The 2010 Miviludes Guide — a Machiavellian Will to Exclude

The 2010 Miviludes Guide — a Machiavellian Will to Exclude

CICNS - October 2010

The French campaign against cults crystallises our society’s power of exclusion. Many subjects touching on groups of people are polemical and set the “for” against the “against”. But this confrontation, which unfortunately generally takes a violent form, is at least the guarantee of a debate that is not uniform. The absence of polemic on the question of cults represents, on the contrary, rejection in its raw state, which does not trouble itself with adversarial debate — or else does so in the mode of a sham, to salve its conscience.

MIVILUDES has theorised the exclusion of spiritual minorities. The term “cult”, having become abstract in the sense that it represents anything and everything, has allowed the interministerial mission to construct a rhetoric of discredit which appears no longer to fear controversy — not through the pertinence of the elements presented, but through the abdication of the various social actors (political, media, intellectual). In France one can genuinely say whatever one likes in the negative, defamatory, alarmist register about “cults”; no one will object, and no one will realise that behind this pejorative expression and the conflations practised there are (at the very least) 500,000 women and men discriminated against for their choices of life, by way of a consensus obtained through relentless hammering (we take up MIVILUDES’s own estimate of the number of people belonging to so-called “cult” communities).

The publication of MIVILUDES’s latest guide, The protection of minors against dérives sectaires, is a fresh occasion to observe this will to exclude a fringe of the population, while acknowledging the mission’s Machiavellian skill at dragging people downwards. For some years now the ultra-sensitive theme of childhood has been used shamelessly in order to secure an emotional reaction from the public and to inhibit all reflection. Georges Fenech, president of MIVILUDES, assesses in this Guide the number of children who are victims of dérives sectaires at 50-60,000 and presents his speculations as a “silent national tragedy” (JDD). As we have illustrated (see our statement), these figures (Georges Fenech has circulated others still more unrealistic) have no foundation whatsoever. Those 50,000 children in danger do not exist, until proof to the contrary. The real silent national tragedy lies rather in this silence of criticism in the face of mendacious allegations touching 1% of the French population.

Let us examine in more detail this “theorisation of exclusion”, MIVILUDES-style, on the basis of the mission’s latest Guide.

Mental hold

On page 11 of the Guide, the rapporteurs specify that “the nerve centre of a dérive sectaire” is “mental hold”. Mental hold is the expression of the moment, synonymous with “mental manipulation”, representing, according to the anti-cult protagonists, the essence of a cult’s destructive activity. Mental manipulation covers two aspects, varying according to the speaker: the “loss of free will” for the victim, or the “vitiation of his consent”. We have shown (see our dossier on mental manipulation) that these concepts are the object of no scientific consensus, are socially dangerous, and should on no account be used in the framework of public policy or in our Penal Code. The rapporteurs, probably aware of how unserious these anxiety-inducing concepts are in an official document (creating fear is their function, and they will nonetheless not fail to use them methodically at each of their media appearances), treat us to a description of “cult (mental) hold” in the form of a four-stage process: “vulnerability, seduction, deconstruction, reconstruction”. What demonstrative value can be accorded to the four terse sketches supplied, knowing that no scientific reference — and for good reason — is provided in the bibliography? None.

One may even detect, behind this derisory attempt to popularise a concept (mental manipulation) which no one masters, the rapporteurs’ real intentions. It is indeed conceivable that a process of personal development might unfold according to the four stages mentioned. One need only remove the pejorative and alarmist tenor of certain terms used in the descriptions supplied (as for example in the “reconstruction” stage, where mention is made of “voluntary servitude: the follower believes he freely consents to his submission”). These four phases, viewed constructively, could be worded thus: 1) doubt/dissatisfaction with regard to an idea or, more generally, a vision of the world; 2) attraction towards another way of envisaging things; 3) deconstruction of the references used until then; 4) adoption of new references. These four stages, so described, have nothing “cult-like” about them; on the contrary, they constitute a possible path of progress. “Progress” which, in the case of a follower, could moreover either lead to a confirmation of his commitment to the movement or, on the contrary, decide him to leave it. If the rapporteurs have deliberately devalued the description of the process, it is not because the sequence of stages is in itself a carrier of dérive, but because they are pronouncing, without saying so, a moral judgement on visions of the world that disturb them. The spirit of this Guide is to suggest the idea that a commitment within a spiritual minority can lead only to alienation.

It is understandable that a democratic society should protect its model and its majority values, but criticism of alternative experiences must be sensible. The concept of mental hold (mental manipulation), presented as a generalised technique of enslavement peculiar to “cults” when our model of society uses all sorts of manipulation on a large scale, is a mystification. The “secular” demonisation in which MIVILUDES regularly engages with this type of discourse is no lesser than the religious demonisation used in certain groups (and for which they are reproached). It is moreover hypocritical, being disguised behind a supposed façade of attachment to freedom of conscience and to respect for alternative choices of life.

