Anti-cult France: Current Status
Advocating for Individual Freedoms

Disclaimer: this documentary has been created and produced by the CICNS, an independent French organisation not connected to Kenja or any other group. 

This is part 3 of a documentary in 3 parts (120min).

• Click here to view Part 2 of the documentary.
• Click here to view Part 3 of the documentary.

The CICNS is reaching into an understanding of spirituality away from extremist religious viewpoints, and set itself up with a project for an independent Observatory of spiritual minorities in France. 



The Documentary Part 1 is in french subtitled in english. Below is a transcript in english translated from french:

CICNS - Copyright 2007

CICNS
BP7 – 82270 Montpezat de Quercy
www.cicns.net – contact@cicns.net 

CICNS presents:

Anti-cult France: Current Status
Advocating for Individual Freedoms - Part 1

"At 6 a.m., 5:45, they arrived; there were sixty gendarmes."

"In the end, they broke down the door. They came in screaming."

"They aimed at me when I had my little one-year old daughter in my arms and I had another child with me who was three years old."

"They hit me, twisted my arm, put me on the floor, a pistol to my head."

"I think there are countless victims."

"The gendarmes who came were convinced that they had to save the interns from a collective suicide that would not fail to happen in the days to come."

"Any group, of any kind, can become a 'cult group' if you want to cause some trouble for it."

"Myself, personally, I don't understand what is happening in France.
I find it unacceptable."

"It’s an attempt to demonize people.
So, in order to demonize them, we say they belong to cults.
It's easy that way, we reject them as a group and there is no more discussion about it."

New spiritualities, esotericism, personal development, New Age, alternative health or educational methods, alternative ways of living together.
This list is not exhaustive but most of the victims of repression that we will discuss in this film will find themselves on it.
What these people have in common is that they have all one day been stigmatized by the use of the word 'cult'.
The common question is: "What is a 'cult'?"
We prefer another: "Do 'cults' exist?"
This is the thread of the enquiry that we have embarked upon.
Indeed, the very existence of the word 'cult', with its current meaning, perpetuates an outrageous confusion between some criminal matters and spirituality in general, and its new expressions in particular.
Independent scholars, unrelated to any of the movements mentioned, wished to express themselves on the subject.
Objective witnesses, they are involved here as sociologists, historians or anthropologists concerned with the truth.

Michel Mafesoli, Sociologist
"I go often or very often to Japan, for example. The word 'cult' is used to designate a particular group that is cut off from another.
That is the meaning of this word, in fact, something that is cut off from something else.
We can take it non-pejoratively.
That said, we can't be naive, I think, it's not currently possible in France; the word 'sect' or 'cult' refers to something that always has the connotation of being very derogative."

Anne Morelli, Historian
"I think that terms carry a lot of weight; the words that we use are very important.
Depending on whether we are talking about religious minorities, new religions or we are using terms such as 'cults', of course, there is a weight that is subjective. When we talk about a 'cult', it is obviously scary.
When we talk about a religious minority, it gives you more of an impression of sympathy or empathy towards a group that doesn't have the same weight as others and so it is important to weigh, to weigh up these terms."

'Cult': This word brings fear and can become a formidable weapon.
Olivier Martin, who recounted his forceful arrest in the introduction to this film, agreed to testify about what he had suffered.
So we went to his home in the Aveyron to listen to his testimony.
Writer and lecturer, founder of the magazine l'Essential, he settled on the Terranova property in 1993, along with several of his friends.
That is when the trouble started...

Olivier Martin, Lecturer, Writer
"The gendarmes started coming to see me and asked me:
- What is this activity? What types of books do you edit?
They were clearly speaking to me about a 'cult'."

The property that they had bought included some houses that they had quickly put up for rent.
For three years, they were subject to persistent surveillance by the gendarmes, with occasional fly-overs from helicopters.

