Cult Awareness Network
Logo, (Old) Cult Awareness Network
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| Abbreviation | CAN |
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| Formation | 1978 |
| Founder | Ted Patrick |
| Extinction | 1996 |
| Services | Deprogramming, support and referrals to deprogrammers and exit counselors |
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Executive director 1991–96
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Cynthia Kisser |
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Co-director 1995–1996 Vice president 1992–1995
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Rosanne Henry |
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Director 1988–91
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Carol Giambalvo |
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Director 1982–87
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Reginald Alev |
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Key people
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Cynthia Kisser, Patricia Ryan, Louis Jolyon West, Margaret Singer, Priscilla Coates, Rick Ross, Steven Hassan, Paul Engel, Janja Lalich, Mike Farrell, Edward Lottick, Sandy Andron (former vice-president), Nancy Miquelon, John Rehling, William Rehling |
| Subsidiaries | NARDEC, Free Minds of North Texas |
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Formerly called
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FREECOG, Citizen's Freedom Foundation (CFF) (1971), |
The Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was an organization created by deprogrammer Ted Patrick that provided information on groups that it considered to be cults, as well as support and referrals to deprogrammers. It 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, and was shut down in 1996. Its name and assets were later bought by a group of private donors (some of whom were Scientologists) in a bankruptcy proceedings; with the transfer of ownership, the organization was renamed the New Cult Awareness Network.
CAN and its representatives were known for being highly critical of Scientology, Landmark Education, and some other groups and new religious movements, referring to some of these groups as "destructive cults".
Ted Patrick founded the FREECOG organization, later known as the Citizen's Freedom Foundation, in 1971 before becoming successively the Citizen's Freedom Foundation ("CFF"), the "Cult Awareness Network of the Citizen's Freedom", and finally the Cult Awareness Network, renamed in the wake of the 1978 Jonestown mass murder-suicide. CAN was initially directed by Patricia Ryan, the daughter of US Congressman Leo J. Ryan (D-Millbrae, California), who died from gunfire while investigating conditions at the Jonestown compound.
The Citizen's Freedom Foundation was originally headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and collected information on New Religious Movements. By 1991, the Cult Awareness Network had twenty-three chapters dedicated to monitoring two hundred groups that it referred to as: "mind control cults."
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