Joseph Szimhart | Deprogramming: What is it? @josephszimhart9431 | Uploaded June 2024 | Updated October 2024, 5 hours ago.
Deprogramming is a loaded word that emerged in the mid 1970s to indicate an intervention process that could break the spell or influence of a controversial group or belief. Deprogrammers at times would participate in interventions initiated by kidnapping or some other form of coercive restraint like “house arrest.”
Members of alleged cults who hear or read my criticism of their group or leader often dismiss me through an ad hominem label as a “deprogrammer” thus unqualified. This simplistic maneuver might have some truth to it, but it has nothing to do with my qualifications or the content of what I discuss.
Eg, I was acquitted after a month long trial of all charges by a jury in Idaho in April 1993 for helping in an alleged kidnap deprogramming.
psycom/psyrelig/szimhart.htm
culteducation.com/group/888-cult-deprogramming/5586-jury-acquits-two-in-deprogramming-case.html
I refer to The Catalyst by Jonah Berger (2022) as a good way to grasp what intervention or deprogramming should look like and why it works.
jonahberger.com/books/the-catalyst
Willa Appel 1983 book puts this era of early deprogramming into perspective:
goodreads.com/book/show/1668310.Cults_in_America
The New Vigilantes by Bromley and Shupe 1981 is critical of deprogramming in that era:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Vigilantes
Larry Trapp 1991 deconversion from KKK
https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/jewish-cantor-and-his-family-resist-terrorism-convert-attacking-ku-klux-klan-leader-1991
Ted Patrick. A documentary expose by Mia Donovan 2015:
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4543744
Deprogramming is a loaded word that emerged in the mid 1970s to indicate an intervention process that could break the spell or influence of a controversial group or belief. Deprogrammers at times would participate in interventions initiated by kidnapping or some other form of coercive restraint like “house arrest.”
Members of alleged cults who hear or read my criticism of their group or leader often dismiss me through an ad hominem label as a “deprogrammer” thus unqualified. This simplistic maneuver might have some truth to it, but it has nothing to do with my qualifications or the content of what I discuss.
Eg, I was acquitted after a month long trial of all charges by a jury in Idaho in April 1993 for helping in an alleged kidnap deprogramming.
psycom/psyrelig/szimhart.htm
culteducation.com/group/888-cult-deprogramming/5586-jury-acquits-two-in-deprogramming-case.html
I refer to The Catalyst by Jonah Berger (2022) as a good way to grasp what intervention or deprogramming should look like and why it works.
jonahberger.com/books/the-catalyst
Willa Appel 1983 book puts this era of early deprogramming into perspective:
goodreads.com/book/show/1668310.Cults_in_America
The New Vigilantes by Bromley and Shupe 1981 is critical of deprogramming in that era:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Vigilantes
Larry Trapp 1991 deconversion from KKK
https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/jewish-cantor-and-his-family-resist-terrorism-convert-attacking-ku-klux-klan-leader-1991
Ted Patrick. A documentary expose by Mia Donovan 2015:
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4543744
