Tag: cult experts

Global fears of economic or environmental upheaval feed the growth of gurus and damaging cults that prey on the weak, a French government expert on cults has warned during a visit to Australia.

>Georges Fenech, president of France’s Interministerial >Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cultic Deviances, said it was working for greater international co-operation in dealing with sectarian abuses.

After 35 years of tracking cults and hate groups, counseling victims of mind control, and monitoring end-of-the-world prophecies on the Internet, cult expert Hal Mansfield is moving on, the Denver Post reports.

Mansfield is handing off control of the nonprofit he started in 1981 to Lisa Monroney, herself a cult survivor.

Video: Listen in on a casual conversation between cult expert Steve Hassan, ex-Scientologist Paul Grosswald — a long-time anti-cult activist, and ex-Scientologist Karen Pressley, who was a top person at the cult’s Celebrity Centre, a Seo Org member, and who worked directly for David Miscavige for 4 years.

Karen talks about her presentation at the ICSA conference with ex-Children of God member Miriam Boeri (who wrote Heaven’s Harlots), suppression of her new book by the Scientology cult, and its forthcoming release.

Twitter tip: Follow cult expert Steve Hassan.

A former member of a religious cult himself, Steve Alan Hassan has been on the forefront of cult awareness activism since 1976.

He is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and is considered an expert on destructive mind control issues.

Cult expert the Rev David Millikan said the original intention of the law was being undermined.

“If the purpose of the law is to protect religion from excessive and pernicious comments, then fair enough,” he told the Herald Sun.

“But if it means that journalists and experts have got to be careful when they’re doing nothing more than reporting matters of fact, then the law is allowed to become an ass.”

Michelle Wood said she was attacked by members of a voodoo group when she refused to participate in drug use and devil worship in a ceremony related to the autumnal equinox.

But cult experts said Wood’s story didn’t line up with known voodoo practices.

In the aftermath of the raid by Texas authorities into the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints’ Yearning for Zion ranch, polygamous sects are an issue of discussion at the International Cultic Studies Association meeting this weekend at the University of Pennsylvania.

At the conference top officials for the Utah and Arizona attorneys general were peppered with questions about prosecuting polygamous crimes.