12/08/2026
The statistics for my website show that one of the articles I translated is the most read since its publication. It presents a fundamental reflection: religion cannot be analyzed like any other social phenomenon. Why?
Why do Massimo Introvigne and CESNUR work so relentlessly to attack those—even in academia—who address this topic? Professor Stephen Kent, emeritus at the University of Alberta in Canada, confessed his astonishment to me: “In 40 years of academic career, I’ve never seen anything like this,” he commented, stunned.
And yet, CESNUR even dedicated a panel at one of its conferences to attempt to discredit the book Nella setta (Inside the Cult) by investigative journalists Carmine Gazzanni and Flavia Piccinni. Not only that: it reserved pages of reviews to try to “destroy” my book 7 sette e manipolazione mentale (7 Cults and Mental Manipulation), co-written with Marco Marzari.
The irony: Gazzanni and Piccinni’s book won the Mattarella Prize, while mine, with Marzari, received academic praise and was adopted as a narrative text by a high school. Yet, some of my detractors have brandished CESNUR’s reviews as if they were absolute truths—even in court.
At this point, I believe the discrediting attempts by Introvigne and his associates have lost all credibility: they are seen for what they truly are.
Il testo denuncia il doppio standard con cui si trattano le pretese religiose: mentre altre aree (politica, economia, psicologia) sono soggette a analisi critica, la religione spesso gode di un’immunità ingiustificata. Massimo Introvigne e il CESNUR hanno più volte attaccato studiosi e giornalis...
