Secretary of State Sonia Backès announces a new anti-cult statute. It is yet another incarnation of the discredited notion of brainwashing and of the fabrication of false “victims.”
by Massimo Introvigne
French Secretary of State for the Citizenship Sonia Backès, known for her tall tales about growing up in the Church of Scientology, has announced that the government intends to create a new crime of “psychological subjugation” (assujettissement psychologique). It would be both an independent crime and an aggravating circumstance when other crimes are committed by “cult leaders” and “cultists” (remember that in French the word “cult” is translated as “secte,” which does not mean “sect” but “cult”).
According to Backès, the new crime will go beyond the already existing “abus de faiblesse (abuse of weakness) through psychological subjection.” In the latter crime, a victim in a situation of weakness has been (allegedly) led through psychological techniques to do something harmful to herself, for example making a large donation or surrendering sexually to the “cult” leader. The new crime, according to Backès, would not require any evidence that the “victim” of a “cult” was led to commit harmful acts. It would be enough to prove that the “victim” has joined and/or has continued to be a member of a “cult” because of “psychological subjugation.”
Of course, according to the anti-cult ideology, all “cult members” are in this situation. The argument is circular. “Cults” are different from religions because they are joined through “psychological subjugation” rather than out of free will. Where there is a “cult” there is by definition “psychological subjugation.” Also called—brainwashing.
When France introduced in 2001 the anti-cult About-Picard law, the first draft tried to punish “mental manipulation.” International and French scholars, and leading legal experts, protested that this was just as a synonym of the discredited theory of “brainwashing,” exposed as pseudo-science and a tool to discriminate against unpopular religions by academics and courts of law in several countries.
Afraid that a law against “mental manipulation” would run into constitutional problems, the anti-cult politicians backed off, and introduced instead the “abuse of weakness.” This was another cosmetic and semantic game hiding their intention to criminalize the imaginary “brainwashing.” However, finding evidence that something that does not exist caused concrete harm proved to be difficult. Hence, Backès’ idea of going back to “mental manipulation,” this time called “psychological subjugation.”
We should repeat the obvious. “Brainwashing” does not exist. Changing names would not change the substance. “Psychological subjugation” is just another name for “brainwashing,” an imaginary crime that would “make identifying victims easier,” as Backès said. In other words, unless the Council of State or the Constitutional Court intervene, France will have another tool to fabricate false “victims” of non-existing “cults.”
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
