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>X-Sender: petter@mail.algonet.se (Unverified)
>Date: Wed, 31 May 1995 15:13:24 -0400
>Reply-To: Interreligion Discussion <INTERREL@VM.TEMPLE.EDU>
>Sender: Interreligion Discussion <INTERREL@VM.TEMPLE.EDU>
>From: Petter Claesson <petter@ALGONET.SE>
>Subject: Re: legal status of NRM's in US
>Comments: To: Interreligion Discussion
> <INTERREL%TEMPLEVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
>To: Multiple recipients of list INTERREL <INTERREL@VM.TEMPLE.EDU>
>X-UIDL: 801977247.006
>
>>Dear colleagues,
>>In Polish media very hot discussion concerning NRM's takes place. It is
>>many arguments that they should be banned in Poland from legal point of
>>view. Could anybody supply me with information ( if possible referring to
>>the most upto date sources) what is the legal status of such an organisation
>>like Hare Krisha or Moonies in US ? What about other or{anisations of
>>religious profile ?
>>Thanks in advance for posting me with the message.
>>Halina Grzymala-Moszczynska, Ph.D.
>><uzgrzyma@cyf-kr.edu.pl>
>
>Dear Halina,
>
>You were asking for some information about the status of ISKCON and other
>NRM's.
>Here is some information that I thought could be relevant. It refers to ISKCON,
>I'm myself a member of ISKCON since 15 years.
>
>I'm posting it on the Interrel list since it might be of interest to other
>participants as well.
>
>If you want more information or references to academics that are studying
>NRM's please let me know, there are actually quite many of them.
>
>The following is a statement by Dr. Gordon Melton, in the next post I have
>included a statement by the INFORM organization from London. I will also
>post a table of the legal status of ISKCON in different countries in the world.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Petter
>
>
>THE INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF AMERICAN RELIGION.
>P.O. BOX 90709, SANTA BAR8ARA, CA 93190-0709
>(805)967-7721, (805)967-2669 FAX(805)683-4876
>
>Dr. J. Gordon Melton. Director
>
>A STATEMENT CONCERNING THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS
>
>My name is John Gordon Melton, and I have been requested to make a statement
>on the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) with special
>reference to some specific questions, I am a graduate of Garrett-Evangelical
>Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1968) and Northwestern University (PhD, 1975)
>with a doctorate in the history and literature of religions. I am the
>founder and director if the Institute for the Study of American Religion, a
>research facility in Santa Barbara, California devoted to the study of
>religious groups and organisations with a special interest in so-called New
>Religious Movements, i.e., those many groups which have originated in the
>West or come to the West from other parts of the world and have recruited
>members from the local populations. I am also (since 1985) a research
>specialist with the Department of Religious Studies of the University of
>California Santa Barbara and an ordained minister in the United Methodist
>Church.
>
>As part of my official duties I have written some twenty-five books,
>including two college texts: The Cult Experience(1992) and The Encyclopedic
>Handbook of Cults in America(1986, 2nd ed., l992). I have also authored a
>variety of what have become standard reference books including the
>Encyclopaedia of American Religions (4th ed., 1992); Religious Groups in
>America: A Directory (1991); and the Encyclopaedia of African American
>Religions (l993). Along the way, I have consulted with the U. S. Army; on
>the issue of new religions' service in the Armed Forces, and assisted the
>Army Office of Chaplains in the preparation of the several editions of their
>'Handbooks on the Beliefs of Certain Selected Groups'. (1978, 1991). Some
>consideration of ISKCON was included in most of the books named above.
>
>Since I have concentrated my study on New Religious Movements since the
>1960s, I have frequently been called into court to speak about various
>religious groups, including ISKCON. Several of the new religions such as
>ISKCON have been controversial due to the unfamiliarity of the public with
>the new and different ideas and practices they espoused. Early concerns
>voiced by the parents of some young adults in the 1970s, turned into a
>laundry list of charges against ISKCON and a number of other groups lumped
>together as what in North America were called "cults" and elsewhere "sects"
>or other labels. Much of the scholarly work which has been done on New
>Religions during the last two decades has been devoted to examining the many
>charges which have been brought against them.
>
>Further distorting our research on New Religions has been the insertion of
>several pseudo-scientific hypotheses concerning the nature of life in groups
>like ISKCON. For example, during the 1970s, two people, neither with any
>medical training, announced their discovery of a new disease. Having
>discovered this new disease, before announcing their findings to the world
>in a popular text, they found no need to check their findings with anyone
>with medical training. In spite of their ignorance of medicine and
>physiology, they asserted that various very common religious practices such
>as prayer, meditation, and chanting, including the chanting practised in
>ISKCON, caused actual brain damage by denying the brain of its food, i.e.,
>information. This bizarre idea was presented in a book called 'Snapping'.
>For a brief time, members of what had by that time become part of an
>anti-cult network hailed the book and several popular news-stand magazines
>such as Science Digest ran articles about it. However, it was never
>considered a serious scientific hypothesis and after several articles in
>scientific journals refuting the book's ideas, Snapping soon passed from the
>scene.
>
>More recently, several people have espoused the idea of brainwashing (also
>termed thought control, coercive persuasion, or mind control). Proponents
>suggested that cults had discovered a new psychological technology, a
>technology which has somehow escaped the rest of the psychological world.
>With this technology it "brainwashed" young recruits and held them with such
>force that they are unable to break the spell of attachment to the group.
