The 2006 MIVILUDES Report — Michel de Courtelle's Analysis

The 2006 report of MIVILUDES

Interministerial Mission of vigilance and combat against dérives sectaires

The report to download

commentary by Michel de Courtelle [email protected]

Compared with 2005, the 2006 report goes one degree further in the expression of a French-style totalitarianism on “the cult hunt”.

As last year, the report makes plain that MIVILUDES and the teams attached to it are the first to employ the whole of the existing cult mechanisms (cf. Annex 1). Can one arrogate to oneself the right to judge someone in a field when one is oneself on the index?

As last year, the report is just as poor, using a number of conflations, value judgements, abusive generalisations, mental manipulations and abuses of dominant position (cf. Annex 2). MIVILUDES, as a body working in the human field, is supposed to issue only factual documents, documents verified at source — which is not the case.

As last year, the report contains a number of statements prompting questions about the competence of MIVILUDES’s study teams (cf. Annex 3). Yet it is surprising that no scientific research has so far been launched in the fields identified as subject to dérives sectaires. Moreover, collaboration with recognised French academics already dealing with this theme on an experimental level still does not appear to be on the agenda (ethnologists, anthropologists, historians and sociologists of religion, lawyers specialising in spiritual freedom).

As last year, the report also proves devoid of tangible proofs and of established results on the phenomenon it nonetheless stigmatises. The report contains only two offences (one dating from 1997 and one from 1999) which resulted in a criminal sanction. The disproportion between the suspicious relentlessness about the myth of the everlasting crime-generating cult and the reality of the phenomenon observed is glaring. In proceeding thus, MIVILUDES in reality plays into the hands of genuinely deviant movements and favours their development, while blocking all serious study and research on the subject.

As last year, MIVILUDES and the whole adjacent State apparatus reinforce intelligence and intervention actions almost exclusively in the direction of alternative therapies and of the vocational training courses dispensed around this theme (cf. Annex 4).

For the first time since MIVILUDES’s reports began, a commission has investigated “the influence of movements of a cult character and the consequences of their practices on the physical and mental health of minors”. It is remarkable that only three non-criminal cases of children in danger were observed in the matter of education — education being nonetheless MIVILUDES’s war-horse. The calls to order made to MIVILUDES by the two inspectors of National Education representing the Cell for the Prevention of Cult Phenomena (Jean Yves Dupuis and Pierre Polivka) during that commission of inquiry are perhaps not unconnected with this (cf. Annex 5). A dose of moderation was called for.

For the first time too, it is to be noted that the field of spirituality and religions is no longer stigmatised as much as in the past — the members of MIVILUDES having certainly understood that they were obliged to respect the fundamental rights of the European Constitution in this matter, and freedom of expression on this subject. The call to order made to MIVILUDES by the Head of the Central Bureau of Religions at the Ministry of the Interior (Didier Leschi) during the recent parliamentary commission (cf. Annex 5) is perhaps not unconnected with it either, nor is the colloquium taking stock of “religious freedom in France” (colloquium of 4 October 2006 chaired by Prof. Émile Poulat, bringing together a number of eminent lawyers, sociologists, anthropologists and historians of religion and of laïcité). Likewise, a written question from a deputy to the government concerning the Jehovah’s Witnesses — a question aimed at preventing the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” from passing to the status of a religion — makes it possible to state once again the State’s non-interference in tax matters in their organisation (p. 299). A dose of moderation was called for.

For the first time again, MIVILUDES seeks to defend itself against two associations concerned with freedom of conscience or spiritual freedom. These have for some years been analysing MIVILUDES’s statements as objectively as possible. The whole of the 2006 report — from its President’s remarks in the introduction, through the 18 pages targeting these two independent study bodies, and up to the conclusion — seeks to stigmatise them.

The scope, or the defamatory character, of the remarks about CICNS and CAPLC is clear enough to be legally actionable. It is regrettable, for a ministerial mission, to note the number of insinuations and conflations by which MIVILUDES’s text passes these two bodies off as a branch of Scientology; to see threats of surveillance of their computer network pointed out (p. 254); and to witness distortions of the statements they place on their own website (cf. Annex 6).

For the first time, finally, the report’s conclusion indicates no line of progress for the following years, and confines itself to a simple political conclusion of thanks — which one might understand for a report empty of results, even if it runs to almost double the number of pages of previous years (115 pages in 2004, 172 pages in 2005, 304 pages in 2006! Who is going to read it in full?). But to set itself no line of development, no concrete measurable objective, is a margin of freedom MIVILUDES allows itself — a margin of freedom incompatible with the mission citizens expect of such a body.

