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75-523: The Invisibles is a comic book created by Grant Morrison for the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics . This article is a list of all characters in the series. The Invisibles are an organization of a freedom fighters at war with the oppressive Outer Church. Many members are psychic or possess some kind of supernatural ability. Jack Frost is the alias of Dane McGowan, a rebellious teenager from Liverpool , England. Early in his childhood, Dane McGowan affects

150-440: A hypersigil to jump-start the culture in a more positive direction. The title initially sold well but sales dipped sharply during the first series, leading to concerns that the series might be cancelled outright. To counteract this, Morrison suggested a " wankathon " in the hope of bringing about a magical increase in sales by a mass of fans simultaneously masturbating at a set time. Morrison became seriously ill while writing

225-591: A Haitian Invisible and Voodoo practitioner, and the Moonchild, a monstrous being who will one day be crowned the next King of England. The twelfth issue of the series, "Best Man Fall", fleshes out the character of a soldier King Mob killed in the previous volume. Sir Miles' interrogates King Mob in an arc titled " Gideon Stargrave in Entropy in the U.K." Ragged Robin and Boy, the other members of King Mob's Invisibles cell, team up with Jim Crow to rescue their teammates. In

300-564: A brief relationship. The Invisibles then go back to Dulce to steal a powerful substance called "Magic Mirror" from the Outer Church in an arc titled "Black Science 2". Aware of Quimper's presence within her consciousness, Ragged Robin is able to trap and defeat him with Lord Fanny's help. In the Dulce facility, Jack is taken into the Magic Mirror substance where he is shown the horrific dimension that

375-603: A charismatic, cold-blooded assassin. The next arc, "Down and Out in Heaven and Hell", shows Dane as he tries to survive on his own in London after being abandoned by the Invisibles. Dane is mentored by Tom O'Bedlam, an elderly homeless man who is secretly a member of the Invisibles. Tom shows Dane the magic in the everyday world and helps him realize that his anger prevents him from experiencing real emotions. While wandering with Tom, Dane has

450-469: A continuum from implicit approval to active involvement. In the United States, where there are First Amendment protections for religious groups, government officials and agencies frequently "turned a blind eye" to the activities of deprogrammers. In China, government agencies have at times promoted activities resembling deprogramming to enforce official views of "correct" beliefs and behaviors, for example in

525-402: A deprogramming bill or conservatorship legislation. In New York, two bills were actually passed by the legislature (in 1980 and 1981), but both were vetoed by Governor Hugh Carey because of their violation of religious and other constitutional freedoms. In other states the bills failed to pass the legislature. In the United States, from the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s mind control was

600-408: A different dimension with Tom O'Bedlam, a sentient satellite called Barbelith forced Jack to feel the collective suffering of humanity. Remembering this agony and realizing that he can put an end to it, Jack finally accepts his role and agrees to help save his friends. The next arc focuses on the regrouped Invisibles as they attempt to rescue King Mob and Lord Fanny. During the Invisibles' battle with

675-473: A family member extracted, but it also clashed with the need for anti-cult organizations to present themselves as "educational" associations (the CFF, for example, received tax-exempt status as an educational trust). This, along with its tenuous legal and moral status, meant that deprogramming tended to be publicly disavowed, while its practice continued clandestinely. Deprogramming became a controversial practice due to

750-441: A family member's connection to an NRM. Patrick's methods involved abduction, physical restraint, detention over days or weeks while maintaining a constant presence with the victim, food and sleep deprivation, prolonged verbal and emotional abuse, and desecration of the symbols of the victim's faith. Deprogrammers justified their actions by applying a theory of " brainwashing " to New Religious Movements. Brainwashing theory denied

825-604: A girl and put through a blood rite of passage as a child where she faced Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of death and gained magical powers and the knowledge of their whole life. In addition to the cell of five first led by King Mob, then Ragged Robin, there are other Invisibles (from other cells) who frequently work together with the main characters. Division X are a small band of police officers who investigate bizarre and inexplicable crimes and phenomena. Although out of commission when The Invisibles starts, they are brought back together at

