Talk:Anti-cult movement

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Kropveld[edit]

>Publications of the International Cultic Studies Association have disputed the appropriateness of the term "Anti-cult movement"

Kropveld is the founder of cult-info, so it is he who is disputing the appropriateness, and not the 'publisher' (Here the ICSA) - this should be attributed to him directly and a working reference found (the current one is broken)

Zambelo; talk 01:27, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Merge?[edit]

Would it be a good idea to merge this article to Cult. Much of the material is duplicated in both articles; and cults are almost never talked about except in context of anti-cultists -- and, of course, the anti-cult movement is never talked about without also talking about cults. BayShrimp (talk) 18:12, 3 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is too much content here to merge - cult also talks about the origin of the term etc. I agree that there is a lot of duplicate content - perhaps the content relating to the ACMs in the cult article could be condensed under one heading and linked to this article? This would remove a lot of the duplicate content while maintaining the history of the term. It is also more complex than making it about 'cult vs anti-cult' since many religious scholars reject being categorised as such. A greater distinction between what is defined as a cult by the Christian Countercult Movement, Secular groups, and Religious Scholars should be made; while they all fall under the ACM, they all have different definitions of what defines a cult and what role they play in relation to these groups. I think merging will confuse the issue, since there is no one definition of the word. Zambelo; talk 04:55, 6 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Let us not merge it. Zezen (talk) 08:06, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Would it help to have a history section?[edit]

It seems that a timeline or history section would help to create an easier to understand history of this movement. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 22:11, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Bubkes in definition![edit]

The anti-cult movement (abbreviated ACM; sometimes called the countercult movement)[1] is a social group which opposes any new religious movement (NRM) that they characterize as a cult.[citation needed][circular definition]

Observations:

  1. opposes any new religious movement (NRM) that they characterize as a cult – mentioning new religious movement here is factually incorrect, they oppose any movement that ..., not any new religious movement that ... ; new religious and (NRM) should be removed
  2. [citation needed] is justified, keep it
  3. [circular definition] is not justified, but the article on cult shouldn't be refered to, either that article describes something else, or the opinion of the anti-cult movement differs from the opinions expressed in the article cult, the (perhaps) idiosyncratic definition of the anti-cult movement's 'cult' should be defined in this article, especially in the lede. Then the definition is not circular.

The anti-cult movement describes cults as devastating for the individuals and their biological families, I believe they maintain that the members of the cults are kept in the cult by manipulation, thought reform, dictatorship performed of malicious narcissists, physical violence and other prohibitions and person control. In short: coersive dictatures in our midst. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 10:09, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Article seem rather strange[edit]

The impression that I get from this article is that the anti-cult movement (or anti-cult movements) are mostly a bunch of paranoid (and probably religiously prejudiced) conspiracy theorists who think that "cults" (i.e. any religious group they don't like) have access to dangerous "brainwashing" powers that they use to ensnare and mind-control people. (Conversely, looking through the talk page archives, it seems a lot of people were arguing "No, its the alleged existance of an 'anti-cult movement' that is the paranoid conspiracy theory"). Is this the thesis that the article is actually trying to tell, or is that a misreading? Either way, I think it needs some serious improvement. Given that all of the following exist atleast in some numbers at some time:

  • Groups such as Heaven's_Gate_ and Aum_Shinrikyo that are clearly a danger to their own members and/or the wider public
  • Various new religious movements that some people accuse of being cults and of engaging in harmful, exploitative, or coercive behaviour.
  • Traditional religious groups that some people accuse of being cults and of engaging in harmful, exploitative, or coercive behaviour.
  • People who oppose and campaign against some or all of the above, out of mundane concern about specifics of their activities.
  • People who oppose and campaign against some or all of the above, because they are prejudiced against some/all religions.
  • People who oppose and campaign against some or all of the above, because they subscribe to paranoid conspiracies about what such groups are up to.

I think this article better needs to distinguish between which "anti cult" movement(s) its talking about, and between reasonable and unreasonable criticism of religious movements. The best approach might be to reoganise the aticle so that each type of "anti cult" movement is discussed in turn (including definitions, examples, the arguments they make, and the counter-arguments of their critics), rather than listing them all and then presenting a large "controversy" section. I also think the whole section of "brainwashing" needs work, because its not clear what the accusers claim is actually involved, which makes the counterargument of "nah, there's no such thing" rather meaningless. Iapetus (talk) 20:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's a very weird article, clearly intended to discredit any anti-cult activists. Most of the content should be deleted and rewritten. Ungulates (talk) 06:56, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Third-ed. There's virtually no actual information here about anti-cult activism, it's almost entirely composed of hostile commentary from blatantly cult-aligned activist scholars, presented as almost some kind of scientific consensus against these fringey beknighted anti-cult activists. It's a blatant hack job. 2607:9880:1F88:4:1DC8:7823:7423:72A7 (talk) 05:20, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have listed the article for deletion on these grounds. It may be beyond fixing. Ungulates (talk) 03:44, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely agree that the subject is a bit strange to think about, but there definitely is a bona fide "anti-cult" zeitgeist/movement in the West and elsewhere (one place that is not covered in the article at all is China, which explicitly regulated against what the government and scientific community viewed as cults). Perhaps the article focuses a bit to much on the sociological theory and modelling by various scholars, which can definitely be reworked. For sure some of the scholars that the article pulls from are biased towards some groups (Bromley and Shupe definitely are not fans of anti-cultists; J. Gordon Melton had some controversies with Aum Shinrikyo in the 1990s; etc.), but a lot of the time it is all that is really available. Some of the anti-cultists are generally self-proclaimed experts (e.g., Ted Patrick) or have degrees in psychology/psychiatry that do not amount to much in terms of religious studies knowledge (e.g. Steven Hassan, Margaret Singer). Neutrality when discussing this topic is essentially impossible, so scholars who try to maintain scholarly neutrality come off as "cult-aligned" or biased towards groups despite (sometimes) clear indicators that some groups (like Heaven's Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, Rajneeshpuram, etc.) can cause great harm to themselves and others. Jacquesparker0 (talk) 01:20, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

UK legal cases[edit]

The United Kingdom section has a paragraph each about legal cases concerning Scientology and the Unification Church. In neither is the anti-cult movement mentioned, unless it's saying the government of the UK and the newspaper in the second case are anti-cult. I'm suggesting we move the paragraphs to the articles on the organizations themselves.PopSci (talk) 16:10, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @PopSci, I wrote in those two paragraphs because those actions are generally excepted as anti-cult in scholarship. Though, I agree that it not super explicit about the "anti-cult-ness" of those actions, so I would be okay with moving them to those religions' specific pages instead of being here. I'll take a look at those pages and see where they might fit well. Jacquesparker0 (talk) 18:24, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I can move the UC paragraph now and let you move the Scientology one. PopSci (talk) 18:27, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Turns out there's already a section on the UK's ban on the Scientology in the United Kingdom article. I will comb through to see if there are any missing details there that I can add, and I'll just delete it from this article once complete. Jacquesparker0 (talk) 18:31, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. PopSci (talk) 18:51, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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