"They went to see all of the people at home, in their apartments, and asked to see their papers.
Not only did they ask to see their papers, but they started to question them, saying:
- What are you doing here? Do you know you that you are in a 'cult'?
So, that is how it started.
People didn't want to have the gendarmes come to their houses and tell them:
- You are in a 'cult'.
So that was a problem.
So I started to say to them that it was a problem, that they shouldn't do that.
The tenants weren't happy, they came to see me.
Some of the tenants left.
So at that point, I realized that I was going to have some difficulties; I started to feel ill at ease.
Especially when they came to see me and told me:
- It's simple; now, you have to give us information regularly on the people who come to live in the houses.
I refused, and then they told me:
- We will make your life miserable; we have all of the powers to make your life miserable."

Dominique Kounkou, Pastor, Sociologist
"The gendarmes were keeping watch night and day around the church.
But really strange situations!
I phoned the Mayor, and asked him:
- So, are you racist?
He said to me:
- No, no, Sir, no.
I said:
- Okay, so if you are not racist, what are you?
- Yes, but these movements, you never know ...
I asked:
- Why don’t you suspect the Catholic Church or the Protestant Church that are next door?
- Yes, but they are known.
- On what basis do you know them? Did you study theology? Do you realize that their theology is bad?"

Anne Morelli, Historian
"I am thinking about a teacher in Belgium who was banned from teaching because he was a Jehovah's Witness."

Regis Dericquebourg, Sociologist of Religion
"We have the case of a person whose children were put into foster care because the mother and grandmother attended the Antoinistes in Valenciennes."

Me Philippe Pérollier, Lawyer
"An astonishing and, in my opinion, unbelievable, decision that was made in 1981.
The Court of Cassation validated the decision of a Court of Appeal.
It was is a petition for divorce and the Court of Appeal had said that "under the influence of her religious convictions, the woman, member of  a cult, imposed strange food on those around her and her son in particular, and did not raise him according to the family's religious principles."
That's all!"

What is it that puts individuals into the wrong category?
What is it that makes a spiritual organization or a church a 'cult' in the minds of our fellow citizens?

Anne Morelli, Historian
"Here, at the University of Brussels, we have examined, precisely, the transition from one status to another: when is it called religion, when is it called a 'cult', when is it heresy?
And the conclusion of this examination that we conducted during a symposium held here at the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Religions and Secularism was that it is power that decides on the label."

What power in this case?
What power violates as such the articles of a Declaration to which France is a signatory and even the main instigator?
These testimonies of discriminations suffered and the sociological and legal findings of a confusion of issues led us to conduct a proper investigation.
Enquiry into government involvement in an astonishing fight.

Gilles Farcet, Writer and Collaborator with Arnaud Desjardins
"There is a spiritual thirst, a thirst for verticality that has always existed in human beings but that today religions, let's say, institutional religions, tend to no longer respond to in a way that is satisfactory."

In the 50s and 60s, the West saw this thirst expressed as suddenly many people went outside of the traditional churches.
It is difficult to account for the incredible diversity and multiplicity of teachings and practices that then appeared and the turnaround that millions of people experienced through them.
Some travelled to the East and met with its ancestral traditions, and brought back the images and texts and their own interpretation of these meetings that inspired others in turn.
Eastern teachers come to the West at the invitation of their new followers or sometimes just carrying a message that they felt needed to be disclosed.
Other researchers drew on Western teachings, revisited, or revalorized.
Over a period of close to ten years, thousands of groups, associations, and more or less formal circles saw the light of day, the best known being only one part. What links these groups is the desire to live with sharing, peace, love, but also the notions of transcendence, revelation, enlightenment.
Some sociologists see a radically new approach to the relationship with the material and spiritual world in this phenomenon, that continues today.

Michel Mafesoli, Sociologist
"Clearly, we are in the process of accessing a different relationship to the world and to others, we are now moving into a different kind of civilization.
We are in the process of leaving what has been called 'modernity', which has developed as such, painfully, in the three centuries that have just ended and there is indeed something that is being put into place, in our relationships to others.
Basically, that is what it is, religion, religiosity, one of my colleagues even talks of reconnection, in the simple sense of the word.
More and more, what is important is to connect myself to the other, the fact that that I am connected to nature, that I am connected to the deity, in a broad or vague manner.
I have no fetish about expressions.
What can be said, and what is essential, is that there is a return of what we had thought we had gone beyond."