>These ideas which seemed to actually have a body of evident behind them,
>provoked a heated debate among social scientists in the early 1980s. In the
>mid 1980s, the whole brainwashing perspective was thoroughly evaluated by
>the American Psychological Association. After looking at a detailed report
>prepared by the major advocates of this perspective, the American
>Psychological Association concluded that the idea of brainwashing and mind
>control as popularly applied to the new religious movements was
>scientifically unacceptable. It had been arrived at through a sloppy
>methodology and poor scientific work. Subsequently the American Sociological
>Association and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion reached a
>similar conclusion. As a result, testimony concerning brainwashing and mind
>control have properly been banished from consideration by American courts as
>an idea lacking any scientific credibility.
>
>Concerning ISKCON
>
>Having made these several general reflections, let me turn to some
>consideration of ISKCON. I have observed this organisation since it's
>emergence into prominence in the early 1970s and its founding of a Centre in
>Chicago, where I was then residing. Because of their unique dress and, to
>the average Westerner, their unusual pracdces, such as chanting Hindu
>kirtans on the street, they were most photogenic and were soon singled out
>to illustrate articles on cults and new religions,
>
>As we have come to know ISKCON, we have become aware that it is a
>representative of tbe main stream of Indian Vaishnava religion and follows
>the same scriptures used by many denominations of Hindus. In the West they
>have many followers within the Indian ethnic community and are a part of
>most Hindu ecumenical organisations in both North America and Europe. As
>such they follow teachings and practices which have a venerable tradition in
>India, Also like most older religions, including Christianity, they follow
>scriptures which were written centuries ago when modern ideas such as those
>about democratic government or the rights of women were as yet not
>developed. As most Christians are aware, the Christian Bible is quite
>compatible with and in many ways, very supportive of autocratic government.
>Many leading Christian theologians have argued against democratic
>tendencies. So too are many Hindu holy books such as the Bhagavad Gita
>compatible with autocracy. However, just as Christians have developed a
>commitment to democratic values, so too do members of ISKCON have such a
>commitment.
>
>I have also seen no lack of commitment to the values of family, marriage, or
>the duties of a married couple, to their marriage commitments. However, like
>Roman Catholic orders, at the same time, ISKCON members place a high value
>on the celibate ordered life and a number of its members have become the
>equivalent of monks and nuns. The value placed on such an ordered life is no
>more an attack upon the family than that implied in the existence of
>Franciscans or Dominicans.
>
>Life in ISKCON, while strange to many Westerners, follows a pattern
>established many years ago in India. It includes spending regular periods
>each day chanting a mantra, eating a vegetarian diet, and, for some, living
>a semi-communal life style. While these practices are certainly different
>from that of most people, there is no evidence that following such practices
>have had any harmful effect upon either the Indian public or any person ever
>affiliated with ISKCON. There is simply no evidence that ISKCON'S religious
>practices adversely affect mental or physical health. While many anti-cult
>leaders have repeated such charges over the last two decades, they have
>failed to bring forth any supporting evidence.
>
>It is of note that thousands of people have at some point in time joined
>ISKCON and later, finding it not to their liking, have left it and
>re-entered the larger society none the worse for their experience. Others,
>who affiliated have found it a very happy life and have married and had
>children, and now see their young adult offspring becoming members . Within
>the past few weeks I have attended a convention of young adults born and
>raised in ISKCON. At that time I had the opportunity to meet with people who
>have left ISKCON altogether and assumed positions in college and the work
>place, those who are marginal members of ISKCON, and those who are full
>members of the community.
>
>Conclusion
>
>ISKCON has been forced to spent its formative years in the full light of a
>skeptical media and critical, even hostile environment. It has been
>thoroughly scrutinised, in part as a result of several lengthy judicial
>reviews, for more than two decades. No substantive charges levelled at it
>have stood the test of such examination. For example, in the case brought by
>former-member Robin George against ISKCON, it was charged that ex-members
>could never again reintegrate into "normal" society or have a stable family
>life. However, the only people brought to testify to this point were former
>members who had already by the time they testified been able to find a place
>in society and develop a new set of acquaintances outside of the group. It
>turned out that the great majority of charges against ISKCON were simply a
>standard laundry list of items which have periodically been used against
>different new religions as public attention moves from one to the other.
>
>Simply put, ISKCON has been present in the West for twenty five years. If it
>was, in fact, a danger to society, we would have long ago discovered that
>threat and dealt with it. Rather than a danger, ISKCON has shown itself
>capable of raising up a religious community which turned a number of people
>alienated from society in the 1970s into substantial law-abiding citizens
>who have in turn developed a program of service to the community through its
>efforts to feed the poor and other acts of charity. ISKCON does not threaten
>any Country's constitutional freedoms. Quite the opposite is true. In a
>series of cases it has been demonstrated that ISKCON's constitutional
>freedoms have been continually threatened by its having to repeatedly defend
>itself on issues which have previously been considered by Courts and discarded.
>
>I am not a followers of ISKCON. On a theological level I can find little
>with which I agree or with which I resonate. However, as a private citizen,
>I have no complaints and I would petition this court to act in their favour
>unless and until it has been demonstrated, by common standards of evidence,
>that they have acted against the state or have broken specific laws.
>
>Respectfully submitted,
>
>Dr. J. Gordon Melton
>Aug. 17th 1994.
>
>
Hare Krishna!
Your servant,
Madhudvisa dasa
(madhudvisa@krishna.org) /sudarsana
All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada!
Sudarsana Home madhudvisa@krishna.org