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Eileen Barker

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Eileen Vartan Barker (born 21 April 1938), OBE, FBA is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics (LSE), and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights. She is the chairperson and founder of the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) and wrote studies about cults and new religious movements (NRMs).

Academic career

She is since 1970 involved with the LSE's sociology department whence she received her Ph.D.

She performed a longitudinal study on the conversion process in the Unification Church in the United Kingdom which was published in her 1984 book The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing?

In 1988 she was engaged in research on the preservation of cultural identity in the Armenian diaspora.

As of 2006, Barker is a member of the "Editorial Review Board" of the International Cultic Studies Association's Cultic Studies Review. The Editorial Review Board of the Cultic Studies Review contributes to the process of peer review of the academic journal.

Barker's opinions

Barker wrote in the book The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? that she rejects the 'brainwashing' theory (in the strict sense of the word as used e.g. by Margaret Singer) as an explanation for conversion to the Unification Church, because she writes that it does not explain the many people who attended a Unification Church (recruitment) meeting and did not become members and the voluntary disaffiliation of members. In addition, she did not observe coercion during the conversion process.

Criticism

Psychologist and brainwashing proponent Margaret Singer, and sociologist Janja Lalich, have criticized Barker's rejection of the brainwashing hypothesis in Barker's study of the conversion process for members of the Unification Church. Singer and Lalich wrote in 1995, in their book Cults in Our Midst, called her a "procult apologist", for adopting an "apologist stance" towards the Unification Church, and noted that Barker had received payment from the Church for expenses for a book and 18 conferences from the Unification Church. Barker defended this by stating that it had been approved by her university and a government grants council, and saved taxpayer money. Singer and Lalich likened the behavior of Barker and other researchers who received such funding as being "not unlike the Nazi doctors whom...have sold their very souls."

Barker responded to the financial issues in a 1995 paper

What is less well known is that vast amounts of money are at stake in the fostering of brainwashing and mind control thesis in the anti-cult movement secondary constructions,” and noted that “deprogrammers” and “exit counselors” charge tens of thousands of dollars for their services and that “expert witnesses” such as Singer “have charged enormous fees for giving testimony about brainwashing in court cases.

Prof. Alexander Dvorkin, Ph.D., of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, mentions Barker's appearance as an expert witness in an unsuccessful lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in 1997 by several cults in Moscow against Dvorkin and the Russian Orthodox Church. Barkin and her collegue James Richardson testified that one could be a member of all of these groups at the same time. Dvorkin called this "an unusual response from persons claiming to be experts in the field of NRMs."

Australian psychologist Len Oakes and British psychiatry professor Anthony Storr, who have written rather critically about cults, gurus, new religious movements, and their leaders have praised Barker's work on the Unification Church's conversion process.