This spiritual renewal does not leave us indifferent.
In a society dominated by materialism, scientism and productivism, the undoubtable sincerity and enthusiasm of these followers calls out.
Especially since this emergence is taken very seriously at this time by recognized individuals and organizations.
The new spiritualities are sometimes sporadically the favourites of the media, attracted by some of the more spectacular, extravagant or provocative groups, or by the appearance amongst their ranks of incontestable stars of the time.
Journalists generally deal with the subject fairly superficially and often ironically.
They present a rather innocuous image of these groups.

1978 was the year of a radical turnaround.
Terrifying images invaded the media. 914 people, men, women and children were found dead on November 18 in Jonestown, Guyana, where for two years a thousand members of the congregation of Jim Jones' 'People's Temple' had lived.
There was talk of poisoning, massacre and, especially, collective suicide for religious reasons.
Journalists quickly made a link between the drama and new spiritual movements as a whole, thereafter referred to as 'cults' in English, a term that was not yet negatively loaded.
There were, in the United States alone, 5,000 organizations then listed under this name that were suddenly subject to generalized mistrust.

But twenty years later, in 1997, following a request from a magazine citing the decree for the freedom of information, the FBI was forced to release 39,000 pages on this case.
These documents had the effect of a bomb in the United States as they were opposed to the vision conveyed by the media for twenty years.
The FBI documents revealed the intervention of outsiders to the community during the drama.
Many of the corpses showed the signs of poison injections into body parts that you cannot reach yourself.
Others were killed by bullets and arrows.
They showed lastly but not least that the U.S. government had been involved in this matter and had tried to keep some facts secret.
After the drama, birthday preparations were found in several of the houses in Jonestown.
Is that the behaviour of people who have decided to end their lives?

Guyana was a blow to the spiritual and idealistic impulses of the 60s and 70s.
The media campaign that followed threw suspicion on all new expressions of spirituality in the world.
It propelled people and groups to centre stage who until that time were very discreet, that sociologists called the anti-cult or counter-cult movement.
Among the first to oppose the new religious movements, we find some parents, shocked to see their children distance themselves from them, sometimes dropping out of school or a professional life to join spiritual movements foreign to their culture.

The case of the Children of God was quite typical and has the advantage of having been sufficiently publicized that there is a lot of archival footage.
The children in question were all of the age of majority and declared themselves happy with their life choices.
Parent associations emerged later, such as CAN, the Cult Awareness Network, which would become the largest American anti-cult association.
The judgments made by the parents relied only on subjective moral and religious values, in principle inadmissible in court.
One concept happened to provide justification for their fight and an argument before the courts: the theory of brainwashing.

CIA Headquarters, Langley
This concept emerged in the early 50's, in the McCarthyism heyday. The CIA was compelled at the time to provide, for propaganda purposes, an explanation for the conversion of some Chinese leaders and intellectuals to Communism.
This would be 'brainwashing.'
There is a book compiling all of the data on this subject, written by Massimo Introvigne and Dick Anthony, respectively, sociologist of religion and world-renowned psychologist.

Massimo Introvigne, Ph.D., Sociologist of Religion
"Every time that society doesn't understand a movement, one that appears very strange, the quickest explanation is to say:
- People don't belong to it voluntarily, it's a spell, it's hypnosis, it's psychological manipulation."

The concept was picked up again by the anti-cult movement in the early 70s and it was Margaret Singer in particular, a clinical psychologist, who would develop the theory of cult "brainwashing."
Her many interventions, as a witness against spiritual minorities or in defence of the actions of the anti-cult associations, earned her an international reputation.

Once it is detached from any scientific explanation, two simplistic ideas emerge from the anti-cult activists' discourse:

1. At the head of the new spiritual movements, there would be exploiters, the 'gurus', brandishing all of humanity's vices;
2. The members of the new spiritualities would mostly be unconscious victims, prisoners of the 'cults' that would brainwash them."

The first French anti-cult association was founded in 1974 in Rennes.

Dr Claire Champollion, whose son had joined Reverend Moon's Unification Church, created, with her husband and psychiatrist André Badiche, the Association for the Defence of the Family and the Individual (ADFI), whose declared intention is the fight against cults,.
The ADFI did not delay in following American associations in the promotion of a surprising practice, deprogramming, or 'déprogrammation' in French.

