Massimo Introvigne

"… Hassan promotes the BITE model as a scientific method for identifying “destructive cults,” claiming it can distinguish legitimate religions from dangerous groups. In practice, however, the model functions less as a diagnostic tool than as a means of labeling any movement he opposes as a “cult.” Its criteria are so broad and indeterminate that they can be applied to political movements, established religions, or even public-health debates, depending on the evaluator’s preferences. The result is a subjective framework that reflects Hassan’s own moral and political prejudices."

"Chinese-American political scientist Pei Minxin’s “The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2026) is an autopsy report on a failing idea that few were willing to address: the belief that markets would weaken authoritarianism, that billionaires would push the Chinese Communist Party toward democracy, and that a rising middle class would seek elections rather than larger apartments. Pei dissects the myth with scholarly precision and the dry humor of someone who has watched Western policymakers cling to the same fantasies for 40 years."

"Kang’s vision was rooted in a radical reinterpretation of Confucianism. He saw Confucius not as a conservative sage but as a reformer and believed that a properly reformed monarchy could be the vessel for China’s modernization. His 1902 treatise “Datong Shu” (Book of Great Unity) imagined a utopian world of gender equality, global governance, and technological harmony—a vision that was both startlingly progressive and deeply hierarchical. … Kang Youwei may have been cast out of China, but from the Chinatowns of Vancouver to the lecture halls of New York, he built a movement that reshaped the global Chinese imagination. … It is not surprising that he finds admirers in contemporary Xi Jinping’s China although whether they share or even understand the spiritual roots of his message remains unclear."

"Jao’s work assumes a deep understanding of Chinese history, literature, and archaeology that few have. But the reward is great. His essays explore the beliefs, practices, and artifacts of Chinese spiritual traditions from prehistory to the emergence of Daoism and Buddhism, always looking for unexpected connections or overlooked details."

"There are similarities, as well as obvious differences, in the epic of the Mormon Battalion and the epic of Tai Ji Men struggle for peace and justice, as described in the book “Who Stole Their Youth?” In both cases, a generation of members of a minority spiritual movement suffered persecution. In both cases, youth answered generously to the need of protecting their movement from persecution and to the inspired worlds of their leader."

"The Party has accepted that it cannot eliminate Feng Shui; instead, it has placed itself as the ultimate authority on how it should be used. In this “state-led logic of legitimation,” the layout of China’s cities becomes a map of political authority, leading back to Beijing. Reading [Singapore Management University Professor Andrew] Stokols, I recalled the police officers from 2018, claiming atheism while adjusting their desks to face the right way. They weren’t hypocrites. They were simply navigating a country where the state bans superstition yet practices it, where ideology bends to mountains and rivers, and where even the most secular revolution eventually realizes that the dragon veins run deeper than Marx."

"The trial of the Famille Missionnaire de Notre-Dame (FMND), which concluded its hearings in Privas on January 22 and now awaits a verdict on March 24, has become a significant moment in the development of French criminal law. What started as a disagreement between five former sisters and a traditional Catholic community has turned into a demonstration of how far the ideas of “abuse of weakness” (abus de faiblesse) and “cultic deviances” (dérives sectaires) can be stretched. It shows how easily they can be used to regulate religious life. Bitter Winter [has] previously presented the case and warned that these legal concepts amount to a rebranding of the old discredited “brainwashing” theories, which were rejected by courts in the United States and most democratic countries. The FMND case proves that these concerns are not just theoretical."

"In an interview of January 20 that “Bitter Winter” readers will recognize as both bold and overdue, Sergei Chapnin delivers a harsh critique of the current state of the Russian Orthodox Church. Once a senior insider, serving as the editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, deputy chief editor of the Church Herald, lecturer at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, and secretary of the Inter-Conciliar Board, Chapnin now shares his views from exile as the director of communications at the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University in New York. His statements reflect deep experience and feelings of betrayal. “The Russian Orthodox Church has effectively stopped being part of the Christian world and has become a tool of power,” he states. Chapnin refers to it as a “spiritual catastrophe.” He argues that the Church no longer follows the Gospel but instead supports war, repression, and violence. “The Church of Russia is no longer Christian.”"

"[In the land Mongols prefer to call Southern Mongolia,] Mongolians have demonstrated “remarkable creativity and resilience” in preserving their culture despite intense pressure. They continue to write, sing, teach, and protest—even if they sometimes must do this by sending handwritten images in encrypted chats. Their goal is straightforward: to tell their own stories in their own language and ensure that Mongolian words, poems, and songs persist as vibrant expressions of a people who refuse to be redefined. [The PEN America report] “Save Our Mother Tongue” is a timely reminder that languages are more than communication tools; they are vessels of memory, humor, longing, and identity. To erase a language is to erase a worldview. Fighting for a language asserts that a people’s story is ongoing, regardless of how many websites are shut down or playlists rewritten."

