{"id":151718,"date":"2024-03-17T18:33:22","date_gmt":"2024-03-17T18:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/?p=151718"},"modified":"2024-03-17T18:33:22","modified_gmt":"2024-03-17T18:33:22","slug":"the-police-raids-against-misa-in-france-november-28-2023-5-the-anti-cult-ideology-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/the-police-raids-against-misa-in-france-november-28-2023-5-the-anti-cult-ideology-in-france\/","title":{"rendered":"The Police Raids Against MISA in France, November 28, 2023. 5. The Anti-Cult Ideology in France"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Susan J. Palmer<\/em><\/p>\n

France is unique among democratic countries in promoting a state-sponsored anti-cult ideology, based on discredited theories of \u201cbrainwashing\u201d and \u201cconsciousness control.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 5 of 5. Part 4 of 5. Read 1st part<\/a>, 2nd part<\/a>, 3rd part<\/a> and 4th part<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To understand the charges against Bivolaru and MISA members in France, one needs to deconstruct the notion of \u201cabus de faiblesse<\/em>\u201d within the socio-political context of the 2001 About-Picard law (often referred to as \u201cFrance\u2019s brainwashing law\u201d). This law was passed by the National Assembly in May 2001. Its co-sponsors were centrist Senator Nicholas About and Catherine Picard, a socialist deputy in the National Assembly.<\/p>\n

\"\"
How the French anti-cult ideology imagines the \u201cgourou\u201d indoctrinating his followers (AI-generated).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This law of 2001 was a strategical move by France\u2019s government-sponsored anti-cult movement to control the \u201cproblem of cults.\u201d The purpose of the 2001 law was to enable the state to prosecute \u201ccult leaders\u201d (labelled as \u201cgourous<\/em>\u201d in France) who (putatively) harm their followers through the power of consciousness manipulation. This law created the new crime called \u201cabus de faiblesse<\/em>\u201d that pointed to the exploitation of vulnerable followers by ruthless charismatic leaders of \u201ccults,\u201d whose influence was predicted to lead inexorably to various forms of social deviance: fraud, physical and psychological abuse, mass suicide, psychic illness, pedophilia, money laundering, and the illegal practice of medicine. Any \u201ccult\u201d leader found guilty of \u201cabus frauduleux de l\u2019\u00e9tat d\u2019ignorance ou de faiblesse<\/em>\u201d (fraudulent abuse of a state of ignorance or weakness) can be liable to a five-year prison sentence and fines of up to 750,000 euros.<\/p>\n

The first application of the 2001 law was in October 2004, when Arnaud Mussy stood on trial before the Tribunal Correctionnel of Nantes, charged with \u201cabus de faiblesse<\/em>.\u201d As the prophet\/leader of the tiny Theosophical group N\u00e9o-Phare, he was accused of \u201cpsychically manipulating\u201d a vulnerable follower to commit suicide. Mussy was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison (suspended) and fined 115,000 Euros.<\/p>\n

This trial received much publicity in France, for it possessed both a legal and pedagogical value. It was a warning to all \u201ccult leaders\u201d to stop \u201cbrainwashing,\u201d and to all French citizens to stop joining \u201cles sectes<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Susan Palmer\u2019s book \u201cThe New Heretics of France: Minority Religions, la R\u00e9publique, and the Government-Sponsored \u2018War on Sects\u2019\u201d (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cCults\u201d are also accused of \u201chuman trafficking\u201d as they allegedly \u201cabuse the weakness\u201d of their followers to make them work for free. It is well-known that voluntary labor (washing dishes and laundry, chopping carrots, or sweeping floors) is commonly practiced in Catholic monasteries (where domestic work is a kind of \u201cworship\u201d) and in Hindu ashrams and Buddhist sanghas (where unpaid domestic labor is understood to be \u201ckarma yoga\u201d and is imbued with a meditative quality). It appears extraordinary that in the past decade we have witnessed a series of police raids on spiritual communes simply (or mostly) because an ex-member has complained of being forced to wash too many dishes (as in the military-style raids on Ananda Assisi in Italy, and on MISA itself in Romania in 2004, and on various spiritual communities in France and Belgium accused of \u201ctravail dissimul\u00e9<\/em>\u201d).<\/p>\n

There are several characteristics of the legal process in \u201cabus de faiblesse<\/em>\u201d cases that appear to undermine the principles of presumption of innocence and the impartiality of the court. First, there is the question of the authenticity and reliability of the alleged victims. It only takes one client or ex-member to file a complaint against a therapist or spiritual master at their local ADFI. This is enough to stimulate investigations and\/or arrests, as an article<\/a> in Le Monde<\/em> pointed out. Questions have been raised concerning the personal motives of some of the self-styled \u201cvictims\u201d and often it turns out they are overprotective parents, or jealous spouses, spurned ex-lovers, or competitive co-workers (a factor in the MISA case as well).<\/p>\n

One serious problem for those charged with \u201cabus de faiblesse<\/em>\u201d is that the lawyers working for the UNADFI or the MIVILUDES, have the power to file complaints on behalf of the alleged victims\u2014without the latter\u2019s assent, or even without their knowledge. When the so-called \u201cvictims\u201d protest they are not victims, the court\u2019s response is often to interpret their denial as proof of \u201cbrainwashing,\u201d since \u201cbrainwashed\u201d people don\u2019t realize they are \u201cbrainwashed.\u201d If their statements are not accepted by the court, it is the job of the Prosecutor to scrounge up additional \u201cvictims.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the case of the alleged \u201cguru\u201d Neelam Makhija\u2019s girlfriend, she pointed out that since the police had conducted surveillance on her phone calls for over a year, the names of people who had called a wrong number to her cell and immediately hung up were included among the prospective clients who were her putative \u201cvictims\u201d\u2014and of course these were complete strangers she had never met or spoken to.<\/p>\n