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900-476: A group rapes and degrades several nameless characters, and the term lost souls was used to ensure the characters could not be identified as children, as in the Marquis de Sade 's original 120 Days of Sodom , the book the characters find themselves trapped in. Later in the series the names of people and organizations were simply blacked out, much to Morrison's dismay. DC had one line that originally read " Walt Disney

975-416: A high success rate, studies show that natural attrition rates are actually higher than those achieved by deprogramming interventions. Professor of psychiatry Saul V. Levine suggests that it is doubtful that deprogramming helps many people and goes on to say that it actually causes harm to the victim by the very nature of deprogramming. For deprogramming to work, the victim must be convinced that they joined

1050-429: A horror writer named Gideon Starorzewski, King Mob is the leader of the cell of the Invisibles. He is the agent who recruited Jack Frost, and he's the lover of Ragged Robin. Ragged Robin is the Invisibles' psychic operative, sent back from the future to bring the science of time travel to the Invisibles. She later becomes the group's leader when they (randomly) reassign their elemental roles. Born in 1988, she joined

1125-529: A lawyer or psychiatrist of their own choosing. Previously, there would be a sanity hearing first, and only then a commitment to an asylum or involuntary therapy. But with deprogramming, judges routinely granted parents legal authority over their adult children without a hearing. Critics contend that deprogramming and exit counseling begin with a false premise . Lawyers for some groups who have lost members due to deprogramming, as well as some civil liberties advocates, sociologists and psychologists, argue that it

1200-532: A look at Jack as he evades both the Invisibles and the Outer Church in London. Jack remembers his abduction experience from the previous volume, recalling that his alien captors told him that he is the messiah . Jack is approached by Sir Miles, a high-ranking member of the Outer Church, who tries to recruit him. Jack refuses and battles Sir Miles telepathically. After winning the psychic duel, Jack escapes again, this time to Liverpool. This volume also introduces Jim Crow,

1275-493: A major Christian counter-cult organization founded in 1973 by a Danish professor of missiology and ecumenical theology , Johannes Aagaard , rejects deprogramming, believing that it is counterproductive, ineffective, and can harm the relationship between a cult member and concerned family members. Deprogrammers have sometimes operated with overt or tacit support of law enforcement and judicial officials. Richardson sees government involvement in deprogramming as existing on

1350-527: A minority of cases and that deprogramming "helped to free many individuals". Carol Giambalvo described the reasoning behind deprogramming thus: It was believed that the hold of the brainwashing over the cognitive processes of a cult member needed to be broken – or "snapped" as some termed it – by means that would shock or frighten the cultist into thinking again. For that reason, in some cases cult leader's pictures were burned or there were highly confrontational interactions between deprogrammers and cultist. What

1425-491: A one-volume, 1500-page omnibus edition of The Invisibles : Starting in February 2014, Vertigo began publishing a new line of hardcover collections: Deprogramming Deprogramming is a controversial tactic that seeks to dissuade someone from "strongly held convictions" such as religious beliefs. Deprogramming purports to assist a person who holds a particular belief system—of a kind considered harmful by those initiating

1500-487: A partially remembered alien abduction experience and is transported into a different dimension. Eventually Dane returns to the Invisibles, taking the codename "Jack Frost". The next arc, "Arcadia", follows the Invisibles as they go back in time via astral projection to the French Revolution . Jack is almost killed by a demonic agent of the Outer Church, the Invisibles' chief enemy. As the arc closes, Jack declares that he

1575-401: A permanent alienation of the subject from their family). In exit counseling, these psychological and legal risks are reduced. Although deprogrammers prepare family members (other than the subject) for the process, exit counselors tend to work with such family members directly, expecting those requesting the intervention to contribute to the process. Exit counseling requires that families establish

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1650-412: A pseudo-legitimacy to the anti-cultists more extreme claims and actions. Although the CFF and CAN were in favor of deprogramming, they distanced themselves from the practice from the late 1970s onwards. Despite this apparent repudiation, however, they continued the practice. CFF and CAN referred thousands of paying clients to activist members who kept lists of deprogrammers. The total number that occurred

