The Conway and Siegelman Claims against Religious Cults: An Assessment of Their Data

Religion, trauma and non-pathological dissociation in Northern Ireland

“…During a state of dissociation, there occurs a disengagement of the higher rational mental processes (Hilgard, 1986;Ludwig, 1983) and it has been shown that practice affects dissociation (Kilbourne, 1983;Simpson, 1996). Within a religious context, dissociation is facilitated by religious ritual and Schumaker (1995) concludes that this ritualistic behaviour which occurs during religious worship enables individuals to ''enter either an overt or more implicit dissociative mental state'' (Dorahy & Lewis, 2001, p. 316).…”

Religious Ritual and Dissociation in India and Australia

“…Similar shifts have been reported during dissociative states such as hypnosis and meditation (Frumkin, Ripley, & Cox, 1978;Lex, 1975;Schumaker, 1995). Kilbourne (1983) studied cult ritual and dissociation and found that "average hours per week in ritual" correlated positively with the dissociative experience of "floating in and out of altered consciousness." Some anthropologists are beginning to explain a variety of ritual-based phenomena (e.g., trance, spirit possession, visionary experiences) as manifestations of dissociation stemming from participation in ritual activity (Bourguignon, 1994;Castillo, 1994;Kleinman, 1988).…”

A Reply to Maher and Langone's Statistical Critique of Kilbourne

“…A Reply to Maher and Langone's Statistical Critique of Kilbourne* BROCK K. KILBOURNEt Maher and Langone (1985) have recently claimed that my analyses (Kilbourne, 1983) of the Conway and Siegelman data (1982) were "faulty" and the conclusions were "unwarranted" (325). According to Maher and Langone, "no conclusions can be drawn from Kilbourne's analyses" (325).…”

“…Although the correction factor is recommended when there are ties (Siegel, 1956;Blalock, 1979), and there are ties in the grouped data reported by Conway and Siegelman (refer to Table 1), it actually has a small effect on the value of rho and tau, unless there 1. One can, alternatively, use an N of 6 (i.e., include the average of all 48 cults in the calculation of the coefficients for the five largest cults) as another way to show that the correlation coefficients initially computed (Kilbourne, 1983) for the five largest cults in the Conway and Siegelman study (1982) were based on an N of 5. With an N of 6, only 6 of 132 correlation coefficients (i.e., rho and tau) have the same values as those reported with an N of 5.…”

“…A definite pattern of therapeutic effects emerged in the data that is deserving of future investigation. (Kilbourne, 1983).…”