Jean-Marie Abgrall

Jean-Marie Abgrall
Born April 12, 1950
Toulon, France
Occupation psychiatrist, author, cult consultant
Known for Brainwashing theories

Jean-Marie Abgrall, born April 12, 1950 in Toulon, France, where he still lives.,[1] is a French psychiatrist, criminologist, specialist in forensic medicine, cult consultant, graduate in criminal law and well-known[2] anti-cultist. He has been an expert witness[3] at the Supreme Court of Appeal and Court for Businesses in France on the subject of cults.

Various groups, including the Aumism movement and the Belgian Raelian Movement, have opposed Abgrall.[4][5]

Dick Anthony and Thomas Robbins have written that in their view, Abgrall's theories of brainwashing are pseudoscientific, and so unsuitable for use as a basis for legal judgments in cases involving cult membership. They qualify Abgrall as the "leading psychiatric consultant to government agencies and legislative bodies concerned with controlling and suppressing non-traditional religions", noting that Abgrall's brainwashing theory has served as the primary psychiatric rationale for anti-cult laws,governmental rulings, and legal cases brought against alleged cults in Europe. Abgrall is has also had an impact on former communist countries throughthe dissemination of official governmental reports from Franc and Belgium that he helped produce.[6]

In 1996, the French government set up an Observatory body to investigate cults and sects, the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France. Abgrall was a "key actor" in these investigations, preparing official reports in France and Belgium, and was an active anti-cult movement spokesperson in the European media, in particular television.[7]

According to Dick Anthony, Abgrall emerged as a key "cult expert" in France, because he was the first psychiatrist in France willing to embrace brainwashing theories.[8] He describes Abgrall's theories as "essentially identical to the pseudoscientific theory that was developed first by the American CIA as a propaganda device to combat communism, and second as an ideological device for use by the American anti-cult movement to rationalize efforts at persecution and control of minority religious groups".

References

  1. ↑ Chemineau, Sophie (12 February 2003). "Un interview de Jean-Marie Abgrall - Tous manipulés, tous manipulateurs". Metro (Paris) (in French). Retrieved 2014-09-23.
  2. ↑ James T. Richardson and Massimo Introvigne Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion Vol. 40, No. 2 (Jun., 2001), pp. 143-168
  3. ↑ COIGNARD, SOPHIE; DELOIRE, CHRISTOPHE (17 September 1999). "L'impuissance publique, actualité Société - Le Point". lepoint.fr (in French). Retrieved 2014-09-23.
  4. ↑ Procès Raël contre Jean-Marie Abgrall at the Wayback Machine (archived July 15, 2011)
  5. ↑ Voyage Au Pays Des Nouveaux Gourous, 2004 France 3 documentary on Landmark Education, Abgrall appears as expert commentator
  6. ↑ Dick Anthony; Thomas Robbins (2004). James T. Richardson, ed. Pseudoscience versus Minority Religions. Regulating Religion: Case Studies from Around the Globe (Springer). p. 144. ISBN 978-0-306-47887-1.
  7. ↑ Shupe, A.D. and S.E. Darnell. 2006. Agents of Discord: Deprogramming, Pseudo-Science, And the American Anticult Movement: Transaction Publishers. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Z16H14GXUY8C.
  8. ↑ Anthony, Dick. 1999. "Pseudoscience and Minority Religions: An Evaluation of the Brainwashing Theories of Jean-Marie Abgrall." Social Justice Research 12 (4): 421-456. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A%3A1022081411463. doi: 10.1023/A:1022081411463

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