Georges Fenech of the MIVILUDES: "The economic crisis, a fertile ground for cults"

Jean Cohadon
La Dépêche
Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:56 UTC

Translated by SOTT

Comment: The U.S. government has taken away all the freedoms that they have claimed the Islamic Terrorists hate us for! And governments all over the world, sometimes in slightly different ways, are doing exactly the same. In France, it's an organization known as MIVILUDES that has taken on this role, and their mandate seems to be exactly the same as that promoted by Evgeny Morozov, cited in Columnist Calls for Internet Quality Control" to Quash Dissent where you will read:

Do you think anthropogenic global warming is a hoax? Are you unconvinced that your ancestors had more in common with Cheetah than with Tarzan? Have you any doubts about the official version of how 9/11 went down? Then you, according to Evgeny Morozov, are part of a "kooky" "fringe movement" whose growth must be checked by forcing you to read "authoritative" content whenever you go looking for information on such topics on the Internet.

Morozov is a visiting scholar at Stanford University, a contributing editor to Foreign Policy magazine, and a former fellow at George Soros' Open Society Institute - in other words, a reliable bellwether of globalist establishment thinking.

What shows the terrible, collective, weakness of character of the soft and hedonistic U.S. population is their acceptance of the loss of their freedoms in exchange for protection from those who are claimed to "hate us because of our freedoms." This same poison is being spread in France by the above mentioned MIVILUDES in lock-step with the Globalist Elite agenda. A French doctor of my acquaintance showed me a magazine that she (as a physician in France) receives. In the last issue, there was an article explaining to doctors that they need to be on the lookout for anybody who thinks or acts "different from the norm". Doctors are, apparently, being encouraged to abrogate their Hippocratic Oath in favor of reporting on their patients who might be holding "aberrant ideas" such as that vaccines may be bad, vitamins are good, food does have an effect on your health, and so forth. Doctors in France are even being offered special perks if they take a course in "spotting cult members"! I kid you not! The same types of articles are being included in legal journals that attorneys and judges subscribe to! And all of this activity, undertaken by MIVILUDES, is being financed by the French government!

© DDM

Invited by the order of lawyers, Georges Fenech, president of the MIVILUDES (Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combatting Cultic Deviances), will be in Toulouse next Wednesday.

An ex-magistrate, deputy of the Rhône departement in 2002 and 2007, Georges Fenech, 57, came back to the magistracy in 2008. Since then, upon nomination by the Prime Minister, he's the head of the MIVILUDES.

Why taking part in a symposium about the training of lawyers?

Georges Fenech: I was invited by the president of Toulouse's bar, and training constitutes one of the essential missions of the MIVILUDES. We attach a lot of importance to it. It allows us to transmit information, to go deeper in the analysis of the phenomenon and to train on the issue of cultic deviances, on detecting criteria, and on the means to counter them.

Who are these trainings aimed at?

We intervene in schools of magistracy as well as labour inspectorate, schools of police and gendarmerie, among lawyers, educators, doctors... We must offer a guide to these professionals so that they can detect a cultic deviance in someone, and then decide how to react.

Is the economic crisis a fertile ground for these movements?

Of course. Actually, we consider that in 10% of training organisations, especially in the fields related to consulting and personal development, there is the presence of cultic movements. It is obvious that these times of economic as well as social uncertainty are a very favorable ground for cultic deviances.

Can we estimate their weight?

In 2009, we ordered a poll about the perception of the French people towards cults. 66% considered that they were a threat, and 25% knew at least one victim in their family or friends circles, which represents 12 million French people. A lot of these victims are targets for these "alternative" medicines, these charlatans who call themselves therapists and promise anything and everything. Vigilance is crucial and when in doubt, one must not hesitate to ask questions!
[...]

Comment: On the 30st November, following Georges Fenech's visit in Toulouse, La Dépêche published this article:

How cults recruit

Varied, fluctuating, nebulous - cultic movements are difficult to spot. However, they have themes in common for approaching people: well-being, politics and the end of the world.

Distribution of flyers in the street, Internet websites, illegal billsticking or word-of-mouth are a few of the approach techniques used by cultic movements. These fluctuating movements, which are present in all areas of activity, are difficult to detect and quantify. "On top of big organisations, there are also cultic offshoots. They don't have the same name, which makes them difficult to spot, but if you make some research, you always find a link to the mother cult. On the other hand, deviant organisations, once spotted, can easily change names and places, which adds to the difficulty", explains Simone Rich, vice-president of Info-Sectes Midi-Pyrénées. Difficulties which increase the risk of subjection, isolation, and breaking off from society for the followers of these structures which are often registered as associations loi 1901.