After reading such a report, one is entitled to ask the following questions:

How far will the intentional disinformation of our fellow citizens go, and the amplification of the phenomenon of fear the better to manipulate them?

How far will the blindness of our fellow citizens go, who endorse this type of body, this type of working method, this type of individual with so little respect for the fundamental rights of human beings and of the living?

It is high time our politicians took a position on MIVILUDES’s attitude, opened a debate on spiritual freedom, and proposed a citizens’ debate such as a Citizens’ Commission of Inquiry.

Annex 1

To take up the same 9 cult mechanisms as those employed in the account of the Miviludes’s 2005 report posted on the CICNS site, one observes that MIVILUDES continues to employ itself the whole of the most cult-like procedures that exist, namely:

1) First, the fact of cutting itself off from a large part of society, and from realities

The Miviludes continues to isolate itself from the reality of the lived experience of the majority of our fellow citizens in matters of spirituality and religion, of alternative health, of education and awakening, and of training and self-transformation.

It therefore takes on the responsibility of developing an increasingly schizoid social body.

2) Second, the fact of systematically criticising every field that may disturb it

The Miviludes continues its enterprise of extremist judgement of any initiative situated outside what already exists. This non-evolving and unconstructive attitude is even harmful. It can only lead the State social body to a characterised state of psychosis.

3) Third, the fact of prophesying chaos in the field of “cults”

MIVILUDES again this year expresses all its difficulty in turning the notion of cult hold into an offence (p. 29), in defining what a cult is on the legal plane.

So it asserts, demagogically and authoritatively, in its conclusion that it will show an “unfailing will” to combat those who have the “sustained will 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” (p. 289).

This tendency of MIVILUDES feeds and sustains fear — certainly not love of one’s neighbour. This attitude then imprints an acute paranoid state on the whole State social body.

4) Fourth, the fact of claiming a Mission, of promoting a social, political and psychological doctrine with a well-defined ideology of cult eradication so as to pass itself off as the Saviour organisation, all while employing untouchable dogmas

MIVILUDES posits, in its definition of laïcité, the maintenance of the liberal consumerist single thought called the “single economic scheme of thought” (p. 77).

As every year, at international level, Asma Jahangir, the special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief at the UN Commission on Human Rights, severely criticises France for “the policy followed and the measures adopted by the French authorities [which] have provoked situations where the right to freedom of religion or conscience of members of these groups has been unduly restricted” (p. 130). Moreover, this year, even in the written questions from deputies to the government there is mention of the American government’s attack “highlighting the “restrictive legislation” targeting religious communities” in France (p. 301).

5) Fifth, the “MIVILUDES system” still plays a double game

A maternal dependence of religious, social, educational or training organisations on the State, or a dependence of official therapies on the prevailing dominant medical thought. This dependence is apt to generate an unhealthy feeling of impunity when each person can feel protected by the diplomas or approvals granted. It also generates its corollary: a loss of autonomy of existence and of thought.

A guilt for those who would defy the law of the Father State, from the moment MIVILUDES never stops, in its report, blowing hot and cold at the same time, the better to throw anyone off and to encourage them to keep quietly in the shadow of the Father’s single thought. This second method then creates an enslavement and a conditioning of our fellow citizens, who are consequently little inclined to react.

Playing the two hands at once makes MIVILUDES a cult organisation of the Father-and-Mother type.

6) Sixth, an apparatus — legislative, administrative, executive, judicial — employing coercive methods almost unique in the world. This apparatus makes MIVILUDES an organ of the coercive State (physical, emotional and mental coercion), contrary to what it claims to be. As proof: the sharp increase in monitoring and intelligence activities by 450 gendarmes linked to the 23,700 officers of the judicial police (p. 246), the will to monitor the internet in this field (p. 253), and the very sharp increase in monitoring and intelligence activities in the fields of therapies and health by the Ministry of Health and Solidarity (pp. 269, 270).

7) Seventh, MIVILUDES’s egocentrism — passing itself off as the central organ, sole repository of competence on dérives sectaires, the inescapable leader — leads it to impose a single thought without giving other currents of opinion the possibility of confronting it. This acute navel-gazing brings MIVILUDES to preach immobility and invariance in the sectors it regards as its own preserve (education, training, religion, the social sector), and to defend the medical, vaccine and pharmaceutical lobbies currently in place, at the risk of no longer having any autonomy of thought or action.

