

"The Market for Martyrs" (Iannaccone 2003) - gwern
http://www.religionomics.com/archives/file_download/30/Iannaccone+-+Market+for+Martyrs.pdf

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gwern
Some key excerpts (borrowed from
[https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/posts/XvwKVnQF...](https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/posts/XvwKVnQF8na)):

"From the late-1960s through the mid-1980s, sociologists devoted immense
energy to the study of New Religious Movements. [For overviews of the
literature, see Bromley (1987), Robbins (1988), and Stark (1985).] They did so
in part because NRM growth directly contradicted their traditional theories of
secularization, not to mention the sensational mid-sixties claims God was
"dead" (Cox 1966; Murchland 1967). NRM's also were ideal subjects for case
stud ies, on account of their small size, brief histories, distinctive
practices, charismatic leaders, devoted members, and rapid evolution. But
above all, the NRM's attracted attention because they scared people.

...We have trouble recalling the fear provoked by groups like the Krishnas,
Moonies, and Rajneeshees. Their years of explosive growth are long past, and
many of their "strange" ideas have become staples of popular culture. [We see
this influence not only in today's New Age and Neo-Pagan movements, but also
in novels, music, movies, TV shows, video games, university courses,
environmentalism, respect for "cultural diversity," and the intellectual
elite's broad critique of Christian culture.] But they looked far more
threatening in the seventies and eighties, especially after November 18, 1978.
On that day, the Reverend Jim Jones, founder of the People's Temple, ordered
the murder of a U.S. Congressman followed by the mass murder/suicide of 913
members of his cult, including nearly 300 children.

The "cults" aggressively proselytized and solicited on sidewalks, airports,
and shopping centers all over America. They recruited young adults to the
dismay of their parents. Their leaders promoted bizarre beliefs, dress, and
diet. Their members often lived communally, devoted their time and money to
the group, and adopted highly deviant lifestyles. Cults were accused of
gaining converts via deception and coercion; funding themselves through
illegal activities; preying upon people the young, alienated, or mentally
unstable ; luring members into strange sexual liaisons; and using force,
drugs, or threats to deter the exit of disillusioned members. The accusations
were elaborated in books, magazine articles, newspaper accounts, and TV drama.
By the late-1970s, public concern and media hype had given birth to anti-cult
organizations, anti-cult legislation, and anti-cult judicial rulings. The
public, the media, many psychologists, and the courts largely accepted the
claim that cults could "brainwash" their members, thereby rendering them
incapable of rational choice, including the choice to leave. [Parents hired
private investigators to literally kidnap their adult children and subject
them to days of highly-coercive "deprogramming." Courts often agreed that
these violations of normal constitutional rights were justified, given the
victim's presumed inability to think and act rationally (Anthony 1990; Anthony
and Robbins 1992; Bromley 1983; Richardson 1991; Robbins 1985).]

We now know that nearly all the anti-cult claims were overblown, mistaken, or
outright lies. Americans no longer obsess about Scientology, Transcendental
Meditation, or the Children of God. But a large body of research remains. It
witnesses to the ease with which the public, media, policy-makers, and even
academics accept irrationality as an explanation for behavior that is new,
strange, and (apparently or actually) dangerous.

...As the case stud ies piled up, it became apparent that both the media
stereotypes (of sleep-deprived, sugar-hyped, brainwashed automatons) and
academic theories (of alienated, authoritarian, neurotics) were far off mark.
Most cult converts were children of privilege raised by educated parents in
suburban homes. Young, healthy, intelligent, and college educated, they could
look forward to solid careers and comfortable incomes. [Rodney Stark (2002)
has recently shown that an analogous result holds for Medieval saints -
arguably the most dedicated "cult converts" of their day.]

Psychologists searched in vain for a prevalence of "authoritarian
personalities," neurotic fears, repressed anger, high anxiety, religious
obsession, personality disorders, deviant needs, and other mental pathologies.
The y likewise failed to find alienation, strained relationships, and poor
social skills. In nearly all respects - economically, socially,
psychologically - the typical cult converts tested out normal. Moreover,
nearly all those who left cults after weeks, months, or even years of
membership showed no sign of physical, mental, or social harm. Normal
background and circumstances, normal personalities and relationships, and a
normal subsequent life - this was the "profile" of the typical cultist.