1725-401: A religious group against their will. They then must renounce responsibility and accept that in some mysterious way that their minds were controlled. He argues that deprogramming destroys a person's identity and is likely to create permanent anxiety about freedom of choice and leave the deprogrammed subject dependent upon the guidance and advice of others. The Dialog Center International (DCI)

1800-681: A separate artist. The artists to work on each issue are: Issues #4–2 included artistic collaborators who did not illustrate Morrison's scripts precisely as written. The most notable examples were the three pages Ashley Wood drew in Vol. 3, #2 that were later redrawn by Cameron Stewart for The Invisible Kingdom trade paperback . The Invisibles made Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 50 Best Non-Superhero Graphic Novels", citing its influence on later comic books writers Jonathan Hickman and Gerard Way . The Invisibles has been collected into seven trade paperbacks : In August 2012, Vertigo published

1875-497: A totalistic environment, and self-hypnosis. Most academic research, however, indicated that the reasons for people joining, remaining in, or leaving NRMs were complex, varied from group to group and individual to individual, and generally reflected the continued presence of a capacity for individual responsibility and choice. The Citizens' Freedom Foundation, which later became known as the Cult Awareness Network , became

1950-494: A widely accepted theory in public opinion, and the vast majority of newspaper and magazine accounts of deprogrammings assumed that recruits' relatives were well justified to seek conservatorships and to hire deprogrammers. One disturbing aspect from a civil rights point of view, was that people hiring deprogrammers would use deception or other ethically questionable methods—including kidnapping —to get their relative into deprogrammers' hands, without allowing them any recourse to

2025-504: A working version of Takashi's time machine when King Mob takes her to the dimension that the Invisible College, the Invisibles' headquarters, inhabits. Meanwhile, Jack Frost and Lord Fanny obtain a powerful supernatural device called the " Hand of Glory " from a mysterious trio called the "Harlequinade". In an arc titled "Sensitive Criminal", King Mob travels back in time via astral projection to learn from past Invisibles how to operate

2100-452: A young hooligan from Liverpool who may be the next Buddha . Their enemies are the Archons of the Outer Church, interdimensional alien gods who have already enslaved most of the human race without their knowledge. The Invisibles was Morrison's first major creator-owned title for DC Comics and it drew from their Zenith strip as well as 1990s conspiracy culture. Their intent was to create

2175-586: Is Lucille Butler, an officer of the New York Police Department . Her brother Martin, also a police officer, was working for The Conspiracy, a fact known to a third brother, a gang member named "Eezy D", but not to Lucille. In a battle against the Outer Church, Eezy D is killed and Martin is taken prisoner. Lucille's life is saved by her partner, although he cautions her that the Invisibles will be looking for her. Hoping they will help her rescue her brother Martin, Lucille allows herself to be recruited by

2250-560: Is common to all anecdotal accounts of deprogramming. There are numerous testimonies from people who describe being threatened with a gun, beaten, denied food and sleep, and sexually assaulted. In these accounts, the deprogramming usually begins with the victim being forced into a vehicle and taken to a place where they are isolated from everyone but their captors. Told that they would not be released until they renounce their beliefs, they are then subjected to days and sometimes weeks of verbal, emotional, psychological, and/or physical pressure until

2325-411: Is leaving the Invisibles. The first volume continues with Jack Frost abandoning the Invisibles. The tragic past of Lord Fanny, a Brazilian transgender woman and a member of King Mob's Invisibles cell, is revealed in a story arc titled "She-Man", which jumps back and forth through time. After an encounter with an agent of the Outer Church, both King Mob and Lord Fanny are captured. The volume closes with

List of The Invisibles characters - Misplaced Pages Continue

2400-419: Is no other connection between the two titles. The first volume of The Invisibles introduces Dane McGowan, an angry teen from Liverpool , as he attempts to burn down his school. Abandoned by his father and neglected by his mother, Dane takes out his anger and frustration through destruction. In the first issue of the series, Dane is recruited by the Invisibles, a ragtag band of freedom fighters led by King Mob,

2475-458: Is no way to save Martin, and there never had been, Boy quits the Invisibles forever, and she starts a new life in New York, where she later has a child. Lord Fanny is a trans woman sorceress who was recruited into the Invisibles by John-a-Dreams. She is shown to be quite powerful, destroying Mr. Quimper and banishing the demon Orlando. Born male into a matrilineal family of brujas, she was raised as

