626. Shupe, Anson D., Jr., and David G. Bromley. "Apostates and Atrocity Stories: Some Parameters in the Dynamics of Deprogramming." In The Social Impact of New Religious Movements edited by Bryan Wilson. New York: Rose of Sharon Press, 1981a.
A telling analysis of the deleterious effects of the genre of atrocity stories on the movements they describe. The authors note that this genre is practically invariant over time (cf. Cox, 1978a: item 190 for a historically deeper view of the same phenomenon). Apostasy is here defined not as simply leaving a movement but actively opposing it after doing so, sometimes as a career; some apostates become "deprogrammers" themselves.
The media (being a firmly rooted part of the establishment--as A. J. Leibling pointed out, the press is free if you happen to own one) were particularly hungry for these sensational stories of sinister influence, political (therefore illegal) manipulation, sexual deviance, severe deprivation, and the like. They seem to have swallowed these stories whole, despite their prima-facie incredibility in several respects. The universality of the stories gave a magnified impression of the power of the cults, and this strongly influenced both the general public and bureaucratic organs of social control strongly in the movements' disfavor.
627. ———. "Witches, Moonies and Accusations of Evil." In In Gods We Trust: New Patterns of Religious Pluralism in America edited by Thomas Robbins and Dick Anthony. New Brunswick, NJ: Transactions Press, 1981b: 247-62.
The authors draw parallels between the 1970's deprogramming fad and the seventeenth century's witchcraft persecutions, tracing ultimate causation to a breakdown of "traditional reciprocity" (meaning here approximately traditional familial norms) in both cases. In both cases, ultimate sources of evil were identified (sophisticated psychological manipulators and Satan, respectively), a modus operandi postulated, in terms of victims' vulnerability and the evildoers' ultimate purpose. The latter were then identified and their actions neutralized by specialists to whom is attributed a degree of charisma. The authors suggest that these analogous processes may clarify certain issues of social control.
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