Oberoende akademiska och övriga utlåtanden, brev etc
om Krishnarörelsen
(ISKCON - Det Internationella Sällskapet för Krishnamedvetande)

DERMOT KILLINGLEY

UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE
Department of Religious Studies Armstrong Building University of Newcastle Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU

President Boris Yeltsin, The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

2 February 1995

Dear President Yeltsin.

I have recently learnt that the Russian State Parliament is considering legislation to outlaw religious missions. I have also read excerpts from the report of the committee established by the Moscow Duma to investigate sects in Russia.

The information has been supplied to me by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). I am not a member or a co-religionist of this society, but I have an academic interest in its history, ideas and practices. I should of course be glad of a convincing assurance that the information supplied to me is false, but what follows is written on the assumption that it is true.

The excerpts from the committee's report show that there is a demand for legal moves against certain religious, groups including ISKCON As I know little about the other groups, I shall discuss the matter with reference to ISKCON.

The demand for legislation seems to be based on a view which has been met with from time to time in the last twenty years in the USA and Britain. This view is that movements such as ISKCON are so remote from the prevailing culture that no one in their right mind would willingly join them, and that those who join them must therefore have been coerced, through force, deception or psychological manipulation. This is the view that is often taken by the parents of young people who join such movements. Parents naturally expect their children to follow their way of life, but in a rapidly changing society this often does not happen, so parents are puzzled and seek a sinister explanation for their children's behaviour, seeing them as victims rather than free agents. The Special Committee seems to have relied too much on letters from
parents, who may know little about their children's true motivation, and find it hard to believe that their children have willingly chosen their present way of life.

I do not claim that there are no religious movements which manipulate people through various forms of coercion, but I do not believe that ISKCON is such a movement. People are attracted to it in various ways: for instance, because it offers pleasant and healthy food, companionship, an opportunity to express fervent devotion, avoidance of guilt, and a stable and unthreatening social environment. These are things which young people often find lacking in modern society, even within their own families.

If a charge of psychological manipulation is to have any meaning, it must be clearly distinguished from the ways in which people act on each other psychologically all the time through conversation and other everyday behaviour, as well as the ways in which people in authority, such as teachers, military officers or parents, instil discipline and inculcate beliefs and attitudes. ISKCON has a strict discipline involving early rising, a restricted diet, sexual restraint, and the repetition and chanting of set forms of words. But each of these has parallels in other ways of life, including both lay and monastic Christian life. It is inconsistent to take action against some voluntary bodies whose members undertake such a discipline, and not against others.

One of the allegations quoted in the excerpts concerns the effects of celibacy. 'The libido of young people is destroyed. Women stop their menses and men suffer from impotence.' Celibacy is practised in many cultures, and is often highly respected, so it is strange to find it attacked in this way with reference to certain groups. It may reduce libido, but it hardly destroys it, and I have never before heard that it prevents menstruation. Such unscientific claims serve to discredit the movement for legislation.

As a Christian, I am disturbed by the religious totalitarianism which is being proposed. I do not believe that it is justifiable to divide religious groups into the acceptable and the unacceptable.
There is a justification for legislation against coercive practices, but in a free society such legislation must be applicable to all religious groups, and any such group should have a chance to defend itself against accusations of coercion.

I hope you will use your influence to prevent this resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Dermot Killingley, Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies.