Jan Groenveld

Jan Groenveld
Born 1945 (1945)
Australia
Died (aged 57)
Queensland, Australia
Occupation Founder,
Cult Awareness and Information Centre
Spouse(s) Simon Groenveld
Children 7

Jan Groenveld (1945 – 22 October 2002) was a member of the LDS Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses.[1] She spent fifteen years in these and other organisations before leaving them in 1975 and resolving to make more information about what she saw as "cults" available to the general public.[1][2]

Freedom in Christ Ministry

Groenveld first began providing information about groups she referred to as cults to the public and counselling affected individuals in 1979.[1] In 1980, she founded the Freedom in Christ ministry, whose purpose was to counsel former members of controversial groups, and provide information about coercive religious sects.[2]

Jan founded the Cult Awareness and Information Centre (CAIC), in 1990.[1][2] Groenveld's CAIC website was started in 1991.[3]

Groenveld first met Steven Hassan in 1993, when she brought him to Brisbane, Australia from the United States for a seminar. Hassan educated Groenveld as to the "serious potential for doubt and lack of veracity in satanic ritual abuse stories".[2]

Cited as "cult expert"

In 1999 a Brisbane tabloid, the Sunday Mail interviewed Groenveld on the likelihood that more destructive cults would show up in Australia during 1999 before the new Millennium. The publication titled Groenveld a "cult specialist"[4] two other Australian publications, the Courier Mail, a Brisbane tabloid, and the The Mercury a tabloid in Hobart titled her a "cult expert."[5][6] She warned the publication about a cult called the Twelve Tribes Mission, believing them to possess militant tendencies. She warned: "There are people out there all over the place who would like to be another Jim Jones", referring to the Peoples Temple suicides.[4]

Groenveld's work has also been cited in Snow's Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers.[7]

Death

Jan Groenveld died in October 2002, and was survived by her husband, 3 sons, 2 daughters and 2 foster daughters.[8]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Groenveld, Jan. "About Jan". Cult Awareness and Information Centre. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Guilliatt, Richard (1996). Talk of the devil : repressed memory & the ritual abuse witch-hunt. Melbourne, Australia: Text Publishing. ISBN 9781875847297.
  3. ↑ Groenveld, Jan. "Who on Earth is the Cult Awareness & Information Centre??". Cult Awareness & Information Centre. Archived from the original on 2009-10-15.
  4. 1 2 Griffith, C. (10 January 1999) "Doom Cults Aussie Alert", Sunday Mail Brisbane, Australia, pages 1, 4.
    However, Queensland cult specialist Jan Groenveld said the doomsday merchants were more likely to come to Australia. "If it's a biblical cult, they may go to Israel, but eastern, Nostradamus-based and UFO-based cults believe the southern hemisphere, in particular Australia, may suffer less or later damage as the end approaches."
  5. ↑ Twelve Tribes Café in Australia, Griffith, Chris; Watt, Amanda (26 December 2001), Courier Mail, Australia, page 7.
    Brisbane cult expert Jan Groenveld said that the group's commercial operations may look benign, but that the public should be wary if approached by cult members with invitations to visit their community.
  6. ↑ Binet, Harriet (2 November 2000) "Cult Alert", The Mercury, (Australia), page 1.
    A Brisbane cult expert Jan Groenveld has worked with the families of members involved with Infinity. She described it as a cult which used subtle mind control to manipulate people for financial gain. "They cut off their family if there is any opposition," Mrs Groenveld said. "People become separated from families and become totally absorbed. "They really get hooked on the leader. No one that's in a cult knows that it's a cult. "It's not until you start to see that things are wrong that you can see what you're in." Mrs Groenveld, who has counselled victims and families of cults for more than 20 years, said isolating people from their family and urging them to "stay away from unbelief" was a common tactic.
  7. ↑ Snow, Robert L. (2003). Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers. Praeger/Greenwood. p. 196. ISBN 0-275-98052-9.
  8. ↑ Randy Watters (2002-11-02). "In Memory of Jan Groenveld". freeminds.org. Retrieved 2015-05-08.
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