The dangers which the sects present, otherwise called sectarian "drifts," deserve our utmost attention. Indeed, it is these dangers which justify the detailed attention that must carry them to the pubic capacities and, we point out, the creation of our board of inquiry.
It is thus advisable to analyze them in detail.
But before we proceed, it is necessary to clear up a possible misunderstanding: not all spiritual movements other than the traditional religions, movements which are commonly called sects, are dangerous, such as, for example, Baptists, Quakers, and Mormons. Their role can, sometimes, even be regarded as very positive: "You meet the best and the worst in sects (...). Sometimes, by means of the sects, some people find a sense of belonging to a warm friendly group, others find again a direction for their lives, others still are structured. Among my patients, some entered sects. I would not want for them to come out of there for anything in the world, because the sect is used by them temporarily as a tutor."
Thus the commission carefully guarded against making an amalgam between all the existing spiritual groups. It considered that it was to be confined to examine the harmful effects caused by only the dangerous sects. And this, for better trying to release the means of combatting them.
These negative effects were denounced many times, both by the press or by the public authorities themselves. The report of Alain Vivien of 1983, the opinion of the advisory national Commission of Human Rights of December 10, 1993 and the answers of the Government to parliamentary questions testify some, such as, on the international scene, the reports of Mr. Richard Cottrell, the European Parliament, in 1984, or of Sir John Hunt of the Council of Europe, in 1991. Moreover, the Commission noted, during its work, that nobody contradicted the existence of it.
To analyze the danger that run in a certain number of sects, the Commission itself is based mainly on two sources of information, which guarantee greater objectivity, namely judicial court orders and data collected by General Information. It also used, to a lesser extent and with required prudence, direct testimony of former followers.
The followed step reveals that if the court orders testify to many illegalities made by the sects or some their members, they only give a very incomplete account of their multiple dangers.
1.- Many and varied illegalities
From all of the court decisions to which the Commission had access, in particular those provided by the Management of Criminal Affairs and the graces of the Ministry for Justice, it arises that many sects are, during the ten last years, guilty of illegalities. These concern six principal fields:
( It acts, initially, of offences relating to physical attacks on the human person: ill treatments, aggravated assault, sequestration, not assistancing someone in danger, and illegal practice of medicine.
Thus, the County Court of Versailles established, in a decision of February the 8, and 9, 1995 (No 234) that Mr. and Mrs. Mihaes, the leaders of the sect "the Citadel." made themselves guilty, inter alia, of violence on a fifteen year old minor, removal and sequestration. The report of the facts by the court is eloquent:
[This quotation includes legal language which I'm not sure how to translate. I want to be especially careful not to tamper with legal language, so I have used literal translations, even though it may not be a "smooth" translation in English. - translator]
"Waited that Mr. Solomon, who had belonged to this group {Citadel] as from 1974, had left it in 1990, joined a few times later with his wife, whereas their two major children Karen and Pascal as their minor daughter Dana Solomon had remained in the movement;
"That Mr. Solomon and his wife had managed to take again with difficulties their daughter Dana on August 25, 1991, who was then at the ch‰teau of Courcillon (72), in custody of the Mihaes couple;
"That Dana Solomon was to explain that in this community the children were usually separated from their parents and that they underwent various ill treatments which were inflicted upon them, in particular by Mrs. Mihaes, Mrs. Esther Antoine and Mr. Axel Schmidt;
"That she had herself on several occasions been struck, sequestered, forced to fast, and had usually been deprived of sufficient food;
"Await that it be established that, under cover of application of Biblical precepts, the child had been constrained with fasting, with public confession, had been subject to some punishment which, in addition to the blow, can itself exert that Dana Soloman had been in insulation [insulated in the sense of being separated from the outside] as well as having been a victim, retained against her will in the house of the property guard of VŽsinet, without heating during the winter months and given only one extremely frugal meal, but which can also itself exert that Claire Solomon was a victim in the form of a displacement of residence, "in punishment," in the residence of the Bahjejian couple and separated from her brothers and sister.
