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June 13-14, 2003,
 Orange, CA

Conference: Understanding Cults and New Religious Movements -- Perspectives of Researchers, Professionals, Former Members, and Families

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Presenters  

Listed below are first the presenters and their affiliations and then the presenters with one-paragraph biographical sketches, when available.

 

Presenters with Affiliations

 

Richard Abanes, Religion journalist and author of nearly a dozen books on cults and new religious movements

Lourdes Arguelles, Ph.D.  Professor of Education and Women Studies, Claremont Graduate University, CA

Livia Bardin, M.S.W., Clinical Social Worker in private practice, Washington, D.C.

Rachel Bernstein, MS.Ed., M.F.T., Marriage and family therapist in private practice, Los Angeles, CA

Chanon Bloch, L.C.S.W., psychotherapist in private practice, Los Angeles, CA

Miriam Williams Boeri, Ph.D., Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University

Harold Bussell, D.Div. Senior Pastor, El Montecito Presbyterian Church, Santa Barbara, CA

Paul Carden, Executive Director, Centers for Apologetics Research, San Juan Capistrano, California

Cliff Cheng, Ph.D., School of Religion, University of Southern California

David Clark, Thought Reform Consultant; AFF Video Education Committee Chair, Philadelphia, PA

Katherine Clemons, a former member of the Jim Roberts Group, is a seminar organizer, communications coordinator, and special assignments teacher for the Eagles Home School Group in Las Vegas, NV

Mary Jo Cysewski, M.A., M.F.T., Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice, Beverly Hills, CA

Kathleen Danielsen, Software engineer, San Francisco, CA

Zixian Deng, Department of Political Science, University of North Texas

Sarah Edmonds, Ph.D., Psychology Faculty, Northcentral University, Prescott, AZ

Vincent Egan, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist and Director of the Postgraduate Forensic Psychology Programme, Department of Psychology, Glasgow Caledonian University City Campus

Andrea Moore Emmett, Journalist, Salt Lake City, Utah

Ronald Enroth, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California

Jorge Erdely, Ph.D., Director, Centro de Investigaciones, Instituto Cristiano de Mexico, Mexico City

David Foy, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University

Carol Giambalvo, Director of Recovery Programs, AFF; Thought Reform Consultant, Flagler Beach, FL

Jim Guerra. Former member of the Jim Roberts Group and author of From Dean's List to Dumpsters: Why I Left Harvard to Join a Cult

John Hochman, M.D.  Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA

Massimo Introvigne, Center for Studies on New Religions, Torino, Italy

Joseph Kelly, Thought Reform Consultant, Philadelphia, PA

Stephen Kent, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology, University of Alberta

Fuzuki Kuroda, M.A., Clinical Psychologist, Graduate School of Sociology, Kansai University, Japan

Janja Lalich, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology, California State University, Chico

Michael Langone, Ph.D., Executive Director, AFF; Editor, Cultic Studies Review

Lawrence Levy, Esq., Attorney in private practice, Sherman Oaks, CA

Ronald Loomis, Cult Educational Consultant, New London, Connecticut

J. Anna Looney, Department of Sociology, Rutgers University

Samuel Luo, San Francisco, CA

Rod Marshall, Ph.D., Dean of Faculty of Applied Social Sciences and Humanities, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, Wycombe, and FAIR, England

Paul Martin, Ph.D., Director, Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, Albany, Ohio

Cesar Mascarenas, M.D., Professor and Researcher, Faculty of Post-Graduate Medicine, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico

Julia McNeil is co-founder and director of the Safe Passage Foundation

Kimiaki Nishida, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Social Psychology, University of Shizuoka, Japan

K. Gordon Neufeld, M.F.A., Freelance Writer, Calgary, Alberta

Chris Olson, a former member of the Jim Roberts Group, is a clergy intern in St. Paul, MN

Anne M. Rivero, L.C.S.W., Psychiatric Social Worker, Kaiser Permanente of Southern California

Herbert Rosedale, Esq., President, AFF; Senior Counselor, Gilchrist & Jenkins Parker Chapin, New York City

Patrick Ryan, Thought Reform Consultant, Philadelphia, PA

Yoshihide Sakurai, M.A., Department of Sociology, Hokkaido University, Japan

Marina Sarran, Department of Sociology, University of California at Santa Cruz

Alan Scheflin, J.D., L.L.M., Professor of Law, Santa Clara University Law School, Santa Clara, California

Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, Writer and former Editor, Gentle Spirit Magazine, Gig Harbor, WA

Scott Shaw, former Vineyard member, Chucamonga, CA

Shingo Takahashi, M.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Toho University, Japan

Elizabeth Wang, M.D., Research Scientist, Scion Pharmaceuticals, Boston, MA

Jonibeth Whitney, Ph.D., Psychotherapist, Los Angeles, California

Doni Whitsett, Ph.D., L.C.S.W., Clinical Associate Professor, School of Social Work, University of Southern California; psychotherapist in private practice, Encino, CA

Benjamin Zablocki, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University

 

 

Presenters' Biographical Sketches

 

Richard Abanes, religion journalist and author of nearly a dozen books on cults and new religious movements, including American Militias: Rebellion, Racism, and Religion (1996). In 1997 he received the The Myers Center Award for the Study of Human Rights in North America for his "outstanding work on intolerance in North America."

 

Dr. Lourdes Arguelles, Ph.D. (New York University) is Professor of Women Studies and Education at Claremont Graduate University, California. A leading voice in human rights for Latino immigrants in the United States, she currently focuses on the fields of interdisciplinary studies, communities and the impact of religious globalization.  She holds a post-graduate certification in clinical psychology from the University of York, Canada, and has worked extensively as a psychotherapist for political refugees from around the world who have been victims of torture and terrorism.

 

Livia Bardin, M.S.W., Therapist, Clinical Social Worker. Ms. Bardin specializes in cult-related cases. A member of the Family Therapy Practice Academy of the Clinical Social Work Federation, she chairs AFF's Family Workshop Advisory Board and since 1997 has presented  AFF-sponsored workshops for family and friends of cult members. Ms. Bardin has provided trainings on cult-related issues for mental health professionals in the Washington area and is the author of Coping with Cult Involvement, a handbook for families and friends of cult members. (liviabardin@aol.com)

 

Rachel Bernstein, MS.Ed., L.M.F.T., is a marriage and family therapist in private practice in Los Angeles, where she runs a monthly support group for former cult members. She is the former coordinator of the Cult Clinic in Los Angeles, and The Maynard Bernstein Resource Center on Cults. She counseled families and former members at the Cult Hotline and Clinic in New York, developed their Speaker's Bureau, and facilitated the support group for families of those in cults.

 

Arnold Chanon Bloch is a psychotherapist with a Master's degree in Social Work from the University of Southern California and a Master's degree in Jewish Communal Service from Hebrew Union College. His many years of clinical experience include helping families develop strategies for reaching out to loved ones engaged in destructive group situations and helping cult victims recover from trauma.  Mr. Bloch works with children, adolescents, and adults in individual, couple, group, and family modalities. Groups he facilitates include groups for fathers and sons, couples, and adolescents. Mr. Bloch has appeared on numerous radio and television shows as an expert on the subject of vulnerability to destructive influences, such as missionary groups, cults, and gangs. A former coordinator/therapist at the Los Angeles Cult Clinic, he co-authored an article entitled "From Consultation to Therapy in a Group for Parents of Cultists," which was published in Social Casework.

 

Miriam Williams Boeri joined The Children of God/The Family in 1971 as a young college student. In 1988, while living in Italy, she left the group along with her five children and returned to the United States to continue an interrupted education. This year she finished her graduate studies in Sociology and receives a hard-earned doctorate. Boeri also wrote a book about her experiences in the cult, Heaven’s Harlots: My Fifteen Years as a Sacred Prostitute in the Children of God Cult, published in 1998. An article she wrote about the experiences of former members of this cult will be published this year in the June issue of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.  (miriamwilliams@mindspring.com)

 

Rev. Dr. Harold L. Bussell received an M.A. in Psychology from Santa Clara University in 1974 and a D.Div. in 1980 from Andover Newton Theological Seminary in Massachusetts.  He established a drug rehabilitation center in Paris, France in 1968-1970, was a pastor in Saratoga, California from 1970-1976, served as Dean of Students at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts from 1976-1988, and was the Senior Pastor of the First Congregational Church in Hamilton, Massachusetts from 1984-1996. Since 1996 he has been Senior Pastor at El Montecito Presbyterian Church in Santa Barbara, California. He is the author of Unholy Devotion and By Hook or By Crook, as well as numerous articles in a variety of journals, magazines, and newspapers.