This seventh cult mechanism, which makes it out to be the sole healing “Guru” of the evil that cults are, is very much present in the State social body.

8) Eighth, the methods of persuasion and of media focusing of attention employed to make people believe in strong dérives remain omnipresent. The training apparatus extends more and more to the whole administration, on the basis of police and administrative criteria. On no account is there this year, any more than last year, a study apparatus dealing with the content of the practices of spiritual movements or alternative therapies.

9) Ninth, a normalisation carried out by MIVILUDES of the initiatory or esoteric processes which spiritual movements or alternative therapies may experience, for purposes of manipulation or use in the world, is frequently employed. This normalisation shows MIVILUDES’s high degree of incompetence. MIVILUDES permits itself once again to declare itself competent where it visibly is not (since its members do not, until proof to the contrary, do any spiritual or alternative therapeutic work, and since there is no link between the administration and university research in the fields concerned). In reality, the real need would on the contrary be to launch calls for tender to carry out ethnological studies on spiritual movements, and therapeutic studies on the new therapies existing in France.

That would make it possible to know certain practices better and to validate them if necessary.

Instead of which, MIVILUDES, in this ninth cult tendency, leaves the field open to every dérive, and does not even deign to make the first contacts.

Better still, it stigmatises the new therapies by declaring — without realising the stupidity of its own remarks — that these therapies are not validated (implicitly by the French State, which refuses to validate even a single one). MIVILUDES could not have done better to make them spread still faster and more widely…

Annex 2

52 Conflations, value judgements, abusive generalisations (same as 2005):

Pages: 6 (3 times), 7 (3 times), 17, 19, 21 (3 times), 22, 23 (2 times), 25 (2 times), 26, 28, 35, 39, 51, 79, 91, 102 (4 times), 108, 114, 124, 125 (2 times), 127 (2 times), 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 134, 143, 144, 150, 151, 249, 260, 272, 273 (2 times), 275, 281, 285

The use of the a priori value judgement, of easy conflation, and of abusive generalisations is a reflection of the second cult mechanism.

16 Abuses of dominant position (down on 2005):

Pages: 11, 66, 67, 69, 75, 77, 79, 80, 106, 107, 114, 231, 278, 281, 285, 301

The cases of abuse of dominant position are a reflection of the sixth cult mechanism.

61 Mental manipulations (same as 2005):

Pages: 7 (2 times), 8 (2 times), 10, 16, 18, 19 (3 times), 20, 21, 23 (3 times), 24, 25 (3 times), 26, 27 (2 times), 32, 33 (2 times), 34 (3 times), 35, 39, 51, 54, 55, 59, 60, 63, 64, 66, 67, 69, 70, 75, 78, 91, 103, 105, 106, 108, 127, 132, 133, 134, 148, 231, 251, 260, 273 (2), 275, 281, 285

The cases of mental manipulation are a reflection of the eighth cult mechanism.

Annex 3

The cases of incompetence recorded are again numerous in the 2006 report. Nonetheless, the complete observation of the reports of these last three years reflects another incompetence, greater still, on a certain number of major thematic axes which we shall inventory.

At least 19 visible incompetences in the 2006 report:

Pages: 19, 20 (3 times), 22 (2 times), 26, 28, 30, 35, 64 (3 times), 66, 67, 69, 70, 164, 301

Themes of incompetence:

Ignorance of the laws of pain, of the memories of the past engrammed within oneself.

Ignorance of transpersonal psychology, of the processes of awakening towards lasting well-being (a discourse made solely of Freudian psychology).

Ignorance of initiatory and esoteric processes, of spiritual processes.

Ignorance of alternative therapies.

Ignorance of the passage from life to death.

Ignorance of human accompaniment during pregnancy.

Sociological, theological and legal ignorance in the field of the new spiritualities.

When MIVILUDES declares that “the new practices most at risk for people’s health will be submitted to a group of analysis and evaluation made up of persons independent of the Ministry” (p. 284), one can only — in the light of all these incompetences — express the wish that MIVILUDES should at last use the competence of recognised and impartial academics.

Annex 4

The field of health through alternative therapies and the vocational training dispensed around this theme

Ever finer recording of the vocational training courses regarded with suspicion by MIVILUDES.

Locking down of BAFA and BAFD youth-leader training (p. 263), of osteopath training, and of the title of psychotherapist (pp. 279-280).

