Some key excerpts (borrowed from https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/posts/XvwKVnQF...):

"From the late-1960s through the mid-1980s, sociologists devoted immense energy to the study of New Religious Movements. [For overviews of the literature, see Bromley (1987), Robbins (1988), and Stark (1985).] They did so in part because NRM growth directly contradicted their traditional theories of secularization, not to mention the sensational mid-sixties claims God was "dead" (Cox 1966; Murchland 1967). NRM's also were ideal subjects for case stud ies, on account of their small size, brief histories, distinctive practices, charismatic leaders, devoted members, and rapid evolution. But above all, the NRM's attracted attention because they scared people.

...We have trouble recalling the fear provoked by groups like the Krishnas, Moonies, and Rajneeshees. Their years of explosive growth are long past, and many of their "strange" ideas have become staples of popular culture. [We see this influence not only in today's New Age and Neo-Pagan movements, but also in novels, music, movies, TV shows, video games, university courses, environmentalism, respect for "cultural diversity," and the intellectual elite's broad critique of Christian culture.] But they looked far more threatening in the seventies and eighties, especially after November 18, 1978. On that day, the Reverend Jim Jones, founder of the People's Temple, ordered the murder of a U.S. Congressman followed by the mass murder/suicide of 913 members of his cult, including nearly 300 children.

The "cults" aggressively proselytized and solicited on sidewalks, airports, and shopping centers all over America. They recruited young adults to the dismay of their parents. Their leaders promoted bizarre beliefs, dress, and diet. Their members often lived communally, devoted their time and money to the group, and adopted highly deviant lifestyles. Cults were accused of gaining converts via deception and coercion; funding themselves through illegal activities; preying upon people the young, alienated, or mentally unstable ; luring members into strange sexual liaisons; and using force, drugs, or threats to deter the exit of disillusioned members. The accusations were elaborated in books, magazine articles, newspaper accounts, and TV drama. By the late-1970s, public concern and media hype had given birth to anti-cult organizations, anti-cult legislation, and anti-cult judicial rulings. The public, the media, many psychologists, and the courts largely accepted the claim that cults could "brainwash" their members, thereby rendering them incapable of rational choice, including the choice to leave. [Parents hired private investigators to literally kidnap their adult children and subject them to days of highly-coercive "deprogramming." Courts often agreed that these violations of normal constitutional rights were justified, given the victim's presumed inability to think and act rationally (Anthony 1990; Anthony and Robbins 1992; Bromley 1983; Richardson 1991; Robbins 1985).]

We now know that nearly all the anti-cult claims were overblown, mistaken, or outright lies. Americans no longer obsess about Scientology, Transcendental Meditation, or the Children of God. But a large body of research remains. It witnesses to the ease with which the public, media, policy-makers, and even academics accept irrationality as an explanation for behavior that is new, strange, and (apparently or actually) dangerous.

...As the case stud ies piled up, it became apparent that both the media stereotypes (of sleep-deprived, sugar-hyped, brainwashed automatons) and academic theories (of alienated, authoritarian, neurotics) were far off mark. Most cult converts were children of privilege raised by educated parents in suburban homes. Young, healthy, intelligent, and college educated, they could look forward to solid careers and comfortable incomes. [Rodney Stark (2002) has recently shown that an analogous result holds for Medieval saints - arguably the most dedicated "cult converts" of their day.]

Psychologists searched in vain for a prevalence of "authoritarian personalities," neurotic fears, repressed anger, high anxiety, religious obsession, personality disorders, deviant needs, and other mental pathologies. The y likewise failed to find alienation, strained relationships, and poor social skills. In nearly all respects - economically, socially, psychologically - the typical cult converts tested out normal. Moreover, nearly all those who left cults after weeks, months, or even years of membership showed no sign of physical, mental, or social harm. Normal background and circumstances, normal personalities and relationships, and a normal subsequent life - this was the "profile" of the typical cultist.

