Talk:New Cult Awareness Network

Notes re Foundation for Religious Freedom

Initial 1997 filing included at least two OTVIII Scientologists. Several failures to re-register with California Secretary of State. Ongoing filings include at least 3 OTVIII Scientologists. Last filing (2021) included as CEO a man who died 6 months before (still 3 of 4 officers are Scientologists). David Miscavige held an event and publicly grave danced over CAN's demise and took credit for the absolute takeover of CAN.

The closest thing to "multi-faith" that the NEW CAN ever did was to publish a list of non-Scientologist other-faith names and phone numbers for people to self-help with. Anyone who thinks this organization was ever really a "multi-faith organization" has failed to look at the evidence, or maybe they just read from published notes that were written in the early NEW CAN days when Scientology was still bothering to put some window dressing on the "New CAN" and had sent out dozens of press releases.

I cannot locate a website for this company name or any indication that it performs any function at all in current time. The last working copy of the cultawarenessnetwork.org website in the Wayback Machine is in January 2010. Guidestar reports "This organization's exempt status was automatically revoked by the IRS for failure to file a Form 990, 990-EZ, 990-N, or 990-PF for 3 consecutive years".

It looks to me that after they donated the old CAN files (145 boxes, 150 linear feet in 1999 & 2007) they quit bothering to run the organization.

• 1997-01-22 initial filing; record at California Secretary of State:
  • Agent for process: Isadore Chait, 9330 Civic Center Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210
  • Signatures: Isadore Chait, Jean Horness Hornnes, Lisa Lewinson, Mark Lurie, George Robertson

• 2019-08-02 filing:
  • CEO: Isadore M. Chait, 3500 West Olive Ave Ste 300, Burbank CA 91505 (which hires out as a virtual office for people who need a "professional address")
  • Secretary: Erick Langeland, 500 Fifth Ave Ste 1610, New York NY 10110
  • CFO: Steven L. Hayes, PO Box 4929, Clearwater FL 33758
  • Registered agent: Kendrick L. Moxon, 3500 West Olive Ave Ste 300, Burbank CA 91505

• 2021-10-07 most current filing:
  • Street Address of Principal Office in California: 3500 West Olive Avenue, Suite 300, Burbank, California 91505
  • CEO: Isadore M. Chait (Note that Izzy Chait died 6 months before this filing!)
  • Secretary: Erick Langeland
  • CFO: Steven L. Hayes
  • Registered agent: Kendrick L. Moxon
  • All 4 officers have the 3500 W Olive address

• Isadore M. Chait died on April 1, 2021: In Memoriam: auction house founder Isadore M. Chait, 74, In Memoriam Izzy Chait

• Scientologists
  • Isadore M. Chait, OTVIII
  • Jean Hornnes, OTVIII
  • Kendrick Moxon, OTVIII
  • Steven L. Hayes, Clear, OTVIII

▶ I am Grorp ◀ 12:42, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

The New CAN is not called a "multi-faith organization" in the article as far as I can tell. Some sources note that The Foundation for Religious Freedom, the corporation to whom the name was licensed back in 1997, had a multi-faith board of directors, which doesn’t seem particularly unlikely. Scientology was far from being alone in its distaste for the old CAN at that time, it was just the most proactive in its opposition. And it wasn't only people from New Religious Movements, it included civil libertarians, religious freedom advocates, independent academic researchers and commentators, and ordinary people who were disgusted by some of the antics of deprogrammers. The CoS may have been acting from self-interest and animus toward CAN, but it is evident (from the handing over of the files to academic researchers and other NRMs for example) that they were entirely conscious of this broader opposition, and it would not have been difficult for them to get other people on board with something like a Foundation for Religious Freedom. The new CAN may not have done much, but some would argue that doing nothing was at least an improvement on what the old CAN did. The list of referees you link to seems like a vast improvement on the kinds of people the old CAN used to refer people to.

In any case, it's hard to see what you're worried about. The article doesn't talk about this and for the most part reads like an attack on Scientology and the credibility of the new CAN, while ignoring the dubious activities of the old CAN and reinforcing the narrative that it was just a tragic victim of the Scientologists. That narrative seems rather partial to me, but who knows. Anyway you seem to be just about the only one who cares enough to do the research at the moment, so if it doesn't operate anymore and you have sources just go ahead and edit the article. Harold the Sheep (talk) 05:33, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Some day, maybe. My notes above were just that... notes. Sometimes I leave notes when I've done work but cannot finish it in the same day, or don't feel like continuing down that path for the time being. The "multi-faith board" words came to my attention through two recent edits I was checking: [2] in New Cult Awareness Network, and [3] in Cult Awareness Network. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 10:32, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Notes re "multi-faith"