2550-579: Is not the religious groups but rather the deprogrammers who are the ones who deceive and manipulate people. During the 1990s, deprogrammer Rick Ross was sued by Jason Scott , a former member of a Pentecostal group called the Life Tabernacle Church, after an unsuccessful deprogramming attempt. In 1995, the jury awarded Scott US$ 875,000 in compensatory damages and US$ 2,500,000 in punitive damages against Ross, which were later settled for US$ 5,000 and 200 hours of services. More significantly,

2625-530: Is possible for even the most rigid man to change. Picking up a year after the previous volume, the third and final volume of the series follows the Invisibles as they prepare to stop the Moonchild from being used as a host for Rex Mundi, the extra-dimensional ruler of the Outer Church. Many of the Invisibles have significantly changed in this volume. King Mob no longer uses guns or kills people and Jack Frost has fully accepted his role as humanity's saviour. Also, The Invisibles no longer consider themselves at war with

2700-399: Is unknown, but in 1980 Ted Patrick claimed to have been hired over 2000 times as a professional abductor. Many other operators emerged both during and after the period in which he was active, many of them trained by him. The practice of deprogramming was an integral part of the anti-cult ideology and economy, and was seen as an effective response to the demand emanating from people who wanted

2775-448: The "Jack Frost" persona is restricting his growth, a realization that allows a softer, more compassionate Dane to emerge. Dane is contacted by Barbelith, a mysterious sentient satellite featured in the series, during this time, though his memories of contact are repressed until he is ready to access them. After being injured on a mission, Dane abandons his teammates and wanders through London, eventually returning home to Liverpool. While on

2850-440: The 20th issue of the series, Boy reflects on her past while taking a train to Liverpool to bring Jack back into the fold. In the following issue, "Liverpool", Jack returns to his mother's flat where he tells her everything that has happened to him since joining the Invisibles. He admits that he is scared of the responsibilities that he now has as humanity's saviour and no longer knows what to do. Jack recalls that when he travelled to

2925-487: The CAN-referred deprogrammers. Proponents of "Exit counseling" distinguish it from coercive forms of deprogramming. The fundamental difference is that involuntary deprogramming involves forced confinement of the individual whereas in exit counseling they are free to leave at any time. The absence of physical coercion is thought to increase the likelihood of establishing a rapport and of not alienating, enraging or terrifying

3000-667: The Hand of Glory. In the following arc, "American Death Camp", Boy steals the Hand of Glory and attempts to use it to rescue her brother, whom she believes is being held in a secret detention camp in Washington State, US . In reality, Boy is actually being deprogrammed by a separate cell of Invisibles who discovered that she had been brainwashed by the Outer Church to deliver the Hand to them. The team vacation in New Orleans . Boy and Jack Frost acknowledge their feelings for each other and begin

3075-548: The Invisibles at the age of 20 in 2008, when Mason Lang found her in a mental asylum. In 2012, she returned to 1990 in a "timesuit", making her the first person to travel by time. She was then found by the Invisible John-a-Dreams, who brought her to the cell she had previously joined in the future. During the 1990s, when most of the story is set, she is still a member of the same cell. She becomes romantically involved with its new leader, King Mob , before replacing him as

List of The Invisibles characters - Misplaced Pages Continue

3150-470: The Invisibles face off against Mr. Quimper and Colonel Friday, two psychic agents of the Outer Church. The Invisibles are victorious, though Quimper plants a tiny part of his psyche in Ragged Robin's subconscious . The Invisibles travel to San Francisco where they meet Takashi, an employee of Mason Lang's who is working on a time machine. Ragged Robin reveals that she has been sent from the future using

3225-466: The Invisibles, who give her the code name "Boy". Boy becomes somewhat of a mentor to Jack Frost, and their relationship eventually develops into a romantic one. Boy later steals an artifact known as the "Hand of Glory" and goes searching for the secret prison camp in which she believes Martin to be detained. Boy is abducted by the Outer Church and informed that her identities as "Boy" and "Lucille Butler", among others, were entirely fabricated, and that she

