I. INTRODUCTION

Before one can understand just how often and how seriously children are affected by their involvement in destructive cults, it is necessary to have a general understanding of cults, for "[a]ll (cults) have an impact-some benign, others destructive-on the family unit."[1] Only after acquiring such an understanding can one hope to help children victimized by destructive cults.

This paper attempts to achieve this goal by discussing the general social, legal and psychological issues surrounding children and destructive cults, by providing (1) the definition of a cult, (2) characteristics of cults, (3) recruitment and mind control practices, (4) the effect cults have on their members, (5) child abuse in cults, (b) constitutional issues involving religious cults, (7) litigating custody disputes, and (8) interviewing, counseling and psychologically evaluating children in cults.[2]

II.     WHAT IS A CULT?

A cult is an organization whose stated mission is religious, political, philosophical or psychotherapeutic, with a covert mission to accumulate wealth and/or power to benefit its leadership.[3] Although all cults may appear to be based on some variation of religion, not all cults are religious. However, "the cults which have the greatest potential for creating health problems for their members are usually religious in

nature."[4]

The members of a cult generally follow a living leader. This individual is usually a dominant, paternal figure. Occasionally, there is a pair or "family" of leaders.[5] The cult leader often ensures his dominance over the followers by making absolute claims about his character, abilities, or knowledge.[6] Most cults are controlled by men,[7] and are basically totalitarian and sexist in nature. When women do gain power within a cult, the power usually derives solely from a "special" relationship with the male cult leader. The woman involved in such a relationship with the cult leader is considered to hold a place of honor. As a result, the woman's "power" derived from her place of honor may entitle her to special treatment or favors from the other members of the

cult.[8]

III.    CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTS

There is not one specific sign or symptom that in and- of itself identifies a group as a cult. There are, however, certain predominant characteristics possessed by all cults. All cults manifest at least some variation of these characteristics, although not necessarily all of them are possessed by all cults.[9] These characteristics include the following:

1.      The cult has, or had, a living, central, charismatic, authoritarian leader who commands absolute control, loyalty and allegiance from followers.[10] 

2.      The leader claims to be infallible and omnipotent, possessing special powers and insight or revelations not available to others.[11]

3.      The cult will introduce to its members new and unusual beliefs, practices and values which differ from or are in violation of conventional standards of behavior.[12]

4.      The cult teaches that only it possesses the ultimate truth, and creates in its members the belief that leaving the cult will put physical, mental and spiritual health at risk.[13]

5.      The cult's "new" theology or philosophy is superficially coherent and appealing, while its "real truth" remains secret and concealed.[14]

6.      The cult practices some form of social separatism, elitism, and isolationism. The cult leader encourages his followers to leave their current employment, schools, families, friends and activites that are not cult-related.[15] 

7.      The leader cultivates, and the cult maintains, a sense of "outside" persecution.[16]

8.      The cult adopts its own special language often using new terms and assigning different and special meanings to common, familiar terms. [17]

9.      The leader maintains tight control over members in ideological matters and all facets of everyday living through the use of mind control techniques and manipulation of the social structure of rewards and reinforcements.[18]

10.   The leader maintains complete control over the members' lives; this includes their sexual practices, as well as when and if the members will have children.[19]

11.  There is excessive control of the members' finances. Members may be expected to contribute large tithes, offerings or most or all of their worldly possessions.[20]

12.  Children in the cult belong to the leader, with all members of the group considered their "family," and the leader, their father (or mother).[21]

13.  The cult's recruitment practices may be aggressive and deceptive.[22]

14.  When a cult's deviance reaches extreme levels, it may discontinue recruiting and no longer accept new members into the group. However, occasional supervised visitation from "outsiders" may be permitted.[23]

These characteristics establish a totalistic environment in which the character and identity of the individual cult member is reshaped into the new creation desired by the cult leader.[24]