 

Paul Carden is the executive director of the Centers for Apologetics Research in San Juan Capistrano, California.  He has more than 20 years’ experience in the field of cult-related research and outreach.

 

Cliff Cheng, Ph.D. (University of Southern California) is a social scientist who does research on cults and discrimination at the University of Southern California School of Religion. He has taught at the University of California Irvine and UCLA. He has published or presented over 140 papers. In 1998 he was named Ascendant Scholar by the Western Academy of Management. He previously served as Los Angeles City Human Relations Commissioner.

 

David Clark, Thought Reform Consultant, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Mr. Clark has been active in this field for more than 20 years and is the chair of AFF’s Video Education Committee.  Mr. Clark is on the Board of the Leo J. Ryan Education Foundation and reFOCUS.  He was a contributing author for the exit counseling chapter in the W.W. Norton book, Recovery from Cults. In 1985 he received the Hall of Fame Award from the "original" Cult Awareness Network.  He was a founding member of the "original" Focus and reFOCUS, a national support network for former cult members.  He has been a national and international conference speaker on the topic of cults and has been interviewed by newspapers, radio, and TV stations on the topic of mind control and cults for over two decades. (cultspecs2@comcast.net)

 

Katherine Clemons joined the Jim Roberts Group at its inception in 1971, and left in 1978.  Since leaving JRG, known for its repression of women, Katherine has been involved as the president of her own company and in key leadership roles within the church community.  Katherine also serves as a seminar organizer, communications coordinator, and special assignments teacher for the Eagles Home School Group in Las Vegas.  She is the Founder and Moderator for two websites: one for former members of the JRG, and one for both former members and families with children yet remaining in the cult.

 

Mary Jo Cysewski, M.A., M.F.T., is a marriage and family therapist in private practice in Los Angeles, where she provides individual and family therapy.  Ms. Cysewski specializes in cult-related cases.  She also provides monthly support groups for former cult members and for families who have a loved one who is involved in a cult. 

 

Kathleen Danielson, currently a software engineer in the Silicon Valley, was raised by fundamentalist missionaries. She is interested in contributing to research of traumatic abuse and psychological manipulation within fundamentalist religions, particularly with respect to children who are born and raised under its influence.

 

Zixian Deng is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, University of North Texas.  He specializes in civil societies, human rights development, and the state, and has training in religion and philosophy.  His publications include "Measuring Tolerance" (co-author, forthcoming Social Science Quarterly).  He began publishing his research on Falungong in early 1999 (see www.wys.org/pages/falun.html) and has since written extensively on its development and has participated in various debates on its theological foundation. (dengzixian@hotmail.com)

 

Sarah Edmonds, Ph.D. is currently a full time faculty member at Northcentral University, an online distance learning institution. She received her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Syracuse University in 1993 and is a licensed psychologist in Arizona and California. She has published research in the area of traumatic loss and has given public talks on abuse of power within the psychotherapy relationship. She was a member of a new age/eastern religious group, Sri Chinmoy, for 5 years.

 

Vincent Egan, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, directs the post-graduate forensic psychology courses at Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland.  A chartered clinical and forensic psychologist, he was lead psychologist on a personality disorder assessment and treatment unit in a Medium Secure Unit for mentally disordered offenders. His main current research areas are assessing criminogenic cognitions and the pathognomic significance of unusual and extreme interests and belief systems.  He is author of almost 50 publications and has been a member of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences for almost 20 years.  He has previous (academic) lives in the field of mental speed models of human cognition and the effects of HIV on the central nervous system.

 

Andrea Moore Emmett is a journalist and researcher.  She was the researcher for the two hour A&E documentary, Inside Polygamy, and has provided research for ABC's 20/20.  Moore Emmett is the recipient of five Headliners Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism Awards and a Utah Professional Chapter of Women in Communications Leading Changes Award. Moore Emmett has spoken across the country concerning abuses against women and children within polygamy and has just finished a book, to be published soon, detailing the lives of women who have left the religious groups who practice this lifestyle.

