The 2006 MIVILUDES Report

The 2006 report of MIVILUDES

Interministerial Mission of vigilance and combat against dérives sectaires

commentary by André Tarassi

commentary by Éric Bouzou

Commentary by André Tarassi:

In the introduction to his 2006 report, Mr Roulet declares: “The year 2006 will have been a year of work and effort (…) So that, also, cult movements and those who lead them should have no doubt about the Republic’s determination not to retreat one step in its mission in the service of those who expect from it security and solidarity.”.

The remainder of the report, as well as the contacts we have been able to have with the services of MIVILUDES, demonstrate unambiguously this “determination not to retreat one step”, akin, from our point of view, to a “wilful blindness”. A campaign is never waged by chance, and if we do not know all its intentions, its constancy in denying the information supplied by CICNS confirms year after year that this is indeed a campaign of destruction with a broad spectrum of action. It would be utopian to hope for any self-questioning from that quarter.

MIVILUDES, sociology and CICNS

The originality of this report, unsurprising in substance (we therefore expected none): on pages 14 to 36, MIVILUDES attempts a psychoanalytic and sociological study of the failings attributed to cults. It is clear that certain reproaches addressed to MIVILUDES in recent years have not fallen on deaf ears, and that an attempt to give a more academic and less crudely anti-religious image seemed to them indispensable. MIVILUDES has thus fashioned itself a fine screen (a reproach readily made of cults) in front of its campaign waged without discernment against all the new expressions of spirituality, and not against dérives sectaires, as it would have us believe (were it otherwise, MIVILUDES would have taken up the warnings we have been addressing to it for nearly three years about the damage caused to numerous people by the anti-cult campaign as it is waged today).

This quest for a better image would be praiseworthy were it not for this attempt to discredit, in the most superficial and defamatory manner, the alternative view brought by critics of MIVILUDES’s action such as CICNS.

Thus one finds this assertion about our association: “CICNS campaigns … for the liberalisation of intellectual property law” and “its principal target is copyright”. What a dubious joke! As if our association’s action were concerned as a priority with this question, on which we made a small off-topic insert on the occasion of a copyright dispute. It is doubtless more fruitful, for MIVILUDES, to define CICNS on the basis of remarks taken out of the context of its real action (on reflection, this little sleight of hand, which reduces CICNS’s action to an absurd “struggle against copyright” and whose effect would be damaging to “the economic fabric”, is doubtless no accident and certainly enlightens us as to the fears and objectives of the anti-cult movement).

Further on, the traditional affiliation to Scientology makes it possible to add a layer of suspicion for those who might still be inclined to find some interest in our work: “scientology does not appear in the front line, but attentive analysis (1) of the arguments used and the methods deployed (…) against the parliamentary commission of inquiry suggests that it inspired them a great deal … and more if the feeling is mutual”.

The misdeeds of cults

Long pages (36 to 134) repeat ad nauseam the usual accusations made indiscriminately against spiritual minorities (“cults”) leaving it to readers whose minds are hammered by so much “diabolism” to transfer them to any group or person in their neighbourhood, since no distinction is made between groups or persons who may have been convicted and the others.

This conflation, which we have been denouncing for several years, and which is itself the true “principal target” of our action, continues unabated. The bulldozer of secular fundamentalism advances to clear the road for a Republic purified of all spiritual expression and of all difference.

On page 102, MIVILUDES does not hesitate to take up for itself the expression attributed to Beaumarchais: “Slander, slander, some of it will always stick”, in referring to the action of the cult “lobbies” (of which CICNS is part, according to this report). This little game of ping-pong (we have long reproached the anti-cult side with this nasty game of slander) would be merely ridiculous were it not a fool’s game whose consequences we observe daily, through the calls we receive at our offices.

The victims of the cult hunt are real and suffer, in addition, the invisibility conferred by compliant media which today feed exclusively on the sources of the crudest anti-cultism. It so happens that their accusations sell better than our information.

On page 257, by contrast (and the revelation is the height of irony in the year of the commission of inquiry into cults and childhood!), one may read: “Compared with previous years, the 2005-2006 school year was, for the Cell for the prevention of cult phenomena (CPPS), a particularly quiet year. The CPPS was, indeed, only rarely called upon: three cases of children considered to be in danger”. And what danger was involved in these three cases? “Either because parents belonging to cult movements were considering enrolling them in schools abroad, or because one of them was considered an indigo child.”. It will doubtless be judged very “pro-cult” to conclude that there was in fact no real danger… at least if one respects the principles of a democracy.

The report’s conclusion

The first paragraph alone illustrates MIVILUDES’s fantasy with regard to the social scourge:

“The past year illustrates well the evolution of the cult phenomenon both in France and in the world. Indeed, while we have, very fortunately, had no great deranged and dramatically spectacular manifestation to deplore, we are witnessing, on the other hand, a sustained will, on the part of the movements in question, to blend into the landscape, to melt into the mass, to insert themselves into all the workings of society, under cover of care, of training, of assistance, of specific competences, or indeed of spirituality — in short, of everything that can appear likeable and honourable.”

Are we reading the same thing?

Nothing happened this year, and cults even appear likeable and honourable!