Prohibition of all commercial advertising and of all recommendation for phytopharmaceutical products intended for the treatment of plants (new law of January 2006, p. 76).

A new medical examination of every expectant mother in the 4th month of pregnancy to monitor their own psychological vulnerability (p. 282).

A new compulsory and free medical examination for children between 6 and 15 to carry out a physical and psychological assessment.

The refusal to submit oneself, or to submit those over whom one exercises parental authority or of whom one has guardianship, to the vaccination obligations, or to obstruct their execution, is punishable by six months’ imprisonment and a fine of €3,750 (p. 281).

Ever more systematic media coverage of all the small structures or persons using therapies judged deviant by MIVILUDES, and increased vigilance from the media’s legal departments in the face of the cult problem (p. 112).

Below:

The 39 cases cited either in the 2006 report or in the December 2006 commission on children.

These cases come in addition to, or complete, the 51 cases of last year (20 to 21 cases in common), since MIVILUDES declares that it produces a 2006 report which completes the others and brings something new.

Coaching, team-building, pp. 60, 260

Bare-handed healers, biomagnetisers, p. 61

Chinese massage touch, p. 287

Brain Gym (Edu-Kinesiology) p. 63, Kinesiology p. 260

Hamer, p. 63

Biological decoding p. 63, Cellular analysis and re-information p. 65

Regressions, expansions of consciousness, false memories, pp. 63-64

Rebirthing, pp. 65, 144

Doulas and birth accompaniment, p. 67

Haptonomy, hyponatal, massages (non-physiotherapy), p. 68

EMF Balancing Technique, p. 69

Nettle manure, p. 79

Transactional Analysis, pp. 136-159

Shamanic initiation with hallucinogenic plants Ayahuesca, Iboga, pp. 160-168

Psychophany, indigo children p. 257, Kryeon p. 69

Herbalife (suspected p. 261)

Shaolin movement (suspected p. 261)

Groups against compulsory vaccination, p. 281

Chromokinesis Energy

EthnoMédecins sans frontières

Mormons, pp. 173, 262

Buddhists, p. 262

Moon or the Unification Christian church (cited 26 times)

Scientology (cited 124 times)

Jehovah’s Witnesses (cited 58 times)

Tabitha’s Place

The children of Ilythie

The Universal White Brotherhood, p. 110

The Lubavitch

The Plymouth Brethren

The 51 alternative therapies cited in 2005:

AMORC’s foetal preparation, kinesiology, EMF Balancing/Kryeon, shamanism, traditional Chinese medicine, macrobiotics, the Hamer method, Reiki, “false” memory therapies, Mahikari, hygienism, energy medicines, holistic medicine, psycho-genealogy, bio-psycho-genealogy, Psychophany and facilitated communication, the Simonton method, Beljanski’s methods, naturopathy, naturo-reflexology, healing practices borrowed from the druidic tradition, the SILVA method / energised water, diamond water, biotherapy, cellular memory, biological decoding, symbolic decoding of the teeth, osteopathy, family constellations, rebirthing, waking-dream therapies, the laying on of hands, the Be Happy method, mycrozymas medicines, instinctotherapy, fasting and hiking, massages in general when practised by non-physiotherapists, metamorphic massage, prenatotherapy, Ayahuesca, Iboga, vibrational therapies, Native American sweat lodges, therapeutic prayer, Transactional Analysis therapy, sophrology, somato-relaxology, orthokinesiology, shiatsu, acupressure, naturo-reflexo-iridology-bioenergetics

The 6 spiritual currents cited in 2005:

Zen Buddhism, Antroposophy, meditation, quantum physics and phenomena linked to the traditions of humanity, indigo children/Kryeon, Scientology, Moon and the Unification Christian church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses

The other suspect movements cited in 2005:

The anti-Bush political party Solidarité et Progrès

Annex 5

The commission of inquiry into “the influence of movements of a cult character and the consequences of their practices on the physical and mental health of minors”

Full 56-page account on the site www.cicns.net

Source: the hearings are available on the National Assembly’s site:

http://www.lcpan.fr/sommaire_secte.asp

Summary of the hearings

General comments

Absence of sociologists, of historians of religion, of ethnologists

Absence of proofs, of scientific investigations, of statistics verifiable by independent third parties.

Approximate figures and arbitrary interpretations.

Defamatory value judgements passed on doctrines.

Absence of proofs capable of supporting the existence of any cult problem affecting children: only three cases are recorded in France — 2 cases where persons who were members of a movement wished to school their children in schools abroad, and one case of a child considered “indigo” where schooling posed a problem with National Education.