IV. CULTS: RECRUITMENT AND MEMBERSHIP

A.  Who do Cults Recruit?

"[T]he single most important thing to realize in dealing with . . . cults is that we are all vulnerable to conversion," given the right circumstances, time, and place.[25] Although the recruit is no different from anyone else, people frequently "look at the bizarre nature of cults and think you have to be very strange to be involved in one."[26] As a result, victims are typically blamed for their own cult involvement. It is precisely for this reason that it is important to note that almost no one is exempt from or beyond the reach of being the next cult recruit.[27]

"You don't have to be a certain kind of person to succumb to the cults."[28] Individuals who become cult members are not necessarily more insecure than the average person; they are not weak-willed, directionless, or, as a rule, young.[29] In a study of ex-members, Dr. Singer determined that at the time of joining cults, only between five and six percent of the ex-members were previously treated psychologically or suffered from a pre-diagnosed mental illness; with two-thirds of the new recruits essentially normal and enjoying positive relationships with their families. The remainder of the new recruits were experiencing age-relevant depression at the time of joining.[30] "[C]ults generally avoid recruiting people who will burden them, such as those with severe psychological or physical problems. They want people who will stand up to the grueling demands of cult life," not someone who uses drugs or is handicapped.[31]

Cult converts are often physically normal, bright, idealistic people who vary in age from the very young to the old.[32] Many recruits are well-educated and have impressive careers, people that you would normally find in leadership roles. Others, such as journalists, start out intending only to do extensive research on cults by attempting to "temporarily" join a cult for a personal experience and end up never leaving.[33]

There are several myths surrounding cult members. The first is that individuals freely choose to join and remain in the cult. Cult members do not "choose" to join, but are "subjected to mind-altering techniques which gradually induce" them to allow others to make decisions for them.[34]

The second myth is that members are weak-minded or psychopathological. In fact, the best recruits are those persons who are open, intelligent and sincere. New ones tend to be idealistic and frequently naive about the manipulative practices of cults.[35]

A third myth is that members remain in cults because they are happy and satisfied. In fact, they are not allowed to show any "negativity," whether it is discord or pain. If members fail in this, they are punished (physically or psychologically or both) by the group and may even inflict self-punishment. Guilt and fear are instilled in members through mind control; they are convinced that the group is their only way to salvation or worldly success. This fear may be maintained inside the cult's closed totalitarian system through the circulation of false tragic stories (death, institutionalization, and loss of grace) regarding the experiences of members who have left the group.[36]

B.  The Recruitment Process

In attempting to obtain new members, the cult recruiter, usually a member of the opposite sex, will approach the potential recruit in the victim's own environment: college campuses, dormitories, social functions, libraries, bus stops or even on the street .[37] The recruiter is instructed by the cult to focus on individuals who appear to be alone or look preoccupied.[38] The recruiter may smile at the potential recruit, make eye contact and initiate a conversation pertinent to the surrounding circumstances, such as the victim's possessions, clothing or equipment.[39] The recruiter may attempt to discuss subjects believed to be of concern to the new recruit. The recruiter may invite the victim to some group function where one or more cult members will be assigned to stay with each potential recruit at all times.[40]

The recruit may be constantly supervised, with privacy of the body and mind denied for days or weeks into the future. This may extend even to the use of the bathroom.[41] The lack of privacy and chance to digest the surrounding stimulus deprives the recruit of the opportunity for personal integration. As a result the new recruit handles the situation by dissociating, which narrows the recruit's mental focus. This in turn makes the recruit more susceptible to suggestion and enables him to be absorbed rapidly into the cult.[42] This initial phase of recruitment has been called the seduction period.[43] The most seductive lure offered by cults to the new recruit "is the promise of love, friendship and acceptance.[44]

C.       Deceptive Practices

Cults often purposely fail to inform recruits of the exact nature of their groups, concealing their true identity through the use of front names, until the recruits are fully indoctrinated.[45] By the time the recruit does realize what group he has actually joined, the new member has lost his "ability to think freely and hence cannot rationally decide whether or not he wants to join. [A] convert never has full capacity and knowledge simultaneously."[46]  "The Unification Church, not the only group using deception, has previously rationalized the concealment of both its identity and objective by labeling it "Heavenly Deception."[47]

