Edward Lottick

Edward Lottick, M.D. (born 1934) is a family physician and inventor.

His son was Scientologist Noah Lottick. Noah Lottick's suicide was featured as part of the Time Magazine article "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power", by Richard Behar. After his son's death, Dr. Lottick was inspired to further research cults.

Dr. Lottick, along with Dr. Paul R. Martin in the same year, is the winner of the 1993 John G. Clark Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Cultic Studies.

Lottick is on the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania Medical Society and is Editor of the Luzerne County Medical Society Bulletin. He was on the Board of Directors of the previous version of the International Cultic Studies Association, the American Family Foundation. Dr. Lottick is the inventor of the electrosurgical hemostat.

Son's death
On May 11, 1990, Dr. Lottick's son Noah Antrim Lottick committed suicide. Dr. Lottick described this as his motivation for researching cults in his article describing a survey of physicians that he presented to the Pennsylvania State Medical Society. However, these events were initially described in the Time Magazine article: The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power, and later in Reader's Digest.

Noah Lottick was a Russian studies student, who "jumped from a 10th-floor window of the Milford Plaza Hotel and bounced off the hood of a stretch limousine". When found by police, he was holding $171 dollar in cash. The Lottick family found their son's body, lying in a morgue, a month after his death. Initially, his father had thought that Scientology was similar to Dale Carnegie's techniques. However, after his ordeal, Dr. Lottick now believes that the organization is a "school for psychopaths".

After the article describing these incidents had been published in Time, Dr. and Mrs. Lottick submitted affidavits, when the Church of Scientology sued Richard Behar and Time Magazine for $416 million. All counts against Behar and Time were later dismissed in courts of law. In their court statements, the Lotticks "affirmed the accuracy of each statement in the article", and stated that Dr. Lottick "concluded that Scientology therapies were manipulations, and that no Scientology staff members attended the funeral" (of their son).

Cult research
In October 1991, Dr. Lottick introduced a resolution to the Pennsylvania Medical Society's House of Delegates. The resolution requested that a survey be performed to assess physician's current level of awareness regarding destructive cults. Dr. Arthur A. Dole and Dr. Michael D. Langone were consulted in the process of tabulating and analyzing the survey. The final results were published in the Cult Observer in 1993. For purposes of their survey, a destructive cult was defined as "a group which violates the rights of its members, harms them through abusive techniques of mind control, and distinguishes itself from a normal social or religious group by subjecting its members to physical, mental, or financial deprivation or deception to keep them in the group." For his work and research, Dr. Lottick was awarded the 1993 John G. Clark Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Cultic Studies.

In 2005, Dr. Lottick presented empirical research into the prevalence of cults in the United States, at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid.

In 2006, Dr. Lottick gave a presentation for the International Cultic Studies Association conference in Denver, Colorado, entitled "Rajneesh and Bioterrorism".

Awards and honors

 * John G. Clark Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Cultic Studies, 1993, with Paul R. Martin, Ph.D.

Inventions/Patents held

 * Electrosurgical hemostat, 1992, Application Number 477094

Articles

 * The Forgotten Freedom: Persistent Constraint Into the Twenty-first Century, Torch Magazine, Spring 2006
 * Prevalence of Cults: A Review of Empirical Research in the U. S. A., Dr. Edward Lottick, International Cultic Studies Association, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, July 14, 2005
 * Survey Reveals Physicians' Experience with Cults, Dr. Edward Lottick, Cult Observer, Volume 10, Number 3, 1993.
 * "Congresspersons: An Endangered Species", Vol.11, No. 3, 1994, Cultic Studies Observer

Presentations

 * "Preventing Family Violence: Becoming Part of the Solution", Psychological Manipulation: The Abuse of Women Conference, May 30 and May 31, 1997 - Philadelphia
 * "Children and Cults", American Family Foundation Annual Conference: May 29 - May 31, 1998 – Philadelphia, PA