Well-being and the end of the world as catcher themes

Despite the diversity of these movements, common themes are locally found. "Health and well-being in general are themes which are often present", explains the vice-president of Info-Sectes. "In Toulouse, there is a proliferation of pseudo-therapeutic centers which lead to the sick person giving up their health treatment, which is worrying", adds Georges Fenech. "At present, with the presidential election drawing near, one can also find political networks which are not officially approved. This phenomenon is present at each election. Then, there is the theme of the end of the world and the apocalypse which should take place in 2012. This has awakened a lot of structures which are talking about the hope of a new world", adds Simone Rich. A problem also observed by the MIVILUDES. "In the Pyrénées, there are vulnerable people who are piling up on food and are locking themselves in."

Internet: an easy approach

This phenonemon has been developing for a few years already; cultic groups are taking over the Web to approach future followers. "Followers of these movements - often members at the top - are keeping blogs, Facebook pages or Internet websites which are highly performing", explains Simone Rich. A practice which often concerns young people but which also tends to reach other age groups. "We had the case of a young woman who was searching for information on world peace on the Internet after the 911 attacks. She stumbled upon a cultic network and through this medium, came into contact with an organisation in the area. The approach was easy, and unfortunately, this is a situation we frequently observe, says the vice-president of Info-Sectes Midi-Pyrénées. [...]

Comment: On the 1st December, Toulouse Infos website published this: "Even Steve Jobs was in the thrall of a naturopath". Extract:

In Toulouse, there aren't many affairs related to cults which are dealt with by the courts, but it doesn't mean that they don't exist or that this phenomenon is decreasing. [...] This is especially due to the increase in the number of therapeutic gurus who exert a psychological hold on their patients, because they know their weaknesses. "There's no typical profile, everyone in a moment of physical or emotional weakness can be lured into a cult". There's no age, children as well as old people are concerned. "Take Steve Jobs, he was a genius, and yet, his pancreas cancer could have been cured by modern medicine, but he was in the thrall of a naturopath and was treating himself with fruit juices." He was using treatments that he found on the Internet, "by the way, this medium has become one of the means used by cults to recruit."

[...]

Comment: As a reminder:

The U.S. Congress signal the dangerous politics of Miviludes

Today, the U.S. Congress reacted to the publication of a bulletin from the french Ministry of Justice. This bulletin, which has already been the object of polemical discussions in recent days, instructs prosecutors and judges of courts of appeal to consider certain religious practices, such as fasting, as means of psychological subjection.

In a letter to Prime Minister Francois Fillon dated October 28, co-signed by the presidents of House International Religious Freedom Caucus, the members of U.S. Congress, express their worries: "We are worried because there is no chance of real justice for these movements (religious minority) and this appears as a direct intervention of the executive power to influence and direct the decisions of judges in criminal cases."

Extract from You are not so smart by David McRaney:

Richard M. Perloff in 1993 and Bryant Paul in 2000 reviewed all the studies since researcher W. Phillips Davison first coined the term "third person effect" in 1983. Davison noticed some people saw certain messages in the media as a call to action, not because of what was being said, but because of who might hear it. He pointed to the third person effect as the source of outrage from religious leaders over "heretical propaganda" and the ire of political rulers over some speech out of a "fear of dissent." Furthermore, Davison saw such censorship as arising out of a belief that some messages might harm "more impressionable minds." Perloff and Paul found that the third person effect is magnified when you already have a negative opinion of the source, or if you personally think the message is about something you aren't interested in. In all, their meta-analysis showed the majority of people believe they aren't like the majority of people.

You don't want to believe you can be persuaded, and one way of maintaining this belief is to assume that all the persuasion flying through the air must be landing on other targets. Otherwise, how could it be successful? ...

When you watch your preferred news channel or read your favorite newspaper or blog, you tend to believe you are an independent thinker. ...On the other side of the television, networks and producers design programming based on statistics and ratings, on demographic analysis that cuts through the third person effect so you can keep on believing you aren't the kind of person who watches the shows you watch. You tend to think that you are not like the people who live in your town, got to your school, work at your business, and so on. You are unique. You dance to the beat of a different drummer. You fail to realize just by living in your town, attending your school, and working at your job, you ARE the kind of person who would do those things. You you weren't, you would be doing something else. ...

