Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion

Did You Know?

• Galanter is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse at the New York University School of Medicine.
• He is also the editor of Cults and New Religious Movements: A Report of the American Psychiatric Association.

Main points

The book draws on Galanter's fifteen years of research into the psychology of contemporary charismatic groups, covering Aum Shinrikyo, Hare Krishna, Peoples Temple, the Unification Church, the Divine Light Mission, and Alcoholics Anonymous. It also examines alternative medicine and spiritual recovery movements for similarities to charismatic groups. Galanter analyzes recruitment tactics, indoctrination techniques, and legal issues such as conservatorship and deprogramming, and includes a directory for those seeking help. Using systems theory, he presents cult functions as analogous to a social organism, with conformity managed through manipulation of psychological distress. The scholarly text includes first-person accounts of conversion and apostasy.

Reception

Mark Silk, reviewing the book for the New York Times, praised Galanter's clinical detachment when evaluating the mental health of charismatic group members, but criticized the work for being too narrowly focused on a social-scientific perspective. M. L. S. Nixon, writing in Library Journal, considered Galanter's book more neutral and open than Rachel Andres and James R. Lane's Cults and Consequences, and recommended both. Publishers Weekly called it a comprehensive analysis of cult power. Gwen Salama, in School Library Journal, noted that Galanter compared cult groups based on psychological traits without judging any specific group. Physician Armando Favazza, reviewing in the American Journal of Psychiatry, strongly recommended the book to fellow doctors, highlighting its insights into group dynamics and family functioning. The book was also reviewed by Benjamin Zablocki in Contemporary Sociology and by Thomas Robbins in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. It was assigned reading in a Cornell University sociology course titled "Communes, Cults, and Charisma" and a University of Pennsylvania course called "Religious Violence and Cults." Galanter's description of charismatic groups from this book is referenced in the Encyclopedia of Psychology's article on cults.