"Awaited that with regard to more precisely the defendants, it is established that Mrs. Delia Mihaes, who always disputed the charges carried against her, made the facts which are reproached to her in the case, by delivering, very often, with acts of violence with regard to the StŽphane children, Jonathan, CŽline and Claire Antoine, Dana Solomon as well as with regard to her twin sons Octavius and Flavius;
"That it seriously compromised the health and the education of these children in their being made to undergo the deprivations and the [brimades?] previously exposed;
"That it is in addition established that she was made an accomplice to the sequestration exerted on the person of Dana Solomon (..
The County Court of Dijon, in addition, was brought, in a judgement of January 9, 1987 (No 118-87), to condemn the director-assistant of the Narconon center of Grangey- on-Ource for nonassistance to someone in danger. This center, created by the Church of Scientology, proposes detoxification by applying the methods of Ron Hubbard, namely the procedure of "purification," based mainly on several hours of sauna per day, "auditions," and a significant absorption of vitamins. In this case, the victim had been in long-term treatment for epilepsy and had addressed this organization because she wished "to be released from drugs." The center A, without preliminary medical examination, placed her in a "weaning" room. However, the medical experts showed that her death was due to "an epileptic seizure due to the absence of sufficient treatment at its beginning and of emergency treatment during the seizure." The judgement does not leave any doubt about the responsibility of the center:
"That if Jocelyne Dorfmann had made the decision to reduce her consumption of medication, then to stop it with the risk of compromising her health, the defendants had not at any time prevented it of the need for a medical examination of admission, which would have probably made it possible to contra-indicate the cure of weaning; that it is inconceivable that the victim could be accepted without this examination and serious treatment in spite of her declarations as to her health and her epilepsy, whereas the defendants admitted knowing that in the event of serious illness, medical treatment was not to suffer from interruption;
"That if at the time the first crisis occurred, the defendants could mistake its exact nature, the repetition of the crises and their increasing intensity were to evoke to them an origin distinct from a state of lack which, according to medical experts, cannot be confused with an epileptic state;
"That they did not consider it useful to directly ask the victim, while she was still conscious, if these demonstrations could correspond to the epileptic fits to which she had referred or to call upon the nearest doctor (...)"
Several cases of the illegal exercise of medicine, moreover, were observed these last years. One will evoke, for example, the rather significant case of Mr. Main, head of a religious community called "The Good Pasteur[? Pastor?]," who, claiming the title of bishop (he had been ordained as such by ecclesiastics who no longer obeyed Rome after the Council of Vatican II), claimed to cure or relieve his "faithful" by words, prayers, laying on of hands, the use of a pendulum, and practices of exorcism and dŽsenvožtement[?]. The conclusions of the County Court of PŽrigueux, in its decision of June 22, 1994 (No 894), are made without comments: Mr. Main was recognized guilty of illegal exercise of medicine by the County Court of PŽrigueux in a judgement of June 22, 1994.
Thus, for example, the Court of Appeal of Rennes had it, in a decision of 13 February 1993 (Epoux Durand), judged that Mr. and Mrs. Durand, member of the Sahaja Yoga sect, have "seriously compromised by lack of necessary direction the health and security of the child Yoann" and tomb have, so under the blow of article 357.1 of the penal code, by sending the six and a half year old child to India in a school of Dharamsala directed by the followers of this sect. The reasons for the decision deserve to be quoted:
" (...) considering (...) that on the faith of a simple prospectus given at a simple general orientation (...), Domenica and Josette Durand (...) in April 1990 made the decision to send (...) their child Yoann, without accompanying the child on the voyage, to a school of which the content of teaching, in English and Hindi, was not really known to them (...), that they did not offer to the child some guarantee on the exit of this teaching, on conditions and life awaiting the child, of which the file reveals that they were notably in a very hard climatic plan (...) without assuring themselves before the child's departure of whether a medical infrastructure and sanitary arrangements await the child, without even informing themselves as to the nearest doctors specializing in the risks that the child would incur in an area of the world in which serious epidemic diseases essentially unknown in Europe strike, without measuring the risk for a child six and and a half years old of a feeling of abandonment, even of rejection whereas the child knew the birth close relation of another child in the hearth and that this other child maintained particularly privileged relations with its maternal grandparent, the spouse HŽline;
" (...) that the report drawn up by three experts who examined the child on July 5, 1991 noted significant psychic degradations related to brutal and prolonged separation described exactly by the court, while later examinations revealed a clear improvement in a child returned within his family framework and continuing a normal schooling;"
Sometimes, the facts are not also obviously reprehensible. The judge then abstains from condemning the parents/followers directly, but refuses to them the exercise of parental authority or custody. It is in this direction, for example, that ruled the County Court of Avignon on May 25, 1992 (decision No 673/92):
"It certainly does not rest with the Court to come to a conclusion about the benefits or misdeeds of the sect (...) of Jehovah's Witnesses but only, according to "the interest of the minors," (...) to indicate the relative with whom the children have their usual residence and to rule on the exercise of the parental authority.
