Word: anticult
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...afterthought, Dole included several witnesses who held, in line with First Amendment principles, that Government should not crack down on religious organizations unless they break the law. The bulk of the witnesses were anticult, however, and though they were openly, and understandably, hostile to the Moonies and other groups under discussion, they were unable to offer hard evidence of criminality, much less Jones-type mass murder. Nor did they define precisely what distinguishes a "cult" from an acceptable religion...
...main academics in the anticult lineup were Harvard Psychiatry Professor John Clark and University of Washington Law Professor Richard Delgado. Clark raised frightening specters of suicide, "uncontrolled violence," trances and total loss of memory, even distorted sense of smell (unexplained), among cultists. He made it clear that he saw the cultists as mindless zombies who pose a clear threat to democratic societies. "There are armies of willing, perfectly controlled soldiers," he told the assorted Senators and Representatives. "The level of public nuisance is so high that Government must act before it is too late...
Slaughter contends that the anticult network in which she was so active is itself a kind of "cult" and that Patrick's technique is psychologically "destructive." She said that it "scarred me," stirred up resentment and violent dreams, and that an anticult psychiatrist told her she came close to a psychotic break during her deprogramming. She freely admits that Moonies use high-pressure indoctrination methods, but she compares them to Zen-like spiritual disciplines. She also denies Patrick's theory that converts are "brainwashed...