La peur des sectes: Kristoff Talin Reviews the Duhaime and Saint-Arnaud Colloquium

La peur des sectes

by Duhaime (Jean), Saint-Arnaud (Guy-Robert)

Montréal, Fides, 2001.

The work directed by Jean Duhaime and Guy-Robert Saint-Arnaud publishes the proceedings of a colloquium held at the ACFAS in 2000. The title, La peur des sectes [The fear of the cults], situates from the outset the argument of the work and the axis in which it is carried out. It is resolutely a matter of leaving the beaten track by proposing a crossed view between the scientific perspective and the social perspective. It is therefore not a simple formulation of what the cults are and of what they do in a scientific perspective, but rather a going back and forth between scientific object and question of public policy. It is not the only quality of this work to have risked that audacious wager.

The debate around the “cults” constitutes the first part of the work. Jean-François Mayer — a specialist on the question — retraces the stakes of studies on the cults, halfway between public security and scientific study. The reflection on the place of the scientific researcher in relation to the political or judicial use of his works and of his expertise on the cults contributes to a much broader reflection on the place of the scientist in society. And that is the second tour de force of this work: to succeed, starting from a very targeted subject, in undertaking a more global reflection on the place of science in society.

This introductory article gives way to one of the major stakes of the cults: that of their place in the media. This second part, composed of three texts, approaches the question in various ways. Benjamin-Hugo Leblanc’s contribution resituates the question through the French media. He attempts to show that the French media focus on the dangerous aspects of the cults. The argument sins, however, through its lack of positioning between the theoretical dimension — where the author seeks to tell us how the French media ought to treat the cults — and a more empirical approach which would carry out a solid content analysis, the only basis of scientificity in our view. “Curiously”, Alain Bouchard’s article seems to answer these questions by offering a content analysis of the media on the subject of the Raëlian Movement. He shows how the discourse on the Raëlians is constructed by the media and how the latter metaphorise the movement. The final reflection on the nature of the cult — bearer of counter-societal values because they are not valued in society — offers stimulating avenues of reflection. Christian Saint-Germain’s text proposes, to close this part, a philosophical reflection on the relations woven between the cults and the media. “Allergy to the cults and the ethics of the minority situation” puts back into perspective the question: are the cults a danger? By seeking to invert the argument. According to the author, the existence of the cults testifies to the democratic vitality of a society. The critique of the media becomes from then on quite sharp, insofar as they stigmatise the cults as the incarnation of evil. And the author concludes on the prudence necessary in the matter.

Minority religions and risks for persons forms the second part of the work. The approach of this part is rather psychological. The different contributions seek to evaluate the danger of the cults for the human personality. The psychoanalyst Pierre Pelletier proposes a reflection on gurus and masters. He distinguishes the “good” gurus from the “dangerous” ones. Faced with this diversity and the complexity of the cult phenomenon, the author encourages the carrying out of a prudent scientific analysis. Dianne Casoni shows for her part that the “dérives sectaires” all rest on a similar mechanism, constituting in a way an ideal type of the cult, not on a sociological plane but in the order of the psychological. These reading keys make it possible to approach the chapter on “L’aliénation ou l’atypie du groupe sectaire” with greater serenity. The reflection on the mechanisms of alienation proposed by Céline Castillo shows that everything is defined from the nodal point of the subject’s liberty. This theme is, in a certain manner, taken up again in Guy-Robert Saint-Arnaud’s contribution, but the insistence here is placed on the relative incapacity of psychoanalysis to bring cultic pathologies to birth.

The cults and the risks for institutions forms the third part of the work and returns to more sociological dimensions. Martin Geoffroy and Jean-Guy Vaillancourt propose a study on extremist Catholic groups. It is therefore a whole reflection on the sectarian dimension within the Church that is proposed, which joins one of the classic — but still topical — debates of the sociology of religion. Through the observation of Quebec Catholic groups, the authors show clearly the limits of the routinisation that the Catholic Church can undertake in order to “normalise” them. But they also prove that these “sectarian” Catholic groups are so also by their contestation of the values of modernity. Jean Duhaime’s study is, for its part, among the most original by its object. “Diversité religieuse et risque sectaire dans les forces armées canadiennes” shows that a diversification of religious options is under way in the army and that it is not excluded that the minority religions and the cultic groups will be more represented there in the coming decades. However, the cultic risks are low, notably by reason of the way in which the army marks out all the forms of expression of religious convictions. Alexandru Gurau’s article bears on the political situation of the cults in Romania. Under the communist regime the cults were fought virulently. The strategies developed by the communist State consisted in marginalising them by qualifying them as obscurantist and retrograde and by insisting on the social pathology they represent. The author concludes however on the current rapid changes in Romania and on the necessity of pursuing these studies on the “cults”, because they can serve as a “revealer” of societal changes. A legal overview could only close this part. Elisabeth Campos looks into French criminal law in the matter. The author shows that French law is more nuanced in the matter than it appears a priori. The judicial acts and the decisions rendered take account of the delictual situations of certain cults, which it is fitting to condemn. But the principal contribution of this text, in our view, is to encourage prudence. French law judges the “cults” case by case, taking good care not to implement a generalising public policy. This makes it possible to conclude that this way of proceeding does justice to the non-dangerous “cults” by ensuring them a fundamental legal liberty.

The work ends by giving the floor back to Jean-François Mayer. On the future of research on the “cults” he advocates developing interdisciplinarity which, as we have shown in this review, is very fruitful in the analysis of the phenomenon. All in all, this book has the merit of opening numerous avenues of reflection by decompartmentalising the disciplines and by shaking up established norms. That is not the least merit of a scientific work whose reading can be recommended to anyone concerned with knowledge and enamoured of varied intellectual contributions.

KRISTOFF TALIN, Research Fellow, CNRS, Visiting Professor, UQAM

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