 

Ronald Enroth, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA.  An acknowledged national resource person on cults and new religious movements, Dr. Enroth has spent more than twenty-five years researching and writing in the area of the sociology of religion.  In addition to many journal and magazine articles, he has authored or co-authored nine books, including two on the topic of abusive churches.

 

Jorge Erdely, Ph.D. is Editor of the Latin American Journal for the Academic Study of Religions, a pluralistic, multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed periodical that focuses on religious globalization and human rights in the Hispanic context. He is the author of several published scientific papers and ten books on extreme religious groups, theology, and human rights. Among them, the international best-seller: Pastores que Abusan, Suicidios Colectivos Rituales and his latest, Terrorismo Religioso. In 2001 Dr. Erdely was a post-doctoral Oxford Theological Foundation Research Fellow. He is currently Director of the Research Center of the Mexican Christian Institute and a member of the Asociacion Latinoamericana para el Estudio de las Religiones, the regional affiliate of the International Association for the History of Religion (IAHR).

 

David Foy, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology, Graduate School of Education and Psychology, Pepperdine University.  Dr. Foy is also adjunct professor of psychology, Headington Program in International Trauma, Fuller Theological Seminary, and senior research consultant, National Center for PTSD, Menlo Park Division. He is a recipient of the Robert S. Laufer Memorial Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement, given to an individual or group that has made an outstanding contribution to research in the PTSD field.

 

Carol Giambalvo is an ex-cult member who has been a Thought Reform Consultant since 1984 and a cofounder of reFOCUS, a national support network for former cult members.  She is on AFF’s Board of Directors, Director of AFF’s Recovery Programs, and is responsible for its Project Outreach.  Author of Exit Counseling: A Family Intervention, co-editor of The Boston Movement: Critical Perspectives on the International Churches of Christ, and co-author of “Ethical Standards for Thought Reform Consultants,” Ms. Giambalvo has written and lectured extensively on cult-related topics.  (affcarol@worldnet.att.net)

 

Jim Guerra, a former member of the Jim Robert's group, was recruited from Harvard College in 1976 and spent 10 years hitchhiking around the country, seeking converts to this vagabond Christian ministry.  He left the group in 1986, returned to school, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from University of Maryland in 1989. After graduating he wrote From Dean's List to Dumpsters: Why I Left Harvard to Join a Cult.  He has appeared with Charlie Rose, and spoken extensively about his experience on college campuses, public schools, churches and synagogues.  An avid Dodger fan, Jim carefully selected the woman who was to become the Dodger's Assistant Director of Player Development for his wife. Married to Luchy, and blessed with two children, Jim now resides in La Verne, California. Professionally, Jim teaches mathematics in Claremont, California, and organizes short-term mission trips for his church to Mexico.

 

John Hochman, M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine.

 

Massimo Introvigne, Jur.D. is a partner in one of Italy's largest law firms and a member of the "Religions" division of the Italian Association of Sociology. He is the author of more than thirty books and one hundred articles in international journals on the sociology and history of religious movements, and has been the chief editor of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy (2001).

 

Joseph F. Kelly, a thought reform consultant since 1988, spent 14 years in two different eastern meditation groups. He has lectured extensively on cult-related topics, and is a co-author of “Ethical Standards for Thought Reform Consultants,” published in AFF’s Cultic Studies Journal.  (freecognition@mindspring.com)

 

Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, University of Alberta, teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the sociology of religion and the sociology of sectarian groups. He has published articles in Philosophy East and West, Journal of Religious History, British Journal of Sociology, Sociological Inquiry, Sociological Analysis, Canadian Journal of Sociology, Quaker History, Comparative Social Research, Journal of Religion and Health, Cultic Studies Journal, Skeptic, Marbourg Journal of Religion, and Religion.  His current research concentrates on nontraditional and alternative religions.

 

Fuzuki Kuroda, M.A. Clinical Psychologist, Graduate School of Sociology, Kansai University, Japan. Ms. Kuroda is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology. She focuses on the various psychological problems for post-cult trauma syndrome.   Her primary work is counseling ex-members.

