by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 19, 2016 | Blog, Essays
Why We Need to Recognize Brainwashing and its Close and Distant Cousins A Work in Progress by Janja Lalich, Ph.D. Despite some scholarly efforts to deny the existence of brainwashing – both its processes and its consequences – the need to understand this...
by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 15, 2016 | Blog, Essays
Janja Lalich, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Sociology Prepared for European Conference of FECRIS 16 May 2015 ✪Marseille, France Introduction As I see it, presently, four main issues affect cult-related court cases in the United States. These are (1) not...
by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 14, 2016 | Blog, Essays
This article is an electronic version of an article originally published as the Introduction to a special issue of the Cultic Studies Journal, 1997, Volume 14, Number 1, guest-edited by Janja Lalich. The journal was entitled, “Women Under the Influence: A Study...
by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 14, 2016 | Cults: The Basics, Essays
Methods Used to Support a Behavioral Control System Isolation of the person and manipulation of his or her environment. Control of information going in and out of the group environment. Separation and/or alienation from family and friends. Induced dissociation and...
by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 14, 2016 | Cults: The Basics, Essays
Cultic Techniques for Changing Someone In present-day thought-reform programs, there is an attack on the core self, the person’s central self-image. Attacking the inner person, the self, makes the person feel defective at his or her very core. In groups that use...
by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 14, 2016 | Blog, Essays
I was recruited into a cult in 1975 when I was thirty years old. The previous year I returned to the United States after having spent almost four years in exile abroad, where I lived the most serene life on an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain. If...
