Ted Patrick's strongest point is his self-confidence: "My experience and my results speak for themselves. I have a record of success."

The 57-year old American isn’t bothered by the fact that he is constantly being confronted with court charges. He is usually accused of "detaining people against their will," he admits candidly. Because he sees his work as a mission, he doesn’t care about this charge: "I am acquitted of these charges more often than I am found guilty".
 
He describes his work as "deprogramming"; he attempts to liberate people "whose spirit has been captured by a sect". He deprograms the manipulated minds of sect victims, and after healing them, returns them to their parents and families.  In an interview as far back as 1979 Patrick the "playboy" told that he had already deprogrammed 1600 people. Of these "less than 30 returned to the sect. Most of them escaped before we had the opportunity to complete the whole process of deprogramming and rehabilitation".

Ål, a quiet community in Norway with a population of 5,000, three hours drive from Oslo. Tranquility without end. Rolling hills. Moose tracks break the thin snow cover. Since May last year, Katrin Espegard (née Köberl) from Graz has lived in one of the wooden houses here.

The 28-year-old doctor of medicine feels she has a calling. As a housewife and mother of a baby she wants to be "a good wife for her husband". She explains her confession: "It’s also written in the Scriptures that a woman should be subject to and obedient to her husband. We value the fact that the husband is the head of the family, the home. I can see that this brings peace and unity, creating a good atmosphere".

Kathrin Espegard belongs to a fundamental Christian assembly. They and their co-religionists are known as "Smith’s friends" in Norway—named after the movement’s founder Johan Oscar Smith. Outside the country they are often simply called the "Norwegians" ...

The young woman describes their article of faith: "We want to abide exactly by the word of God in everyday life. You can see the fruits of this in our congregation: harmonious marriages, happy children, happy families, no divorces. A woman has a full life among us as a mother."

On April 25th last year, Ted Patrick turned up in Kathrin Köberl’s life. "He told me that I have the devil in me. I was seduced by the devil, just as Eve had been seduced. I'm not normal, he said. I had come into a satanic group that dominate me and want to take my money."

For nearly four days Kathrin Köberl was held prisoner—first in her own apartment in Graz and later in a remote mountain cabin in the Styrian district of Deutschlandsberg. For nearly four days, Ted Patrick tried to "deprogram" her. During the night of April 29th, she was able to escape from her prison.

Ted Patrick’s threats had been particularly cruel, tells the woman in her Norwegian home. "He said that he would hold me for ten years. He said that I would never see my fiancé again."

Kathrin Espegard is still afraid. "I have police protection where we live," she says. An alarm button has been installed in the living room. If she pushes this, a signal will sound in the nearby police station. If she leaves the house, she carries a pager under her sweater. "I'm still afraid that people want to come and kidnap me."

The Graz Attorney Hermann Schnuderl has summarized the case in an indictment. Kathrin Köberl was "forced to endure a so-called 'deprogramming' ... by the black American and his accomplice Brenda."

Kathrin was held prisoner in her apartment in Korösistraße 104 in Graz, "against her will from April 25th, 1987 to April 27th, 1987" by her mother Elizabeth, her brother Thomas, a medical student Werner Eichholzer, and two American citizens, both of whom were wanted by the police.

Thomas Köberl and Werner Eichhozer had "removed the handles on the windows and the balcony to prevent her from crying out for help".

She was gagged with a towel and later with adhesive tape. "Then she was tied to a chair and her cries for help were drowned out by means of a radio set". On the evening of April 27th the prisoner, still bound, was "brought to Osterwitz in the Deutsclandsberg District by van, placed in the so-called Zach mill and held captive there until her escape on the night of April 29th".

Contrary to Kathrin’s will, the "deprogramming treatment continued throughout this entire period and due to the violence she was subjected to a state of torment for a protracted period of time".

On the Tuesday of this week a jury panel will decide whether the defendants had committed the crimes of grave coercion, imprisonment and assault (Michael and Sigrid Czernovsky, a married couple living in Kathrin’s home at the time, were involved in the action, and therefore tried in the Graz Regional Court).

In the first trial her mother Elizabeth Köberl told that she had been trying to remove her daughter from her faith, from the "Norwegians", using legal measures for years. "I've tried everything. For years I had no success. Finally, I saw Ted Patrick as my last chance."

Ted Patrick began his campaign in 1968... In court Elizabeth Köberl also recalled her daughter’s first encounters with the "Norwegians": "My daughter came and her eyes had changed. She had this look after she returned home from that meeting."

Her daughter Kathrin was 16 years old at the time. "Before that, we did everything together. Suddenly, nothing was as it had been before. It was as if she was living in another world. She said she did not want to become like me." The daughter readily confirms the same thing that struck her mother. In Ål in Norway, she remembers her youth. She had really searched for a different world. Her mother’s world was not hers: "I wanted a different life."

She grew up in Steinach in Styria. Her parents, the father a school principal, the mother a housewife, had indeed been devout Catholics, but had not attended mass. She "often went to church" with her grandmother, "a rather strict Catholic".