 

Janja Lalich, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Chico. Her research and writing has focused on cults and controversial groups, with a specialization in charismatic authority, power relations, ideology, and social control, and issues related to gender and sexuality. Her forthcoming book, Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults, (University of California Press) presents a new approach to understanding cult commitments, and is based on her comparative study of Heaven’s Gate, which committed collective suicide in 1997, and the Democratic Workers Party, a radical left-wing political cult. Other works include being Guest Editor of Women Under the Influence: A Study of Women’s Lives in Totalist Groups (a special issue of Cultic Studies Journal 14,1, 1997); and coauthor of “Crazy” Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work? (Jossey-Bass, 1996); Cults in Our Midst (Jossey-Bass, 1995); and Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships (Hunter House, 1994).  (JLalich@csuchico.edu)

 

Michael D. Langone, Ph.D., a counseling psychologist, is AFF’s Executive Director.  He was the founder editor of Cultic Studies Journal (CSJ), the editor of CSJ’s successor, Cultic Studies Review, and editor of Recovery From Cults.  He is co-author of Cults: What Parents Should Know and Satanism and Occult-Related Violence: What You Should Know.  Dr. Langone has spoken and written widely about cults.  In 1995, he received the Leo J. Ryan Award from the "original" Cult Awareness network and was honored as the Albert V. Danielsen visiting Scholar at Boston University.  (aff@affcultinfoserve.com)

 

Lawrence Levy, Esq., a trial attorney in Southern California, has been involved in “cult” litigation for over twenty years.  He has represented clients against Church Universal & Triumphant, Scientology, Hare Krishna, The Way International, and other groups.

 

Ronald N. Loomis has been educating others about cults for some 25 years at over 100 colleges and universities throughout the US and Canada.  He is a Past President of the original Cult Awareness Network (CAN) and was a founding member of the Steering Committee of the International Cult Education Program (ICEP) and was Chair of the Interim Planning Committee (IPC), which created the Leo J. Ryan Education Foundation (LJREF) and the Cult Information and Resource Center (CIRC), (CULTINFO). In 1999, he served as a principle expert witness for the Legislative Task Force on Cults in Maryland.  He has been cited in such publications as The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Congressional Quarterly, The Christian Science Monitor, The Toronto Sun and Newsweek Magazine. He has been interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), The Today Show at the request of NBC News, The Discovery Channel, ABC Productions, and Current Affair. He is featured in the educational video, Cults, Saying No Under Pressure, and he authored a chapter in the book Cults on Campus.  He has been an expert advisor to The Roberts Group Parents Network (TRGPN) since it was founded in 1997.  (rloomis07@SNET.NET)

 

J. Anna Looney is in the final stage of her doctoral studies in Sociology at Rutgers University. For the last four years, she has worked closely with Ben Zablocki and John Levi Martin as a research assistant in all phases of data collection for the Urban Communes Project, Zablocki's longitudinal panel study begun in 1974. Looney is currently concentrating on the study of New Religious Movements. She has taught undergraduate courses in Social Gerontology, Sociology of the Family, and the Sociology of Women. looney@sociology.rutgers.edu

 

Samuel Luo is a certified massage therapist working in San Francisco. In 1999, Sam’s parents were both recruited by the Falun Gong in San Francisco. Since then, his parents have suffered serious physical and mental harm because of their involvement in the Falun Gong. After his stepfather had a stroke in January 2002, Sam committed himself to revealing the truth about the Falun Gong. Since then he has been researching information about this group.

 

Rod Marshall, Ph.D.(Nottm) teaches Psychology at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College in Wycombe, England, where he is head of the Department of Human Sciences and Acting Dean of Faculty, Applied Social Sciences and Humanities. His principal research is on the psychological effects of cultic group membership, social influence in organizational settings, and the psychological processes involved in social group identity and prejudice. He is also a member of Politics, Psychology Resistance, a UK group of researchers, practitioners, and clients working against the harmful effects of psychology, including within the mental health system, as well as a member of the national committee of FAIR (Family, Action, Information, Resource), UK.  (rod.marshall@bcuc.ac.uk)

 

Paul Martin, Ph.D., a former member and leader of Great Commission International (currently called Great Commission Association of Churches), is a psychologist and Director of the Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center in Albany, Ohio, a residential rehabilitation center for ex-cult members.  Dr. Martin is author of Cult-Proofing Your Kids.  He has written numerous articles on cults, including several contributions to Cultic Studies Journal, and has been interviewed by many newspapers and radio and TV stations concerning cults.

