Moving On - Children of the Children of God

IMFORM a body of academics (formaly run by Eileen Barker) who recieve money from the UK goverment to find out and research NRM's, who should give help and advice.
She testifies to and teaches her students at the London School of Economics & Political Science, that brainwashing does not exist and that ex-members are un-trustworthy, but relys on members to back up her thinking.
(The Arch Bishop of Canterbury by tradition is asked to sit on the board yet the latest one has refused to do so.) o Email: inform@lse.ac.uk
o Phone: +44 (0)20 7955 7654
o Post: Inform, LSE, Houghton St, London WC2A 2AE.

Eileen Barker has recieved an OBE from her majesty for her work at INFORM,

An extract from

http://www.theonet.dk/spirituality/spirit98-11/dvorkin.html

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs announced a list of their witnesses (32

altogether), which besides many Russians included the following persons from

the West: James Richardson (USA), Massimo Introvigne (Italy), David Bromley

(USA), Jean-Francois Meyer (Switzerland), J. Gordon Melton (USA), Hubert

Zeivert (Germany), and Eileen Barker (UK). Mr. Levinson announced that the

Committee had a preliminary agreement with all of these people, and that

after the beginning of the lawsuit each of them had been contacted

individually and expressed a clear agreement to come. (The only person who

refused to come and expressed his astonishment at his inclusion in the list

was Jean-Francois Meyer.) The Court noted the excessive number of witnesses

and somewhat reduced their number. The following foreign witnesses were

chosen: Eileen Barker, Hubert Zeivert, James Richardson, and Massimo

Introvigne.

Eventually only Eileen Barker and James Richardson came. Massimo Introvigne

and Gordon Melton sent written statements. Numerous witnesses took the stand

- more than 20 on behalf of the plaintiffs and over 25 for the defendants.

From the plaintiffs' side came witnesses who were members of the following

cults: ISKCON, Scientology, the Unification Church, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Also, members of ISKCON and the Unification Church's pet parents'

committees, plus Russian and foreign experts, gave evidence. It is

noteworthy that all of the experts, including Barker and Richardson, were

asked the following question by the defendants' attorneys: "Can a person be

a member of all of the above-mentioned cults at the same time?" Both

scholars were warned that their answers would be published on the Internet,

and each tried to avoid giving a direct answer. When pressed, both answered

with a firm "Yes" - a rather unusual response from persons claiming to be

experts in the field of NRMs.

Ex-cult members gave testimony for the defendants, as did the parents and

relatives of the cult victims. The following cults were discussed: ISKCON,

Jehovah's Witnesses, Vissarion, the Mother of God Center, Scientology, the

International Churches of Christ, the Unification Church, and a small (but

very destructive) Russian cult called "Fighters for True Piety." Among the

foreign experts were Georgas Krippas (Greece), Johannes Aagaard (Denmark),

Claire Champollion (France ), and Thomas Gandow (Germany).

Of course, none of them thought it even remotely possible to belong to all

the cults at the same time; the most interesting answer to this question was

given by the Rev. Thomas Gandow. He said that if someone claimed to belong

to all these cults simultaneously and was not lying, then there were only

three possibilities: l. The person is mad; 2. The person is a Scientologist,

because of all the cults listed only Scientology allows its members to

pretend to be concurrently members of a different religion; 3. The person is

a secret agent (but that is virtually the same thing as no.2).

On May 20, when all the witnesses were heard, the plaintiffs brought another

witness from Germany: Ms. Gabriela Yonan. However, the judge refused to

examine her since she came too late and her name was not mentioned before.

Ms. Yonan did express her opinion about the issue in an interview with the

Paris-based Russian weekly Russkaya Mysl.

On May 21, after seven weeks of fierce courtroom battles, Judge Lyudmila

Saltykova announced her decision: the statement of the plaintiffs was

unfounded. It was a very clear victory for our side

the full report on the situation in russia is very interesting, illustrating

the collective efforts of cults to silence the opposition. Read it at this

link http://www.theonet.dk/spirituality/spirit98-11/dvorkin.html

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from @
Monday, July 09, 2007 - 08:57
(Agree/Disagree?)
http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general262.html
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from interested academic
Saturday, January 29, 2005 - 09:58
(Agree/Disagree?)

'Is Inform informing' you ask...well lets see what the following suggests.

1. Here is an extract from a paper by James R Lewis entitled Let The Scholar Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone available in full at http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c39.html

'In early 1993, Prof. Charlotte Hardman, who had been doing research on The Family in England, contacted a Family representative there and conveyed an urgent message: She had either heard a presentation by--or been in a conversation with--Prof. Kent at an academic meeting, and was convinced that his forthcoming publication on The Family's founder would be a hatchet job. The sense, if not the exact wording, of Prof. Hardman's message was that Kent was "out to get" The Family. She further suggested that The Family contact the publisher and lodge a protest.

At the time, I was doing field research on The Family. During a visit to a Los Angeles area home (which served as U.S. HQ for The Family), I was asked to examine Prof. Hardman's alarming communication. I was also informed that Prof. Kent had approached The Family a year or two before, representing himself as a scholar researching the 1960's counterculture. He requested copies of some of The Family's early work under the pretext of his "study." In an act of magnanimity (and trust), The Family's leader/founder, David Berg, supplied Kent with a complete set of the group's literature--including early material that was highly controversial and no longer representative of The Family's mature views on certain sensitive issues.'

(my comment did he say magnanimity and trust in the same sentence as David Berg?)

2. According to a CV available on the internet C Hardman was a director at INFORM from 1990 - 1993.

Sorry Moonbeam that I cant really answer the question directly ... but INFORM is informing ; maybe another question would be ' who are INFORM informing?

Some info on INFORM here

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/b28.html

Lets see if Camilla will comment on this.

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