David Molko, a law student, became a cult member after he was persuaded to attend a dinner he thought was sponsored by an environmental interest group calling itself the Creative Community Project. After being reassured that the group was not religious, Molko unsuspectingly became a new recruit of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon.[48]

When you meet the friendliest people you have ever known, who introduce you to the most loving group of people you've ever encountered, and you find the leader to be the most inspired, caring, compassionate, and understanding person you've ever met, and then you learn that the cause of the group is something you never dared hope could be accomplished, and all of this sounds too good to be true-it probably is too good to be true! Don't give up your education, your hopes and ambitions, to follow a rainbow![49]

V. CULT THOUGHT REFORM/MIND CONTROL

A. Socialization

The new recruit is involuntarily coerced into becoming a cult member through the use of mind control; he or she does not "voluntarily" join the group. In fact, the cult victim may unwittingly participate in the mind control process by cooperating with the recruiters. The victim is most likely unaware of being a participant in the process of mind control since the conversion is a covert process, not involving physical harm.[50] The cult may even identify its name and jokingly refer to brainwashing and the fact the members don't "look" brainwashed, thereby falsely reinforcing the new recruit's feelings of self control. This effectively utilizes the misconception that the victims of mind control have a readily identifiable glazed look.[51]

The cult victim erroneously considers the recruiters and other cult members to be friends or peers, making the recruit much less defensive and easier to convert. This process has been referred to as "socialization," a period in which the recruit begins to think like his "new friends."[52] The victim is made to feel that if he becomes a member of the group, he will be considered "special."[53] It is during this seduction phase that the new member bonds to the cult recruiter. The cult members encourage the recruit to believe that the cult may provide a service that the recruit desires, or that the group is committed to the same goals.[54]

It is through socialization that the elements of mind control work together to create an environment in which the new recruit is isolated within a particular cultural context so that the cult environment becomes the recruit's only reality. Strict control is maintained over the amount and the interpretation of information disseminated to the new recruit. Information is revealed selectively according to the rate that the recruit will accept it without disengaging.[55] Open discussions of both new and old members' doubts or criticisms of the group, doctrine, or leader are discouraged or strictly forbidden by the group's belief system.[56]

This rigid control over disseminated information extends to all relationships. Members are instructed to spy on each other and report improper activities or comments to leaders. New converts are not permitted to talk to each other without an older member present to chaperone them. Most importantly, people are told to avoid contact with ex-members or critics. Those who could provide the most information are the ones to be especially shunned. Some groups even go so far as to screen members' letters and phone calls.[57]

This type of isolation prevents the recruit from weighing new thoughts or beliefs being taught against known reality. The individual is placed in a confusing situation, with unfamiliar rules which do not "correspond to anything the individual has previously known. . . . Being cut off from familiar reality bases, the only readily available way to comprehend the new environment is to accept the ideas and beliefs being offered:[58]

The recruit may be required to give public confessions in front of the cult members. These confessions may include the victim's life story, prior social experiences, family history, and acts that, according to the cult's standards, are transgressions. Access to this information gives the cult the weapons it needs to induce in the recruit a sense of guilt regarding the recruit's past "transgressions" and privileged social status. The recruit is then required to manifest, for the cult members, sufficient guilt and remorse for past acts.[59] If he fails to be sufficiently contrite, the recruit runs the risk of the other members withdrawing their support. This in turn results in isolation and "seemingly endless negative feedback regarding deviations from proper ideological positions and prescribed behavior."[60]

The group thus increases its power over the recruit's life by shifting "the target's social and emotional attachments to individuals who have accepted the organization's authority and rules."[61] These techniques enable the recruiter to rapidly persuade a victim to give up all familiar and loved objects (parents, siblings, home, city), and both emotionally and sometimes physically move him to a foreign environment.