 

Cesar Mascarenas, M.D., is Director of Medical Research, Research Center of the Mexican Christian Institute, and Dean and Professor, Post-graduate Studies and Research Department, School of Medicine, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. (cesar.mascarenas@aventis.com)

 

Julia McNeil was born and raised in The Family (formerly the Children of God). She left the group when she was 20, and has spent the last six years as a project manager specializing in web based application development. She is the founder and administrator of an online support group for young people who were also born and raised in The Family, and is a co-founder and director of the Safe Passage Foundation, an organization incorporated in May 2003 that provides support and advocacy for people raised in restrictive and isolated communities.

 

Raymundo Meza Aceves, Esq. is Director of the Departamento de Investigaciones sobre Abusos Religiosos, a México City based Human Rights organization. He graduated as a lawyer from the prestigious Escuela de Estudios Superiores of the National University of Mexico and specialized in Criminal Law. He holds Post-graduate Diplomas in Human Rights by UNESCO and the Department of Political Science of UNAM. Mr. Meza is the author of several research works on religious pluralism, government corruption and religious crime. He is a legal consultant to several Latin American NGO’s and Human Rights Organizations and is frequently consulted by national and international media covering both, religious discrimination and religious violence. His must recent published work (November 2002) are two chapters in the book Rostros de la Impunidad, a survey on gender violence by civil and religious leaders, both cultic and mainstream. (Mexico City: RNCV, 2002).

 

K. Gordon Neufeld, M.F.A., graduated from the University of British Columbia with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing in 1997 and a B.A. in English in 1976. A freelance writer, he is the author of Heartbreak and Rage: Ten Years Under Sun Myung Moon (College Station, TX: VirtualBookworm.com, Inc., 2002). He is a regular contributor of book reviews to Books in Canada magazine, and has published in the Vancouver Sun, the Calgary Herald, and the Baltimore City Paper. His opinion piece about the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s mass marriages appeared in First Things magazine in January, 2003.  He is working on a novel and a collection of short stories.

 

Kimiaki Nishida, Ph.D., a social psychologist in Japan, is Associate Professor at the University of Shizuoka and a Director of the Japan Cult Recovery Council. He is a leading Japanese cultic studies scholar and the editor of Japanese Journal of Social Psychology. His studies on psychological manipulation by cults were awarded prizes by several academic societies in Japan. And he has been summoned to some courts for explaining "cult mind control." (nishidak@u-sjozuoka-ken.ac.jp)

 

Chris Olson was a member in the Jim Roberts Group in 1971. After spending several years in business, Chris earned a Bachelors Degree in Organizational Management from Colorado Christian University.  In 1998 she earned a Master's of Divinity from Yale University, and is currently a chaplain intern in St. Paul, MN.  She will soon enter a Master's program in Counseling and Psychotherapy.

 

Anne M. Rivero received her Bachelor's degree in Psychology and her Master's degree in Social Work at the University of California in Los Angeles, where she also worked as a social worker in the Neuro-psychiatric Institute. Ms. Rivero also worked as a psychiatric social worker with Latino immigrants suffering from severe psychopathology at the Los Angeles County Hospital, which at that time was affiliated with the School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. For the last ten years, Ms. Rivero has been a psychiatric social worker at Kaiser Permanente in Southern California. Ms. Rivero has published articles in several edited books and in the Journal of Urban Anthropology dealing with transnational migration and mental health. She is a licensed psychiatric social worker in the State of California.

 

Herbert L. Rosedale, Esq., President of AFF, is with Jenkens & Gilchrist & Parker Chapin in New York City.  He has written several articles on cults and the law, contributed a chapter to Recovery From Cults, and is co-editor of The Boston Movement: Critical Perspectives on the International Churches of Christ.  Mr. Rosedale has lectured widely on cults and was the Executive in Residence at the School of Business, Indiana University in 1992. 

 

Patrick Ryan, a former member of Transcendental Meditation, has been a thought reform consultant since 1984. He designs and implements AFF's Internet Web site.  Mr. Ryan is the founder and former head of TM-ex, the organization of ex-members of TM.  He has contributed to AFF’s book, Recovery From Cults, and has presented programs about hypnosis and trance-induction techniques at several AFF workshops and conferences.  (Patrick.ryan@affcultinfoserve.com)

 

Yoshihide Sakurai is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Hokkaido University, Hokkaido, Japan. He is also an executive board member of the Japan Cult Recovery Council. He has been conducting research on the cult controversy in Japan, especially the Unification Church of Japan.

