Anti-cults

South Korea’s justice system has once again revealed its fragility with the arrest of Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, widow of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, in Seoul. Known to her followers as “Mother Han,” the 82-year-old leader of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification is currently recovering from heart failure, a fact the prosecutor disregarded when ordering her detention. In “The Arrest of Mother Han: Korea’s Unholy War on Religion and Reason”, sociologist Massimo Introvigne dissects the legal case, arguing: “The legal grounds for arresting Mother Han were absent. The charges are implausible and politically motivated. This is not a corruption case—it’s a purge.”

In the following article, “Religiocide in Korea: The Attempted Assassination of a Faith”, sociologist Massimo Introvigne unveils and exposes a disturbing campaign of religious hatred and persecution happening in Korea.

Introvigne explores the legal and political siege against the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, generally known by its previous name of Unification Church.

This Korean crackdown stems from similar efforts started in Japan, where the movement faces legal dissolution.

by Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers (Brussels) — In the last few months, a number of mainline British media, including the BBC, published sensational reports gravely stigmatizing the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light whose members were arrested and imprisoned as “heretics” in over a dozen Muslim majority countries and were defended by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Without Frontiers and other NGOs.

There are signs that “traditional” anti-cultists are ready to enroll even the most lunatic “New Age” figures in their crusade.

In this article, Rosita Šorytė explores the connection between the new anti-cult New Age movements and the conventional anti-cult movements that mostly orbit in the FECRIS galaxy, as demonstrated by Luigi Corvaglia's explicit appreciation of Wahid Azal's remarks, in perfect line with the motto “the enemies of my enemies are my friends”.

A “prophet,” whose revelations come from hallucinogenic plants, believes CESNUR funds AROPL as part of a Jewish “Sabbatian-Frankist” conspiracy.

In this article, Rosita Šorytė denounces the activities of one of the leaders of the New Age Anti-Cultism, Wahid Azal, whose “sources” derive from hallucinogenic plants. Wahid Azal has incorporated ayahuasca and Haoma – a MAO inhibitor from Syrian rue (Peganum harmala) and Australian acacia bark containing DMT – into his religious practice, which allows him to communicate with mythical figures from centuries past.

The attack against the spiritual master Aaravindha Himadra was an egregious example of irresponsible reporting that may incite violence. 

In this article, Rosita Šorytė explains how the new type of anti-cult activism – the so called New Age Anti-Cultism – works. The pattern is very much the same of anti-cult media campaigns many times denounced by FOB.

The American “journalist” Be Scofield is a new kind of anti-cultist. Her primary sources are revelations from angels, extraterrestrials, Tarot cards, and the Akashic records. 

In this series of articles, Rosita Šorytė explores the emergence of a new type of anti-cult activism, which she refers to as “New Age anti-cultism.” Unlike traditional anti-cult movements that oppose “cults” in the name of secular humanism or mainstream religion, this movement criticizes “cultic” beliefs rooted in a confusing mix of astrology, energy theories, and popular esotericism.

In this series of articles, Rosita Šorytė will examine two examples of “New Age anti-cultism” pertinent to AROPL. She will also explore whether New Age anti-cultism will be recognized as a legitimate component of the global anti-cult movement and whether it will benefit from the efforts of its coordinating agencies. Rosita Šorytė, member of FOB’ Scientific Committee, joined in 1992 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, and worked for 25 years as a diplomat, inter alia at the UNESCO in Paris and the United Nations in New York.

by Alessandro Amicarelli — Luigi Corvaglia, the self-styled anti-cult crusader and FECRIS board member, has once again graced the digital pages of “AgoraVox”—that Italian bastion of citizen journalism where anyone with a keyboard and a grievance can play pundit. But this time, his article didn’t just linger in the depths of AgoraVox’s volunteer-driven archives. It was swiftly picked up and republished by the China Anti-Xie-Jiao Association ...

