Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955, in
Rome) is an Italian
Roman Catholic[1]sociologist of religion[2] and
intellectual property attorney.[3][4] He is a founder and the managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (
CESNUR), a
Turin-based organization which has been described as "the highest profile lobbying and information group for controversial religions".[5]
Life and work
Introvigne was born in Rome on June 14, 1955.[6][7] Introvigne earned a B.A. in Philosophy from Rome's Gregorian University in 1975, and in 1979 his Dr.Jur. from University of Turin.[8][3] He worked from the law firm Jacobacci e Associati as an intellectual property attorney, specialized in
domain names.[4]
In 1988 he co-founded
CESNUR and has since served as the group director.[11][12][13]
Beginning in 2012, Introvigne was listed as an "invited professor of sociology of religious movements" at the
Salesian Pontifical University in Turin.[14][15]
In 2012, Introvigne was appointed chairperson of the newly-formed Observatory of Religious Liberty of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[16] Beginning in 2018, Introvigne was editor-in-chief of the daily magazine on religion and
human rights in China, Bitter Winter, which is published by CESNUR.[17][18]
Swedish academic
Per Faxneld, writing for Reading Religion, described Introvigne as "one of the major names in the study of
new religions."[21] Sociologist
Roberto Cipriani has called Introvigne "one of the Italian sociologists of religion most well-known abroad, and among the world's leading scholars of new religious movements".[22]
In 2001, sociologist
Stephen A. Kent described Introvigne as a "persistent critic of any national attempts to identify or curtail so-called '
cults'",[5] arguing that,
"In the context, therefore, of the
debate over Scientology in France and Germany, CESNUR is a
think-tank and
lobbying group, attempting to advance Scientology's legitimation goals by influencing European and American governmental policies toward it. It is not a neutral academic association, even less so because on its web page Introvigne intermingles ideological positions within solid research and information. On issues, however, that are key to the religious human rights debates —
apostates,
brainwashing, undue influence, compromised academic research, '
sect' membership and the potential for harm, critical information exchange on the Internet, etc. — he advocates doctrinaire positions that favour groups like Scientology."[5]
In the mid-1990s, Introvigne testified on behalf of Scientologists in a criminal trial in Lyon.[5] After Introvigne was critical of the publication of the 1995 report on cults by the French government, journalists described Introvigne as a "cult apologist", saying he was tied to the Catholic Alliance and
Silvio Berlusconi's then ruling party.[23] Introvigne responded that his scholarly and political activities were not connected.[24]
Introvigne has written on the concept of
brainwashing.[25] He[who?] published an Encyclopedia of Religion in Italy.[11]
Journalist and Scientology-critic
Tony Ortega penned a series of 2018/19 articles criticizing The Journal of CESNUR as an unreliable "apologist journal".[26][27][28]
Popular culture and vampires
Introvigne is also director of CESPOC, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture.[29]
He was the Italian director of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula, which included the leading academic scholars in the field of the literary and historical study of
vampire myth.[30][31] In 1997,
J. Gordon Melton and Introvigne organized an event at the Westin Hotel in Los Angeles where 1,500 attendees came dressed as
vampires for a "creative writing contest, Gothic rock music and theatrical performances".[30]
^
abStausberg, Michael (2009). "The study of religion(s) in Western Europe III: Further developments after World War II". Religion. 39 (3): 261–282.
doi:
10.1016/j.religion.2009.06.001.
S2CID144600043.
^Arweck, Elizabeth (2006). Researching New Religious Movements: Responses and Redefinitions. London: Routledge. p. 28.
ISBN978-1138059887.
^Faxneld, Per (March 7, 2017). "Satanism: A Social History, Review". Reading Religion.
^Cipriani, Roberto (2009). Nuovo manuale di sociologia della religione (in Italian) (2nd ed.). Rome: Borla. p. 470.
^See for example Serge Faubert, "Le vrai visage des sectes", L'Evenement du jeudi, 4-10.11.1993, pp. 44-48; Bruno Fouchereau, "Les sectes, cheval de Troie des Etats-Unis en Europe," Le Monde Diplomatique, May 2001, 1. Susan Palmer, The New Heretics of France: Minority Religions, la Republique, and the Government-Sponsored "War on Sects", New York: Oxford University Press, 2011,
ISBN9780199735211.
^See Massimo Introvigne, "CESNUR: a short history", In: Gallagher, Eugene V, (ed.), "Cult Wars" in Historical Perspective: New and Minority Religions. Routledge. pp. 23–31.
ISBN978-1-317-15666-6.