The UNADFI, called to testify, hears only a certain point of view of victims, and has no sociological, legal or theological competence.

Messrs Jean-Yves Dupuis and Pierre Polivka are Inspectors General of National Education and representatives of the Cell for the Prevention of Cult Phenomena of National Education, CPPS.

They declared before the commission on 10 October:

Jean-Yves Dupuis: “the academy inspectors, or the rectors, made 19,000 reports … well, let us say… 19,000 reports to the public prosecutors, concerning children considered to be in danger … in danger for various reasons, physical, moral, etc. … And when we asked the academy inspectors which, among these children in danger, were so because of cult movements, they answered that there were 8 of them.”

Pierre Polivka: “Children educated within families are not so because the parents systematically belong to cult movements; they are so most of the time for purely ideological reasons which are due most of the time to families’ mistrust of the teaching dispensed by … the network of public schools.”

Jean Yves Dupuis: “I am in the habit of saying (…) that for National Education the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses are (…) perfect pupils (…) they are perfectly disciplined, they work (…) it is not from them that we are going to have problems (…)

Pierre Polivka: “You ask a precise question about the Jehovah’s Witnesses (…) I confirm what my colleague says (…), never have we had a report from teachers, from parents of pupils, or from elected officials alerting us to the behaviour of Jehovah’s Witness children … It is true that we often know them better than the others, because often indeed Jehovah’s Witness children are pupils who affirm their commitment.

Mr Didier Leschi is Head of the central bureau of religions at the Ministry of the Interior.

He declared before the commission on 17 October:

Didier Leschi:

”(…) In conclusion, I should like to underline an essential paradox from the point of view of the action of the public authorities. I greatly fear that the stigmatisation of movements such as the Lubavitch or the Plymouth Brethren risks facilitating the passage to the act of persons who will find it convenient to cover themselves with an anti-cult good conscience in order to justify their acts of malevolence or antisemitism. In this respect, we are seeing an increase in assaults against Jehovah’s Witnesses; in other words, I greatly fear that this stigmatisation, this type of denunciation, may in the end constitute disturbances of public order, or at the very least manifestations of intolerance towards one of the most fundamental freedoms of every man and every citizen: freedom of conscience.

Georges Fenech: (…) I believe that today, having heard you, we can say here that you are going to confirm to us that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are the fifth religion of France. (…) And I ask you, but then very clearly, because I believe the moment is very important, whether you are indeed telling us that today the administration has no grievance against the Jehovah’s Witnesses that would justify refusing them the status of religious association, on the same footing as any religion.

Didier Leschi: (…) The said associations today are entirely in conformity with tax law, since they have the benefit of the law on religious associations. Admittedly there is a past tax dispute between the State and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but there is no present dispute on these manual gifts.

Georges Fenech: (…) So, Mr Leschi, I have not been mistaken in my interpretation of your presentation of your founding text today?

Didier Leschi: (…) Mr President, I am ready to examine anything, but I do not see today any file showing a disturbance of public order (…) I asked MIVILUDES to try to assemble these elements of proof of disturbances of public order — for example by questioning the ARH, the hospital directors, to find out whether, for example, in the case of a refusal of blood transfusion, there would be an obstruction to the functioning of the public hospital service. I have none, so I am not going to invent a disturbance of public order — which moreover would be harshly sanctioned by the judge, and I know you will be alive to that — when no substantiated file has been produced.

Philippe Vuilque: (…) I am, I weigh my words, scandalised by what you have said, because you speak of the disturbance of public order and you have raised the fact that a certain number of associations and other persons combating cult organisations would themselves be liable to contribute to disturbances of public order by stigmatising a certain number of organisations.

Martine David: (…) Will you accept to consider that we are not inventing all this, that it is the reality? (…) is that too something you are willing to look in the face, and that perhaps it explains why certain items of information have a little difficulty coming up — because there are testimonies from former followers who have difficulties in initiating legal proceedings, that is obvious, but that does not for all that mean that nothing happened.

Didier Leschi: (…) I believe it is difficult for the Ministry of the Interior as a ministry to substitute itself for individuals in order to build files incriminating other persons; that is not its function, I remind you. Moreover, there are institutions made for that. If the children’s defender who exists, who has been put in place, for example, sends me a file (…) and the file is substantiated, well, it will be taken into account.”

