ANTI-CULT MOVEMENT

   an North American movement involving parents, friends and ex-members of NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. The movement has spread worldwide and invokes the notion of BRAINWASHING to explain CONVERSION to new RELIGIONS. Through the skillful use of media, especially television, it has become a powerful social force and is seen by many social scientists as an essentially anti-religious movement with profound implications for all religious GROUPS and a threat to religious FREEDOM. The Anti-Cult movement bases its theories about brainwashing ultimately on the work of British psychiatrist William SARGENT whose book The Battle for the Mind (1957), was a violent attack of EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY provoked by the success of the BILLY GRAHAM CRUSADES in England.