation of the brainwashing/mind control ideology, which succeeded in turning affiliation with NRMs into an issue of public—rather than private—concern and gave a pseudo-legitimacy to the anti-cultists more extreme claims and actions.

Although the CFF and CAN were in favor of deprogramming, they distanced themselves from the practice from the late 1970s onwards.<ref>Clarke, P. and R.M.H.F.P. Clarke. 2004. Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements: Taylor & Francis.</ref> Despite this apparent repudiation, however, they continued the practice. CFF and CAN referred thousands of paying clients to activist members who kept lists of deprogrammers. The total number that occurred is unknown, but in 1980 Ted Patrick claimed to have been hired over 2000 times as a professional abductor.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Religion: Cultnaper |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,954578,00.html |magazine=Time |publisher=Time USA |access-date=24 October 2023}}</ref> Many other operators emerged both during and after the period in which he was active, many of them trained by him.<ref name="Bromley"/>{{rp|59}} The practice of deprogramming was an integral part of the anti-cult ideology and economy, and was seen as an effective response to the demand emanating from people who wanted a family member extracted, but it also clashed with the need for anti-cult organizations to present themselves as "educational" associations (the CFF, for example, received tax-exempt status as an educational trust). This, along with its tenuous legal and moral status, meant that deprogramming tended to be publicly disavowed, while its practice continued clandestinely.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=James R. |title=The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements |date=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=191}}</ref>