The third person effect is a version of the self-serving bias. You excuse your failures and see yourself as more successful, more intelligent and more skilled than you are. Research into the self-serving bias shows subjects tend to rate themselves as more skilled than their coworkers, better drivers than the average person, more attractive ... {etc} It follows, then, that most people would believe that they were less gullible than the majority. ...

When the Third Person Effect leads you to condone censorship, take a step back and imagine the sort of messages people on the other side might think are brainwashing you, and then ask yourself if those messages should be censored too.

Persuasion: The Third-Person Effect

Why people think they are less influenced than others by adverts and persuasive messages.

One of the most intriguing things about the psychology of persuasion is how many people say that persuasion attempts have little or no effect on them. Other people, oh sure, adverts, work on them. But not you and I, we're too clever for that.

Attractive woman holding a bottle of beer? Hah! How stupid do they think we are? We know what they're doing and we wouldn't fall for such cheap tactics.

Would we?

Persuasive experiments

So pervasive is this feeling that only 'other' people are influenced by things like adverts that many studies have explored the idea, with an initial surge in the 1980s and 90s. Psychologists wanted to see how much people thought they were influenced by persuasive messages like adverts and compare it with actual attitude changes, if any.

Typically these studies first got participants to watch an advert, read a newspaper article or other medium containing a persuasive message. Then they were asked how much it had influenced them and how much it might influence other people. Since the experimenters measured actual persuasion and knew from previous research how influential the messages were, they could compare people's guesses with reality.

What they found, in study after study, was that participants thought others would be influenced by the message, but that they themselves would remain unaffected. When psychologists looked at the results, though, it was clear that participants were just as influenced as other people. This was dubbed the 'third-person effect'.

Third-person effect

Reviewing the research in this area, Perloff (1993) found that studies on political adverts, defamatory news stories, public service announcements and many more all showed a robust third-person effect. Similar conclusions were reached by Paul et al. (2000), who looked at 32 separate studies.

Perloff also found that when people don't agree with the message or judge its source as negative, the third-person effect became even stronger. The effect is also stronger when messages aren't directly relevant to people.

In other words people are likely to be influenced more than they think on subjects that are currently of little or no interest to them. An everyday example would be seeing an advert for a car, when you're not in the market for a new car. We'd probably guess it has little or no influence on us, but this research suggests we'd be wrong.

Take back control

The third-person effect is unusual because it goes against the general finding that we overestimate other people's similarity to ourselves.

This is what psychologists call the false consensus effect: we tend to assume that others hold more similar opinions and have more similar attributes and personalities to ourselves than they really do.

The third-person effect, though, goes in the other direction. When it comes to influence, instead of thinking other people are similar to us, we think they're different. There are two facets of human nature that support this exception:

* Illusion of invulnerability. People prefer to believe that they are, on average, less vulnerable than others to negative influences, like unwanted persuasion attempts. We all want to protect our sense of control over our lives. One way we do that is to assume that ads only work on other people.

* Poor self-knowledge. Although it's an unpalatable idea, we often don't know what's really going on in our own minds. Not only does this make scientific psychology a tricky enterprise, it also means that many of our intuitions about the way our own minds work are scrambled and subject to biases like the illusion of invulnerability. The effect of persuasive messages is a good example of this.

People often react to this sort of research by saying it's disheartening, which it is. It's not a happy thought that we don't know how easily we are influenced because we don't really know what's going on in our own minds.

However, sticking our heads in the sand and pretending influence attempts don't work is likely to increase our vulnerability. On the other hand, if we acknowledging our lack of insight into our own thought processes, we can raise our defences against the power of advertising and messages of influence, and take back control for ourselves.

W. Phillips Davison, The Third-Person Effect in Communication

A person exposed to a persuasive communication in the mass media sees this as having a greater effect on others than on himself or herself. Each individual reasons: "I will not be influenced, but they (the third persons) may well be persuaded." In some cases, a communication leads to action not because of its impact on those to whom it is ostensibly directed, but because others (third persons) think that it will have an impact on its audience. Four small experiments that tend to support this hypothesis are presented, and its complementary relationship to a number of concepts in the social sciences is noted. The third-person effect may help to explain various aspects of social behavior, including the fear of heretical propaganda by religious leaders and the fear of dissent by political rulers. It appears to be related to the phenomenon of censorship in general: the censor never admits to being influenced; it is others with "more impressionable minds" who will be affected.