The end result of the entire process is that the victim rapidly takes on the persona of the controllers. The drastic conversion of the new cult member, resulting in an entire personality change with a new person now inside the old one, has been defined as "snapping." The word "snapping" is used to illustrate how the intense experience may affect the brain's fundamental information processing capacities.[62]

B.        Overview of Brainwashing and Thought Reform

The term brainwashing was first used in the 1940s to describe the Chinese Communists' attempts to change the political thinking of their prisoners. Their techniques were a form of

"emotional assault," aimed at annihilating the prisoner's sense of identity, reducing his reactivity to a primitive, subhuman level. The prisoner's physical and mental environments were controlled as strictly as possible. Breaking his [the victim's] spirit was made easier because he was in continual conflict with an inflexible environment, completely discordant with his natural milieu. Both in permitted behavior and in admitted standards of reality he was cut off from the "relatedness," without which he cannot survive. A "divided self" results…[63]

As cult recruiting techniques have become more sophisticated and complex, the term "brainwashing" has frequently been interchanged and replaced with the terms "mind control," "thought reform" or "coercive persuasion."[64]

These are terms used for the indoctrination process, which itself is designed to cause the victim to abandon pre-existing political, religious or social beliefs in favor of the cult's ideology and belief system.[65] The cult creates a controlled environment which heightens the victim's susceptibility to thought reform through sensory deprivation, physiological depletion, cognitive dissonance, peer pressure, and a clear assertion of authority and dominion. The aftermath of indoctrination is a severe impairment of autonomy and the ability to think independently, which induces a subject's unyielding compliance and the rupture of past connections, affiliations and associations.[66]

Various combinations of the following elements of mind control result in the cult's coercive persuasion of the unsuspecting victim. There is no one correct combination. Rather, the effectiveness of any variation depends on the nature of both the recruiter and the victim. Obviously, all of the elements listed below need not be present for

thought reform to result:

1. isolation and total control over the recruit's environment;[67]
2. control over the channels of information and communication;[68]
3. psychological depletion, which may occur through repetitious tasks;[69]
4. manipulation and exploitation of guilt and anxiety;[70]
5. instructions that the sole chance for survival lies in identifying with, and becoming a member of, the cult;[71]
6. degradation and assaults on the pre-existing self;[72] 
7. intense peer pressure to give "all" to the cult;[73] 
8. performance of symbolic acts of self-betrayal, confessions[74] and peer criticism;[75] 
9. alternation of harshness and leniency.[76]

The utilization of these mind control techniques causes the individual's personality to be "totally reorganized; fundamental information processing pathways in the brain . . . may become altered or destroyed, causing the disruption of basic capacities to think, feel, and make choices."[77] The ultimate result is the rapid persuasion and conversion of the unsuspecting victim.[78] One Harvard University student described his one-week stay with the Unification Church as posing

the most severe challenge to his independence he had ever faced. After a week he was ready to join, to "give up the complexities of Harvard, my thesis and my Gen[eral] Ed[ucation] requirements and live [the] life of [a cult member]. When he announced after the first few days that he was considering leaving the cult, his "spiritual brother" threatened to break both his legs, if that was what was necessary, to win the student over to the family [the cult]. He was told that the devil was in him, and that he was damning himself and his ancestors by leaving. Although by this time he "believed [this] and felt ashamed ... [o]f the 70 recruits that joined, after 2 weeks, the author was the only one to leave; "many are still there.”[79]

Such radical conversions are apparently easy for cults to accomplish.[80]  The intellectual content of the cult material used in the mind control process does not matter; it may be religious, political (left or right), therapeutic, intellectual or philosophical.[81] The conversion occurs as a result of the quality of the recruit's experience.[82] If the cult's control is “rigorous enough, it eventually becomes self-imposed—the individual continues to manipulate his or her own thought processes without the aid of external control and soon learns to manipulate others.”[83]