"After having enumerated part of the impressive list of the interdicts that the followers of this sect - to which Madam does not dispute to have adhered - must respect, Mrs Audoyer notices rightly in the report of social investigation which it deposited that they are likely to block a future for children such as Debora and Flora.
"The education of the children should not indeed consist of one endoctrination based on a particularly cataclysmic vision of the world in which only followers of the sect would be preserved, but on the contrary in an awakening of the spirit, an opening to all the fields of knowledge and all the disciplines, as well as with the relations with others without discrimination of race, religion or ideas.
"In the current state, in order to preserve the present as well as the future of these two children (...), it appears necessary to fix their usual residence with their father who will exert the parental authority (...) "
The sects are, moreover, made guilty many times of slandering, libellous denunciation and violation of the deprived life in the course of recent years.
The Particular Case of the Church of Scientology.
Thus, the County Court of Paris has it, in a judgement of 13 October 1993 (Mr. Abgrall C / Mrs. Lefvre), condemned for slandering Mrs. Lefvre, director of the publication "Ethics and Freedom," one of the reviews of the Church of Scientology.
Indeed, a article in this publication, titled "A Militia of Thought" and dedicated to the Association of Family and Individual Defense [AFDI], made statements concerning the removal and sequestration by members of this association, and in particular of an internment in a psychiatric hospital in 1991 of a Scientologue from Marseilles, carried out with the complicity of J.M. Abgrall, psychiatrist, whereas these allegations have by no means been proved.
In the same way, the Court of Appeal of Douai has, in its decision of 18 March 1982 (No 302), recognized the Hubbard Center of Dianetics guilty of "public slandering, comparable with an insult," to have written the following in reference to the ADFI:
"... It appears vital to me for the freedom of religion and the freedom of thought to denounce and stop the intrigues of this fascist group which draws on all that moves which is new or different..."
One can also evoke the case of a libellous denunciation confirmed by the Supreme Court of Appeal in a [arrt stop?] of April 28, 1987 (A.J.), similar to that of a violation of deprived life by the association "Ethics and Freedom," in a decision returned last 15 March by the County Court of Paris (No 9)
Several jurisdictional decisions also testify to a rather frequent practice of tax evasion by certain associations.
The Supreme Court of Appeal, for example, confirmed in a stop of June 25, 1990 (Blanchard Henri and others) the stop of the Court of Appeal of Paris of January 26, 1988, condemning the President of the Association for the Unification of World Christianity (AUCM), which is the French branch of the Moon sect, for tax evasion. This stop shows in particular that this organization has, under cover of an association with religious goals, carried out significant undeclared benefits:
" (...) Wait that Henri Blanchard has been returned in front of the correctional court for having fraudulently withdrawn the AUCM, of which he is the president, to the establishment and to the payment of corporation tax, and to have knowingly omitted to pass or to make pass in the in the documents holding place of day book [I assume this the French term for an accounting journal, probably what is called a "general ledger" in English] and book of inventory whole or part of writing;
"Wait until (...) the judge stated that the AUCM has only the appearance of an association and that it exerts, by the setting on sale of a newspaper, an activity from which it gets some benefit of which a significant part, not carried in receipt, has been used, via figureheads, for some movable acquisitions or immovable acquisitions ["immovable" is similar to the English "real estate"] occult [this word does not make sense to me in this context, but it is there], of which, for some, the assignment cannot be specified; (...)."