...Numerous studies of cult recruitment, conversion, and retention found no
evidence of "brainwashing." The Moonies and other new religious movements did
indeed devote tremendous energy to outreach and persuasion, but they employed
conventional methods and enjoyed very limited success. In the most
comprehensive study to date, Eileen Barker (1984) could find no evidence that
Moonie recruits were ever kidnapped, confined, or coerced (though it was true
that some anti-cult "deprogrammers" kidnapped and restrained converts so as to
"rescue" them from the movement). Seminar participants were not deprived of
sleep; the food was "no worse than that in most college residences;" the
lectures were "no more trance-inducing than those given everyday" at many
colleges; and there was very little chanting, no drugs or alcohol, and little
that could be termed "frenzy" or "ecstatic" experience (Barker 1984). People
were free to leave, and leave they did - in droves.

Barker's comprehensive enumeration showed that among the relatively modest
number of recruits who went so far as to attend two-day retreats (claimed to
be Moonies' most effective means of "brainwashing"), fewer than 25% joined the
group for more than a week, and only 5% remained full-time members 1 year
later. Among the larger numbers who visited a Moonie centre, not 1 in 200
remained in the movement 2 years later. With failure rates exceeding 99.5%, it
comes as no surprise that full-time Moonie membership in the U.S. never
exceeded a few thousand. And this was one of the most successful cults of the
era! Once researchers began checking, rather than simply repeating the numbers
claimed by the groups, defectors, or journalists, they discovered dismal
retention rates in nearly all groups. [For more on the prevalence and process
of cult defection, see Wight (1987) and Bromley (1988).] By the mid-1980s,
researchers had so thoroughly discredited "brainwashing" theories that both
the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the American Sociological
Association agreed to add their names to an amicus brief denouncing the theory
in court (Richardson 1985)."

\- Anthony, Dick, and Thomas Robbins. 1992. "Law, Social Science and the
'Brainwashing' Exception to the First Amendment." Behavioral Sciences and the
Law 10:5-29. - Anthony, Dick (Ed.). 1990. Religious Movements and Brainwashing
Litigation: Evaluating Key Testimony. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Publishers. \- Bromley, David and Richardson, James T. 1983. The
Brainwashing/Deprogramming Controversy: Sociological, Psychological, Legal,
and Historical Perspectives. New York: The Edwin Mellen Press. \- Bromley,
David G., and Phillip E Hammond. 1987. The Future of new religious movements.
Macon, Ga. :: Mercer University Press. \- Bromley, David G. 1988. Falling From
the Faith; Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy. London: Sage
Publications. \- Cox, Harvey. 1966. The Secular City: Secularization and
Urbanization in Theological Perspective. New York, NY: Macmillan. \- Barker,
Eileen. 1984. The Making of A Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? Oxford: Basil
Blackwell. \- Murchland, Bernard (Ed.). 1967. The Meaning of the Death of God:
Protestant, Jewish and Catholic Scholars Explore Atheistic Theology. New York:
Random House. \- Richardson, James T. 1985. "The active vs. passive convert:
paradigm conflict in conversion/recruitment research." Journal for the
Scientific of Religion 24:163-179. - Richardson, James T. 1991.
"Cult/Brainwashing Cases and Freedom of Religion." Journal of Church and State
33:55-74. - Robbins, Thomas. 1985. "New Religious Movements, Brainwashing, and
Deprogramming - The View from the Law Journals: A Review Essay and Survey."
Religious Studies Review 11:361-370. - Robbins, Thomas. 1988. Cults, Converts
and Charisma: The Sociology of New Religious Movements. London: Sage. \-
Stark, Rodney (Ed.). 1985. Religious Movements: Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers.
New York: Paragon House Publishers. \- Rodney Stark 2002. "Upper Class
Asceticism: Social Origins of Ascetic Movements and Medieval Saints." Working
Paper. \- Wright, Stuart A. 1987. Leaving Cults: The Dynamics of Defection.
Washington D.C.: Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Some of the references fulltexted:

\-
[http://asketikos.info/pdfarticles/stark.pdf](http://asketikos.info/pdfarticles/stark.pdf)
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[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/1985-robbins.p...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/1985-robbins.pdf)
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[http://jcs.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/1/55.full.pdf](http://jcs.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/1/55.full.pdf)
\-
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/1985-richardso...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/1985-richardson.pdf)
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[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/1992-anthony.p...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/1992-anthony.pdf﻿)