Massimo Introvigne, Ph.D., Sociologist of Religion
"I would say that in the United States, the courts have come to consider deprogramming as a criminal activity.
For those who haven't heard about the cases, deprogramming consists of removing a person from the street by a real kidnapping, usually putting them into a van and taking them to a place where they are spoken to very badly, either on religion in general, or on their religious experience, until they are convinced and converted."

Some cases have been favourites of the press, such as that of Claire Château, in 1982.
The newspaper, in this case, clearly positioned itself on the side of the parents and therefore the kidnappers, who received a lot of publicity.

Massimo Introvigne, Ph.D., Sociologist of Religion
"The problem with deprogramming is that the deprogramming has almost never been conducted by psychologists or psychiatrists but by former members of the movements themselves, who have made it into a very lucrative profession.
There have been deprogrammings done at $40,000, $50,000, even $100,000 in the United States, and also by people coming from private police services and backgrounds that are sometimes quite dodgy.
The most famous deprogrammer in the United States, Rick Ross, was someone who began his career as a jewel thief."

Kidnapping, false imprisonment, 'non-professional' psychology or psychiatry...
These words only partially describe the ordeals that many young adults have had to endure, some of whom have even filed complaints in court.

To the Senior Investigating Judge at the Superior Court in Paris: "I came through this ordeal, that I would call psychological rape, exhausted to the last degree.
I denounce the role played by ADFI that pushed my family to try to deprogram me."

On the CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions) website that is managed by Massimo Introvigne, we find confirmation of the support provided by the ADFI for deprogramming attempts.

Ms Lidwine Ovigneur, Director of the Lille ADFI, stated in 1976 to the newspaper L'Aurore', after the removal of Brigitte Backeland, a young follower of the Unification Church, that "she was resting in the countryside where she would be deprogrammed."
According to Ms Ovigneur, it was not the first case: "Our deprogramming techniques are now well developed, thanks especially to the American experiences."

Here is a brief summary and epilogue of these so-called American experiences.

Hundreds of deprogrammings have been orchestrated over just a few years.
Ted Patrick, the true father of deprogramming, considered as a saviour by parents and as an executioner by many of his former patients, claimed 1600 'rescues' as he called them before the judge who sentenced him in 1974 for false imprisonment.

After many trials and the conviction of close to ten deprogrammers for kidnapping, false imprisonment, assault and battery, CAN, the main anti-cult organization in the USA, closed in 1996.

The ADFI would gradually distance themselves from the deprogrammers' practices.
The fact remains that they encouraged these barbaric and illegal acts and that, unlike their American counterparts, this did not prevent them from prospering or from seeing their federation, UNADFI, obtain the status of a public utility, the same year that CAN went bankrupt.

As for the cult brainwash theory, by Margaret Singer, she was to be basically disqualified in the American Courts of Justice, particularly following interventions by Dick Anthony.

Few know today that the theory of psychological manipulation is only a progressive adaptation of the brainwashing concept originally created by the CIA to fight against Communism.
It is however still taken seriously in all cases in France and used to justify a rescue company for people who, for the most part, have not asked to be saved.

Regis Dericquebourg, sociologist of religion, who has been studying the new religious movements for more than thirty years, welcomed us at his home in Lille.

Regis Dericquebourg, Sociologist of Religion
"What do I find in the field? I meet people like you and me, leaders who do not seem to be particularly dangerous, in any case who believe in what they do, who believe in what they teach.
I reject the notion that, at the head of these movements, for example at the head of Jehovism, there would be a college of a dozen people who would not believe at all in the Jehovah doctrine and who would be manipulating six million people.
I see people who are engaged in a process, they teach the doctrine, they provide leadership, they practice worship.
I have never seen, there, where the danger was, so then you have to assume that the fact of adopting a non-conformist doctrine is already a danger."

The concept thus clashes with the sociological realities and also with simple common sense.
What is the difference between convincing, persuading, winning over, which are socially accepted acts, not objectionable, and so called psychological manipulation?
There is no doubt that it is possible to convince an individual to act against their own objective interest.
Machiavelli and many others have written on this subject for centuries.
But the anti-cult activists say the new spiritualities have made this deviation into a specialty and a specificity.