Also convicted of tax evasion, among others, were the International Association for Krishna Consciousness (AICK) (cf in particular the stop of October 19, 1989 of the Court of Appeal of Bourges, No 461/89) and the Church of Scientology (cf in particular the stop of February 3, 1995 of the Court of Appeal of Paris, No 7). There too, these organizations had carried out substantial commercial profits by means of associations which were supposedly not involved with this goal.
In addition, the stop of February 3, 1995 of the Court of Appeals of Paris established that the Church of Scientology presented a liability of about 41 million francs [6,842,900 US Dollars] and put in legal rectification. Moreover, the Commercial Court of Paris pronounced, November 30, 1995, the setting in bankruptcy of the Church of Scientology of Paris, for the unpaid amounts with the tax authorities and the URSSAF of an amount of 48 million francs [8,011,200 US Dollars].
One also notes several cases of swindle, fraud, and breach of trust.
The County Court of Draguignan has thus, in a decision of 20 March 1995 (No 882/95), condemned two people (Mr. Galiano and Mrs. Pison) for swindle, being respectively presented in the form of reincarnation of Christ and the Virgin. And this, for the following reasons:
"As a result thus of all of these element put to examination, by some setting in scene in some public meeting places, have persuaded credulous people of the existence of a supernatural capacity which will allow them to hope for a good live or a cure, very in use the alibi of science, namely the profession of psychoanalist for one and of dentist for the other. While trying to be made give or by perceiving sums, they made the offence of swindle."
The Supreme Court of Appeal of Cassation[?] has, in addition, judged, in a stop of 15 November 1995 (A. Pouteau), that the Wide limited liability company, of which Alain Pouteau was the manager and of which investigation showed that it was "under the obedience of the Church of Scientology," "exploited a center of formation with trade of sale and spread some advertisements in the press and circulars about the maires[majors?mayors] in which the center engaged itself to procure candidates, at the end of their formation, a place with a serious company," was made guilty of fraud, because it "was not able to guarantee employment for its trainees."
The famous affair of the sect of FrŽchou illustrates, in addition, perfectly the case of breach of trust made by the leaders of sects to the detriment of their followers. In fact, they were prevailed unduly of the title of priest, which had enabled them to extort a significant amount of gifts from their faithful followers (cf in particular the stop of May 10, 1991 of the Court of Appeal of Agen, No 215/91).
Lastly, jurisprudence gives a report of multiple violations of the labor law or that of social security.
"The denunciation of merciless exploitation of follower by the leaders, contempt for social laws, duration of work, lack of remuneration, nor of Social Security (...) find their confirmation in the fact that Ecoovie does not pour with the debate without employment contract, without payroll salary, without declaration of Social Security or with tax department concerning the follower that it employs, itself limiting to plead that those be voluntary." It is thus, for example, which the County Court of Paris described, in its stop of July 10, 1985 (No 263), the way in which the Ecoovie sect conceived the application of the rules of the labor and social security laws.
Many judgments were thus marked on very diverse points against the sects during recent years, on the basis of undeniable material fact.
However, the Commission was brought to note that this approach only incompletely accounts for the dangers of certain sectarian movements.
2.- A harmfulness which largely exceeds the field of illegalities noted by the courts
Obviously not all of the reprehensible acts performed by sects are the subject of a judgment. Far from it. Such a judgment requires, indeed, the meeting of several conditions which it is often difficult to obtain:
- it is necessary, first of all, that the person having suffered an injury is conscious of it. However, for the followers, the rule which is imposed upon them by their guru is inevitably good. It is necessary thus that the follower gets sufficient distance with respect to the sect, generally while about having left it, to reach this awakening;
it is appropriate then that the interested party decides to file a complaint. However, this step is far from being systematic: many prefer "definitively to turn the page" on a traumatic period of their history; others readily entrust to associations of defense but do not dare to institute proceedings for lack of confidence or fear of reprisals;
- the proof of the offense as well as the responsibility for its instigation is, of the opinion of the majority of the people heard by the Commission, difficult to bring, this would be because of "the originality" of the sectarian offences, where the victims are sometimes, by their momentary assent, proper actors;
- it is also necessary that the facts correspond to an incrimination envisaged and sanctioned by the law, which is not obvious in the cases of mental manipulation for example;
- remains finally, if a judgment intervened, to make it apply, which encounters great difficulties sometimes, because of the multiplicity of the means that certain movements can deploy: dilatory procedures, pressures of all kinds, auto-dissolution or, quite simply, escape abroad.