 

Marina Sarran was born and raised in Italy and currently speaks four languages. As a comparative sociologist, she has been working with Dr. Dane Archer on several cross-cultural research projects at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research interests include sexuality, verbal and nonverbal communication, violence, social control, power and policies in total institutions.

 

Alan W. Scheflin, J.D., LL.M., is Professor of Law at Santa Clara University Law School in California.  Among his many publications is Memory, Trauma Treatment, and the Law (co-authored with Daniel Brown and D. Corydon Hammond), for which he received the 1999 Guttmacher Award from the American Psychiatric Association.  Professor Scheflin is also the 1991 recipient of the Guttmacher Award for Trance on Trial (with Jerrold Shapiro).  A member of the Editorial Advisory Board of AFF’s Cultic Studies Review, Professor Scheflin received the 2001 American Psychological Association, Division 30 (Hypnosis), Distinguished Contribution to Professional Hypnosis Award. This is the "highest award that Division 30 can bestow." He was also awarded in 2001 The American Board of Psychological Hypnosis, Professional Recognition Award. This Award was created to honor his achievements in promoting the legal and ethical use of hypnosis.

 

Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff is a writer, speaker, and early pioneer of the home schooling movement in the U.S. She was the editor of Gentle Spirit Magazine, a magazine for home schooling mothers, from 1989 through 2001.  She has spoken and published extensively in the areas of home schooling, the history of home schooling, home birth, homesteading, the "simple living" movement, and women's issues.  Excommunicated and driven out of business by national leaders of the religious home schooling movement in 1994, Seelhoff filed and won a lawsuit against them in federal court in 1998.  Seelhoff is the mother of 11 children and has home schooled her children for 20 years.

 

Scott Shaw is a former actor and 10-year member of the Vineyard Anaheim.  He spent 3 years in the core group.

 

Shingo Takahashi, M.D., Ph.D., is a director of the Japan Council to Combat Cults, founded in 1995. He studied cultural psychiatry in Honolulu (East-West Center) and religious psychopathology at Heidelberg University after completing his Ph.D. at the graduate school of Toho University. He has published five books on possession syndrome (Kitsunetsuki, i.e., fox-possession), magical healing, and psychopathy. He is also a criminologist and profiler for murder investigations. He has written approximately 200 original papers in psychiatry (regrettably, all in Japanese) and is a TV commentator on criminological and psychological matters.

 

Elizabeth Wang, M.D. practiced as an ophthalmologist in China and served as a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Health and a Research Associate at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute of Harvard Medical School.  She is now working at Scion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., as a Scientist.

 

Jonibeth Whitney, Ph.D.  Dr. Whitney received her degree in multicultural/community clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology. For her doctoral dissertation she examined the relationship between childhood abuse and the severity of subsequent cult experiences.  She also co-authored “The Individual Cult Experience Index: The Assessment of Cult Involvement and Its Relationship to Postcult Distress,” published in Cultic Studies Journal. Dr. Whitney works in private practice and is involved in cult-related research.

 

Doni Whitsett, Ph.D, L.C.S.W.. is a Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Southern California, teaching various courses in Practice, Behavior, and Mental Health. She also has a private practice in the San Fernando Valley. Dr. Whitsett has been working with cult-involved clients and their families for over ten years, and gives lectures to students and professionals in this area. Her publications include “A Self psychological Approach to the Cult Phenomenon” (Journal of Social Work, 1992) and “Cults and Families” (Families in Society – in press), which she co-authored with Dr. Stephen Kent.

 

Benjamin D. Zablocki, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University has been studying cults, communes, and charisma for 36 years.  He is the author of The Joyful Community (1971) and Alienation and Charisma (1980) as well as numerous articles on these topics.  He is co-editor (with Thomas Robbins) of a book, Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field, published in 2001 by University of Toronto Press.  This book attempts to find a middle ground between the theories of the “cult apologists” and the theories of the “anti-cultists.”  (zablocki@sociology.rutgers.edu.)