Me Jean-Marc Florand, Lawyer
"The Political parties do psychological manipulation; the credit companies do psychological manipulation; the sales company that calls you at eight o'clock in the evening, four times, to offer a fully equipped kitchen with many benefits, does psychological manipulation; direct sellers who visit the homes of elders to install alarms do psychological manipulation.
The monasteries when they are recruiting, do psychological manipulation, the Churches do psychological manipulation ...
Everyone, at some time, does psychological manipulation.
So I don't see how we can specifically claim - except in a specific case, we will always certainly find a case - that there is a crime of psychological manipulation being committed in a cult movement.
That seems to be an undemocratic infraction to me and one that we know was very much under way in countries in the past that did not stand out for their democratic qualities."

After the Guyana massacre, the fear of mass suicide, indoctrination, brainwashing, tainted the image of spiritual minorities in everyone's eyes.
But what should have been able to fade over time, as any trauma fades naturally, was going to take on an unexpected amplitude.

Raphael Liogier, Director of the Observatoire du religeux in Aix en Provence.
"The concept of a cult in the 1970s was essentially tied to what was exotic and imaginary: ‘Those people over there are a little weird, be careful, it's childish’ ..."
In the 1980s, it evolved towards the image of the mafia network, pedophiles, secrets, manipulators.
This has completely changed, we went from one to another and suddenly, a different type of problem has been determined and a different public action.
The people who produce this, the people who build the imaginary, are called meaning operators: journalists, people who are found at all levels, in the networks, Christians, whatever you want."

This radical change in opinion would not have been possible without the support of the State.
The French government stands out from the other European countries for having supported the anti-cult organizations and then in relaying their message.
The first grants from a public body to an ADFI came from the Ministry of Health and date from 1977.

In 1982, it was Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy who ordered a report from Alain Vivien on issues related to the existence of the new movements that he called "religious and pseudo-religious cults."

The report, completed in 1983, was released in 1985.
This distribution could only raise questions.
The basic tenet of the report, extremely alarmist, essentially repeated the discourse of the anti-cult activists without being supported by any evidence.
But if it depicted a real danger, why wait two years to release it?
How is it that the government distributed it in the press without taking any formal action to curb the alleged problem?
The measures would not come until ten years later.
We can talk in reality of the deliberate propagation of a rumour.

Anne Morelli, Historian
"The religions that are not labelled are the subject of a suspicion of power and authority organized against them, more or less, I would say, a witch hunt, persecution, everything you want, in one form or the other, emphasizing the difficult or delicate times that can be had in any human group, and presenting these moments as the standard in all marginalized religious groups. 
No one thinks that all priests are paedophiles, but the rumour is started that those who belong to these so called 'cults' are perverts of all kinds."

Gradually, as the propaganda bears fruit and as it ends up with everyone eventually being convinced of the existence of a social evil called 'cults', the actions of the state become more radical and official.
It is thus that military or police actions can take place, such as those suffered by the inhabitants of Terranova.

Magali, resident of Terranova
"At 6 am, 5:45, they arrived; there were sixty gendarmes: the financial brigade, all of Aveyron had been mobilized, because there aren't very many gendarmes, plus a special brigade from the Mont-de-Marsan army."

Olivier Martin, lecturer, writer
They came in screaming. I was in the kitchen, they held me up with a lamp, the gun - I saw an enormous gun - and yelling loudly, they said to me: "Don't move, put your hands on your head" or something like that, and they approached me.
My wife was standing next to me, and in front of my wife, they held me up like that, before my wife who was paralyzed by fear, who screamed, I think."

Waco: A new revelation - Director: Jason Van Vleet - Producer: Rick Van Vleet
A very similar event, because it proceeds from the same repressive logic, occurred in 1993 in the United States: Waco, or the dramatic end of the community of Pastor David Koresh.
The members of a spiritual Christian minority, following a disproportionate and extremely violent raid by the forces of order, barricaded themselves in the farm that they had occupied peacefully for many decades.
The ATF and then the FBI, supported by special forces from the army, laid siege on the building.
They had helicopters and tanks.
The press was kept at away from the location during the 51 days of the siege.
At dawn on April 19, the attackers launched an assault of unprecedented violence. Tanks knocked over the walls, crushing men and children, they injected massive doses of highly flammable tear gas. 74 people including 12 children perished, charred in the dreadful blaze that began in the late morning. Here is what remains of the Davidians' farm after the attack.

