The most damning documents the bankruptcy of CAN put at the scholars’ disposal concerned the sexually abusive behavior of deprogrammers towards their victims.
by Anson D. Shupe (†) and Susan E. Darnell
Article 7 of 10. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, article 4, article 5, and article 6.
Note: A description of the cases of deprogramming mentioned in this article, including the names of the victims, has been available on CESNUR’s website since the year 2000. Since many years have passed, we indicate only their initials, except for Jason Scott, whose case is well-known.
![In 1999, the theme of sex and deprogramming inspired the movie “Holy Smoke!” by Jane Campion, starring Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel. From X.](https://bitterwinter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Holy-Smoke.jpeg)
![In 1999, the theme of sex and deprogramming inspired the movie “Holy Smoke!” by Jane Campion, starring Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel. From X.](https://bitterwinter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Holy-Smoke.jpeg)
Coercive deprogrammers’ use of illegal drugs and sexual tactics involved during their confinement of adult citizens has never been discussed in the mainline social science literature on the anti-cult movement. If anything, the notorious deprogramming-sexual assault case of S.M. (our case No. 2) has been seen as an anomaly. By several sources of evidence, however, including both notarized anecdotes and depositional material, we maintain that sexual deviance and drug use were an ancillary, but not infrequent, accompaniment of numerous coercive deprogrammings.
Previously in this paper we cited former Citizens Freedom Foundation executive director John Sweeney as complaining about non-accountable, free-wheeling deprogrammers: “Many deprogrammers had sex with their victims and used drugs during the deprogrammings.” Focusing on an illustrative (but admittedly truncated) set of cases here, we find empirical support for a similar pattern of abuse continuing from CFF into the CAN (Cult Awareness Network) organization and tolerance of it at the highest echelons.
“Drug use” here means consumption/ingestion during the course of a coercive deprogramming of illegal substances (ex., cocaine) and alcohol. “Sexual tactics” refer to two types: (1) forced sexual intercourse, or rape (of men and women); and (2) sexual demeaning or intimidation of a person or refusal to permit reasonable hygienic care. Since sometimes the drug use and sexual abuse occurred together, we make no attempt to separate them out in the following illustrative testimonies.
J.J. swore in a legal declaration that in 1987 at the start of her deprogramming she was unwilfully abducted by three men who “smelled of sweat and alcohol.” During her eleven-day confinement she relates how “throughout the time of my captivity [former deprogrammer M.B.] and the other security guards used cocaine heavily. The cocaine made M.B. become enraged and violent. More than once, the other men had to physically restrain him to keep him from beating me up. [Deprogrammer J.] S. saw them using cocaine but did not appear to object.”
Forbidding privacy for personal hygienic and elimination needs appears to have been standard deprogramming practices for many men and women.
K.L. testified under oath that during eight days’ confinement she decided to refuse to take a shower because she was not allowed privacy from the continuous stares of her male abductors. Jason Scott appears to have been deliberately fed poor, greasy food that caused him to develop stomach cramps and diarrhea, but two of the male deprogrammers insisted on accompanying him each time to the nailed-open bathroom.
This humiliating violation of privacy is often encountered in deprogramming survivor accounts. A.R., a former member of the Unification Church and now a respected member of the banking industry, told in a sworn declaration of his treatment by deprogrammer Steven Hassan: “During the first three days, I was always escorted to the bathroom while my hands were still bound and tied. I was not washed or shaved. With help I was able to urinate in a pot. Due to the embarrassment of being watched at all times, I did not allow myself to defecate.”
![Steven Hassan](https://bitterwinter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Steven-Hassan-1.jpeg)
![Steven Hassan](https://bitterwinter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Steven-Hassan-1.jpeg)
Another of deprogrammer-turned-”exit counselor” Steven Hassan’s “clients” was C.K., who was confined to one room in a New Hampshire log cabin for three days. A guard was placed outside the bedroom door to prevent her escape, and a guard inside the room at all times escorted her to the bathroom.
During the five-day abortive coercive deprogramming of H.K., a member of the Church Universal and Triumphant, deprogrammers Mary Alice Chrnalogar, Galen Kelly, and Rory Ingalls (among others present) displayed the usual “commode insensitivity” and mocked K’s sexuality: “Food didn’t sit well. One of the guards followed me to the open-air bathroom… Once [his girlfriend] and Rory came down [to the basement where he was kept] and decided to mock my church’s belief in celibacy before marriage. Rubbing the girlfriend’s arm, Rory contemptuously declared, ‘In the Church, you men don’t have genitals!’”
An admittedly gross but illustrative example of demeaning sexual callousness that can only be labeled deliberately harassing occurred in the deprogramming fiasco involving D.D. Succinctly described, in 1992 former Loudin County (VA) sheriff’s deputy D.L.M., P. and M.B., and private anti-cult investigator Galen Kelly were hired by Washington, DC. resident B.B.’s parents to abduct and deprogram her because she was allegedly a member of the apocalyptic, eastern mystic Circle of Friends cult. However, they abducted the wrong woman, B.B’s roommate D.D.
