Cult fiction
From Eileen Barker Sir: Tom Sackville's letter of 29 May contains manifestly false allegations about Inform and myself. Inform has demonstrably not 'supported cult leaders for years by persistently refusing to criticise even their worst excesses'. Anyone who has read anything Inform or I have written must be either a knave or a fool to suggest we do not include negative accounts of what goes on in many of the groups, although what we do say is more likely to take the form 'group A does X but not Y, while group B does Y but not Z' — rather than 'all cults are evil'.
To accuse Inform of being unconcerned is just plain silly. It was founded because of a concern about unnecessary suffering due to inappropriate actions being taken on the basis of ignorance and/or the misinformation coming from a number of quarters including the movements themselves, sections of the media, and some irresponsible 'anti-cult groups'.
Presumably the reason Inform receives funding from the Home Office, the police and, indeed, the Archbishop of Canterbury is because they all find our information more useful than blanket condemnations.
Eileen Barker
London School of Economics, London WC2
Previous page