Presented from the angle of submission, the situation is summed up by the sociologist Arnaud Esquerré when he says: “A “free” subject is the one who has the right submissions, submissions recognised by the State, from the point of view of the one for whom the State is legitimate. From another point of view, which holds that the State deprives one of freedom, the free being is the one without a State” (Mental manipulation, Fayard). The sociologist Nathalie Luca, expressing it a little differently, likewise makes it possible to describe the ostracism of which spiritual minorities are the victims: “Cults call into question the State’s capacity to bear that adherence to a religious community, whatever it may be, might jeopardise membership of the community of citizens, might lead the convert to deny the need he has of it, to consider it optional, or to call into question its usefulness and its protective role” (Individuals and powers in the face of cults, Armand Colin).

What is a dérive sectaire?

On page 15 of the Guide, the rapporteurs specify: “Faithful to the principle of laïcité, the legislator does not define the notions of cult and of dérives sectaires (…) The notion of “dérive sectaire” may nonetheless serve as an operative concept in order to group together and render intelligible worrying indications or items of information which, without it, would present themselves in a disparate or non-significant manner”.

MIVILUDES’s whole effort consists in trying to prove, reductively, that human nature has two faces: one deployed “outside cults” and the other — unknown before anti-cult France set about the problem — deployed “inside cults”.

The members of the interministerial mission, having understood with great difficulty that in a State governed by the rule of law a disturbance of public order, even for “cults”, is assessed by means of judicial decisions — a Justice which, as they themselves recall, has no need of the notions of “cult” or “dérive sectaire” — nonetheless wish to impose a “cult”-type understanding on judges, by defining, in the context of an established offence, what a “dérive sectaire” is. Here is their definition: “The dérive sectaire is characterised by the implementation of pressures or techniques having as their aim or effect the creation, maintenance or exploitation in a person of a state of psychological or physical subjection, giving rise to harm for that person or for society”.

Thus a paedophile in an ordinary family will be a pervert or a sick man according to the case; if by chance he is a member of a spiritual minority, he will have practised “psychological subjection” (on this point, no one has invoked “mental manipulation” by paedophile priests towards their victims — why?). Another example: a suicide in a CAC40 company, with an explanatory letter to boot, keeps its mystery and will be discreetly labelled an “industrial accident”. The suicide of a “cult” member (even committed outside the movement) will have no mystery at all: it is mental manipulation. Will magistrates have better understood the paedophile act, the suicidal act (given as examples, and which could be extended) and the springs of the human soul thanks to this definition of the dérive sectaire? No.

What is the notion of “psychological subjection”? It is the undefined legal synonym of “mental manipulation”, used notably in the About-Picard anti-cult law. The definition of the dérive sectaire given above is moreover strangely similar to the offence of “abuse of weakness” defined in that same law. MIVILUDES is thus trying to put across the idea, within the legal process, that an offence committed in a “cult” is always accompanied by an aggravating circumstance: “mental manipulation”, a notion which we have illustrated should imperatively be set aside. Magistrates have until now refused to apply the About-Picard law (except for a single line of case law in the Néophare affair), but Georges Fenech shrinks from no pressure to encourage its use, notably by proposing this type of definition of the dérive sectaire.

Since criminal convictions within “cults” are extremely rare, the bulk of MIVILUDES’s effort consists in encouraging a so-called policy of prevention (page 16 of the Guide). Where an offence is not established, the rapporteurs therefore propose a list of criteria of dérives sectaires specific to childhood: “Isolation and desocialisation, physical harm, a deficient dietary regime, breaking off of therapeutic follow-up and deprivation of conventional care, withdrawal from schooling, significant change in the child’s behaviour, regimentation, stereotyped discourse or absence of autonomous expression”. As with the criteria of dérives sectaires concerning the adult world (source), whose lack of pertinence we demonstrated by applying them “successfully” to entities as different as the world financial system, Freemasonry and France Télécom, the criteria supplied above are useless and discriminatory — because they potentially apply to any context whatever (the notions of “cult” or “dérive sectaire” being beside the point); because they are vague and are merely devices to facilitate the stigmatisation of particular groups (those arbitrarily classed as “cults”); because they strongly suggest a potential delinquency outside any legal reality; and because they have no legal value yet weigh with all their anxiety-inducing weight in the legal characterisation of offences possibly committed.

If one keeps to the definitions proposed, granting them a fictitious value for the duration of the exercise, the most numerous French “cult” is probably the French family. What is MIVILUDES waiting for to take charge of the whole family question and declare our country a disaster area, since the number of offences/crimes, and the place where those offences are most likely to occur, on the cult characterisation it uses, is the family?

Spotting the dérive sectaire

On page 27 of the Guide, the rapporteurs introduce the indications making it possible to detect a dérive sectaire as follows: “These indications are indicators of risk and therefore make it possible to highlight elements liable to indicate a context favourable to the emergence of a dérive sectaire”.