...Numerous studies of cult recruitment, conversion, and retention found no evidence of "brainwashing." The Moonies and other new religious movements did indeed devote tremendous energy to outreach and persuasion, but they employed conventional methods and enjoyed very limited success. In the most comprehensive study to date, Eileen Barker (1984) could find no evidence that Moonie recruits were ever kidnapped, confined, or coerced (though it was true that some anti-cult "deprogrammers" kidnapped and restrained converts so as to "rescue" them from the movement). Seminar participants were not deprived of sleep; the food was "no worse than that in most college residences;" the lectures were "no more trance-inducing than those given everyday" at many colleges; and there was very little chanting, no drugs or alcohol, and little that could be termed "frenzy" or "ecstatic" experience (Barker 1984). People were free to leave, and leave they did - in droves.

Barker's comprehensive enumeration showed that among the relatively modest number of recruits who went so far as to attend two-day retreats (claimed to be Moonies' most effective means of "brainwashing"), fewer than 25% joined the group for more than a week, and only 5% remained full-time members 1 year later. Among the larger numbers who visited a Moonie centre, not 1 in 200 remained in the movement 2 years later. With failure rates exceeding 99.5%, it comes as no surprise that full-time Moonie membership in the U.S. never exceeded a few thousand. And this was one of the most successful cults of the era! Once researchers began checking, rather than simply repeating the numbers claimed by the groups, defectors, or journalists, they discovered dismal retention rates in nearly all groups. [For more on the prevalence and process of cult defection, see Wight (1987) and Bromley (1988).] By the mid-1980s, researchers had so thoroughly discredited "brainwashing" theories that both the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the American Sociological Association agreed to add their names to an amicus brief denouncing the theory in court (Richardson 1985)."

- Anthony, Dick, and Thomas Robbins. 1992. "Law, Social Science and the 'Brainwashing' Exception to the First Amendment." Behavioral Sciences and the Law 10:5-29. - Anthony, Dick (Ed.). 1990. Religious Movements and Brainwashing Litigation: Evaluating Key Testimony. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
- Bromley, David and Richardson, James T. 1983. The Brainwashing/Deprogramming Controversy: Sociological, Psychological, Legal, and Historical Perspectives. New York: The Edwin Mellen Press.
- Bromley, David G., and Phillip E Hammond. 1987. The Future of new religious movements. Macon, Ga. :: Mercer University Press.
- Bromley, David G. 1988. Falling From the Faith; Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy. London: Sage Publications.
- Cox, Harvey. 1966. The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective. New York, NY: Macmillan.
- Barker, Eileen. 1984. The Making of A Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
- Murchland, Bernard (Ed.). 1967. The Meaning of the Death of God: Protestant, Jewish and Catholic Scholars Explore Atheistic Theology. New York: Random House.
- Richardson, James T. 1985. "The active vs. passive convert: paradigm conflict in conversion/recruitment research." Journal for the Scientific of Religion 24:163-179. - Richardson, James T. 1991. "Cult/Brainwashing Cases and Freedom of Religion." Journal of Church and State 33:55-74. - Robbins, Thomas. 1985. "New Religious Movements, Brainwashing, and Deprogramming - The View from the Law Journals: A Review Essay and Survey." Religious Studies Review 11:361-370. - Robbins, Thomas. 1988. Cults, Converts and Charisma: The Sociology of New Religious Movements. London: Sage.
- Stark, Rodney (Ed.). 1985. Religious Movements: Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers. New York: Paragon House Publishers.
- Rodney Stark 2002. "Upper Class Asceticism: Social Origins of Ascetic Movements and Medieval Saints." Working Paper.
- Wright, Stuart A. 1987. Leaving Cults: The Dynamics of Defection. Washington D.C.: Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Some of the references fulltexted:

- http://asketikos.info/pdfarticles/stark.pdf
- https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/1985-robbins.p...
- http://jcs.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/1/55.full.pdf
- https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/1985-richardso...
- https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/1992-anthony.p...