FACTnet's New Mission Statement

In early 2008 Factnet upgraded and expanded its mission to the following:

Factnet helps survivors heal abuse caused by Religions or Cults. It deals with all areas of financial, sexual, physical, psychological, theological or indoctrinational abuse found in any religion or cult.

We provide survivor recovery resources and survivor peer to peer healing.

We hold that through by fully making both the abuse and the abuser transparent the abuse recovery process can be faster and far more effective. This is because others can also learn, heal or be inoculated by this transparent openness.

We proactively research and provide information on the many healthy  non pathological aspects of religion and religious practices.

How We Accomplish Our Mission:

1. We educate on the financial, sexual, physical, psychological, theological or indoctrinational abuse found in any religion or cult,
2. We provide references to professionals who specialize in recovery from financial, sexual, physical, psychological, theological or indoctrinational abuse found in any religion or cult,
3. We provide group specific discussion forms to provide effective peer to peer healing support for recovery from all forms of religious or cultic abuse.
4. We utilize state-of-the-art electronic information management and internet transfer to make our abuse and recovery educational materials accessible worldwide.
5. We proactively research and provide information the healthy aspects of religion and religious practices.
6. We educate on and research healthy education practices vs. coercive “education” as well as the new mind control coercive influence tactics and technologies.
7. We promote a healing partnership model to first negotiate and mediate and then if all else fails, to litigate to change the behavior of any religious or cultic organization abusing its members.
8. When ever possible and wise we seek to be less confrontational with abusers and first focused on assisting abuse survivors heal and recover using a peer to peer support/recovery process, which uses the peer to peer support guidelines posted on our site.
9. We support ongoing professional scholarly research though our website with the survivors of religious, cultic or mind control abuse.
10. And finally and most importantly, Factnet is a critical advocacy that helps to protect the most basic human rights and constitutional freedoms namely freedom of thought, mind and will from the fast evolving 4th generation of mind control technology and coercive influence tactics. Freedom of thought, mind and will are the essential prerequisites that underlie other human rights and freedoms such as freedom of belief or opinion. Without freedom of thought, mind and will first, no religious, political, or social freedom has deep and real validity and meaning. Freedom of thought, mind and will is not only important on an individual level, but also on a societal scale. Rationality supported by freedom of thought, mind and will is critical to a democracy in which the participation and engagement of its free-thinking and freely speaking citizens maintains the very life and future of that democratic society.

Those We Serve:

1. Survivors who have been abused by religions or cults and their family and loved ones can obtain information that helps them understand what happened. They find resource connections to help them formulate a plan of action for the challenging recovery process.
2. Mental health professionals and clergy of non abusive religions obtain the information and resource connections they need to help survivors, families, and loved ones, and to network among themselves.
3. Journalists and educators obtain the information and resource connections they need to expose abuses, develop preventive educational programs, and provide accurate well-rounded descriptions of this area of human rights abuse.
4. Survivors’ rights advocates and other anti-abuse organizations access the information and resource connections they need to defend against malicious legal and other harassment that some religions or cults often employ in attempts to silence those they perceive as opponents.
5. Attorneys and government agencies obtain the information and resource connections they need to prosecute individuals and groups who have seriously damaged people or otherwise broken the law. Civil and criminal investigations can be researched inexpensively.

Special Use of Our Services and Information Disclaimer for All Factnet Users to Read:

F.A.C.T.Net (Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network) is a nonaligned electronic lending library and preservational archive. The purpose of Factnet's news and historic archive service is to promote independent investigation and public debate and dialog on Religious, cult abuse issues critical to our social and individual well-being. Statements made in any documents in any of our libraries or message discussion boards on or off the Internet do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the F.A.C.T.Net organization. F.A.C.T.Net provides only the electronic medium for transferring information, with the explicit understanding that each user will independently evaluate it and carefully make up his or her own mind as to its factual accuracy and usefulness.

For the following reasons, F.A.C.T.Net treats all of the information in these electronic research libraries, e-mails, electronic chats, message boards, editorials and electronic conferences or other information transfers as allegations, opinions, or theoretical or research discussions and makes absolutely no claims for the factual accuracy of any information, statement, or document contained within any of its electronic libraries or services. The rational and real reasons for this disclaimer are:

• Independent individuals, organizations, or authors contributing documents to F.A.C.T.Net's research libraries may be exercising their constitutional rights of petition, free speech, participation in government, or freedom of religion in researching, evaluating and freely discussing any matter. These discussions or statements may be the constitutionally protected opinions, allegations, satire, fiction, or religious beliefs or religious opinions of these independent individuals, organizations, or authors and, as such, may or may not be factual.
• Some of the information contained in these libraries may be fictional works, "works in progress," or archival materials included in the library or archive only to preserve their possible historical or bibliographical value or for which even the author or contributor makes no claims as to the document's factual accuracy.
• Most of the documents in our research libraries have been electronically scanned and mechanically translated. Even using the newest technologies, errors occur naturally during this process.

Because of the preceding in this Factnet services and use disclaimer, neither F.A.C.T.Net Inc., any affiliated entities, nor any of its information providers offer any warranties, expressed or implied, concerning the performance of the F.A.C.T.Net information network or the veracity of information available through on or provided by F.A.C.T.Net. All information is provided to F.A.C.T.Net library users on an "as is" basis subject to the qualifications of this disclaimer and all use of such information for any purpose is at the library user's sole risk.

We allow vigorous free speech debates and dialogs to take place on our website and in our discussion forums. If you have not done so already, we strongly recommend that you also read "On Liberty" by John Stewart Mill. This will help explain in part why we allow these vigorous religious and cultic dialogs to take place.