"Harrison is no nostalgic reactionary. He acknowledges modernity’s gifts. But he warns against monochrome narratives of progress. One of his most provocative claims is that science, too, relies on “ implicita.” …As a scholar of new religious movements, I find Harrison’s thesis electrifying. He doesn’t mention my field, but I’ll extend his argument: many new religions are a renaissance of “fides implicita.” Converts don’t join because they’ve dissected theological treatises (although some may read them later). They join because they trust a guru, a prophet, a community. Just like early Christians and Muslims. The intellectual scaffolding may come later—or not at all. So, is “fides implicita” obsolete? Has secular science vanquished religion? Harrison—and I—say: not so fast. Belief, in its ancient form as trust, is alive and well. It’s just wearing new clothes."

"Well-known among scholars is Ong’s call to reflect on how deep the transformations of societies transitioning from orality to scripture are. Less noticed was his remark that the transition carries ethical implications, particularly about conscience, the internal moral compass that guides human behavior."

"That the Shri Ram Chandra Mission, a highly respected organization in India, has been at all included among the groups accused of “cultic deviances” (and in the infamous French “list of cults” of 1995) is in itself evidence of the arbitrariness of the system of “saisines.” The Sahaj Marg, or Natural Way, is a system derived from with a long tradition in India. It was rediscovered and simplified by Shri Ram Chandra of Fatehgarh (“Lalaji,” 1873–1931), born in Fatehgarh, Uttar Pradesh. From 1914 he established the first regular Satsang, or group meditation, and after 1929, the date of his retirement from his job as a court clerk, he devoted himself totally to spiritual teaching. …The Shri Ram Chandra Mission operates quietly and peacefully in 160 countries. In France, however, a few “saisines” made it into a “cult” whose “cultic deviances” should be controlled in secret."

"…there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of her faith. And whatever one may think of Anitta, she called the attention on a serious problem of freedom of religion or belief, which in Brazil is in fact not getting better but worse."

"…American sociologist George Yancey in his 2015 book “Hostile Environment” focused on American media bias against Christianity and conservative religion in general and found its roots in the fact that mainline U.S. journalism is a self-perpetuating caste. If you are an Evangelical Christian or do not agree with the prevailing liberal and secular ideology, particularly on moral matters, you will be thrown out of the first interview when you will try to be hired by one of the mainline media."

"Ren Bishi was a gifted ideologist and military commander, who might have emerged as the [Chinese Communist Party]’s second-in-command had he not criticized some of Chairman Mao’s military choices and suffered from health problems that led to his premature death at age 46. …Lionizing Ren Bishi is exactly what it seems to be—a threat to those who believe that dissent in 2024 would be dealt with more leniently than in 1944. Commemorating Ren Bishi reminds us that this will not be the case."

"Gambia’s path to democracy and to transitional justice, for which a Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission has been established, is understandably bumpy. What the country does not need is voices nostalgic of the old restrictions to religious liberty."

"The Brazilian Supreme Court’s verdict [regarding the use of religious clothing and accessories in photographs of official documents] comes one week after French Prime Minister created controversies in Canada by publicly expressing his support to the controversial Quebec secularism law that prohibits many public sector employees from wearing [any] religious symbol at work. While Attal used a visit to Canada to support the law, Canada’s federal government is considering joining the religious and educational organizations that have challenged the Quebec law at the Supreme Court."

"Following in the footsteps of the great Protestant theologian H. Richard Niebuhr and his posthumously published book “The Responsible Self” (1963), one of the most well-known (if controversial) contemporary female Catholic theologians, the late Sister Anne E. Patrick, distinguished two ways of looking at conscience, one passive and one creative. The passive conscience, in the words of Sister Patrick, is the internalized habit of “fulfilling the commonly recognized duties on one’s state in life.” As sons, daughters, parents, spouses, citizens, workers, or devotees of a certain religion we have a certain number of duties our society recognizes, and we have internalized the need to fulfill them. Passive conscience is often bad-mouthed but is also necessary. No society or organization can survive without it. However, passive conscience, while necessary, is not sufficient. …Creative conscience alerts us when following the rules and the orders of the authorities, perhaps even following our long-established habits, would lead to injustice, and we should be brave enough to challenge the usual ways and look for something new."

"American scholar Catherine Wessinger distinguishes between “catastrophic” and “progressive” forms of millennialism. While catastrophic millennialism waits for a final disaster that would end the world as we know it, progressive millennialism examines the signs of the times and expects a great transformation that will not necessarily be the end of everything. Also, progressive millennialism does not believe that the transformation will be the simple consequence of cosmic forces humans cannot control. We have a role to play in preparing it."