Finally, the \u201cabus de faiblesse<\/em>\u201d concept relies on the highly-contested theory of \u201cbrainwashing,\u201d called \u201cmanipulation mentale<\/em>\u201d or \u201cemprise<\/em>\u201d in France. The concept of \u201cbrainwashing\u201d dates back to the 1950s and its origins and plausibility as a theory has been amply documented and debated by sociologists and psychologists.<\/p>\n

The scientific validity of the \u201cbrainwashing\u201d theory has been questioned since it fails to pass the test of Karl Popper\u2019s principle of falsifiability. \u201cBrainwashing\u201d is even one of the entries in the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy<\/em> (New York: Facts on File, 2013, 217\u201318).<\/p>\n

Although the public in various countries still embrace \u201cbrainwashing\u201d as if it were a scientific fact that offers a straightforward psychological explanation for a person\u2019s sudden conversion to a radical religious or political movement, since the 1980s the scientific community and the courts have discarded<\/a> \u201cbrainwashing\u201d theory as lacking in scientific rigor. The vagueness of the \u201cbrainwashing\u201d theory, and the inherent difficulty in proving or disproving its claims puts the alleged perpetrator of \u201cabus de faiblesse<\/em>\u201d into what one of my informants described as a \u201cKafkaesque<\/em>\u201d situation.<\/p>\n

The law of 2001 is based on three \u201canticult\u201d stereotypical assumptions:<\/p>\n

1.That all \u201csectes<\/em>\u201d are like organized gangs or cartels: intrinsically evil and ineluctably prone to harmful and criminal activities.<\/p>\n

2.That \u201cgourous<\/em>\u201d tend to be manipulators who have mastered a mysterious, ineluctable technology of consciousness control\/ coercive persuasion\/ \u201cbrainwashing\u201d\u2014which they rely on to convert, control, and exploit their followers.<\/p>\n

3.All \u201ccult members,\u201d due to their \u201cbrainwashed\u201d state, are \u201cvulnerable,\u201d weak, and psychologically helpless, and therefore cannot be held accountable for their regrettable decisions\u2014hence they need to be protected by the state.<\/p>\n

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How the French anti-cult ideology imagines that a \u201cgourou\u201d is \u201cwashing the brains\u201d of the na\u00efve followers (AI-generated).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is important to be aware of the social and political context of the law of 2001. It emerged out of the anti-cult activism of France\u2019s state-sponsored \u201cantisectes<\/em>\u201d movement, which established a series of interministerial missions at the highest level of government, whose stated mandate was \u201cla lutte contre les sectes<\/em>,\u201d \u201cfighting cults.\u201d Hence, one finds a strong bias against new alternative religions written into the About-Picard law. The amendments the government introduced in 2023, creating yet another new crime of \u201cpsychological subjection\u201d in addition to the \u201cabuse of weakness,\u201d the difference being that one can become a victim of \u201cpsychological subjection\u201d without being in a situation of \u201cweakness,\u201d signal the willingness to make the \u201cfight against cults\u201d even tougher.<\/p>\n

However, the new provisions will not be applicable retroactively to Bivolaru. His case is yet another application of the About-Picard law in France\u2019s \u201cwar against the \u2018sectes\u2019<\/em>\u201d and it points to a growing tendency to frame, psychologize, and criminalize the guru-chela<\/em> (master-disciple) relationship, a venerable Hindu tradition, as an \u201cabuse of weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complex legal history of Bivolaru that spans forty years and extends across seven countries has been documented in book-length studies of MISA by Gabriel Andreescu and Massimo Introvigne and has not been recounted in this series. However, these studies make it clear that allegations of rape, prostitution, human trafficking, so eagerly broadcast in the media, have not been supported by the Supreme Court of Sweden in 2005, the European Court of Human Rights in 2014, 2016, 2017, and the Romanian courts themselves. Moreover, the charges against Bivolaru in Finland are based on theories of \u201cbrainwashing\u201d that have been rejected as pseudoscientific in other jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

It appears that France has taken up these old allegations based on the complaints of female apostates and crafted a new, \u201conly in France\u201d case against MISA\u2019s \u201cgourou<\/em>\u201d in which nebulous notions of \u201cabus de faiblesse<\/em>\u201d and \u201cd\u00e9rives sectaires<\/em>\u201d clash with esoteric concepts of sacred eroticism.<\/p>\n

Why is MISA so controversial? Introvigne suggests that there is one \u201cred line\u201d that, in most societies, should not be crossed; that \u201creligion and eroticism should not be offered together.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: <\/em>https:\/\/bitterwinter.org\/the-police-raids-against-misa-in-france-november-28-2023-5-the-anti-cult-ideology-in-france\/<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

**********<\/p>\n

About the author<\/strong><\/p>\n

Susan J. Palmer is an Affiliate Professor in the Religions and Cultures Department at Concordia University in Montreal. She is also directing the Children on Sectarian Religions and State Control project at McGill University, supported by the Social Sciences and the Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). She is the author of twelve books, notably The New Heretics of France<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 2012).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

yogaesoteric
\nMarch 17, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Susan J. Palmer France is unique among democratic countries in promoting a state-sponsored anti-cult ideology, based on discredited theories of \u201cbrainwashing\u201d and \u201cconsciousness control.\u201d Part 5 of 5. Part 4 of 5. Read 1st part, 2nd part, 3rd part and 4th part. To understand the charges against Bivolaru and MISA members in France, one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":151542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-flagrant-violation-of-the-human-rights-1602-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151723,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151718\/revisions\/151723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}