Alternate religious authorities who reframe core texts can trigger cognitive deradicalization.

Evidence

Six of these cases involved religious conversion or intervention by religious authorities to help deradicalize focal individuals; five of these were former white supremacists who experienced Christian conversion or acceptance by a congregation as part of their transition from involvement in violent radicalism. One was a former Islamic extremist whose belief in radical Islam was challenged by Sufi teachers. This individual ended up in the Middle East studying with Sufi teachers, who explicitly challenged his more extreme and radicalized beliefs: “So the whole time I was there, you know, it—I just went through a complete cognitive shift, because at the end of every lesson, you know, I’d go back, and I would think about how I viewed certain things, and how I interpreted them.” He described what this process of education and self-reflection meant to him: “I went through a proper deradicalization process. I didn’t know it at the time. I only learned it later on. But I went through a full cognitive shift. In fact, the sheikh said to me, … ‘I’m going to give you a new pair of glasses by which to view the world.’” — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America, 437

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Deradicalization messages must be timed to reach people at the cusp of change — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 69; Deradicalized former extremists can directly report what changed their beliefs — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 129