The "Good Battle"
In Introvigne's case, one need not look for vague associations and indirect associations of the kind he likes to make for Kelebek. Introvigne is a life-long member and a leader of a very right-wing group called Alleanza Cattolica, which has a very clear ideological agenda about "cults", an agenda it calls part of its "Good Battle". In a quarter of a century of membership in this organisation, Introvigne has not only followed its ideology: he has actually largely created it in his writings. And the errors and faults in Introvigne's research all fit exactly into the pattern of AC's "good battle." The association is kept in the background, but is no secret. At http://www.cesnur.org/conferences/graal.htm, for example, CESNUR boasts of a convention (Alla ricerca del Graal) organised together with Alleanza Cattolica. Introvigne claims that he cannot reply to the statements made in Kelebek about him, since that would mean accepting the "battlefield" chosen by the "attacker." If he does nothing, his critics will take it to mean that they are right; if he sues, he appears as an enemy of freedom on the Net. There are several objections to this. First of all, there is no "battlefield". We never asked Introvigne to be "silent or sue." We asked him to discuss the various topics we had raised, and offered him unlimited room to reply. The war is all in Introvigne's head. In any case, the original "battlefield" was chosen by Introvigne when he attacked me on his website, falsely alleging that a court had established that I was a liar, and describing me as an apostate, a term which he characterises in a derogatory fashion. I accepted his "battlefield", since it was easy to prove him wrong on all counts. Second, Introvigne seems unable to imagine correcting his study on New Acropolis, of which I also made an "internal" criticism. Third, Introvigne could have ignored us.
Instead, we have seen that his attacks on us started before our website
came out, and went on until he managed to close us down. And of course
the study that we are analysing shows a true obsession with Kelebek. It
is false to say, as Introvigne does, that the "scholars" who were "attacked"
ignored it "for months."
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