Talking about mass suicide in this case is quite simply false, as confirmed by the testimony of the survivors. Placing the blame for the tragedy on an alleged religious fanaticism is even truly indecent. Yet this is what the FBI, ATF, and even President Clinton tried to do. It was also this point of view that was widely diffused by the media in France.

How could the police force have gotten there, unless carried away by a psychosis at the scale of an entire society? In France, in the l'Essential affair and just like at Waco, the police had received special training in order to intervene.

Olivier Martin, lecturer, writer
"The gendarme who questioned me, at a certain point, had doubts.
He saw that there was a discrepancy with the film that had been done internally.
However, he explained to me that he had been trained specifically for this case and to destroy a "cult."
After a moment, he said to me: "Anyway, don't worry, the goal is to destroy the 'cult' and to level Terranova."
He showed me a film that they had done on a computer where I saw myself flying through the sky - so a document made by the gendarmes - on a magic carpet to the music of Era.
He said this had been done to brief all of the others, to explain where they were going, and that the real purpose was to destroy a 'cult.'

Who can say what his reaction would have been to a surprise assault by the military?
Between the Waco epilogue and that of Terranova, there may be only a cultural difference or a factor of luck.

The bloody OTS mysteries - France 2:2005 - Director: Yves Boisset
After Waco, the psychosis in France was strongly established.
Thus, the affairs of the Order of the Solar Temple in Canada, Switzerland and France in 1994 and 1995 just naturally took their place in the anti-cult arguments. French Justice, following the example set by Swiss Justice, would follow an astonishing path in this affair.
"It quickly became evident that the judge and his investigators decided to focus on the strictly cult thesis of transit towards Sirius."
The whole investigation and the argumentation by the government was intended to show that it was a ritual suicide, a programmed departure and agreed to on the basis of a religious belief.
It suddenly forgot all rigour and jurisprudence in analysing the evidence, the facts, the autopsies and the testimony that could have redirected the investigation.
Despite the evidence of killings with mafia and political implications, which would assert itself over the years and through the revelations, the OTS French event was exploited to revive the anti-cult policy.  

So it was thus in the context of this media concoction that the famous parliamentary report on 'cults' was published in January 1996.
Note this strange coincidence: the Gest-Guyard report, completed in haste, was introduced in the presidency of the National Assembly on December 22, 1995, the eve of the morbid discovery of the false Vercors suicides.

Me Philippe Pérollier, Lawyer
"I can't say at all - because I don't know and I don't want to comment on this issue - that these deaths were the result of a sort of conspiracy, I don't know. But what I do know is that these deaths admirably served the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry that was struck on this subject and that is self-justified, as it were, from this angle. That seems extremely important to me."

Let's take the time to consider some key elements of the report.
First of all an appalling confession.
Quote: "Given the difficulty of defining the term 'cult', the Commission, 'at the risk of deeply offending sensibilities or proceeding with a partial analysis of reality" preferred to "keep the common meaning that the public attributes to the concept."
End of quote.
Common meaning constructed, as we have seen, through a previous report oriented in the same direction and fifteen years of one-way media hype.

Another crucial point: as with the Vivien report, this report produces no statistics on the alleged criminality of the cults but does not forget to refer to 1978 and the massacre of Guyana, Waco and the other dramas wrongly linked to the new spiritualities.
This total lack of evidence does not prevent the categorical and conclusive affirmation of the existence of a 'real scourge' as well as a denunciation by name, in the form of a list of 172 dangerous cults. This was, truly, the most shocking act by the Commission, as Me Pérollier indicates.

Me Philippe Pérollier, Lawyer
"Even if some groups were indeed convicted and showed some reprehensible conduct, it does not justify, even against them, this listing process.
So I would say that even for them, in any case, they were victims of a process that is unacceptable, a process of media lynching, the proscription list, that strongly resembles what happened under Vichy, one must be frank and clear."