But the constancy of the cult hunters is not thereby affected (why should it be? is the bulldozer that advances without a driver affected by the fact that there is nothing to clear?): “May victims and their families be assured of the unfailing will of the public authorities to see to it that the damage they have suffered is taken into account and will be made good”.

The members of CICNS are for their part assured, “thanks” to this latest report, that even the damage which has not really been suffered risks, as in past years, being “taken into account” and giving rise to settlings of scores, withdrawals of child custody after divorce, defamations and even suicides caused by this wilful blindness of a repressive apparatus which shows no sign of maturity.

Note: We have been able to observe just how “attentive” MIVILUDES’s analysis is: the quotations from this very short article on “copyright” attributed to CICNS … are in fact by Mark Lemley of Stanford Law School. One had only to read attentively to realise it. One might ask, to paraphrase Mr Fenech of the parliamentary commission on cults and childhood who criticised the school results of the children of Tabitha’s Place, whether the drafters of this report are “capable of rendering the sense of what they have read”. Return to the text

Commentary by Éric Bouzou:

The section of the MIVILUDES report describing “the hold, or the placing in a state of subjection” (pp. 14 to 36) prompts several remarks.

Who are the persons targeted in this section? The terms “cult” and “dérives sectaires” have made abstract the population concerned, which almost never has the privilege of expressing itself, of testifying; the very possibility of granting it a hearing is considered unthinkable. Two or three names are known, repeated tirelessly, but the population concerned is very large; the position of a body such as MIVILUDES has not changed — the groups designated in the parliamentary reports of 1996, 1999 and 2006 are all cults, among many others not listed.

Which is to say that the analysis offered, peremptory as it is, concerns thousands of people whose supposed psychological deficiencies, inflicted or suffered, are thus assessed. It is useful to picture these thousands of people visually before oneself, to give them flesh, and to ask: are they really irresponsible, manipulated or manipulative, and is the spiritual impulse at the basis of these gatherings merely a screen? It is probable that if these men and women were seen and listened to, many of the prejudices surrounding minorities would fade away. Above all not, the proponents of anti-cult discourse will say — that would be to run the risk of being manipulated!

The psychological analysis attempted in the report must be evaluated on the basis of the intentions underlying its basic hypotheses. These hypotheses may be summarised as follows: members of cults are either manipulated or manipulators; the testimony of those who express suffering is proof of the group’s harmfulness; the testimony of those who feel well is also a mark of the harmfulness of the group, which achieves that illusion by manipulation.

The intention behind these hypotheses is therefore not to study the population of spiritual minorities but to show that they are all the seat of a brainwashing.

Let us note that many readers of the report will not have the interpretive framework sufficient to grasp the real soundness of all the psychological notions invoked (this concerns the author of this commentary and doubtless a good part of MIVILUDES’s CEPO and CO): the superego is not a notion mastered by the general public. Which is to say that this prolix unrolling of expert quotations resembles more a decorum making it possible to arrive “scientifically” at the conclusion which, for its part, is devoid of all scientific doubt: “Once again we observe that the victims have objective reasons to complain: attracted by false promises — whether of health or of spirituality — they are snapped up and lose control of their lives”.

We shall not reproach MIVILUDES with having a more scientific approach; that is a desirable course. But unlike a researcher who can develop his own theory and submit it to the scientific community, the interministerial mission issues an opinion intended for the whole body of citizens and must ensure that the opinion in question is shared by a majority of the scientific community. The question is indeed whether the psychological notions invoked, and above all the conclusion to which they give rise, correspond to a widely shared view. Let us wager that if such assent existed it would have been mentioned… and that the scientific contributions were chosen to buttress conclusions arrived at in advance, and not to illuminate the subject.

The use of the “human” sciences in the management of public affairs and the conception of laws seems to us to merit the most extreme precautions, given the fragility of the theories in question. And this all the more so in that scientific popularisation today allows everyone to speak of notions which few master, and thus to grow accustomed to taking positions on the basis of these intellectual simplifications. These precautions are unfortunately not respected in France, and the About-Picard law is the most glaring example of it. On p. 29 of the report it is said that “The experts attached to the courts consulted by MIVILUDES underline the complexity of the mechanisms of hold”. One may reasonably be worried by legislation conceived on the basis of psychological notions that are not mastered and which supplant the judge’s opinion with the opinion of “the expert”; what experts can today claim “seriously” to master the question of subjection?

Finally, for the umpteenth time, one will again be astonished at the absence of any contribution from sociologists of religion in this report, and in this section more particularly; it is true that they have the bad idea, in their great majority, of not contenting themselves with a superficial approach and of not starting from preconceived ideas about the groups studied.

André Tarassi was born in 1961; he is the founder of CICNS. An independent researcher, he has been studying the New Spiritualities for 25 years. He studied journalism and television in the United States. He has published, under another name, several works on the spiritual path. Eric Bouzou was born in 1958. He is an engineer. His technical career has been punctuated by encounters with people who animate the spiritual dimension of man. His interest in the defence of spiritual freedom led him to commit himself actively to the action of CICNS.

The 2006 report of MIVILUDES

Interministerial Mission of vigilance and combat against dérives sectaires

Sources