Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: sa24+@andrew.cmu.edu (Sondra Ahlen) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: cults (Nils, not Sondra) Message-ID: Date: 9 Mar 91 04:03:18 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 24 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I am using a friends account, my name is Nils K. Hammer, I hope to get mine back in a month. I have just read an article in the May 1979 issue of Playboy magazine with an interview of Ted Patrick. He was the first "deprogammer" of cult victims. I recommend it for those interested in the subject of cults. His story seems exagerated, perhaps paranoid, but compelling. He seems to have predicted (vaguely) the Jim Jones incident 12 days before it happened. What caused me to post on the subject was the discussion of what the term "cult" meant in common usage. The interviewer tried to get Patrick to tighten his definition of a cult, and I think he said that when someone loses their *personality* is when you know they are a cult victim. I would agree. I fell in with a "holy roller" sort of crowd when I was a teenager, and the main effort seemed to be making me just like they were, but my crusty conservative norwegian-american upbringing helped me resist. I went back to the bland Presbyterians where I fit in. Take a look at the article, Patrick gives a fairly simple explanation of how deprogramming works to encourage individuals personalities to regain function. Nils K. Hammer with help from the account sa24@andrew.cmu.edu