New religious movement
Anti-cult movement

In the 1970s and 1980s, some NRMs as well as some non-religious groups came under opposition by the newly organized anti-cult movement, which mainly charged them with psychological abuse of their own members. It actively seeks to discourage people from joining new religions (which it refers to as "cults"). It also encourages members of these groups to leave them, and at times seeking to restrict their freedom of movement.

Family members are often distressed when a relative of theirs joins a new religion. Although children break away from their parents for all manner of reasons, in cases where NRMs are involved, it is often the latter that are blamed for the break. Some anti-cultist groups emphasise the idea that "cults" use deceit and trickery to recruit members. The anti-cult movement adopted the term brainwashing, which had been developed by the journalist Edward Hunter and then used by Robert J. Lifton to apply to the methods employed by Chinese to convert captured US soldiers to their cause in the Korean War. Lifton himself had doubts about the applicability of his brainwashing hypothesis to the techniques used by NRMs to convert recruits.

A number of ex-members of various new religions have made false allegations about their experiences in such groups. For instance, in the late 1980s a man in Dublin, Ireland, was given a three-year suspended sentence for falsely claiming that he had been drugged, kidnapped, and held captive by members of ISKCON.

Scholars of religion have often critiqued anti-cult groups of un-critically believing anecdotal stories provided by the ex-members of new religions, of encouraging ex-members to think that they are the victims of manipulation and abuse, and of irresponsibly scare-mongering about NRMs. Of the "well over a thousand groups that have been or might be called cults" listed in the files of INFORM, writes Eileen Barker, the "vast majority" have not engaged in criminal activities.
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