Volume I
Issue IV
From the Editor:
Welcome to our fourth newsletter.
In Issue III we told you that CAN had handled over 5,500 calls - that figure
has now passed 6,000 - in fact 6,300 callers have been helped with factual information,
qualified referrals and family reconcilitiatons. Visitors to our website are
now over 7,400 - people getting the truth about the "brainwashing" and "mind
control" myths propounded by the old CAN and finding real religious experts
who will help them.
Read on for exciting
news from the hotline - plus much more.
THE NEW CAN
IN GOOD HANDS TO STAY!
Since the fall of
1996 when the name Cult Awareness Network and hotline number changed to responsible
hands, the old CAN has been harrassing the courts with specious legal arguments,
trying to overturn the sale of the CAN name. On July 30, 1998 the 7th Circuit
Federal Appeals Court in Northeastern Illinois gave the old CAN's bogus claims
tile final heave-ho by denying the former CAN's appeal and stating that their
pleas of denial of due process were "without merit".
The court also stated,
"We see no logical reason to make an exception ..." and rejected the prior CAN's
convoluted possibilities to continue their campaign of bigotry.
This means the CAN
name and hotline remain in good hands - to fulfill its mission to educate the
public about religious rights, freedoms and responsibilities.
Here's to CAN!
Hearing the latest legal news, Dr. Lowell
Streiker, PhD from Princeton University and
well-known author had this to say,
"I am very
favorably impressed with the quality of the
services the new CAN provides. They are
concerned, compassionate, professional and
scrupulously fair. "
SAFE SECTS:
CAN is consistently asked
for guidelines as to how to decide whether or not to be concerned about a group.
Dr. James Lewis, religious scholar, has written up an excellent set of guidelines
which anyone can follow. These are posted at www.religioustolerance.org/ safe_sect.htm
(or write/call CAN and we will provide you a copy).
This paper debunks
common misconceptions about "cults" yet at the same time provides important
information about how to look at a group from a public policy point of view
- how is it interrelating with society? It makes the point very clearly
that the key to any situation is getting the factual information so that correct
decisions can be made and responsible action taken.
Around the
U.S.: New York:
A woman
called in about her
brother in Alaska who is part of a very small religious community. Dr. Tim Miller
at the University of Kansas was able to allay her fears which were founded on
misinformation.
The woman is an independent
film producer and is now going to do a short film on the CORRECT things to do
if a family member joins a group one doesn't know about!
Wisconsin:
The distraught
parents of a runaway
daughter called our hotline thinking the daughter had joined an "underground
cult". CAN helped connect the parents with local resources - the daughter was
located and her true situation sorted out (she had fallen in with a wrong crowd
and lost her religious grounding).
The family is now
reconciled and working together on a positive direction for the daughter's life.
Spiritual Freedom
Pledge
Since the creation of the "Pledge for
Spiritual Freedom" posted on the web at
www.rehgioustolerance.org/ spy fre.htm,
(or available through CAN) hundreds of
people have logged in and many have
posted their views. One person's recent
comments reflect the times and the vital
need for tolerance:
"Here's to a world where no black man is ever again
dragged behind a truck, no Jewish gorillas decide a
Palestinian farmer deserves a smack in the head
with a plank of wood they're holding from inside a
moving van, Catholics and Protestants lay down
their gins and their slurs. Here's to that world.
We should take this pledge. Let the
people around each of us see that
tolerance means a great deal to us ... it
means
life
itself." MW
PLEASE
SIGN
THE PLEDGE!
PROVIDING FACTUAL
AND RELIABLE DATA TO THE MEDIA
A few weeks ago an independent
Florida TV production company interviewed a religious scholar in CAN's offices.
Other recent media referrals include ABC national news, a national French TV
production company, the Chicago Tribune, a one-hour documentary being produced
by Broadcast News Network on teen religious choices, and a documentary being
produced by a national TV network on the Jonestown tragedy with CAN providing
factual input from experts. Not to mention that the Religion News newspaper
in Tokyo, Japan recently did a very supportive story on the changeover of CAN
from the old CAN to a religious tolerance organization!
GROWING
SUPPORT
CAN wishes to welcome (and thank). the
latest experts such as Dr. Scott Bartchy of
UCLA, Ms. Julie Stohl of the New York
Mental Hygiene Legal Services Dept., Dr.
Tony Zavaleta of the University of Texas
in Brownsville, and Tom Cameron, a
marshal arts expert in Chicago, who have
agreed to provide factual information
through acting as professional referrals to
whom CAN is able to refer callers.
Evangelistic
Christians Warn
Against
Anti-Cultists
The following is being published in
three newsletters by an evangelical
Christian group from New Mexico:
"THE MODERN DAY INQUISITION
"The Anti-Cults Cult!
or "Cult-Watchers"
get Caught!
"You don't want to miss this valuable
information exposing some of America's
most "famous" deprogrammers. Read
about their bizarre, cruel and unethical
tactics, along with their personal arrest
records. For a large fee, they would
deprogram a loved one, if they had joined
one of the
many
groups which the
deprogrammers arbitrarily labeled a
`dangerous cult'. The bottom line is
MONEY, and the Cult-Catchers have
raked in large piles of it by manipulating
people with fear.
"Read all about it at the NEW Cult
Awareness Network website at:
www.cultawarenessnetwork.org"
FREE TO
PRACTICE HIS
FAITH
After taking a desperate
call for help from a man involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital solely
on the grounds of his religious beliefs, CAN immediately went into action -
finding the man an attorney, setting up a conference call with the man and the
lawyer and ensuring that exact instructions were given to the man as to how
to keep himself safe from inhumane, depersonalizing psychiatric treatment.
The sad story was
that because of his strongly held Christian beliefs, the man's misinformed parents
had colluded with a psychiatrist to falsely declare the man dangerous.
The happy ending
is that with CAN's fast and competent action the man was freed from psychiatry's
clutches with no dehumanizing psychiatric handlings, the parents were correctly
informed of the group's activities, and the man is now freely practicing his
faith having worked out a mutually respectful agreement with his parents.
YOUR DONATIONS FUND
HOTLINE
Concerned and caring people
man the CAN hotline - volunteers who try to make their advice useful and pragmatic
- encouraging communication and mutual respect.
The result from thousands
of calls and dozens and dozens of reconciliations? The most common responses
are "Thank you so much", "You have been so helpful", "Your advice is so practical",
"This makes so much sense." And again and again it works because more communication
and more respect for others' right to believe as they wish is what the majority
of people want.
JOIN TODAY!
Send $40 for your annual
membership and $500 for lifetime!
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