Important New Model Offers Legal Guidelines for Cases Involving Undue Influence

Forty years ago, I was deprogrammed from the Moonies and months later I agreed to do involuntary deprogrammings with fellow cult members. During that time, parents had the legal recourse to help their adult children involved with cults. Families could go before a judge, and petition the court for a one week ex-parte “conservatorship” giving them custody of their loved one. The family argued that their loved one had lacked informed consent and was the victim of “artful and designing people” who used undue influence to recruit them into a totalitarian cult that robbed them of their free will. All they wanted from the judge was an opportunity to have access to their child, and shut off undue influence from cult influencers and provide information about brainwashing, cults, as well as facts about the leader, doctrine and group that the person would not have access to.