Annex 6

The defamation against CICNS and CAPLC

Present in the introduction and the conclusion of the 2006 report as well as in pages 78 to 80, 107 to 110, 124 to 134. CICNS is cited 17 times, CAPLC is cited 29 times

Complaints by MIVILUDES in its report about the existence of bodies which create a current contrary to its own.

These bodies seek to obtain administrative information about the State’s action. (Legal)

These organisations are ever more numerous and protean.

(Which justifies the reality of the problem they raise)

These organisations make attempts aimed at muzzling or paralysing the State’s action.

(Within the limits of legality, for otherwise they would long since have been banned)

These organisations make people believe in a witch hunt by the State.

(That is indeed the thesis advanced)

These organisations are cults, or affiliated to cults, or associated with cults, or working in synergy with cults.

(A defamatory judgement — see the arguments cited)

Arguments cited:

In the introduction

“From then on, the criticisms were foreseeable, and the attempts aimed at muzzling it or paralysing its action were inevitable. It was therefore necessary to explain, notably on the international stage where the great transnational movements conduct frenzied lobbying actions, why France intended to continue on the path of vigilance. It was necessary further to recall that the real victims were not those who were the object of a so-called “witch hunt”,… ”.

p. 6

In the chapter “Strategies of influence put in place by cult movements in 2006 in the legal, media and parliamentary fields”: “These examples are the work of two influence groups which, in the name of the defence of freedom of conscience or of religious freedom, in fact support theses favourable to, or borrowed from, bodies of a cult character — the CICNS (Centre d’information et de conseil sur les nouvelles spiritualités) and the CAPLC (Coordination des associations et particuliers pour la liberté de conscience)”.

p. 78

“Faced with this reasoning held by an influence group favourable to movements presenting risks of dérives sectaires in the eyes of the public authorities, how can one be surprised at the growing interest of businesses in MIVILUDES’s action, and at the taking into account of cult risk in the implementation of economic-intelligence practices? The real stake is the confrontation of interests between movements of a cult character and at risk of dérives and the economic fabric, with, in the background, the threats of disinformation, of the capture of “strategic” data and of psychological pressures on personnel”.

p. 79

“It (this offensive) reveals a constantly paradoxical attitude of movements of a cult character towards economic law. Their claim to be recognised as “minorities of conviction” or “spiritual minorities” regularly leads them to specify what is to be understood by that. … Yet the forms of organisation of these “movements, schools and groups” lead them naturally to structure themselves by relying on statutes allowing their promoters to develop a mesh of associations and companies in which legal links are determining”.

p. 80

“The principal risk is the communication to cult associations of the line of action of the State’s services, thus supplying them with “tailor-made” arguments in reply to the media or before the courts. The gravest consequence is indeed to empty the administrations’ action of its meaning by rendering it ineffective — and that is no accident. By way of example, the Coordination des associations et particuliers pour la liberté de conscience (CAPLC) has set up blogs criticising the UNADFI and MIVILUDES, containing all the information, notably budgetary, obtained under the right of access to administrative documents”.

pp. 107-108

“Actions are conducted against victim-defence associations by the principal cult movements. Mr Bécourt, spokesman of the Coordination des associations et particuliers pour la liberté de conscience (CAPLC), as well as Messrs Raoust and Dubreuil, brought proceedings against the ADFI of the Nord and the UNADFI for the dissolution of these two associations, judged by them to be pursuing unlawful aims and activities. By judgment of 13 December 2005, the Tribunal de grande instance of Paris, having affirmed that it could not seriously be maintained that the said associations have an object contrary to the laws of the Republic, declared all these claims ill-founded and, finding the claimants to be in bad faith, awarded damages to the ADFI of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and to the UNADFI”.

p. 109

“The Coordination des associations et particuliers pour la liberté de conscience (CAPLC) has also brought proceedings for defamation against the president of the Centre for documentation, education and action against mental manipulation (CCMM-Centre Roger Ikor) over remarks reported on the CCMM’s website”.

p. 110

”…Whether they succeed or not, these actions are positive for the cult movements. Indeed, for the individuals and associations targeted, these actions entail lawyers’ fees and, therefore, the use of financial means not to inform or to combat the dérives committed by cult movements, but to defend themselves against attacks which most of the time have no legal foundation”.

p. 111

“On the permanence of pro-cult lobbying: the example of the context of the work of the parliamentary Commission of inquiry

The setting up and the work of a new parliamentary Commission of inquiry in June 2006 provoked, as was foreseeable, the mobilisation of the pro-cult lobby. It is an opportunity for MIVILUDES to take stock of some of the characteristics of this activism.

