Zablocki was the Sociology department chair at
Rutgers University. He published widely on the sociology of religion.[1][2][3]
Zablocki defined a cult as “an ideological organization held together by charismatic relationships and demanding total commitment” [4] and advocated what he termed “the brainwashing hypothesis.”[5] Other scholars, Zablocki noted, commonly mistake
brainwashing for both a recruiting and a retaining process, when it is merely the latter.[6] This misunderstanding enables critics of brainwashing to set up a straw-man, and thereby unfairly criticize the phenomenon of
brainwashing.[6] For evidence of the existence of brainwashing, Zablocki referred to the sheer number of testimonies from ex-members and even ex-leaders of cults.[7] Zablocki further alleged that brainwashing has been unfairly "
blacklisted" from the academic journals of sociology of religion. Such blacklisters, Zablocki asserted, receive lavish funding from alleged cults and engage in "corrupt" practices.[5]
Selected works
Books
The Joyful Community: An Account of the Bruderhof: A Communal Movement Now in Its Third Generation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1971, reissued 1980)
ISBN0226977498
Alienation and Charisma: A Study of Contemporary American Communes. New York: The Free Press. (1980)
ISBN0029357802
“The Blacklisting of a Concept: The Strange History of the Brainwashing Conjecture in the Sociology of Religion” in Nova Religio (1997) 1 (1): 96–121 [8]
“Methodological Fallacies in Anthony's Critique of Exit Cost Analysis” in Cultic Studies Review, 4(2), 2005 [9]
“The Birth and Death of New Religious Movements” (ca. 2005) [10]
“Ethics and the Modern Guru” (ca. 2016), an interview on brainwashing [11]
References
^Lucas, Phillip Charles; Robbins, Thomas, eds. (2009). New Religious Movements in the Twenty-first Century: Legal, Political, and Social Challenges in Global Perspective. New York: Routledge. p. 313.
ISBN978-0415965774.
^Oakes, Len, ed. (1997). Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. pp. 158–159.
ISBN978-0815627005.
^Antes, Peter; Geertz, Armin W.; Warne, Randi Ruth, eds. (2004). New Approaches to the Study of Religion Vol 1: Regional, Critical, and Historical. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. p. 428.
ISBN978-3110176988.
^
abZablocki, Benjamin. (October 1997). "The Blacklisting of a Concept: The Strange History of the Brainwashing Conjecture in the Sociology of Religion". Nova Religio. 1 (1): 96–121.
doi:
10.1525/nr.1997.1.1.96.
^
abZablocki, Benjamin (2001). Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field. U of Toronto Press. p. 176.
ISBN978-0802081889.