My memories of the 1960s and ’70s are vague by choice, but I seem to recall that there was a legitimate popular concern back then about quasi-religious cult recruitment of youth. Almost immediately, there was a reaction to it known as “deprogramming.” Then, there was a reaction to deprogramming in the name of individual freedom and religious liberty. Eventually, all of that nonsense slipped below the level of acute public concern (more than anything because most of the mystical charlatans were exposed or went back to their own countries or both). Just as well to forget these things, I’m inclined to say; but maybe not, since we missed a chance to protect ourselves from really vile extremism among alienated youth.

Reading a World Affairs Journal piece by Alan Johnson on interviewing young British Islamists about how they were recruited took me back to the cult recruitment of those dubious decades. This, because Johnson’s point with regard to Islamist radicalization was, “there’s always a recruiter.” From what Johnson had to say, Islamist recruiting seemed to me to be a lot like good old cult recruiting. It’s not the substance that matters so much as the personal engagement, the access given to lonely and confused youth to an embracing community with a seemingly noble purpose. Johnson says that Islamist recruiters tend to become “operationalizers,” “handlers,” in due course. Cult recruiters functioned in the same way, although they were mainly interested in getting hold of their recruits’ money, not their bomb-delivery skills and willingness to don suicide vests.