In this respect, the analysis of the agitation provoked by the deputies’ work on “the influence of dérives sectaires on the physical and mental health of minors” is rich in instruction. To this end we have directed our attention to documents emanating from, or concerning, organisations active in criticising this parliamentary initiative: the Coordination des associations et particuliers pour la liberté de conscience (CAPLC), the Centre d’information et de conseil des nouvelles spiritualités (CICNS), Scientology, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Raëlians.

Cult movements systematically call into question the legitimacy of initiatives — whatever their origin, governmental, parliamentary or associative — intended to denounce their excesses or to combat their dérives. To this end, their strategy shows no great originality. Whether it be the nature of their criticisms and the methodology employed (1°), or the profile of the “commissioning” lobbyists (2°), the characteristics remain, more or less, always the same over time.

1 - Critical arguments and methodology

a - The infringement of religious freedom

As soon as they scent the risk of being called into question, and when they are effectively attacked, movements of a cult character like to shift the debate onto the terrain of infringements of freedom of conscience, the better to present themselves as new religious movements, or as minorities — spiritual, of belief or of conviction — victims of discrimination. They then proceed shamelessly to the worst conflations: ”(…) Are the dice cast before the Commission’s work has even begun? We would then be heading towards the adoption of a new repressive law which will restrict freedom of conscience in France a little further, and which other countries — such as Iran or China, as they did after the vote on the famous About-Picard law — will proudly brandish to justify the repression of their religious minorities (…)” 89. ”(…) Once again a handful of parliamentarians is attempting to focus attention on minorities of conviction or on religious or spiritual minorities. The result with the previous commissions has been invariable: a calling into question of religion which targets not only minorities of conviction, but any deep and sincere commitment to a religious or spiritual path (…)“90. After enumerating the previous parliamentary work on cults, the CICNS writes in a letter to the president of the Law Commission of the National Assembly: ”(…) This chronology shows the predominant role of Parliament in setting up a policy of discrimination in our secular Republic. (…)” 91. As soon as the Commission was set up, Scientology for its part denounced the “relentless struggle (…) against ‘the new religions‘“92 and, later, the CAPLC asked that an end be put to “this witch hunt”93.

b - The denial of all cultism

According to the pro-cult lobby, all the work carried out on cultism, apart from that of certain sociologists, often celebrated, would rest on rumours and approximations.

89 CAPLC in “The anomalies of a parliamentary commission of inquiry”, September 2006 (a document distributed notably to parliamentarians and prefects and made available, in its English version, to participants at the annual conference of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw in October 2006).

90 CAPLC, statement of 28 June 2006. 91 Letter of 19 June 2006 to Mr Philippe Houillon, published on the CICNS site.

92 AFP, 18 July 2006.

93 Letters to prefects, October 2006

pp. 124-126

“The CICNS denounces a policy which makes “public Opinion believe in the existence of a social scourge which ought to be dealt with as a priority (…). After twenty years of campaigning, there exists no proof, either sociological or legal, of a significant delinquency among spiritual minorities. Certain renowned sociologists and jurists whom we have met do not hesitate to say that the problem of cults, as it is apprehended in France, does not exist”. The lobbyists also come together to contest the figures concerning minors in danger advanced by parliamentarians, associations and MIVILUDES, and to minimise the phenomenon by explaining that the real problems lie elsewhere, hoping in passing to divert attention: “There exist other highly worrying situations for young people which would amply justify the creation of a parliamentary commission of inquiry” 95.

c - The discrediting of those who combat cultism

There is another commonplace of pro-cult argument: the systematic calling into question of the credibility of the persons or bodies who testify to dérives sectaires. In the present case, the effort will be to discredit the parliamentarians themselves (an infinitesimal minority and always the same ones) and the persons heard by the commission of inquiry. The “depopularisation” of “the enemy” figures moreover in the first rank of the instructions which a famous guru of a great international cult gave to his followers. The validity of the work is contested because, according to the lobbyists, it is the work of a minority of “militant” elected officials and rests either on the testimonies of persons foreign to the organisations — who therefore speak of things they could not verify — or on the reports of apostates, thenceforth considered partial and unreliable renegades”.

