Psychiatric News has been providing excellent coverage of how the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) has been thrown into bankruptcy by litigious Scientologists as well as the longstanding propaganda campaign that Scientology has waged against psychiatry. However, the focus of the coverage may have led some readers to believe that CAN was little more than an anti-Scientology group.

In fact, the CAN office in Chicago served as a clearinghouse for extensive data on destructive cult groups of all sorts, and it was a respected source of information on such groups to media all over the world.

I was privileged to attend a number of CAN annual meetings, where (aside from being photographed by Scientology private detectives) I had an opportunity to network with former cult members and families of current cult members. This has allowed me to gain firsthand insight as to how destructive cults indoctrinate adherents without informed consent.

Cults will be with us for a while longer. Various cult-related fiascos such as the siege of the Branch Davidians by the FBI and the bombing of the MOVE compound by the Philadelphia Police Department have hardly clarified public understanding of cult indoctrination. Advocates for gun control, religious freedom, civil rights, and tough law enforcement have all weighed in with their versions of tragic events, causing cautious politicians to run for cover.

Not all cults are big and wealthy, and CAN was never big or wealthy. Time magazine had the resources to fend off a $416 million libel suit that resulted from its 1991 cover story, "Scientology: The Cult of Greed." It is hoped that CAN will still be with us in the future, even if it is in a different incarnation.

John Hochman, M.D.

Encino, Calif.

(Psychiatric News, January 17, 1997)