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Jan Groenveld

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Jan Groenveld
Born1945 (1945)
Australia
Died (aged 57)
Queensland, Australia
Occupation(s)Founder,
Cult Awareness and Information Centre
SpouseSimon Groenveld
Children7

Jan Groenveld (1945 – 22 October 2002) was an Australian Christian countercult activist. She was a member of the Latter-day Saints Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses.[1][2] She spent fifteen years in these and other organisations before leaving them in 1975 and resolving to make more information about what she saw as "cults" available to the general public.[1][3]

Anti-cult activities

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Groenveld first began providing information about groups she referred to as cults to the public and counselling affected individuals in 1979.[1] In 1980, she founded the Freedom in Christ ministry,[4] whose purpose was to counsel former members of controversial groups and provide information about coercive religious sects.[3][5]

Groenveld founded the Cult Awareness and Information Centre (CAIC) in 1990.[1][3] Groenveld's CAIC website was started in 1991.[6]

Groenveld was particularly active against the Jehovah's Witnesses, modern Satanism, and the occult,[4][7][8] but she also combatted the influence of other groups – like Scientologists – in Australia.[9][10][11][12]

Groenveld first met Steven Hassan in 1993, when she brought him to Brisbane, Australia, from the United States for a seminar. Hassan educated Groenveld as to the "serious potential for doubt and lack of veracity in satanic ritual abuse stories".[3]

Presence in media

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In 1999 a Brisbane tabloid, The Sunday Mail interviewed Groenveld on the likelihood that more destructive cults would show up in Australia during 1999 before the new millennium. The publication and others credited Groenveld as a "cult specialist".[13][14] Other Australian publications like The Courier-Mail, a Brisbane tabloid, and The Mercury, a tabloid in Hobart, titled her a "cult expert."[15][16][17] She warned the publication about a cult called the Twelve Tribes Mission, believing them to possess militant tendencies. She warned that "There are people out there all over the place who would like to be another Jim Jones", referring to the Peoples Temple suicides.[13]

Groenveld's work has also been cited in Robert L. Snow's Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers.[18]

Death

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Jan Groenveld died in October 2002, and was survived by her husband, 3 sons, 2 daughters and 2 foster daughters.[19]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Groenveld, Jan. "About Jan". Cult Awareness and Information Centre. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 8 May 2015.[self-published source]
  2. ^ Whitecross, Darryl (9 April 1987). "'CULT BUSTER' HEADS TRUTH CONFERENCE". The Daily Telegraph.
  3. ^ a b c d Guilliatt, Richard (1996). Talk of the devil : repressed memory & the ritual abuse witch-hunt. Melbourne, Australia: Text Publishing. ISBN 9781875847297. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007.
  4. ^ a b S., Thomas (6 August 1988). "EX-JEHOVAH'S WITNESS TO TALK ABOUT ESCAPING CULT GROUPS". Courier-Mail.
  5. ^ "'CULT-BUSTER' WARNS OF FEAR, INTIMIDATION". Courier-Mail. 9 October 1986.
  6. ^ Groenveld, Jan. "Who on Earth is the Cult Awareness & Information Centre??". Cult Awareness & Information Centre. Archived from the original on 15 October 2009.[self-published source]
  7. ^ D., Button (30 October 1991). "BELIEVE CULT CLAIMS: RESEARCHER". Courier-Mail.
  8. ^ Gagliardi, Jason (5 June 1989). "LECTURES TO COMBAT SATANISM". Courier-Mail.
  9. ^ Roberts, Greg (25 April 1991). "RELIGIOUS SECTS GIVE JAN THE CULTBUSTER HELL". Sydney Morning Herald.
  10. ^ Gagliardi, Jason (10 October 1988). "SON 'LOST' TO CULT, CLAIM CITY PARENTS". Courier-Mail.
  11. ^ K., Dibben (17 May 1992). "CITY KIDS ABUSED SAYS CULT-BUSTER". The Sunday Mail.
  12. ^ Gigliardi, Jason (18 April 1990). "SECT FIGHTS TEMPLES-SALE ORDER". Courier-Mail.
  13. ^ a b Griffith, Chris. (10 January 1999) "Doom Cults Aussie Alert", The Sunday Mail (Brisbane, Australia) 1, 4.
  14. ^ "Aussie police focus on millennium cults". The Sunday Telegraph. 10 January 1999.
  15. ^ Twelve Tribes Café in Australia Archived 11 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine. Griffith, Chris; Watt, Amanda (26 December 2001), Courier-Mail, Australia, 7.
  16. ^ Binet, Harriet (2 November 2000) "Cult Alert", The Mercury, (Hobart, Australia), 1.
  17. ^ Anderson, Paul; Giles, Tanya (5 April 2000). "Believers fall prey to dangerous cults". Herald Sun.
  18. ^ Snow, Robert L. (2003). Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers. Praeger/Greenwood. p. 196. ISBN 0-275-98052-9.
  19. ^ Randy Watters (2 November 2002). "In Memory of Jan Groenveld". freeminds.org. Retrieved 8 May 2015.[self-published source]
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