3300-602: The Moonchild. The second volume begins a year after the events in London. The arc "Black Science" follows the Invisibles embarking on a mission after taking a year off in America at the New York City estate of wealthy Invisible Mason Lang. While Jack Frost, Boy, and Lord Fanny explore New York City , King Mob and Ragged Robin begin a sexual relationship. Jolly Roger, an Invisible and an old friend of King Mob's, asks them to help her steal an AIDS vaccine from Dulce Base . There,

3375-419: The Outer Church and the Invisible College inhabit are one and the same. Afterwards, King Mob retires and devotes the rest of his life to non-violence. Jack Frost and Lord Fanny are left to start their own Invisibles cell. Years later, on 21 December 2012 , the world is about to end, just as predicted. Ragged Robin returns and is finally reunited with King Mob. Jack Frost then breaks the fourth wall and addresses

3450-423: The Outer Church hails from. After leaving Dulce, Ragged Robin prepares to return to the future. Using the Hand of Glory as an engine, Takashi's time machine can be used to return her to her own time. After saying goodbye to King Mob, with whom she has fallen in love, Robin leaves the past behind. In the final issue of the volume, Boy leaves the Invisibles and King Mob destroys Mason Lang's mansion, telling him that it

3525-409: The Outer Church, Jack is told that he will be responsible for destroying the world on 22 December 2012. Jack fully realizes the power at his disposal, defeating an extra-dimensional Archon of the Outer Church and healing King Mob of his injuries. Jack also heals Sir Miles, who had been severely hurt during the battle. The volume closes with a look at an Invisible named Mr. Six as he searches for traces of

3600-414: The Outer Church, this time they are on a mission to rescue humanity before the world ends. The arc "The Invisible Kingdom" portrays the final battle between the Invisibles and the Outer Church. Sir Miles is killed, as is Jolly Roger (her body is later seen in a mass grave), while Jack Frost single-handedly defeats Rex Mundi. He then travels once again into the Magic Mirror and learns that the dimensions that

3675-411: The book, something they attribute to working on the title and the manner in which its magical influence affected them, and has stated that their work on the comic made them into a different person from the one who started it. They have also said that much of the story was told to them by aliens when they were abducted during a trip to Kathmandu . The third and final series was meant to be a countdown to

3750-435: The cold, violently rebellious persona of "Jack Frost" in order to cope with his shattered home life. After trying to burn down his school, Dane is sent to Harmony House, a reeducation facility for young boys run by the Outer Church, the villains of the series. The Invisibles free Dane from Harmony House and arrange for him to be mentored by Tom O'Bedlam, an experienced Invisible. Under Tom O’Bedlam's guidance, Dane realizes that

3825-580: The course of deprogrammings. Carol Giambalvo , who worked for the Cult Awareness Network in the 1980s (later advocating for "voluntary exit counseling" and "thought reform consultation") said that although abductions certainly occurred, the more common practice was to forcefully detain people in their own homes, or in a cabin or motel room. Giambalvo tells of "horror stories" of restraint, beatings, use of handcuffs and weapons, sexual abuse, and even rape, although she claims that these were only used in

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3900-473: The demands of their abductors are satisfied. According to sociologist Eileen Barker , "One does not have to rely on the victims for stories of violence: Ted Patrick, one of the most notorious deprogrammers used by CAGs [cult-awareness groups] (who has spent several terms in prison for his exploits) openly boasts about some of the violence he employed." A number of other prominent members of "cult-awareness groups" have been convicted of violent crimes committed in

3975-632: The deprogramming—to change those beliefs and sever connections to the group associated with them. Typically, people identifying themselves as deprogrammers are hired by a person's relatives, often parents of adult children. The subject of the deprogramming is usually forced to undergo the procedure, which might last days or weeks, against their will. Methods and practices of deprogramming are varied but have often involved kidnapping and false imprisonment , which have sometimes resulted in criminal convictions. The practice has led to controversies over freedom of religion , civil rights , criminality , and

