Hartley Patterson (hpttrsn@REMOVE.ME.vossnet.co.uk) wrote:

> Yes, apostates have a motive for telling lies about the organisation
> they have left. But equally that organisation has a motive for covering
> up its misdeeds if they exist. To say that one is true but not mention
> the other is in my view misleading. It's like saying criminals often
> don't tell the truth in court whilst ignoring the fact that policemen
> sometimes lie in court too.
I only know of one piece of evidence on the subject of former members. Ben Zablocki has tracked former cult members for up to 25 years. He repeat interviews them as the time of their cult involvement slips farther into the past. If former member testimony were unreliable, he said he would expect a certain percentage to later change their stories, to say they exaggerated or made up some parts. But in all his research, he hasn't found a single former member who has told him that. They do change their analysis of the cult experience, but the basic facts and the abuses of the cult never change.

Former members of cults are generally credible witnesses.

-- Rod Keller / rkeller@voicenet.com / Irresponsible Publisher Black Hat #1 / Expert of the Toilet / CWPD Mouthpiece / Killer Rod The Lerma Apologist / Merchant of Chaos / Vision of Destruction Bigot of Mystery / OSA Patsy / Quasi-Scieno / Mental Bully

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