The information provided to the Commission by General Information as well as testimony which it received led it to think that the dangers which certain sectarian movements present to individuals and society are, actually, at the same time more numerous, more widespread and more grave than only a reading of court orders would suggest.
The enumeration below gathers, in ten categories, the dangers which the sectarian phenomenon presents for individuals on the one hand, for society on the other hand, such as the Commission could apprehend them through the whole of its work.
a) The dangers to the individual
Mental destabilization is the first of them.
One understands this expression to mean, to destabilize someone in order to subject him to one's influence by persuasion, manipulation, and all other material means.
According to General Information, the 172 coercive sectarian movements that they listed would resort to practices being able to be thus qualified.
The mental destabilization can take very diverse forms, and, in particular, very insidious forms, as the personality test and "auditions" proposed by the Church of Scientology illustrate. Here is how a former follower of this association described to the Commission the experience of the test:
" This test, which is comprised of approximately 200 questions about traits with money, the family, with work, etc, has, in my view, a true psychological base but then gives way to an analysis - on the computer, today, which gives it a serious aspect which is very imposing - which tends to emphasize defects more than anything - which is altogether simple --.
" Defects are thus amplified while good qualities are rather underestimated, which makes it possible to decide that there are things to do and that the Dianetic Center has proposed those things to you.
" (...) And from there, people are tempted to go further. " .
Consequently, the process of mental destabilization is already started. It reaches an additional stage when the interested party indeed goes "further" and agrees to devote himself to Dianetic "auditions":
" I did five or six hours of audition. In these auditions known as Dianetics (...), one makes you close your eyes - a little like a psychiatrist - and one revives to you the difficult moments. Personally, I spoke about my first love as a teenager - I did the same thing as one would do in front of a psychiatrist --, which involved an emotional increase at home which disturbed me a little.
" There, the evil was indeed done because I wanted to go further (...). " .
The interested party "indeed went further," which led him to a state of alienation and extreme dependence.
This practice, one sees, is very insidious, because it is void of a scientific base and is exerted with the agreement of the victim, in a progressive way and within a perfectly legal framework.
Certain processes are, on the other hand, definitely more brutal. It acts, for example, to weaken the individual by imposing a very rigorous discipline on him, or to reduce his critical spirit by demanding repetitive acts or prayers in order to obtain his complete obedience. The testimony collected regarding a typical day for a follower of the International Association of Krishna Consciousness, with, in particular, its eleven working hours and its six hours of devotion per day, attest to this.
These processes can sometimes even lead the followers to an advanced state of pathological weakness.
One also notes, although more rarely, the recourse to sophrologic[?inducing mental sleepiness?] techniques, going as far as deep hypnosis or prescribing drugs, permitting a sect to attain, to use again the expression of Colonel Morin, a true "psychic rape" of the follower.
These forms of mental destabilization can have serious consequences on the psyche of those to which they were applied, such as depression, [envožtement?], schizophrenic behavior or a deep state of dependence.
Certain sects, moreover, have exorbitant financial requirements.with regard to their followers.
According to General Information, this would today be the case for 76 sects.
It is in particular thus for the Church of Scientology. This one would, indeed, charge more than 70,000 francs [$11,725 US Dollars] for certain courses. Several testimonies collected by the Commission show that this would have led many followers to a serious debt position.
One can also quote Association for the Unification of World Christianity which would have required between 7,000 [$1,173 US Dollars] and 14,000 francs [$2345 US Dollars] of each of the 72,000 people married collectively by the Reverend Moon of Seoul last August.
