Author | Eileen Barker |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Subject | religious conversion |
Genre | Unification Church |
Publisher | Blackwell Publishers |
Publication date | November 1984 |
ISBN | 0-631-13246-5 |
OCLC | 10923532 |
289.9 19 | |
LC Class | BX9750.S4 B37 1984 |
The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? is a 1984 book written by British sociologist Eileen Barker.
The book describes the religious conversion process to the Unification Church, whose members are sometimes informally referred to as " Moonies".
Barker spent close to seven years studying Unification Church members. She interviewed in depth and/or gave probing questionnaires to Unification Church members, ex-members, "non-joiners," and control groups of uninvolved individuals from similar backgrounds, as well as parents, spouses, and friends of members. She also attended numerous Unification Church workshops and communal facilities. [1]
Barker writes that she rejects the " brainwashing" theory as an explanation for conversion to the Unification Church, because, as she wrote, it explains neither the many people who attended a Unification Church recruitment meeting and did not become members, nor the voluntary disaffiliation of members. Reviewers have quoted her conclusions: "I have not been persuaded that they are brainwashed zombies," [1] and "Moonies are no more likely to stagnate into mindless robots than are their peers who travel to the city on the 8.23 each morning." [2]
In 2006 Laurence Iannaccone of George Mason University, a specialist in the economics of religion, wrote that The Making of a Moonie was "one of the most comprehensive and influential studies" of the process of conversion to new religious movements. [3] Australian psychologist Len Oakes and British psychiatry professor Anthony Storr, who have written rather critically about cults, gurus, new religious movements and their leaders, have praised The Making of a Moonie. [4] [5] It was given the Distinguished Book Award for 1985 by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. [6]