The Christian Sentinel
April 2003 issue
Richard Abanes’s "Catch-Me-If-You-Can"(1) Copycat Research, Copyright Infringement, and Plagiarism
By Kurt
Van Gorden
(posted April 1, 2003)
ã
2003 Kurt Van Gorden
Editor's note: This guest
article by Mr. Van Gorden, explains the background
of, and his point of view with, allegations
that he caught evangelical author Richard Abanes
plagiarizing some of his primary research on
Scientology. Should anyone wish to contact
Mr. Van Gorden contact the publisher at bill@cultlink.com
| Few people have the
interest or the time to track a copycat’s
research techniques, but sometimes, their
devious ploy is self-revealed when another
author discovers that his words have been
pilfered. With several books in print, Mr.
Abanes has been elevated to the status of an
expert on cults, the occult, world
religions, and Harry Potter, but, quite
accidentally, while leafing through one of
his books at a store, I discovered my
copyrighted work was hijacked by this expert
without any acknowledgement.(2)
There is no
question that he had access to my chapter,
since he contributed chapters to the same
work. The United States Copyright Act makes
it unlawful to steal intellectual property
and to make a derivative work from another’s
work without their consent. Copyright
infringement and plagiarism is disdained by
all respected academic and Christian
writers.
Of central concern is my chapter on the Church of Scientology that was published in Walter R. Martin’s Kingdom of the Cults (Bethany House, 1997). Mr. Abanes wrote another book the following year, Cults, New Religious Movements, and Your Family (Crossway Books, 1998), which included a chapter on Scientology. I never had the opportunity to look at Mr. Abanes’s book until a couple of years ago. I’m naturally inclined to glace at subject matter with which I am familiar when I open a new book. Imagine my surprise when I found myself reading my own words in Abanes’s book! A few weeks later I bought the book and compared the two chapters. Aside from the parallel chart below, which outlines his plagiarisms, there exists an interesting quirk in Mr. Abanes’s footnotes that reveals his use of my chapter on Scientology. In my chapter, I placed two resources adjacent to one another, which evidently confused Mr. Abanes about which citation belonged with the quotation. His solution was to use both citations for the same quotation, by which he created a problem. The second reference has nothing to do with the quotation! In my footnotes 59 and 60, on page 381, I referenced page 200 of What is Scientology? and page 17 of Scientology: A World Religion. My chapter is the only work that places these two footnotes adjacent to one another. His footnote number 92 states, "Church of Scientology, Scientology: A World Religion, 17; cf. Church of Scientology, What is Scientology?, 200." Page 200 of What is Scientology? has no bearing on the quotation. To worsen the situation, Mr. Abanes repeated the same error in his footnote number 93. This incorrect reference may show that he copied my material, even erroneously, but more compelling is his outright copyright infringement, as seen in the following chart. In this chart, it is evident that Abanes used my thought structure, syntax, and over 90 verbatim words spanning several paragraphs of material. -See footnotes at the bottom- Comparison Chart of Kurt Van Gorden (1997) and Richard Abanes (1998)
-FOOTNOTES- 1. Catch Me If You Can is a Stephen Spielberg movie (2002) that was based upon a book by the same title, written by Frank Abagnale, Jr., who claimed to be the world’s greatest con-man. Abagnale exploited the ignorance and credentials of other people to make himself look greater than what he was. The only parallel I wish to draw is that Richard Abanes promotes himself as a professional writer, selling thousands of dollars of books, yet he fouls his professional ethics with plagiarism and copyright infringement. 2. Mr. Abanes is a member of the Evangelical Ministries to New Religions (www.EMNR.com). EMNR has a standing policy on plagiarism and Matthew 18. They state that when a Christian publishes something that is in error, then it is outside the scope of "private" confrontation and is free for public criticism. Since he publicly published his plagiarisms and copyright infringements, then he should expect a public critique. 3. Quite interestingly, Abanes was unaware that this sentence is a compilation that I reduced from about 100 of Hubbard’s words. Only the first six words belong in quotation marks. Abanes also didn’t know that I omitted "flatulence" from Hubbard’s original text and Hubbard spelled "odor" the British way, "odour." Had Abanes read the original resource, as he pretended, then he would not have copied the precise list I that made from Hubbard’s original.
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