Regis Dericquebourg, Sociologist of Religion
"You know, this story of a list is ancient history since in 1937, in Germany, the Directives Commission for the study of 'cults' had already compiled a list of 'cults' that could destroy the German people, and on it were the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Bibelforscher or Bible Students at the time, and some evangelical groups.
So you see, when they made a list, they took things up again that had already existed."

Last point on which we will stop, the sources for the report: twenty in closed court hearings. 
The members of parliament decided to keep the names of the witnesses secret and not to disclose them, retranscribing however a few selected and anonymous passages whose content allows the assertion to be made that a good part of them were made to representatives of the anti-cult movement.

Those issuing the report also claim to have relied primarily on a "very detailed and complete analysis by the RG, or general intelligence service.

Rougelet Patrick, former director of the RG, would say this about the analysis in his book: 
"The RG did not have much on the issue. In a disaster, it was necessary to manufacture a 'report'."
 A civil servant was responsible for compiling the work done by others, particularly by the gendarmes ..."

The report of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry cannot claim to have used a serious methodology or any statistical study and can only rely on the careless work of the RG.
Some of the incriminated movements have attempted to obtain their records, as they are permitted by law.

Christian Paturel, former lawyer, Jehovah's Witness:
"My church was among the 172 'cult movements'. My church asked for disclosure of the report from the RG."

Despite an initial refusal by the RG, they were finally able to get Court of justice to examine the document for them.

"The Administrative Court of Appeal said that, in this case, there was absolutely nothing, and certainly nothing that would allow this organization to be ranked amongst the 'cults'.
In my opinion, the result would be the same for almost all of the movements that were listed. 
So, on what basis was this work done?
On the basis of denunciations, by people who had been kept secret?"

What remains, then, for this report in terms of legitimacy?

Me Philippe Pérollier, Lawyer
"Can we talk about legitimacy, once we know that only thirty people participated in the Commission of Inquiry, when, on the other hand, from the information that we have been able to obtain, of the thirty people, only seven or eight actually participated in the vote and adopted this report?
How can we talk about legitimacy, when - and this is common knowledge - no sociologist of religion, no researcher was heard by the Commission of Inquiry?"

Regis Dericquebourg, Sociologist of Religion
"I think that the people who prepared the reports for the parliamentary inquiry in France absolutely avoided reading my work, like those of other researchers elsewhere.
We need to be aware that the parliamentary inquiry reports that we have are false and that the one for example on 'cult money' in 1999, like the one in 1996, was done to support the thesis of a social scourge.
The parliamentarians could have leave to write anything because there was no possible appeal, and not even the right of response available for the groups described and incriminated or defamed or dirtied."

Members of parliament indeed benefit from parliamentary immunity.
And as for the document itself, it enjoys the protection of being only informative.

Raphael Liogier, Director of the Observatoire du religieux
"It is clear that the parliamentary reports are constantly applied.
In theory, they are not applicable, since they aren't prepared in terms of basic information that could make them applicable.
But they always apply; they apply in the denial of visas, the denial of building permits, because when you belong to this or that religious movement, when you are the representative of such a religious movement, you want to build a small building to meet in.
Even if you are (an association established under) 1901 and you don't ask anything of anybody, you just want to build this small building, private, voluntary, what does the mayor do?
You ask for the building permit, the mayor looks on the list, he asks the prefect, he looks on the list: done!
You don't get your building permit.
So, in this case, what will happen?
You will say: “Look, I have been discriminated against!
It is because I belong or because I represent this movement that I can't get a building permit while the land use plan tells me that..."
You will be told: "You cannot go before the Court."
"And why can't I go before the Court?"
"You can't, since the report is only for information purposes. 
Since it is only for information purposes, you can't oppose it.
So you can't say that it's because of the report that this was done."
However, in practice, it is because of the report.
Since the report is only for information purposes, they can say anything; it will always be only for information purposes.
It only harms you, without you being able to say anything against it.
Result: The fact of pretending that what is being done cannot be done because we have a secular state allows us to do what?
To do even more, without having to explain.
That is the subtlety of the system and its normal operation.
It was created for that."