D.D. recalls: “As the two men walked towards me [in a parking lot outside her place of employment late at night], the stocky one started to talk as if to ask me a question. I immediately went to slam the hatch into the car and ran to get in the car . …They both grabbed me and threw me to the hood of the car. The taller one had hold of my legs, which he spread wide apart, at this point I thought I was going to be raped. I felt his crouch [sic] up against mine . …I had been thrown into the van, through a side sliding door. In addition to the two men, there were two women in the van . … I screamed not to touch me, let me sit myself, to get hands off me.”
There were the usual promises of gentle treatment in exchange for cooperation: “[During the drive to B.B.’s parents’ home] I indicated that, that very evening, I had just gotten my period, that I had not had tampons with me and so I was a bloody mess, and the longer time went by the bloodier and messier I would become. Kelly indicated that he could not do anything about that. He motioned to the woman in the back. She said she had tampons in her car at the place where we were going, and she would get me some when we arrived.”
They arrived at the B. family residence and the mother informed them they had abducted the wrong woman. Meanwhile, while the confused deprogrammers debated what to do, D.D. recalls: “One more time I requested tampons so I could address the bloody mess problem. Kelly allowed the woman in the back to get me some tampons. She left the van for about five to ten minutes and then returned with about 5-6 slender tampons. I begged them at this point to let me out, but Kelly would not allow me to leave the van to use the tampons. We then proceeded to start to drive again. I was told they were driving me back to where they had picked me up.”
![](https://bitterwinter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/can-3.jpeg)
![](https://bitterwinter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/can-3.jpeg)
A young woman mistakenly abducted by vigilante pseudo-therapists, faced with the indignity of having to sit for hours in her own menses—this street crime had one more element. When the deprogrammers abruptly pushed out D.D. into the empty parking lot after two o-‘clock in the morning, she checked her two handbags which the deprogrammers had initially taken from her and found about $175 in cash was missing.
Anecdotes of inebriated “counselors” and “guards,” some holding down their female “clients” by the thighs under their dresses, whispering threats and/or assurances, lips to ears, and so forth, became legion. Sexual assault and harassment became commonplace under CAN. Dr. Lowell D. Streiker, counselor and author cited earlier in this series, recalled: “One of the deprogrammers that CAN frequently referred members of the public to was Cliff Daniels… I have personal knowledge of Cliff Daniels’ violent deprogrammings. In 1981 I consulted with a client named D.M., who had family members in the River of Life Ministry. In the course of counseling D.M., I had the occasion to speak to Daniels, who was involved in deprogrammings at this time with other members of the River of Life Ministry. Daniels volunteered to me the information that he had used illegal drugs while involved in deprogrammings and that he had had sex with one of his deprogramming victims.”
Other female deprogrammees told Streiker that Daniels had tried “repeatedly and persistently, to seduce them.” It was apparent that Daniels tried to use sexual intercourse as a “test” to see whether the women were completely “out of the cult” (Streiker’s words). If the women continued to resist his advances, he accused them of not really having been deprogrammed. A male, the already mentioned Jason Scott, only had to feign a change of religious attitudes to dupe his male deprogrammers; some women, it appears, had to go the more extreme route to ultimately accomplish the same end. We do not list here other anecdotes traveling within the ACM subculture of male rapes and homosexual deprogramming behavior.
Ultimately, individual anecdotes of maverick deprogrammers are one thing. The CAN “home office”’s posture toward use of sex and related tactics in deprogrammings is another. In CAN’s case this attitude appears to have been a pragmatic one, indeed. In a deposition, CAN’s final executive director Cynthia Kisser was directly asked about sex in deprogrammings by an attorney. She provided a telling response.
![Cynthia Kisser, the last executive director of CAN. Screenshot.](https://bitterwinter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/BITTER-WINTER-26.jpg)
![Cynthia Kisser, the last executive director of CAN. Screenshot.](https://bitterwinter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/BITTER-WINTER-26.jpg)
“Q. That’s all I am asking simply… You don’t consider sexual assault during deprogramming to be sexual perversion, is that right?
A. That is not my understanding of what sexual perversion is, no.
Q. Would you consider it sexual perversion for a deprogrammer who was hired to change the belief of someone who is alleged to be a lesbian to do so by showing her how a quote, ‘a real man does it,’ would you consider that to be sexual perversion?
A. Well, if they are having regular intercourse, man to woman, then it can’t be perversion. It might be rape, assault or something else, but it doesn’t sound like perversion to me.
Q. Rape isn’t perversion to you?
A. Rape is a criminal act, but perversion means something different than just a criminal act.
Q. Ms. Kisser, do you consider rape to be a sexual perversion or not?
A. As I understand sexual perversion, that would not fit the definition of sexual perversion” (Deposition of Cynthia Kisser in “Cynthia Kisser vs. The Chicago Crusader et al.” September 28, 1994. No. 92 L 08593. Country of Cook, IL).
Thus, a helpless man or woman detained against his/her will who had been sexually assaulted in whatever manner had not experienced any sort of perverse act according to CAN’s head. Trained sex therapists who use surrogate partners in legitimate therapy for clients with sexual dysfunctions are controversial, still relatively rare, but at least professionally accountable. The less-than-accountable deprogrammers and exit counselors, almost none of whom has ever had former credentials in any accredited therapeutic practice, found a blind eye turned toward their “rescue” methodologies in the “insider” subculture of CAN.