Let us analyse the elements of this sentence.

“These indications”: so not proofs, just indirect elements; “indicators”: so not the thing itself, just a pointer towards it; “risk”: so an eventuality, not a fact; “highlight”: so not a completely circumscribed view; “elements”: “some”, so a set not precisely defined; “liable”: so uncertain; “to indicate”: so merely to suggest; “a context”: so a set not detailed, with general contours; “favourable”: so merely a potentiality; “emergence”: so in an embryonic, marginal, or indeed non-existent state in most cases; “dérive sectaire”: see the previous section.

The MIVILUDES Guide may be summed up thus: “accuse your neighbours of dérives sectaires; if you do not know why, they do — and in any event the anti-cult outfits will know how to characterise the dérive sectaire”.

Of course, the rapporteurs would surely reply that these oratorical precautions are there precisely to avoid any hasty stigmatisation. That is doubtless why this introduction is immediately followed by the demonstration of their contempt for the life choices of hundreds of thousands of citizens, whom they compare — as Jean-Marie Bocquel, Secretary of State for Justice, had done — to diseases (the Secretary of State had used the term “mutant viruses”): “Just as there are so-called “opportunistic” diseases which appear only on ground that is favourable and pathogenic but not necessarily pathological, dérives sectaires may in part be prevented by taking account of the context which makes their emergence possible”.

There follows a set of recommendations and pieces of advice addressed to the various social actors, for detecting the dérive sectaire. Once again, these recommendations can apply to any context and situation whatever, but maintaining the illusion that a “cult context” plays a particular role makes it possible to choose those targets.

A typical example: on page 44 of the Guide, the rapporteurs assess the cult risks in a context where the parents are followers of “cults”: “risk of neglect and of material or moral abandonment of the minor, risk of violence under educational pretexts, insufficiency of the living conditions necessary to the child’s well-being and development, infringements of the visiting rights of ascendants, notably grandparents”. Are these risks greater in a so-called “cult” context (that is, currently: spiritual, therapeutic, educational minorities) than in a context not suffering from that label? Nothing allows one to affirm it and no proof is supplied. Under these conditions, the “cult” context pointed at by the rapporteurs is beside the point.

After this long list of “test questions” to “help” social actors define the “dérive sectaire” of a situation, the end of the Guide — “Report and act” — displays every sign of an encouragement to denunciation aimed at so-called cult movements (see our first account of the MIVILUDES Guide).

Let us return to seriousness and lucidity

“Is there really no useful reflection in the MIVILUDES Guide?”, observers more distant from this social question might be tempted to retort. Our answer is negative, for a document that relies on mendacious and sensational announcements to impose itself (50,000 children victims of dérives sectaires, when it is not 80,000), that plays systematically on the register of the emotional, that presents no serious research work to support its statements, and that forms part of a policy of a priori suspicion and conflation, deserves no credit whatsoever.

Georges Fenech, a magistrate, informs us that this Guide was coordinated by Amélie Cladières, a magistrate (who has just left MIVILUDES). The ideal would be that the mission’s magistrates, normally familiar with legal precision, should not attempt to define elusive and discriminatory concepts such as the “dérive sectaire”, or pseudo-scientific ones such as mental manipulation (hold). Understanding the springs of modern spiritual commitment, whether practised as a dilettante or with devotion, demands far more open-mindedness than the cramped and partial framework of MIVILUDES, seconded by anti-cult associations, has to offer. And as regards childhood, the way in which all alternative educational experiments are henceforth suspected refers us back to the failure of the republican educational system to develop the human person in any real way. That system, if it can evolve — which one may doubt — will certainly not be able to do without new ideas such as those attempted in these minorities.

What is the situation of children in the groups characterised as “cults”? No one really knows — but is that a paradox, or a large-scale manipulation designed to remain in ignorance? All the data available today (notably supplied during the last commission of inquiry on the subject, or for example in government answers to deputies that pass unnoticed) lead one to conclude that problems are rare — and it would in any case be imperative to compare the type and number of these problems with what happens “outside cults”; one might then perhaps notice that the problems are more numerous there.

If a genuine inquiry were conducted (and why not conduct one, provided it were carried out objectively, independently and with recognised competence), French anti-cult policy would collapse. That is why MIVILUDES — whose action has hardened considerably of late, making it resemble that of the MILS — has parted company with university institutes and research laboratories; for if these were genuinely involved, it would become impossible for the president of MIVILUDES to repeat on every airwave victim figures so extravagant and so mendacious.

The path taken by MIVILUDES is a dead end. Just as the MILS was replaced after being judged “off the rails”, sooner or later MIVILUDES will have to be replaced. CICNS proposes the creation of an Independent Observatory of spiritual, therapeutic and educational minorities.