See also

About Barker

Selected bibliography by Barker

  • Barker, Eileen The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing?, Blackwell Publishers, November 1984, ISBN 0-631-13246-5
  • Barker, Eileen (editor) Of Gods and Men: New Religious Movements in the West Mercer University Press Macon, Georgia, U.S.A. 1984
  • Barker, Eileen Defection from the Unification Church: Some Statistics and Distinctions, article in the book edited by David G. Bromley Falling from the Faith: The Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy. Newbury Park: SAGE Publications, (1988) ISBN 0-8039-3188-3
  • Barker, Eileen New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction (Paperback) Bernan Press (October, 1990) ISBN 0-11-340927-3
  • Barker, Eileen "The Scientific Study of Religion? You Must Be Joking!" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 34 (1995), pp. 287-310.
  • Barker, Eileen "New Religious Movements in Britain," in New Religious Movements in Europe, Helle Meldgaard and Johannes Aagaard, eds., (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1997), pp. 99-123.
  • Barker, Eileen, "New Religions and New Religiosity," in New Religions and New Religiosity, Eileen Barker and Margit Warburg, eds., (Aarhus:Aarhus University Press, 1998), pp. 10-27.
  • Barker, Eileen Standing at the Cross-Roads: Politics of Marginality in "Subversive Organizations" article in The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements edited by David G. Bromley Westport, CT, Praeger Publishers, (1998). ISBN 0-275-95508-7
  • Barker, Eileen. New Religions, Haft Asman (Seven Heavens), A Journal for the Center for Religious Studies, Vol. 4, no. 19, translated into Persian by Baqer Talebi Darabi, Autumn 2002.
  • Barker, Eileen "Watching for Violence: A Comparative Analysis of the Roles of Five Types of Cult-atching Groups," in Cults, Religion and Violence, David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 123-148.
  • Barker, Eileen. (Editor) Freedom and Religion in Eastern Europe. Special Edition of The Sociology of Religion 64 no. 3 2003.
  • Barker, Eileen. And the Wisdom to Know the Difference? Freedom, Control and the Sociology of Religion (Association for the Sociology of Religion 2002 Presidential Address). Sociology of Religion 64, no. 3, 2003, pp. 285-307. http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0SOR/3_64/109568880/p1/article.jhtml
  • Barker, Eileen. (Slovak language) Zákonné opatrenie nových náboženských knutí Vel'kej Británii, in Erópa a nové náboženskýhnutia, Zostavil Miroslv Lojda (ed.), Bratislava: Ministerstva kultúry Slovenskej republiky, translated into Slovakian by M. Lodja. 2003, pp. 87-92.
  • Barker, Eileen. Democracy and Religious Pluralism in Post-Soviet Society. In The Rebirth of Religion and the Birth of Democracy in Russia. Edited by Hoekema, D.; Bodrov, A. Calvin College, 2003.
  • Barker, Eileen (German language) "Vereinigungskirche" in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: vierte Auflage, edited by Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning, Bernd Janowski, Eberhard Jüngel. Tübingen: RGG, 2004: 21068.
  • Barker, Eileen. Why the Cults? New Religions and Freedom of Religion and Beliefs. In Facilitating Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Deskbook. Edited by Lindholm, T.; Durham, W.C.; Tahzib-Lie, B. Koninklijke Brill, 2004, pp. 571-593.
  • Barker, Eileen. General Overview of the 'Cult Scene' in Great Britain. In New Religious Movements in the 21st Century: Legal, Political, and Social Challenges in Global Perspective. edited by Lucas, C.P.; Robbins, T. Routledge, 2004, pp. 27-34.
  • Barker, Eileen. (German language) Neue Religiöse Bewegungen: Religiöser Pluralismus in der westlichen Welt. In Religion und Gessellschaft. Edited by Reuter, K. G. H.-R.. Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004, pp. 333-352.
  • Barker, Eileen. The Church Without and the God Within: Religiosity and/or Spirituality? In Religion and Patterns of Social Transformation. Edited by Borowik, I.; Jerolimov, D.; Zrinšcak, D. IDIZ (Institute for Social Research in Zagreb), 2004, pp. 23-47.
  • Barker, Eileen. What Are We Studying? A Sociological Case for Keeping the 'Nova' , Nova Religio 8 no. 3 (2004) pp. 88-102.
  • Barker, Eileen "Crossing the Boundary: New Challenges to Authority and Control as a Consequence of Access to the Internet." in Religion and Cyberspace, edited by M. T. Højsgaard and M. Warburg, London: Routledge, 2005.
  • Barker, Eileen "Yet More Varieties of Religious Experiences: Diversity and Pluralism in Contemporary Europe" in Hartmut Lehman (ed.) Religiöser Pluralismus im vereinten Europa: Freikirchen und Sekten, Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2005: 156-172
  • Barker, Eileen (with Bryan R. Wilson) What are the New Religions Doing in a Secular Society? in Anthony F. Heath, John Ermisch & Duncan Gallie (eds) Understanding Social Change. British Academy Centenary Monograph, Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2005: 291-317.
  • Barker, Eileen "New Religious Movements" Religions and Beliefs in Britain (GCSE/A'level resource book), Craig Donnellan (ed.), Cambridge: Independence, 2005: 19-22.
  • Barker, Eileen "Unification Church" in The Encyclopedia of New York State Peter Eisenstadt, Editor in Chief, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005.

References

  1. Bromley, David G. Falling from the Faith: The Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy. Newbury Park: SAGE Publications, (1988) ISBN 0-8039-3188-3 page 263
  2. Bromley, David G. Falling from the Faith: The Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy. Newbury Park: SAGE Publications, (1988) ISBN 0-8039-3188-3 page 263
  3. Cultic Studies Review Editorial Board, Eileen Barker, Ph.D., International Cultic Studies Association, Web site., 2006.
  4. Announcing Cultic Studies Review, Michael D. Langone, Ph.D. (Editor), Vol. 1, No. 1, 2002, International Cultic Studies Association
    "By taking over the functions of these three periodicals, CSR is able to offer peer-reviewed, scholarly articles, news on groups and topics (e.g., children and cultic groups), opinion columns, personal accounts of ex-members, and high quality articles for laypersons."
  5. Cults in our Midst, Margaret Thaler Singer, Janja Lalich, pp. 217-218, notes on p. 352
  6. Barker, Eileen. The Scientific Study of Religion? You Must Be Joking! Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 34, No. 3, 287-310. Sep., 1995”
  7. A Presentation on the Situation in Russia, Spirituality in East and West, Nr 11/1998, by Professor Alexander Dvorkin
  8. Oakes, Len "By far the best study of the conversion process is Eileen Barker’s The Making of a Moonie " from Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities, 1997, ISBN 0-8156-0398-3 excerpts
  9. Storr, Anthony Dr. Feet of clay: a study of gurus 1996 ISBN 0-684-83495-2

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