Professional Profile

      William Goldberg's interest in cult-related issues was a "natural" development: coming of age in the turbulent 60s he joined a number of what were then perceived to be radical groups involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements in order to express the idealism charateristic of his generation. Following a picketing demonstration, however, he learned that he had been used by the leadership for the organization's ulterior political purposes. Such deception had escaped him until then because he had accepted the group's world view uncritically. This insight into the nature of cultic manipulation, Mr. Goldberg recounts, probably kept him from falling prey to it later, during the heyday of cult recruitment which began in the mid-70s, and continues.

    But if he remained out of cults, he certainly became professionally involved with them: following a BA from Rutgers in political science, Mr. Goldberg took his MSW in social group work, helped his brother-in-law get out of a cult, co-founded a long-running and still-continuing group for ex-cult members - inspired, he says, by the work of AFF Director Dr. John Clark - wrote articles on group work with former cultists, and is now concluding his doctorate in clinical social work at Adelphi University.

    Today, Mr. Goldberg is the Director of the Community Support Center in Pomona, NY, a facility for formerly hospitalized mental patients. Here, he says, he has come to appreciate, and work to overcome, the invidious labeling of whole persons as "mental cases" or "cultists," when the truth is that for most of them the label applies to only part of their persona.

    With such a background in thought and action - to which one might add Mr. Goldberg's willingness to help, and his affable nature - the AFF Advisory Board has benefited greatly. We look forward to continued collaboration.

Cult Observer, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1989, p. 16