THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CULT EXPERIENCE

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CULT EXPERIENCE

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

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The article as it originally appeared.
VIEW PAGE IN TIMESMACHINE
March 15, 1982, Page 00005
The New York Times Archives
The same story makes the headlines again and again. An anguished family is trying to ”rescue” its child, who has, the parents charge, been ”stolen” by a cult, sometimes after only a single weekend of involvement. The parents describe the child as a humorless ”zombie” – where formerly he or she was self-possessed, intelligent and completely ”normal.” And, as family members begin to consult the clergy, lawyers and deprogrammers, they keep expressing confusion about exactly what has happened, and why.
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