When Introvigne was a convinced anti-cult himself

Introvigne's views on cults some time before his foundation of CESNUR, with excerpts from a study written by him and an invitation to read more.

Introvigne today:

"It should be clarified that disgruntled apostates, no matter who sponsors their claims, are but a minority of the larger population of ex-members of any given religious minority, and should not, without further investigation, be considered as representative of ex-members in general.

[...]

Words are not neutral. Words such as 'cults' (or 'sectes' in French, or equivalent words in other European languages) are easily used as tools of hate and discrimination, and should be avoided, particularly in official documents"

[Religious Liberty in Western Europe. CESNUR's 1997 report from the press conference held on December 1, 1997 in Washington DC.]

Introvigne before CESNUR:

"Literature on the Jehovah's Witnesses already includes the often worrying testimonies of people who have left this cult ['sètta']. [...] The book Crisis of Conscience by Raymond Franz, published in the United States in 1983, however, offers for the first time the testimony of a member of the Governing who, after having been part of the Governing Body - the supreme government of the Jehovah's Witnesses, considered to be the channel for communication between God and his people - left the organisation and took a critical attitude towards the cult. (p. 20)

[...]

The personal events of Raymond Franz' life have an interest which goes beyond the individual case of the author of Crisis of Conscience, since they bring out the cultic spirit ['spirito di sètta'] which inspires the entire organisation of the Jehovah's Witnesses and which drives them to strike out systematically and ferociously against any inside dissenter, without feeling the need to provide arguments or explanations. His is certainly a partial view; however, on the basis of the documents which he presents any reader with some experience of law will find it hard not to share the conclusion that 'every right is on the side of the accusers, and the accused have no rights at all'". (p. 22)

[...]

On the contrary, the law and the court system inside the Jehovah's Witness organisation, show the cultic spirit in its most typical character, which consists of denying explanations to members and in imposing decisions which have no rational motives and are not argued rationally". (p. 23)

[...]

Gnostic totalitarianism - as the organisation Raymond Franz describes 'from the inside' shows - appears no less clearly in the cult of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the structure of which is a seminarium and a model of totalitarian organisation, basew on millennialist beliefs, which claims to grow and impose itself on the world by constantly increasing its 'converts'" (p. 38)

[I Testimoni di Geova: un profetismo gnostico in Quaderni di Cristianità, Spring 1985]

These claims, dated 1985, are part of a campaign sponsored in those years by Alleanza Cattolica, whose national director is still Introvigne, explained in details by Dr. Miguel Martinez in his Secret Story of a Cult Apologist, 1998, in an interesting chapter entitled When Introvigne used to hate "cults" and like "apostates".

Suddenly, after a few years, in 1988 Introvigne set up CESNUR, and Alleanza Cattolica changed its orientation in a drastic manner: no longer "ex-members", but "hostile apostates"; no longer "cults", but "new religious movements".

WHY?

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