Career
She is currently assistant director of the Interdisciplinary center for study of religion and secularism ("Centre interdisciplinaire d"étude des religions et de la laïcité") of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Université libre de Bruxelles (Free University of Brussels)), where she is a teacher. She directed in 1995 a book about The Great myths of the history of Belgium, Flanders and Wallonia ("Les grands mythes de l"histoire de Belgique, de Flandre et de Wallonie"), a global attempt by new historians of Belgium to deconstruct nationalist myths e.g. created by the official historiography for nation-building purpose. Anne Morelli is particularly known for her opinions on cults or new religious movements.
Like other sociologists and historians, she believes that churches are different from cults only through their relationship to power, and that they are "totalitarian institutions" as well as prisons, hospitals, barracks, boarding houses and some companies.
Morelli was part of a group which welcomed Pierre Carette, the main leader of a terrorist group active in 1984-1985, Communist Combatant Cells, when he was released from prison after 17 years, an unusual long imprisonment in Belgium. Anne Morelli has summarized and systematized the contents of Arthur Ponsonby"s classic in "ten commandments of propaganda":
We do not want war.
The opposite party alone is guilty of war. The enemy is the face of the devil.
The enemy systematically commits cruelties.
Our mishaps are involuntary. The enemy uses forbidden weapons. We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous.
Artists and intellectuals back our cause.
Our cause is sacred. "The ages-old "God Bless America" is playing once more."
All who doubt our propaganda, are traitors.