The "multi-faith board" content in both articles rely on a single source that I consider not-reliable. It is based on a quote from a book compiled from multiple authors, and wasn't attributed in the Wikipedia citation. In this case, the source was written by Bruce A. Robinson who founded Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. Robinson was an agnostic, a retired electronics engineer with no formal education in theology or work experience in religious or scholarly pursuits, who created his own religious tolerance activism website which probably wouldn't pass muster as a reliable source for Wikipedia content, just as CESNUR is considered "generally unreliable". Yet CESNUR was started and run by sociologists, historians, and priests.

Are there any reliable sources for this same information? The closest I can find is this: Or maybe this book (page 300) which has a blurb about Foundation for Religious Freedom, pointing out the list I mentioned previously. No such mention of "multi-faith board".

Foundation for Religious Freedom is a Scientology-owned organization that predates the acquisition of CAN by legal finagling. Since the Church of Scientology re-filed paperwork in 2021 using the name of a dead man for its CEO, then why would one think that "naming" a multi-faith board of directors would have anything to do with the new CAN being multi-faith? In true Scientology style, it was likely just window dressing and never meant anything more than names on a paper to sway public opinion. Unless one has something more reliable than Robinson, the inclusion of "multi-faith" in any form falls under WP:UNDUE.

No doubt there are other NRMs and public who didn't like the old CAN's techniques, but it was Scientology (mostly via Moxon) who orchestrated their bankruptcy and takeover, by hiding their involvement in the final lawsuit blow to old CAN, then opened the new CAN under ownership by Scientologists, which continues to this day. They haven't given away the organization to someone else to run it. Note that Kendrick Moxon, the one who did this under color of "legal counsel" to Scott was then (and is now) a long time Scientologist who was part of the old dirty tricks Guardian's Office of Scientology—that same organization that coordinated and carried out the largest infiltrations of government offices in US history which resulted in the conviction of 11 of Moxon's cohorts. He was an unindicted co-conspirator who got off because he cooperated with providing evidence to the prosecution against his co-conspirators. That show of duplicity was 20 years before the duplicity against Scott. A leopard never changes his spots. Today, 25 years later, he is still fighting legal battles for the Church of Scientology.

They may have donated the old CAN files to the university archives but, I'm sure, not before Scientology went through every last paper and removed what they didn't want to pass into the public domain.

▶ I am Grorp ◀ 10:33, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

And you don't think it's possible the old CAN might have engaged in a bit of document shredding when things started to go pear-shaped? You say "techniques": others would say "felonies". One could describe the historical employment of deprogramming "techniques" as massive-scale ideologically- and financially-driven criminal violence, most of which had no legal consequences. Maybe you could consider applying your forensic skills to the old CAN as well as the new CAN. Harold the Sheep (talk) 06:11, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm sure old CAN had their own shredding parties. I don't mind you working on the articles, just don't downplay Scientology's role or use any Scientology-based sources for citations (which would be lies or propaganda). For longer than CAN was ever in operation, the Church of Scientology has engaged in their own kidnapping, confinement and deprogramming practices. Their beef with CAN wasn't that CAN did those same things, but because CAN knew about and openly disclosed Scientology's dirty little secrets to others (along with trying to help people get out). Go right ahead and add whatever you want about deprogramming or other bad practices. I never knew CAN or any of their personnel or associates; I have no dog in that fight. For better or worse, deprogramming had its role in American history. To this day there is very little legal recourse adults have against high control religious groups. What you call felonies apparently isn't a felony when it's done by a "church". ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 07:59, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Nor when it’s done by a "cult awareness network" apparently. There were thousands of deprogrammings involving abduction, false imprisonment or other crimes, and only a handful of prosecutions. You’re probably right about scientology, I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion, and you seem to be a veritable encyclopedia of scientological malfeasance; but most New Religious Movements do not engage in kidnapping, confinement and deprogramming, and membership in them is almost never based on so-called “brainwashing”. This is based on academic research, it has nothing to do with Scientology or scientology-based sources. But the CAN didn’t have much interest in discriminating between “cults” when there was deprogramming to be done: deprogrammers usually had no real insight into either the organizations they persecuted or the individuals they abducted and confined. Have a look at this case if you want to get an idea of their modus operandi. This is someone who wasn’t even in an NRM, she was involved with anti-nuclear and anti-death penalty activist groups and her parents didn’t like it. Harold the Sheep (talk) 21:50, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Sources