Cult Awareness Network

The Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was founded in the wake of the November 18, 1978 deaths of members of the group Peoples Temple and assassination of Congressman Leo J. Ryan in Jonestown, Guyana. CAN is now owned and operated by associates of the Church of Scientology, an organization that the original founders of CAN strongly opposed. Prior to its hostile takeover, CAN provided information on groups that it considered to be cults, as well as support and referrals to exit counselors and deprogrammers.

From 1978 until 1996 when the Cult Awareness Network was bought out by associates of the Church of Scientology in United States bankruptcy court, CAN and its representatives were highly critical of Scientology, Landmark Education, and other groups and new religious movements that it considered to have potentially harmful tendencies. The Cult Awareness Network referred to some of these groups as "destructive cults." Cynthia Kisser, the then executive director of CAN, was quoted in the controversial 1991 TIME article, "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power". These comments and other forms of criticism from CAN garnered the attention of the Church of Scientology and Landmark Education, and both separately began litigation proceedings against the organization.

CAN was driven into bankruptcy when a court found CAN guilty of having conspired to violate the civil rights and religious liberties of Jason Scott, a Pentecostalist, who had been forcibly kidnapped and subjected to a failed "deprogramming" by Rick Ross, a CAN-referred deprogrammer. The court ordered CAN to pay a judgement of US$1 million. The large award was intended to deter similar conduct in the future; the court noted that the defendants were unable to appreciate the maliciousness of their conduct towards the deprogrammee, and portrayed themselves, throughout the entire process of litigation, as victims of the alleged agenda of the opposing counsel, Church of Scientology attorney Kendrick Moxon. Subsequently, the organization was bought out in bankruptcy court by Church of Scientology attorney Steven Hayes in 1996. As a result of a legal settlement with Landmark Education, CAN agreed not to sell copies of Outrageous Betrayal, a book critical of Werner Erhard, for five years after it emerged from bankruptcy proceedings. Following its bankruptcy, the files of the "Old CAN" were made available to scholars for study and transferred to a university library. Since then, academics who published a joint paper with Kendrick Moxon and later others referencing their work have stated that the "Old CAN" covertly continued to make and derive income from referrals to coercive deprogrammers, while publicly distancing itself from the practice.

The "New CAN" organization (also known as the Foundation for Religious Freedom) has caused both confusion and controversy among academics and its opponents. Board members of the "Old CAN" have characterized it as a front group for the Church of Scientology. In December 1997, 60 Minutes profiled the controversy regarding the history of the "Old CAN" and the "New CAN", with host Lesley Stahl noting: "Now, when you call looking for information about a cult, chances are the person you're talking to is a Scientologist." James R. Lewis has described "New CAN" as "a genuine information and networking center on non-traditional religions". Margaret Thaler Singer expressed the opinion that any experts the public would be referred to by the "New CAN" would be cult apologists. Shupe and Darnell noted that the "New CAN" had been able to attract support from donors such as Amazon.com, and that by 2000 it was receiving thousands of phone calls per month and had made hundreds of expert referrals. The "New CAN" promotes itself as a champion of human rights and freedom of religion. An August 2007 article on Fox News on the Wikipedia Scanner noted that "a computer linked to the Church of Scientology's network was used to delete references to links between it and the 'Cult Awareness Network'" on Wikipedia.