Jacques Parker
About:
Jacques is an MA student in religious studies, specializing in American religions, cults and new religious movements (NRMs), anti-cultism, and American metaphysical religion. Their interests include deprogramming and anti-cultism, the Waco siege, Scientology, and ghosts, UFOs, and cryptids in America. Jacques received their BA in history and religious studies, with honors in religious studies, from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, in 2023.
Recent publications (please email for a free copy, jacquesparker@ucsb.edu):
- Jacques Parker. “‘Psychologically Kidnapped!’: ‘Secular’ Deprogrammings, the Category of Cult, and Fear of Social Change.” International Journal for the Study of New Religions 12, no. 2 (2021 [2024]): 185-209. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.26579.
- —. “Anti-Cultism in Japan: American Influences and Differences in Opposition to Cults.” Alternative Spiritualities and Religion Review 16, no. 1 (2025): 121-43. https://doi.org/10.5840/asrr2025429126.
Publications in press/under review:
- Jacques Parker. “Scientological Fundamentalism?: Free Zone Scientology and Religion in Modernity.” Accepted at Implicit Religion. Forthcoming Fall 2025.
- —. “What is Love Bombing?” In New Religious Movements in Five Minutes, edited by Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter. Forthcoming Winter 2026.
- —. “Are All Members of NRMs Brainwashed?” In New Religious Movements in Five Minutes, edited by Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter. Forthcoming Winter 2026.
- —. “Who are Deprogrammers?” In New Religious Movements in Five Minutes, edited by Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter. Forthcoming Winter 2026.
- —. “Affective Phantasmal Experiences: Affect and Senses in Watcher’s Ghost Files and Ghost Hunting Experience.” Under review at Material Religion.
- —. “The Religiously Insanity of Zombie Video Games: Differing Definitions of Human.” Under review at Game Studies.
Paper presentations:
- Jacques Parker, “‘Psychologically Kidnapped!’: ‘Secular’ Deprogrammings, the Category of Cult, and Fear of Social Change.” Paper at Implicit Religion US Conference. Digital conference. 30 May 2025.
- —. “Affective Phantasmal Experiences: Affect and Senses in Watcher’s Ghost Files and Ghost Hunting Experience.” Paper at the biennial Society for the Anthropology of Religion conference. Santa Barbara, CA. 24 June 2025.
Books reviewed (all forthcoming):
- Anticultism in France: Scientology, Religious Freedom, and the Future of New and Minority Religions (2024) by Donald A. Westbrook for International Journal for the Study of New Religions
- Convicting the Mormons: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American Culture (2023) by Janiece Johnson for Religious Studies Review
- Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism (2021) by Amanda Montell for International Journal for the Study of New Religions
- Exceptionally Queer: Mormon Peculiarity and U.S. Nationalism (2022) by K. Mohrman for Religious Studies Review
- New Religious Movements in North America: An Introduction (2024) edited by Lydia Willsky-Ciollo for Religious Studies Review
- Religion and Conspiracy Theories: An Introduction (2025) by David Robertson for Nova Religio
