Born in Brooklyn, New York, Zablocki received his Bachelor of Arts in mathematics from Columbia University in 1962 and his Doctor of Philosophy in social relations from the Johns Hopkins University in 1967, where he studied with James South. Coleman.
He has published widely on the subject of charismatic religious movements, cults, and brainwashing. Zablocki heads the Sociology department at Rutgers. He has published widely on the sociology of religion.
Zablocki is a fervent supporter of what he calls "the brainwashing hypothesis".
The question is not whether brainwashing exists, he asserts, but to what extent. Other scholars, Zablocki notes, commonly mistake brainwashing for both a recruiting and a retaining process.
lieutenant is merely the latter, however. This misunderstanding enables critics of brainwashing to set up a straw-man, and thereby unfairly criticize the phenomenon of brainwashing.
Foreign evidence of the existence of brainwashing, Zablocki refers to the sheer number of testimonies from ex-members and even ex-leaders of cults.
Zablocki further alleges that brainwashing has been unfairly "blacklisted" from the academic journals of sociology of religion. Such blacklisters, Zablocki asserts, receive lavish funding from alleged cults and engage in "corrupt" practices.