This document is thus an invincible weapon of discrimination.
It is still today a pillar of the so-called fight against 'sectarian derivatives' or 'cults'.

This first part of our documentary revealed only some of the aspects of the system currently in place in France that tends to perpetuate and exploit the fantasy of the 'cult.'

Our investigation did not stop there.

Ça se discute - France 2: May 25, 2005
"There has been a great manipulation.
Some people have found themselves caught in the net of a 'cult.' In France, there are 500,000,000 followers."

Dr Tal Schaller, Speaker, Writer
"You are perhaps not a cult but you are still a 'sectarian deviant'.
With the words sectarian deviance, you can put whatever you want."

Teva - The Teva files (TV series): May 9, 2005
"Good evening and thank you for joining us for this edition of The Teva Files dedicated to 'cults.'
In France, it is estimated that 500,000 people ..."

Guilhem, Resident of Terranova
"You should know that, at the police stations and in the Courts, ADFI is cited to you as an authority."

Magalie, Resident of Terranova
"Finally, the conclusion of all of this is that they spent an enormous fortune to deploy sixty gendarmes, to do three years of interrogations, helicopter fly-overs ..."

Me Bernard Biro, lawyer
"And behind this collective phobia, a plethora of proceedings that had no rapport, such as divorces ..."

Ça se discute, France 2:
"Today, your ex-companion is part of a movement known to be a cult that is called the Evangelical Pentecostal Church ..."

Jean Baubérot, Historian, Sociologist
NDLF: MIVILUDES: Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian  Deviances

"Well, myself, as an academic, I am going to be very vigilant to see if the MIVILUDES new way is still within the bounds of rationality ..."

Maurice Duval, Ethnologist
"Some people came to interview me, came to film me, record me, some wrote documents, and twenty-seven were censored by their editors. This is our democracy."

Sylvie Simon, Writer
"It means nothing. And it's obvious that abroad, this sort of mania doesn’t exist. For Me, as someone who has travelled a lot abroad, they absolutely make fun of us."

Christiane Singer, writer
"There is a ferocity by a certain part of the population, who refuse to allow that there may be another form of existence."

We don't deny the occasional appearance of deviation or delinquency in the new spiritualities, as with any human grouping.
 But we do denounce an unjustified confusion between new spiritualities and crime that leads to the discrediting of many persons of great value, valuable assets for our societies."

Many warm thanks for their participation or testimony (in alphabetical order):

• Jean Baubérot, Historian, Holder of the "History and Sociology of Secularism" Chair
• Me Bernard Biro, Lawyer at the Paris Bar
• Regis Dericquebourg, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology
• Maurice Duval, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Ethnology at the Université Pau-Valéry in Montpellier, director of the CERCI (Centre for Studies and Comparative Research in Ethnology)
• Members of l'Essential, former Telesma publishing house
• Gilles Farcet, Writer and Collaborator with Arnaud Desjardins
• Jean-Marc Florand, Lawyer at the Paris Bar
• Eugénie Francoeur, Freelance Journalist
• Massimo Introvigne, Ph.D., Sociologist of Religion, Director of CESNUR (Italy)
• Dominique Kounkou, Pastor, Theologist
• Raphael Liogier, Director of the Observatoire du religeux at IEP in Aix en Provence.
• Michel Maffesoli, Sociologist, Holder of the Dürkheim Chair of Sociology at the Sorbonne
• Anne Morelli, Historian, Deputy Director of the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Religions and Secularism at the Free University of Brussels
• Christian Paturel, former Lawyer
• Me Philippe Pérollier, Lawyer at the Marseille Bar
• Dr Tal Schaller, Speaker, Writer
• Christiane Singer, Writer
• Teva, The Teva Files (Les dossiers de Téva, TV series): May 9, 2005, "Cults: simple community or organized manipulation"
• "Ça se discute", France 2: May 25, 2005, "Manipulation"
• "The bloody OTS mysteries," - France 2:2005, Director: Yves Boisset
• "Waco: a new revelation," - Director: Jason Van Vleet, Producers: Rick Van Vleet, Stephen M. Novak, Michael McNulty & Jason Van Vleet

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CICNS
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published 31/12/2011

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