Your entering or posting in the discussion forums as a registered user or subscribing to any of our subscription services constitutes your agreement to follow all rules and policies of our discussion forums and website and that you agree to allow us to email you our quarterly Ezine and special alerts.

We now allow religious beliefs to be vigorously discussed in our discussion forums. Here is why we do it:

We have come to a new point in humanity’s history where if individuals or religious organization’s assert to another that their own faith beliefs or practices should be believed or followed as fact and/or that specific behavior is dictated or ordered by those faith beliefs or practices, then those faith beliefs or practices should be open to public questioning and dialog on their factuality and/or usefulness in directing specific behaviors. Religious pathology, abuse, fundamentalism and religious terrorism are not just matters of history, but fill the pages of our daily media. The only way many of these issues will heal is by open, candid dialog concerning the faith beliefs or practices that may be instrumental to creating these situations or other abuses.

Many religions already encourage their members to sincerely examine and reality test the faith beliefs or practices being presented to them. This just extends and expands the sanction and healthy practice of a sincere questioning and reality testing of faith beliefs for the benefit of both society and religion itself. Additionally, if we do not allow for questioning of faith beliefs and faith practices it closes off the possibilities for addressing behaviors that perpetuate historic unfairness. Politically correct tolerance of any religious belief can be used quite well by the clever to perpetuate all types of injustice and cruelty in the name of religion. Transparency about our beliefs and where they come from and what supports them will do much to heal the world of toxic and irrational belief systems.

The following is historical on the past almost 2 decades of evolution for Factnet’s mission:

FACTNet’s name is an acronym that means Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network. We are composed of a global network of former cult members and professionals who assist victims of cults, mind control, psychological coercion and fundamentalism. FACTNet's mission is to protect the most universal and basic constitutional freedom, the single freedom that is an essential prerequisite to the meaningful exercise of all of our other freedoms — freedom of mind! Factnet focuses on protecting freedom of mind from harms caused by all forms of mind control and unethical influence.

In its earlier years (1993-2001) FACTNet focused on mind control and unethical influence as was commonly found in destructive cults. In 2002 it has expanded its mission to also cover mind control and unethical influence as found in governments, corporations, social organizations, advertising/marketing, political organizations, the military and family groups.

Since 1993 in human rights abuse, FACTNet has been to destructive cults, fundamentalism, mind control, and mental coercion and torture what Amnesty International has been in human rights abuse to physical torture.

In August 2007 with the addition of a new Executive Director we honed in our mission focus to a greater emphasis on providing Peer to Peer healing and recovery support. View Factnet as an oasis for all seeking recovering from harmful mind control. For some this journey may take longer or look very different than for others. Each person’s recovery will be unique to his- or her- self. Each discussion board member is encouraged to bring his or her unique presence, experience, wisdom, and support. It is FACTNet’s heartfelt desire that everyone that visits here receives what they need at that moment in their journey.

Factnet is an information rich site and the discussion forums are full of many people eager to help others. However, sometimes all that is needed is for a person to have his or her story heard fully by another person. At Factnet we strive to nurture and support each individual’s personal healing journey. Not every time is a time for action. We encourage everyone on the discussion boards to honor each others¢ journey, to listen when listening is needed, to offer advice and help when that is what is requested.

Freedom of Mind

FACTNet views freedom of mind, otherwise known as freedom of thought or free will, as the elemental prerequisite that underlies all other human rights and freedoms, freedoms such as freedom of religion and free speech. Freedom of mind does not imply a right to absolute freedom of behavior, but rather to absolute freedom of belief. It is the freedom:

• to observe and consider the world with as objective an eye as possible,
• to think and analyze rationally, and
• to formulate our beliefs -- and so our lives -- by exercising the measure of autonomy that we have been given.

Without free will, no religious, political, or social freedom has meaning.

Protecting freedom of mind is FACTNet's core function.

Freedom of mind is not only important on an individual level, but also on a societal scale. Rationality is critical to a democracy in which the participation and engagement of a society's free-thinking citizens is the very life of the society. Freedom of mind is society's tool to solve problems rationally and create a positive future for its citizens. FACTNet's mission to protect individuals' free will is also an effort to assist the working of participatory democracy.

Mind Control

Mind control is psychological coercion. Mind control techniques stifle individuals' ability to think independently and rationally. For individuals under the influence of mind control, freedom of religion, free speech, and other freedoms of expression which derive from free thought, are literally impossible. Without freedom of thought, all our freedoms become enfeebled or meaningless.

On a societal level, unless a society protects foundational freedom of mind from interference by the unethical tactics of mind control, it loses its very means for problem-solving and improvement. Free speech, especially in a forum for open debate, defines the forward movement of a democracy. FACTNet holds that both on and off the Internet, free speech is critical to improving and protecting humankind's future. The necessity for free speech in a democracy is eloquently expressed by John Stewart Mill in the second chapter of his essay, "On Liberty."

As part of its mission, FACTNet ascribes to the declaration put forth by the United Nations regarding freedom of belief, called the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.

FACTNet, Freedom of Mind, and Mind Control

FACTNet's mission and commitment is to protect the exercise of freedom of mind by educating on the importance of this freedom, and on forces that threaten to diminish or destroy it, particularly the threat of mind control as employed by cults. FACTNet is also committed to assisting people whose freedom of mind has been compromised, by providing references to professionals who can help them restore their autonomy and freedom.

For a deeper understanding of the principles, values, policy guidelines, and goals of FACTNet, see our FACTPack.