C.        The Cult's Special Language

Cult members are also given a new vocabulary, with specific, common everyday language being given new and special meanings. For example, members of the Love Family teach their children different names for the days of the week (renamed after the seven churches in the Book of Revelations), the months of the year, (renamed after the twelve tribes of Israel), and the word Christ (interchanged with the words the family). The Love Family has even changed the calendar months to consist of thirty days, the extra days being used for the celebration of Passover.[84]

The cult slowly and deliberately changes the members' language which, since early childhood, has been a part of mind and body functions.[85] "Frequently words of any emotional importance have had some shifting of their meaning to an oversimplified, special sort of related definition."[86]

The words become highly emotionally charged, creating a sense of oneness in the group, while further separating the member from the outside world. This new language has been referred to as "loaded language," comprised of catch words and phrases which, if used by a religious cult, may include special God and devil terms.[87]

To effectively evaluate or even question the adult or child cult member, the examiner must first learn the cult's special language.[88] For example, the member may tell the examiner that he or she has "a family that shares." To the uninformed examiner, this may mean that the member's biological family (the family) borrow each other's possessions (share). To the cult member, this statement may actually mean that the cult members (the family) have sex with one another (share).

VI. THE DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS CULTS HAVE ON THEIR MEMBERS

The structure of destructive cults predisposes them "toward abusive practices in general and potentiates their propensity toward child abuse in particular."[89] In a study of the effects cult membership has on children, the following were common responses regarding the role of children as perceived by the various cults:

(1) Children from previous marriage (prior to membership) were considered

inferior--brought up communally--not much access to parents; (2) [The] role of children depended on whether they were born of a couple married by

Moon, in which case they were supposed to be sinless according to the doctrine. The children were special. . . . This is the new race Moon is creating;

(3) Scapegoated to support authority of leaders and image as saints; (4) Chil-

dren are believed to be "merely adults" who don't have their act together.

They are seen as malleable machines . . .[90]

This is particularly true since cults isolate their children both physically and mentally from the "outsiders" in society. As a result it is often difficult for an "outsider" to recognize the cult's abusive practices. Due to the lack of outside contact, the "positive front" the cult presents to "outsiders," and the fact that cult children are instructed never to tell non-members about cult activities, the cult's abuse of children may continue and possibly increase in severity. One of the prime dangers of social isolation is that children in many cults are virtually hostages, solely dependent on the idiosyncratic ideas of the cult leader.[91]

A.        Physical Effect

Cult involvement may generate physical and psychological illness or degeneration in children and adults.[92] Some secondary physiological problems which have been found to develop in cult members include "extreme weight gain or loss; abnormal skin conditions such as rashes, eczema and acne; menstrual dysfunction in women and higher-pitched voices and reduced facial-hair growth in men."[93]

The physical abuse experienced by the members may include repeated beatings, torture, incest,[94] starvation, rape, denial of medical care, forced marriages,[95] prostitution, and other deviant practices. A cult's abusive practices generally apply to everyone in varying degrees of severity, depending on each member's status within the group. It is not uncommon that preferential treatment be given first to the leader's offspring, second to those born into the cult, and last to those brought into the cult by their parents. Utilizing this hierarchy, one Canadian group classified their children the New Root Race, Christ Children, or Bastards depending on their origin.[96]

In the Peoples Temple, the leader, Jim Jones, commonly ordered various forms of public punishments for innocuous activities. For example, as a result of being restless in class, one five-year-old girl was taken out at night and left one-quarter of a mile away from her living quarters. The child was told that snakes and monsters were waiting for her. As she walked home, blind-folded, a snake (a slimy rope) was placed on her bare shoulders, while hiding adults made animal sounds.[97]

One fourteen-year-old girl was kept for weeks in a plywood box with only two holes for air and a can for a toilet, while periodically taunted by adults. The plywood box was three feet wide, six feet long and four feet high.[98]

For resting at work and disagreeing on the proper amount of fertilizer, one boy had his teeth knocked out. Another boy was stretched by four adults who pulled on his arms and legs until he was unconscious.[99] The children of Jonestown were also punished for the acts of their parents. If their parents were caught talking privately, the children were forced to masturbate or have sex with someone they did not like in front of the entire congregation.[100]