4050-459: The doings of a single cell of The Invisible College, a secret organization battling against physical and psychic oppression using time travel, magic , meditation , and physical violence. For most of the series, the team includes leader King Mob ; Lord Fanny , a transgender Brazilian shaman ; Boy , a former member of the NYPD ; Ragged Robin , a telepath with a mysterious past; and Jack Frost ,

4125-566: The end of volume one and soon find themselves on the trail of The Outer Church. Division X itself is based on the TV show Department S , and each of the officers resembles a famous TV detective character, as seen below. An explanation for this is given in volume 3. Many characters from earlier in the series are obviously present in the part of the series set in the years between 1998 and 2012. Some very few characters are, however, era-specific. These are other notable Invisibles or pro-Invisible actors that

4200-624: The group, incarcerated, and put through radical resocialization processes that were supposed to result in their agreeing to leave the group." Law professor Douglas Laycock , author of Religious Liberty: The Free Exercise Clause , wrote: Beginning in the 1970s, many parents responded to the initial conversion with "deprogramming." The essence of deprogramming was to physically abduct the convert, isolate him and physically restrain him, and barrage him with continuous arguments and attacks against his new religion, threatening to hold him forever until he agreed to leave it. Deprogrammers generally operated on

4275-406: The jury also found that the leading anti-cult group known as the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was a co-conspirator in the crime and fined CAN around US$ 1,000,000 in punitive damages, forcing the group into bankruptcy . This case is often seen as effectively closing the door on the practice of involuntary deprogramming in the United States. Anti-cult groups play a central role in maintaining

4350-583: The leader. After explaining her futuristic past, she reveals the timesuit, still hidden from when she first returned. An Invisible scientist researching time (who would later build the timesuit and send her back in it) named Takashi repairs the timesuit and returns her to the year 2012, minutes after her departure. Her name and look are based on the Raggedy Ann doll. She has some mental difficulties related to her time traveling – she introduces herself to Jack Frost by saying, "Hi, I'm Ragged Robin – I'm nuts." "Boy"

4425-536: The most prominent group in the emerging national anti-cult movement of the 1970s and 80s. The anti-cult movement lobbied for state and national legislative action to legitimize its activities, and although this had very limited success, the movement was nevertheless able to forge alliances with a number of governmental agencies. This was primarily on the back of its propagation of the brainwashing/mind control ideology, which succeeded in turning affiliation with NRMs into an issue of public—rather than private—concern and gave

4500-420: The new millennium but shipping delays meant the final issue did not appear until April 2000. All of the series have been collected in a set of trade paperbacks. Morrison saw the series censored due to the publisher's concern over the possibility of paedophilic and child abuse content. The first such case was in volume one, issue 7 ("Arcadia part 3: 120 Days Of Sod All"); dialogue was altered in one scene where

4575-413: The possibility of authentic spiritual choice for an NRM member, proposing instead that such individuals were subject to systematic mind control programs that overrode their capacity for independent volition. Ted Patrick's theory of brainwashing was that individuals were hypnotized by brainwaves projected from a recruiter's eyes and fingertips, after which the state was maintained by constant indoctrination,

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4650-505: The presumption that the people they were paid to extract from religious organizations were victims of mind control or brainwashing. Since the theory was that such individuals were incapable of rational thought, extreme measures were thought to be justified for their own good, up to and including the use of criminal violence. Ted Patrick was eventually tried and convicted of multiple felonies relating to kidnapping and false imprisonment of deprogramming subjects. Violence of one degree or another

4725-399: The reader, stating that, "OUR SENTENCE IS UP". At that moment, the world ends and humanity transforms into its next stage of existence, guided by Jack Frost. Volume three does not read from issue 1 to 12 but rather counts down from 12 to 1. While Grant Morrison wrote the entire series, The Invisibles never had a regular art team. It was intended that each story arc would be illustrated by

4800-519: The run, his hidden memories are triggered and he learns that he is a messiah . At first he rejects this responsibility, but he soon finds that he cannot ignore the empathy he now feels for the rest of the world. Later on, he remembers that during his first contact with Barbelith he was forced to endure the collective suffering of humanity throughout time. This memory spurs him to return to the Invisibles so that he may set things right. While Dane rejects their violent methods and their dualistic perception of

