The focus of the psychology of religion is on conversion from the beginning of its history. The theme of “defection” was not focused on until recently. This theme concerns not only psychological change or disillusionment, but also the loss of a social identity and disaffiliation from a religious community.
Formerly it was common that scholars of religion regarded defectors as sources of trouble for new religious movements. As a result, they tended to underestimate their importance for their study. However, scholars have changed their attitude toward defectors due to the high rates of dropouts after the second half of the 1970s.
There are two kinds of studies on defectors: one by defectors themselves, and the other by scholars of religion. The former is divided into those by defectors who become disaffiliated through their own will, and another by defectors forced by their community to be disaffiliated.
Scholars of religion have found three levels of defection: affective (disaffection) , cognitive (disillusionment), and social organizational (disaffiliation). And they have found temporal variability in defectors’ testimonies.
In this essay the author takes the concrete example of a former executive member of Aum Shinrikyō in order to examine those findings. The defector is apparently a willing one, with some complications. He first showed disillusionment, knowing the assassination of Sakamoto family was done by Aum members, and disaffection followed. He was disaffiliated from Aum according to his own free will after he was arrested. He changed his testimony during the series of his trials.
