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eVideo Kanopy

Deprogrammed

Summary

Inspired by her stepbrother’s experience of being “deprogrammed” in 1991, director Mia Donovan delves into the little known history of a controversial underground movement led by the notorious anti-cult crusader, Ted Patrick. His practice of "deprogramming", also known as "reverse brainwashing", started in the early 1970s and quickly snowballed into a vast underground movement composed of concerned parents, ex-cultist-turned-deprogrammers and some sympathetic law-enforcers whose mission was to physically and mentally remove individuals from "cults". Along with extensive interviews with the now 84-year-old Father of deprogramming himself as he reflects on his career, news archives will also reveal the changing attitude that the public and law enforcement agencies developed towards Ted Patrick's controversial approach to deprogramming. Looking back at the involuntary deprogramming era (1971 until around 1990) this documentary questions how much the practice was a result of moral panic and how much of it was, in fact, a matter of cultic mind-control?

Subjects