4875-512: The secret conspiracies that attempt to keep all of humanity docile and malleable. There are several characters in The Invisibles who appear to take no side in the struggle between the Invisibles and the Outer Church – sometimes helping one, sometimes the other. They reflect the message that the struggle is, at some level, a false construct – something entirely else is going on behind the scenes. The Invisibles The series loosely follows

4950-440: The series brings up from time to time. The Outer Church exists in the "unhealthy" universe, where conformity and hierarchy consume individuality and free will. The demon-like Archons of the Outer Church wish to enslave humanity and rob them of everything that cannot be measured, weighed and counted. The Outer Church's representatives on Earth are politicians, policemen, royalty and other representatives of control and order. They run

5025-597: The subject. Exit counsellors are typically brought in during a "family Intervention ", where they explain their role and seek to change the subject's attitude to their religious group through reasoning and persuasion. Langone, writing in 1993, estimated that deprogramming costs typically rise to at least US$ 10,000, compared to exit counseling which typically costs US$ 2,000 to US$ 4,000, although cases requiring extensive research of little-known groups can cost much more. Deprogramming, especially when it fails, also entails considerable legal risk and psychological risk (for example,

5100-669: The suppression of the Falun Gong movement. This can involve "vigorous, even violent, efforts to dissuade people from participating in groups deemed unacceptable to the government" and have been "given legal sanction by the passage of laws that make illegal the activities or even the beliefs of the unpopular movement or group being targeted". In the United States—in New York, Kansas, Nebraska, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon and Texas—lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted to legalize involuntary deprogramming, either through

5175-401: The underground network of communications, referrals, transportation, and housing necessary for continued deprogramming. The Cult Awareness Network operated a referral scheme ( NARDEC ) in which they would refer people to deprogrammers in return for a "kickback" in the form of a donation or as a commission. Deprogrammers such as Rick Alan Ross , Steven Hassan and Carol Giambalvo were among

5250-552: The use of violence. Proponents of deprogramming present the practice as a necessary counter-measure to the systematic "brainwashing" procedures allegedly employed by religious groups, which they claim deprive the individual of their capacity for free choice. In the United States in the early 1970s, there was an increasing number of New Religious Movements . Ted Patrick , the "father of deprogramming", formed an organization he called "The Citizens' Freedom Foundation" and began offering 'deprogramming' services to people who wanted to break

5325-452: The violent and illegal nature of some of its methods. Various academics have commented on the practice. Sociologist Anson D. Shupe and others wrote that deprogramming is comparable to exorcism in both methodology and manifestation. Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies James T. Richardson described deprogramming as a "private, self-help process whereby participants in unpopular new religious movements (NRMs) were forcibly removed from

5400-464: The world, which he finds just as flawed as that of the Outer Church, he stays with them because they are his friends. Over the course of their adventures together, he is revealed the truth behind time, the creation of the universe, and his place in it. When he is ready, Dane starts his own Invisibles cell and, in 2012, oversees the end of the physical world as foreseen. Dane is a powerful psychic and has many other undefined supernatural abilities. Once

5475-414: Was a crap" blacked out at the suggestions of their lawyers; many of these examples of censorship were restored when reprinted in trade paperback. The title was optioned to be made into a television series by BBC Scotland , but neither this nor an optioned film version have been made. Morrison wrote The Filth for Vertigo in 2002, which they describe as a companion piece to The Invisibles , though there

5550-462: Was often sought was an emotional response to the information, the shock, the fear, and the confrontation. Another associate of Ted Patrick, Sylvia Buford, identified five stages in the deprogramming which would, ideally, bring the subject to a recognition of their condition: According to Giambalvo and others, however, deprogramming frequently failed completely to achieve the desired outcome and often caused significant harm. While some advocates claimed

5625-428: Was secretly an operative sent to retrieve the Hand of Glory for the "Lost Ones", who plan to use its power to destroy the sun. However, Boy still refuses to kill King Mob. Following this, it is revealed that the ostensible agents of the Outer Church are in fact members of Invisibles Cell #23, who have been deprogramming Boy to defuse a previous hypnotic suggestion from the real Outer Church. When she realizes that there

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