In Italy, but unfortunately not only there, there is an ongoing emergency: a virus that was thought to have been permanently eradicated back in the early 1980s has made a comeback. It is again circulating and being transmitted by communicating, exchanging ideas, changing one's point of view and embracing new life experiences. It is the “virus of mental manipulation”. It seems that the only vaccine that can stop this alarming phenomenon is a law to control and limit the freedom to change one's opinion about someone or something.

FOB has addressed the topic of apostates several times, including the study "Apostates and New Religious Movements" by Bryan Ronald Wilson, Emeritus Fellow, University of Oxford, and the article "The Defector's Syndrome" by attorney Fabrizio d'Agostini, founding member of FOB. The following article, by Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, exemplifies a typical modus operandi in the anti-cult world ...

by Alessandro Amicarelli — In its ruling of 16 June 2025 in civil case no. 7879/2023, Section II of the Florence Tribunal ruled against the Italian Association of Victims of Cults (AIVS) for actions carried out online targeting the Soka Gakkai Buddhist Institute, based in Florence.  

What led to this ruling?

2025 is proving to be an annus horribilis for MIVILUDES, the French anti-cult state organization (Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires – Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cultic Deviances). On July 11, in fact, the Administrative Court of Paris issued the 5^th sentence against MIVILUDES for refusing to delete from its 2021 report some defamatory phrases to the detriment of the Christian congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. The story goes hand in hand with the judgment of ...

Italy has recently seen the proposal of a law intended to punish mental manipulation, particularly ascribed to so-called “cults,” with prison sentences ranging from three to eight years. In an interview published by Bitter Winter, attorney Alessandro Amicarelli, chairman of Freedom of Belief (FOB), speaks with sociologist Massimo Introvigne, director of CESNUR, who raises serious concerns about the effectiveness and legitimacy of the proposed law.

From June 26 to 28, 2025, scholars from across Europe and beyond gathered at Vilnius University’s Old Town Campus for the 10^th Biennial Conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE). Marking the society’s 20^th anniversary, this milestone event explored the theme “Esotericism and Rationality”, challenging long-held assumptions about the boundaries between mystical thought and intellectual rigor.


Since January 2024, the Union Nationale des Associations de Défense des Familles et de l'Individu (UNADFI) has been receiving a grant of 150,000 euros, courtesy of MIVILUDES. Officially, this public boon is supposed to fund a project to “digitize and share documentation” of the association, which is presented as a “heritage”. But upon closer inspection, the operation looks more like budget manipulation, technocratic window dressing, and accounting that lacks transparency.

by Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) — Following the public denunciation of several sentences of anti-cult groups by French courts, one of them claims to be a victim of undue judicial harassment by cults or ‘their friends’ and also claims that its mission to warn against cults is supported by the European Parliament. This is false. A quick glance at the provided references of its sources shows that the European Parliament is silent on this subject.

The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, formerly known as the Church of Unification, was founded in Korea in 1954 by the religious leader Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon, but has experienced substantial growth, especially in 1958 after its founding in Japan. Although on November 27, 2020, the Hiroshima High Court convicted five people for kidnapping and imprisoning a married couple with the purpose of de-converting them so as to force them to leave the Unification Church, by implicitly recognizing their inalienable right to their religious faith ...

The saga of the MIVILUDES (Mission Interministerielle de Vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectarie) continues. Despite being ‘slapped down’ by the Paris Administrative Court, which ordered MIVILUDES in a ruling on 21 February 2025 to correct its publications due to ‘inaccurate or unverified information’, on 8 April 2025 – only a month and a half later – it published its new annual report in line with its modus operandi of stuffing the reported news with inaccurate or unverified information.

In the wake of the ongoing anti-cult campaigns featuring so-called “defectors” – or apostates – we repost the article “The Defector's Syndrome” signed by FOB counsel Fabrizio d'Agostini. The occasion comes to us from Zona Bianca, the TV program that is treating the issue of religious minorities with a questionable approach. In fact, the narration of the life of and in the targeted religious communities (Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.