Some groups physically hurt their children in order to "teach them a lesson," or "break their spirit."[101] To control the behavior of one two-month-old boy, the Garbage Eaters group wrapped a piece of wire around the child's thigh above the knee and tightened it every time he cried. His grandparents discovered the wire after they were able to obtain custody. Doctors stated that scabs around the wire were fresh, evidencing that it had recently been tightened, and had cut so deeply that skin had begun growing over the wire.[102]

These "lessons" may involve punishment that is life threatening. A survey of ex-cult members revealed that the punishment of children in cults may involve burying children up to their necks in dirt, daily spankings, locking them in rooms without windows, and depriving them of all contact with the outside world.[103]

In the House of Judah, the children live in constant danger of being placed in stockades and "beaten repeatedly with cords, switches, branches, broom handles and axe handles . . . ."[104] They are not permitted to express their feelings, "[c]rying when hit by an axe handle or seeing their brother beaten to death over a five day period is not permitted."[105] If a child's behavior is considered bad enough, as defined by the "prophet" (the leader of the House of Judah), beating the child, even until death, is condoned and considered justified.[106] For these children, making mistakes brings very serious consequences, which results in severe handicaps for later adult world functioning.[107]

B.        Psychological Effect

Cult members are psychologically abused through emotional deprivation, social isolation, denial of parental nurturing and bonding, and enforced absolute obedience to the leader. The cult leader also places limitations on the cult members' language, thoughts and experiences.[108]

The manipulative techniques used in the cult induction process build up pressures, anxieties, and intense guilt, and create mental and emotional disorders in previously well-adjusted people.[109] Prior to 1987, the frequent psychological diagnosis of the cult victim was an "Atypical Dissociative Disorder." This disorder, the result of coercive persuasion and thought reform, was defined to include trance-like states, derealization unaccompanied by depersonalization, and those more prolonged dissociated states that may occur in persons who have been subjected to periods of prolonged and intense coercive persuasion (brainwashing, thought reform, and indoctrination) while the captive of terrorists or cultists.[110]

In 1987 the diagnosis of "Atypical Dissociative Disorder" was changed to "Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified." The predominant feature of this disorder remains "a dissociative symptom (i.e., a disturbance or alteration in the brain)."[111] Coerced acquiescence in the cult results in a drastic loss in the victim's decision-making capabilities. The member's thought processes become simplistic and begin to function at a lower intellectual level.[112] Almost all

ex-cultists appear To be much younger than their chronological age and display an asexual innocence. They act childlike although they may be well into their twenties. Indeed, during their time in the cult women often stop menstruating and the men's beards grow more slowly. . .  Those who remained in cults for many years and did not achieve a leadership position experienced what initially appears to be a diminished ability in the areas of perception, decision making, discrimination, judgment, memory, and speech.[113]

This is demonstrated by the following example:

Edward C, a graduate from an Ivy League university, was a member of a cult for two years. After leaving the cult, he was unable to read a newspaper for several months. His inability to focus his mind provoked anxiety, which made him withdraw by falling asleep whenever he tried to read.[114]

Under these circumstances, cult leaders are able to train members to follow, while not critically thinking about or questioning orders.[115]

C.        Preventing the Family Bond

In addition to limiting the members' capability to think critically, the cult also induces members to "believe that the outside world [outside the cult] is dangerous and satanical, that [their non-member] parents hate [them], and that [their] only chance for salvation lies with the group."[116] All family bonds are subordinated to cult loyalties, with the cult considered the superior ("higher") family unit.[117] In an effort

to prevent bonding, one cult leader instructed his followers that

[i]f you are not thinking of the Supreme or of me, if you are thinking of somebody else [your child], some other human being, then unless it is absolutely a mundane thought about telling that person something totally unimportant, that is your destruction. If you think of someone even with softness or tenderness, be careful: danger is approaching you. . . .[118]

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