95 CAPLC, statement of 28 June 2006.

p. 127

… “Scientology thus stigmatises “a handful of militant parliamentarians” 96 and the criticism is taken up by the CICNS and the CAPLC. The latter moreover consider it an “anomaly” that this commission of inquiry should have been voted in “haste”. (…) As for the apostates — those former followers often described as “pseudo-victims” — they are regularly castigated, notably by Scientology 98, whose criticisms are here relayed by the CICNS: “There also come the apostates, who can be counted on the fingers of one hand but who are omnipresent in this kind of debate and have acquired notoriety on the basis of all-out denunciations of their former beliefs”99.

d - The denunciation of the refusal of adversarial debate and the appeal to the academic endorsement of sociologists, jurists, philosophers and historians of religion.

This constant of the cult lobby’s criticism is naturally on the programme. “Sociologists and experts have been excluded from the adversarial process. (…) It is indispensable that the conditions for the participation of all parties — academic, legal, associative — be assured before initiating such a project (the commission of inquiry)” 100. “Where academics (sociologists, ethnologists, historians) and all minority spiritual movements have for many years been asking for the possibility of an adversarial debate within Parliament, our elected representatives boast of the total absence of contradiction and of the unanimity imposed on the debate” 101. The remarks of sociologists, sometimes skilfully truncated, are also regularly used to deny the cult problem”.

100 Letter of 19 June 2006 from the CICNS to Mr Philippe Houillon.

101 CICNS, statement of 4 July 2006.

pp. 128-129

“2 – The actors of the lobbying: change within continuity. In the front line we find an old hand, the CAPLC, and a newcomer, the CICNS110. Besides the similarity of their criticisms of the parliamentary Commission of inquiry, they have other points in common: - their action is founded on the defence of freedom of conscience, in favour of respect for the rights of religious minorities — or spiritual, or of conviction, depending on the context — and they deny the existence of victims, or rather, for them, the victims are not those one supposes; - they are specialists in self-proclaimed “commissions of inquiry”: the CAPLC was constituted in 2000 “spontaneously following the Commission of inquiry into the violation of Human Rights concerning therapeutic, spiritual and religious minorities held in Paris on 3 March 2000 (…)” 111. As for the CICNS, created more recently112, it took the initiative of launching on the internet “a citizens’ commission of inquiry into spiritual freedom in France”.

Since 2000, the CAPLC has been involved in every fight against the MILS and then MIVILUDES, against parliamentarians and victim-defence associations, reacting without delay to the initiatives of one and the other — such as, for example, the About-Picard law, the publication of reports or declarations to the press”

111 Cf. letters addressed to prefects in October 2006 on the subject of the parliamentary Commission of inquiry.

112 The CICNS, which appeared in June 2004, is in fact the new name of the CAPLC Sud-Ouest declared in March 2003 at the prefecture of Tarn-et-Garonne.

pp. 131-132.

“Now that Scientology declares itself “part of the landscape”, it has doubtless chosen to rely on others, such as the CAPLC and the CICNS, to fulfil the inglorious role of official spanner in the works. It prefers the “politically correct”, devoting its energy to causes liable to prove more profitable in terms of image (the fight against drugs, human rights, humanitarian work…) through associations more or less displayed as officially linked to its activity, such as the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), “Say no to drugs, say yes to life”, the “International Youth Association for Human Rights”, “The Volunteer Ministers” and “Criminon”. Under the title “Scientology promotes itself”115, the weekly Marianne described a new campaign launched by the organisation, with the distribution of the first instalment of a series of three leaflets to its glory, each printed in a million copies. The journalist noted that the launch date of this operation coincided with that of the start of the parliamentary Commission of inquiry’s work, and concluded by asking: “Might it (Scientology) have something to reproach itself with?” Admittedly, Scientology does not appear in the front line, but attentive analysis of the arguments used and the methods deployed at the forefront by the CAPLC and the CICNS against the parliamentary Commission of inquiry suggests that it inspired them a great deal … and more if the feeling is mutual”.

pp. 133-134

And in the conclusion:

“The movements (implicitly, cult movements) and the persons who take inspiration from them (of care, of training, of assistance, of specific competences, or indeed of spirituality — in short, of everything that can appear likeable and honourable) take advantage of the slightest weakness of the public authorities, of the slightest relaxation of the institutions’ vigilance, to rush into the breach and draw benefit from it. There is no profit too small, there is no step forward too small”.

p. 289

Read also “The MIVILUDES seminar on cults and laïcité” The Guide for the public official facing dérives sectaires The Mayors’ Guide and the 2003 report the 2004 report the 2005 report CICNS’s commentaries on the 2006 report