"[Civil] rights researcher Wu Chih-Chung identified the root cause of unjust tax cases in the system of bonuses paid to tax bureaucrats who hastily impose ill-founded tax bills. Wu said that this is a legacy of the White Terror, where alleged Communists were arrested, tortured, and often killed after being reported to the authorities by whistleblowers who then received as bonuses a part of their victims’ confiscated assets. This system caused the death of many innocents and continues in the shape of bonuses that lead to the fabrication of false tax bills, Wu concluded."

"…there is evidence, particularly in the works of the late sociologist Anson D. Shupe, that sexual abuse is more common in [the] “old” religions than in [the] new religious movements, not only in absolute numbers but also in percentage. Yet, the media sometimes pay more attention to abuse in “cults” and create the false impression that sexual abuse is more prevalent in the “new” than in the “old” religions."

"Although the West, rather than Japan, eventually became the promised land of Reiki, there would be no Reiki at all without Usui and his teachings."

"I did not agree with all his positions, but this only made our conversations more lively and memorable. We spent long hours of the evening and night during my visits to , where I would normally stay in the Archbishop’s apartment, discussing politics, religion, and pretty much everything, with Casale’s sister periodically and silently appearing to offer an incredible variety of local cookies and beverages. Later, became also part of these lengthy domestic conversations. ...It was precisely because of his natural empathy with all sort of discriminated minorities that Casale also understood the injustices vested on new religious movements. He was critical both of the secular anti-cult movement and of some excesses of Catholic counter-cultists. He remained, however, firstly a Roman Catholic bishop, something members of new religious movements captivated by his natural sympathy and Southern Italian humor, and hoping for more support, sometimes risked to forget."

"…the anti-cult campaigns by [Pablo Gastón] Salum and the PROTEX may indeed put the Argentinian democracy at risk."

"The Argentine anti-trafficking statute is notoriously broad, encompassing everything from forced labor to sexual exploitation to document irregularities. Prosecutors with a strong anti-cult bias have used it repeatedly in cases involving spiritual groups, real or imagined."

"I believe that public schools should not indoctrinate or proselytize for any religion but I am also persuaded that excluding an objective look at the role of religions and spirituality while designing a school curriculum would make it impossible for students to understand much of the art, culture, literature, and history of humanity in all continents. Even when reflecting on the momentous question of how education can produce good citizens, excluding any consideration of values based on spirituality can only lead to catastrophic results."

"I believe that Dr. Hong [Tao-Tze, the leader of Tai Ji Men], who has made himself heard about conscience all over the world, will be remembered for having rescued conscience from the problems Svevo was immersed in when he published his novel. Conscience had been assaulted not only by Freud, but before him by Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). They all suggested that rather than being something natural or native conscience has been artificially created inside us by social forces not particularly well intentioned. …Dr. Hong told us a simple truth, that we should forget ideologies and come back to conscience as the moral compass. Ideologies, as we know from the tragedies of the 20th century and are experiencing again in the 21st century, by obfuscating conscience create war and destruction. Only those who recognize the central role of conscience can build a civilization of peace and love."

"There are several misunderstandings about conscience. One is that the question of conscience is extremely complicated. As Dr. Hong [Tao-Tze] teaches us, this is basically a lie. A philosophical book about conscience can be very technical and difficult to read for the uninitiated, yet the common experience of conscience is very simple. …As Dr. Hong says, “conscience is innate.” It is within us. For believers, it is the voice of God; for non-believers, it is the voice of our deepest and noblest human nature. But the 19th century ideologues told us that it is a false voice of false gods."

"Being one of the scholars who immediately reacted to the 1995 report through press conferences, articles, and a book, I warned that the list [of 173 “cults” by a French Parliamentary Commission] was the most dangerous feature of the whole [anti-cult] enterprise. …I and other scholars coined the expression “effet de liste” (list effect), indicating that the damages done to groups that had committed no crimes and their members was irreparable. It took ten years [for] the French government to recognize that the list had perhaps not been such a good idea, and in 2005 it stated that it should no longer be used as a reference."

"Sometimes, friendship may change the world."

"[…]Kant believed that world peace was possible only if the enlightened elites in each country worked hard to promote conscience. Without conscience there would be no peace, no matter how much efforts a society of nations would make. I am not sure that Kant’s notion of conscience was the same as Dr. Hong’s and Tai Ji Men’s. Kant’s one was deeply rooted in a Protestant sense of guilt and sin, and he saw it more as an inner tribunal delivering an internal verdict of guilt for the bad actions we have performed. Yet, his idea of a necessary connection between peace and conscience remains valid."

"[Australian scholar David Thomas] Smith’s theory of religious persecution shows us that a general “system of tolerance of minorities” is perfectly compatible with the persecution of some groups, and the two things in fact go together in many modern democratic states, which answers the objection that Tai Ji Men cannot be persecuted because Taiwan in general protects religious liberty. It also shows that democratic states, unlike their totalitarian counterparts that are often irrational, cease the persecutions when they understand that the political cost of persecution has become higher than the cost of tolerating a group they do not like."