Her parents had had "a bad relationship": "They rarely spoke to each other: That probably lasted for several years. My father had to eat alone, sitting alone at the table. They also had fights, slapping each other. They didn’t understand each other." So she says, remembering her childhood.

In 1974, her parents divorce. Her 15-year-old brother Thomas goes with his father. The 14-year-old stays with their mother.

Kathrin, who attended the state high school in Stainach, chose to study Russian as an elective subject in the 5th class. Dietrich Huemer, her Russian teacher, made an impression on her: "He said some things about faith that really appealed to me. He said that he was trying to lead a good family life, that he wanted to live according to the Bible and that he wanted to take the Bible seriously."

This was in contrast to the family life that she had grown up with, without having felt secure. She—together with some other students—visited the Russian professor at home. His family life left a lasting impression: Ms. Huemer sacrifices herself for her husband and six children. Kathrin thought she saw what was missing in her own family: "I saw that there really was solidarity".

When Mr. Huemer repeatedly spoke about the fact that "you are still far from being a true Christian if you just call yourself a Christian or Catholic," his pupil was impressed: "I started reading the Bible."

The more Kathrin was attracted to the faith of her teacher, to his family life, to the "Norwegians", the more she withdrew from her mother...

Kathrin lives "according to the Bible," as the "Norwegians" understand the Bible. Paul, she says, has written "that a woman should dress decently... Because it is written in "one of Paul’s letters that it is natural for a woman to wear long hair," Kathrin also lets her hair grow…

Letters from this period show what the "Norwegians" feel they are called to. The family of the Russian teacher encourages her in writing: "God has called you to be His bride." The "Norwegian" sister Ines Huemer wrote, "that we are saved from damnation," that "all our sins are forgiven" and that "we will be transformed into glorious people, just like Jesus."

In Graz she started to study medicine after some confusion - first she wanted to work in a bank, and then she wanted to study a foreign language. Her mother provided an apartment, where the children could live together.

Kathrin wishes that her brother Thomas also would "get more of a relationship to faith." The break has been programmed...

Elizabeth Köberl leads a desperate fight for her daughter. From today's perspective it is apparent that the mother’s actions only reinforced her daughter's views. "I never felt really dominated within in the assembly, but only by my mother," says Kathrin.

On Sundays, when she wants to attend the "Norwegians’" meetings, her mother tries to detain her, but Kathrin wants to go anyway. Her mother locks her in her own home. "Brutal and without consideration," says Kathrin. "She quite simply removed the key. Sometimes she became so angry that she beat me savagely. Not just slaps, but a real beating."

Elizabeth Köberl wants her daughter back. Since she can’t do it herself, she asks others to talk to Kathrin - first acquaintances, then prominent Catholics, finally even psychologists…

Although Kathrin Köberl knew that her mother wanted to "save" her, by taking her away from the "Norwegians" and removing her from her "friends" she repeatedly was drawn into these discussions. She argued with Catholic priests and defended her faith. The results of these appraisals only caused the mother’s fears for her daughter to be confirmed repeatedly. Ted Patrick was her last hope: "This man," she told the court, "is public hero number one, because he is able to help".

Reprogramming. In her search for help Elizabeth Köberl encounters the controversial psychological technique called "deprogramming".

According to the deprogrammers’ theory, the human mind can be programmed by indoctrination, just like a cassette tape can be recorded. In this way the personality is covered by the program. Ted Patrick believes that this program, which has been imposed by force, can be deleted by persuasion and challenging questions. The deprogrammed person then begins to think for himself again. The method is of course highly controversial and is even rejected by Catholic and Protestant sect consultants as a "serious infringement of freedom and human dignity."

In her desperation, Elizabeth Köberl is nevertheless convinced "that a deprogramming of my daughter is certainly possible through liberating talks". In Linz, she found a comrade in suffering, who brought Patrick and his work to her attention.

On April 14th, 1987, Mrs. Köberl transferred 8,000 U.S. dollars (102,000 Austrian shillings at that time) to Ted Patrick in San Diego. The transfer form stated: "fee for treatment costs".

On April 24th, his companion Brenda, ostensibly a woman he has deprogrammed himself, meets Patrick at Vienna-Schwechat airport. Mrs.Köberl brings the two to Graz.

The next day, a Saturday, "these people turned up," recalls Kathrin: "They rang the bell and entered as if they were visitors: a black man from America, this Patrick, a woman and the medical student. They sat down in the living room and started to talk to me. I thought quite naively that they were visiting my mother or my brother. The remarkable thing was that the black man immediately started talking about faith."

Lunch together. "Suddenly, he says that he wants to stay in the apartment for a year because he wants to win me back as a normal person, so to speak." Kathrin panics, wants to get out of the door. The door is locked.

He labeled her as "abnormal, seduced, hypnotized". She tried to answer him with her convictions.

In court her mother tells: "She was very upset and screamed a lot. It was a sign that he had reached her emotionally. That is what Ted Patrick said was happening." At about 3:00 a.m. on April 29th—in the meantime they had tied up and gagged Kathrin and transported her to the secluded cabin—she tied two sheets together and let herself down from the first floor. After walking for three and a half hours she reached a house unknown to her.