New NRM Scholarly Group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NRM_Scholars/ is a new Yahoo Group whose aim is to be an "alternative Spirituality and Religion email group for researchers with interests in alternative spirituality and religion, broadly conceived". It is not a discussion forum, although queries seem to be allowed.

Unfortunately, it does not seem to have feed. That makes it harder to follow. I'll try to make the suggestion.

Update: The posts do not seem to be available through the page either, apart for a statistic on the number of existing messages. Apparently, the messages are circulated by e-mail, not posted. Only files and documents and other information seem to get posted.

Monica Pignotti's Short C.V.

Monica has published a short C.V. on the Nurel List.

As is obvious through Monica's recent stance in ARS and OCMB, she no longer shares some of the myths common in the anti-Scientology milieu. The level of verbal abuses and personal attacks she encounters in these forums now almost reach the level of attacks that were levied at Diane Richardson and myself for years. That's always a sure sign that what she is saying has more impact than what anti-Scientologists can deal with and so have to resort to try and shoot the messenger instead.

Though slanted in the anti-cult direction ten years ago, Monica was always, IMO, a gentle and thoughtful character. See for example her 1996 debate with Diane Richardson on the mind-control issue, then compare this to the more typical sort of "reply" anti-Scientologists engage into in the 1997 second Diane Richardson mind-control thread which I also webbed.

Anyway, in addition to this interesting C.V., the points I would like to make here are two:

1. Even though anti-Scientologists think they are experts because they gather from the Internet tons of information, they nevertheless remain on the surface of that ocean. Dipping deeper will reveal a host of alternative information that would bring one to revise some of the mis-conceptions and simplistic views they have about Scientology and cults in general. You don't have to engage in academic study to find these out, though it certainly helps. I have been encouraging Anonymous to go out from this box too by extending their area of investigation beyond the OG fixed certainties, but I now start to doubt this will ever happen.
   
   
2. This being said, I believe Monica, and myself, are somewhat different than most academic researchers because through our experience with Scientology, we are also aware to what I personally refer to as the "cultic-mindset". This too is an interesting field of investigation and scholars should likewise dip further in it than they henceforth did. We are now seeing an interesting debut of convergence between moderate anti-cultists and some scholars in this direction. I believe the contribution moderate and informed critics such as Monica can bring in this new direction can be invaluable.

A First Look at Stephen Kent's Narcissistic Rage Paper

Thomas Gandow posted on ARS today a possibly new paper from Professor Stephen Kent (PDF format, dated Jan 2008 thus not that new in fact).

This one, contrary to Jacobsen's paper just referred to in the preceding post, is not a "scholarly-sounding" paper. It is an actual scholarly one.

As with the previous Scientology-related papers, Kent seems to just want to "get at" the Church of Scientology, for reasons best known to him, if that's even the case.

This particular paper is entitled: "Malignant Narcissim, L. Ron Hubbard, and Scientology's Policies of Narcissistic Rage".

As usual, rather than actual field study and experimentation, he takes his information from popular critical information available through the Internet and anti-cult organizations.

Kent's papers usually get debunked at a later stage by reputable scholars engaging in a more in-depth analysis, supported by a broader field study that involve more than the unilateral viewpoints of critics and ex-members, as was the case for his study on the RPF.

In the present case, though, I doubt they will even bother.

First, through repeated challenges to his analysis and papers, Stephen Kent's credibility has suffered quite a few blows.

Second, the present paper is particularly ridiculous, because Kent basically says nothing else than the fact religious and Messianic zeal, and its corollary, intolerance to criticism, is a form of mental deficiency which he refers to as "malignant narcissism".

To "prove" his point, Kent launches in an extensive recitation of the same-old accusations made by critics towards the CoS: the Guardian Office operations, Paulette Cooper's harassment, and even R2-45.

The whole article seems like just an excuse to bring all this recitation up in a scholarly paper, and Kent makes sure at every stage to make the link with these and his claim that Hubbard suffered from the affliction he promptly identified miles away in space and time, and that supposedly translates itself in the equally meaningless term of "malignant rage".

The link he does, however, is nothing more than a simple statement:

"Tactics such as these, involving public humiliation and character assassination, reflected Hubbard’s narcissistic rage."

"Scientology’s campaign, which was a prolonged and aggressive response to Cooper’s publications and legal action, demonstrates the extent of Hubbard’s “narcissistic rage” and “need for revenge."

"‘Auditing Process R2-45’ dramatically demonstrates the manifestation of Hubbard’s malignant narcissism and, more specifically, his narcissistic rage. "

Frankly, not the best of Kent's paper, and one that will probably be simply ignored by his scholars peers, so ridiculous the arguments made that they are almost self-evident.

Not that Kent will care very much, since his aim seems to bring the bulk of such accusation in a scholarly paper, that will be extensively circulated around through the Internet by anti-Scientologists - just as his paper on the RPF is being circulated, and the papers debunking it ignored.

University of Virginia Religious Movements Homepage Project moving to Douglas E. Cowan site

Dr. Cowan will be overseeing the ongoing development of the Web site and its migration to servers at his home institution. As this process is expected to take some time, researchers may wish to consult an archived version, at web.archive.

Scholars Criticize Scientology

Scholars, often defamed as "cult apologists" by critics are in fact very good at criticizing cults as well when they get their mind to it. Here is an a very good critic of Scientology by two Scholars, Bromley and Cowan.

Increase of Neutral Sites on Google Top 10 on Scientology

Google top 10 on Scientology used to be replete with critical web sites. Now only xenu.net and scientology-lies.com remain. A good trend is that relatively neutral web sites now figure prominently on the top ten: Wikipedia (which is even on 2nd place now ahead of xenu.net), religioustolerance.org (4th), and beliefnet.com (5th). The rest are official Scientology web sites (four in total).

ICSA

FAIR, the UK anti-cult group has a website, as does the International Cultic Studies Association, with some potentially interesting papers about fanaticism and the fact that each side may be softening up their respective approach by inviting "cult apologists" to their conferences:

"In the late 1990s a dialogue began between a handful of critics and sympathizers (much credit goes to Dr. Eileen Barker for initiating this dialogue). This dialogue has resulted in many private conversations (personal and e-mail) and talks at the “other camp’s” conferences. ICSA conference speakers in recent years have included Nancy Ammerman, Dick Anthony, Massimo Introvigne, Phil Lucas, Gordon Melton, Burke Rochford, and, of course, Eileen Barker. These exchanges have, I hope, caused at least some of us to revise our thinking about contentious issues."

Groupthink

Groupthink - a phenomenon that fit to a tee to both cults and rabid critics alike.

Eiser's Cultic Characteristics

Social Psychologist J. R. Eiser, has a good description of cultic characteristics that can be applied to many groups, including Scientology and Anonymous.

Scholarly Papers on Scientology

Good compilation on scholarly papers on Scientology.