"The real lesson of Romero is that there are no legitimate reasons to deny [civil or natural] rights. His government in his time believed that [civil or natural] rights could be somewhat “suspended” to protect El Salvador from Communist influences coming from the Soviet Union via Cuba and Nicaragua. Romero was certainly not an admirer of the Soviet Union, but believed there should be other ways of protecting his country, not suspending [civil or natural] rights. He taught us that those who advocate for [civil or natural] rights are “for” their countries, not “against” them. …Romero wrote that religious persecution happens because “truth is always persecuted,” and that God blesses those who protest and fight for freedom. But they should know they should suffer, because “pain is the money that buys freedom.” …Romero’s key teaching, that there is no reason good enough to justify the violation of [civil or natural] rights, is relevant for both religious liberty and the Tai Ji Men case. There are governments that claim that limiting religious liberty is necessary to protect social stability or the harmony of the country. Romero’s message is that this is not a valid justification. [Civil or natural] rights protection defines what a legitimate social stability is, rather than the other way around."

"There is physical pollution and there is the moral pollution of injustice. The two of them go together. We will not eliminate physical pollution if we do not eliminate moral pollution as well. …Getting the Buddhas back on their feet and creating a safe environment means changing our hearts, acknowledging the primacy of conscience, and facing and resolving injustice."

"…a difficult dialogue is better than [having] no dialogue."

"A world with no place for God is dark, empty without hope."

"Everywhere in the world, young men and women like what is forbidden."

"Social justice without [civil or natural] rights is [maliciously] ideological and false."

"For the [ Chinese Communist Party ] it is better to have a bureaucrat who is not very bright but is fanatically loyal to the Party than a very intelligent bureaucrat who thinks independently."

"[The Supreme Court of California’s 1931 decision “People v. Blackburn”] demonstrates that religious liberty is truly protected only if donations even to the most marginal and “strange” religions are protected."

"China seems to have been very much similar to the West, both in the production of new religious movements and in attracting to them figures from the political left who were officially promoting the struggle against “superstition.” Reconstructions of “Chinese traditional culture” as “non-religious,” and of the rich Chinese religious pluralism as mere “folk religion” should be viewed as propaganda rather than history."

"When a national or local government calls a religious group “antisocial” [or “cultic” or “dangerous” or the like], it jeopardizes [that religious group's] right to honor and reputation, incites [unreasonable] discrimination, and interferes with the citizens’ right of deciding which religion they want to join free from governmental pressures—who would want to bear the stigma connected with joining a religion officially declared “antisocial”?"

"By excluding the intolerants from the scope of tolerance, Voltaire reduced tolerance to an empty box. Worse, he prepared the atrocities of the Terror of the French Revolution, which was in turn the model of Communist terror. Millions were killed by proclaiming they had no right to tolerance because they were themselves intolerant. …The dramatic mistake of Voltaire should be corrected by proclaiming that religions and philosophies have [the] right to be in different ways intolerant, and should still be tolerated."

"[The] Yan’an [Soviet] is [a] synonym of crushing dissent, real or invented, by torturing and killing. As [Communist Party member] Cai Qi reminded the audience at the April 28 [2024] symposium, the Yan’an Rectification Campaign was plotted by Mao, but its main organizer was Ren Bishi."

"It is one of the most difficult exercises for democracy to tolerate those who think differently, think independently from the powers that be, and sometimes behave differently or do not actively support the parties in power."

"You cannot “rejoice in the truth” without rejecting and exposing iniquity. The lack of conscience, charity, and love leads to bad governance, unjust administration, and an unstable society inimical to its own citizens."

"The victims of [pedosexual] priests and other religious ministers deserve our sympathy and respect—but so do those who have been slandered and vilified by the media based on accusations courts have later recognized as false."

"Dr. Hong Tao-Tze, the Shifu (Grand Master) of Tai Ji Men, played a key role in reaffirming that conscience is the basis of [natural and civil] rights and of global peace, inter alia through the Declaration of . Since conscience is universal, so are [natural and civil] rights."

"The lesson of [the story about the Kalaupapa peninsula lepers’ colony of Molokaʻi, Hawaiʻi, and Belgian Catholic priest Father Damien De Veuster] is that living together in peace cannot be taken for granted. Even those who share a misfortune can ultimately not be able to live in peace together unless they discover again the role of the conscience. …order can be restored by returning to conscience."

"Wilson himself argued that it would be in the best interest of humanity if organized religions as we know them would disappear. There is, however, a misunderstanding. Wilson was not an atheist, nor was he against asking religious questions. Since his main interest were ants, it is to his interesting we should turn to understand more about his ideas on religion."