DEPROGRAMMING. The term deprogramming has been used since the 1970s to refer to a range of behaviors, all of which are aimed at convincing members of so-called new religious movements (NRMs) to leave such groups and return to more mainstream social and religious lifestyles. Such groups might be "cultic," that is, communal and with high-demand authoritarian leadership, or they may simply hold unconventional beliefs and rituals. Definitions of cult have been extremely variable and inclusive, and the term has been used to refer to groups ranging from Old Catholics, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses to members of the Unification Church, the Hare Krishnas, the Seventh-day Adventist–derived Branch Davidians, and even Pentecostals.

Deprogramming is regarded by its advocates as a "liberating" process that frees NRM members from a presumed hypnotic state of involuntary servitude or "mind control" that has been previously "programmed" into them. Deprogramming (as a term and...