Financial exploitation would also be the case with, in particular, the Alliance of the Rose Cross, the New Acropolis, the Knights of the Gold Lotus, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, the Grand Logis, and the French Ra‘lien Movement.
The rupture of the follower with his environment of origin is frequently noted. This is obvious with sects which practice the community life, but those are not most numerous. It is more insidious but quite as real within the framework of sects whose followers continue, seemingly, to carry out a normal family and social life, but whose engagement gradually leads them to cease any true relation between the external world and the movement of which they are members. And it is precisely that goal that the leaders of sects want to attain, in giving the follower incentive to devote his time as much as possible to the sect, with its rites and its beliefs: to put an end to any contact with the people who would be likely to insinuate doubt into the spirit of the follower, to awake his critical direction and, finally, to divert him from the sect.
According to information collected by your commission, 57 spiritual movements would present this danger, in particular the Universal Alliance, the Church of Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, IVI, the Family, and the Humanistic Movement.
One will limit oneself, to illustrate this, to point out testimony communicated by an ex-follower of Jehovah's Witnesses:
" (...) If I decide today to write, it is to break the twenty years of silence maintained with lasting mental anguish because of a sect, which is (...) the sect of Jehovah's Witnesses. I lived the hell.
"People live in an autarchy, do not take part of anything in the economic, cultural or other life of a country. They are a danger because quite simply they destroy you; you draw aside from your family, your friends, from society even. You are isolated from all, there is one common indoctrination for all the disciples and [gare? parks? congregations?] if you try to be yourself. It is prohibited."
The practices of certain sects undermine the physical integrity of the followers. According to information obtained by your commission, 82 sects would pose such a danger to their members.
It can be a question of ill treatment, aggravated assault, sequestrations, non-assistance to someone in danger, or illegal practice of medicine, but also of sexual aggression.
Several complaints were thus filed against the guru of Mandarom, Gilbert Bourdin, for rapes, attempts at rapes and sexual aggression. The interested party besides was put in examination and was placed under legal control last June.
It is well-known that within the sect the Children of God (today dissolved) prostitution and incest were usually practised. Here is, for example, how the daughter of David Berg, the founder of the movement, describes her father's attitude toward her in "Shukan Bushun" of July 30, 1992:
" My father pressed me for the first time to have a sexual relation with him, when I was eight years old, in Texas. I resisted, nevertheless, I was violated. This was so abrupt that I was completely upset by it and unable to speak about it with anyone.
" (...) Unfortunately, when my father was seized by sexual desire, it could not be controlled, even if the object of his desire was his own daughter.
" (...) One day, my father gathered the members of the royal family together and announced: "Incest is a good thing. Thus Adam and Eve had many descendants " (...)"
Another follower shares information regarding the practice of "flirty fishing" consisting of prostituting children "with the given intention of gaining more followers and to acquire support."
Auto-dissolved in 1978, this sect would have been recreated under another name ("the Family"), under which indeed today exists a sectarian association.
Each one finally keeps in memory the large scale dramas among which were the collective suicides of Guyana in 1979, which made 923 victims, or of Waco in 1993, which killed 88 people.
In addition to "the Citadel" of which the actions have already been evoked, come sects practice embrigadement of children in a more or less insidious form, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Association for the Unification of World Christianity, the Community of ThŽba•de, the Church of Scientology of Paris, the Kristique Church of New Jerusalem, the French Federation for Krishna Consciousness, the Family, and the Grand Logis.
Beyond these negative effects on selected individuals, the sects can also appear particularly harmful to the community as a whole.
B) Dangers to the community
To begin with, certain sects have a clearly antisocial message.
This is not astonishing besides: the movements which recommend practices contrary to the law and common morals must justify them well; they thus explain often to their followers why these laws and these morals are bad and that only the principles of the sect deserve to be followed.
46 organizations have an antisocial message according to General Information, among which are the Knights of the Gold Lotus, the French Federation for Krishna Consciousness, the Family, the Suicide of Banks [as in river banks], the Ra‘lien Movement, and the Order of Immaculate Heart of Marie and of Saint Louis of Montfort.
Several organizations provoke, in addition, disturbances to the law and order.
According to indications provided to your commission by the Ministry for the Interior, this would be the case of 26 sects, among whom are Jehovah's Witnesses, the New Acropolis, the Church of Scientology, the French Federation for Krishna Consciousness, the Suicide of Banks, and the French Ra‘lien Movement.
Testimony collected concerning the New Acropolis, comparing the sect to a neofascist movement, is rather eloquent. Here is an extract:
" (..) But, unfortunately, with the New Acropolis, as the years pass, the ideas [trŽpassent?]. that is to say that re- enter a school of philosophy with an honest facade, you find yourself very quickly in a sect with political aims, with extreme right wing character and of neofascist type, and if you don't react quickly, you risk finding yourself in a paramilitary style uniform (blue-marine for women, black for men, and chestnut for officers), the arm-band on your arm, the standard in hand, singing war songs in military rhythm, then lowering your head, knee to the ground, saluting the arms surveying a raptor on a sun!!!
" (...) It is moreover one of the declared enemies of democracy, good only for cowards and the weak, so say the leaders of the New Acropolis. Moreover, they are hostile to any form of opposition, and are likely to become very dangerous. For them, the end justifies the means (...) " .
Certain sects are usually in legal contentions, as the affairs mentioned above testify.
However, it is advisable to specify that the difficult reports with justice that certain sects maintain can take two faces: the proceedings of which they are the object because of the punishable or prejudicial character of their acts; the actions which they bring themselves with regard to the people who have, according to them, tarnished their image.
L'Eglise de Scientologie est, par exemple, très coutumière du fait. En général, les tribunaux déboutent les mouvements. In this respect, the Commission had the occasion to note that the majority of the people heard who publicly expressed themselves regarding the negative effects of certain sectarian movements were sued by those [sects] for slandering. The Church of Scientology is, for example, very much accustomed to doing this. In general, the courts dismiss the actions.
This is the case for the Association for Research on the Holistic Development of Man, Association New Acropolis France, Athanor, the Resource Center for Information and Contact for the Prevention of Cancer, the Key to the Universe, the Church of Scientology, the French Ra‘lien Movement, and Soka Gakkai International France.
One saw, in fact, how certain sects could have recourse to clandestine work or various forms of fraud or swindling.
As for your commission, it does not consider itself authorized to make statements in this report of allegations brought to its attention during its work but of which it did not have any means of checking the cogency. Some considered this naive and to judge it moved vis-a-vis with the subtle enterprises of groups which can very skilfully implement the means enabling them to arrive at their ends. It of it is not nothing. Simply, the Commission judges its duty to be careful and to refuse to bring back allegations whose consequences could be of a certain gravity, without being able to bring the least proof of it. Even so, it did not fail to be alarmed by certain elements which were communicated to it. So it draws the attention of the administrative persons in charge to the need, without falling into paranoia, to be proof of greatest vigilance, in order to avoid, at least, as subsidies or contracts are allotted to sects and organizations within their sphere, by ignorance of their exact nature.
Multiple, various, complex, the sectarian phenomenon presents undeniable dangers to the individual as well as to society. And this, the more so as they can take the most insidious forms. No social or professional category escapes from it and if the young people appear more touched, one finds people of all ages in the sects.
An essential question arises then today: have these dangers tended to increase for ten years?
One can hardly give a precise answer to this question, because it is, in the current state of affairs, impossible to measure with exactitude their evolution in the ensemble of movements. However, the opinions collected by the Commission on behalf of several observers leads us to believe that if the practices of sects are not more dangerous today than yesterday, many more people are victims.
Under these conditions, it appears particularly significant to know, on the one hand, if the existing legal devices are sufficient to face there and, on the other hand, what the public authorities can do to better fight against these drifts.
[NOTE: The language in these sections is legalistic and technical, difficult for me to translate. I have left much of it as literal as possible, even though the reading isn't as smooth. I'd rather the English syntax be a little awkward rather than making the French document say something that was not intended. -translator]
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