Cultic Studies Review Vol. 1, No. 2 — Online for Subscribers
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www.culticstudiesreview.org.
In addition to several dozen summaries of group-related news and seven book reviews, this issue includes:
Teenage Spirituality and the Internet (A. Lutz and Rev. D. Borgman)
Lying in Court and Religion: An Analysis of the Theocratic Warfare Doctrine of the Jehovah's Witnesses (Dr. Jerry Bergman)
The Spread of Ásatrú in Vinland (Detective Thomas Coghlan)
The Death of a Leader: Homicide as a Means of Group Disengagement (J. Haines, Ph.D. et al.)
Cults, Conversion, Science, and Harm (M. D. Langone, Ph.D.)
Column: Getting Help (L. Bardin, M.S.W.)
News summaries and articles for the coming issue, number 3, will be posted as they become available. For the convenience of subscribers, we have placed a hyperlink on the Home Page that takes you to a list of recently posted items in the “coming issue.” Thus, you can go back to the journal from time to time and look only at
the material that has been added since your last visit. This will be especially useful for keeping abreast of news on specific groups, for we will add news summaries on a regular basis. We will also let you know in future newsletters when items have been added to the coming issue. This capacity to receive an issue in installments is another advantage of the Web over print.
Ex-Member Workshop in Colorado – Evaluations and Next Year
AFF’s annual weekend ex-member workshop was held at the St. Malo Retreat Center in Estes Park, Colorado from July 12 -14, 2002. Approximately 20 people took part in this intimate program of sharing and learning. On a rating scale of 1-5 (1=very unsatisfied; 5= very satisfied), participants gave the workshop an average rating of
4.83.
NEXT YEAR: July 11-13, 2003 at St. Malo Retreat Center, Estes Park, Colorado. More information forthcoming.
Annual Conference Evaluations
We have tabulated and analyzed the evaluations submitted by attendees at AFF’s 2002 annual conference in Orlando, June 14-15. On a rating scale of 1-5 (1=very poor; 5=very good), attendees gave the conference as a whole an average rating of 4.66. Specific aspects of the workshop (e.g., appropriateness of length of time
devoted to the subject matter; interesting nature of topics; competency of speakers; etc.), ratings ranged from a low of 3.94 to a high of 4.64. Ratings of specific talks at the conference ranged from a low of 3.37 (attributable mainly to language difficulties) to a high of 1.00 (a perfect score). The data clearly support the impressions many of us took away from the
conference: it was great!
AFF Bookstore Special – New Edition of Coping with Cult Involvement
Livia Bardin’s Coping with Cult Involvement: A Handbook for Families and Friends, has been published in a new bound version. It is now available on our online bookstore at a discounted price of $15.00.
This book, according to AFF’s Dr. Michael Langone, is an indispensable book for families and friends with a cult-involved loved one.
Herb Rosedale to Speak in Maine
On September 21st, Herbert Rosedale, Esq., president of AFF, will speak at the United Baptist Church in Lewiston, Maine.
Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR)
SSSR’s 2002 annual meeting will take place November 1-3 in Salt Lake City, Utah (www.sssrweb.org). AFF’s president, Herbert Rosedale, Esq., and Drs. Stephen Kent and Eileen Barker will participate in a program entitled, “How Scholarship and Advocacy Interact in Dealing with NRM and Mind Control
Issues. Also of interest: “Boundaries and Commitments in NRM Research” (Drs. Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Douglas Cowan, Bryan Rennie, Tom Robbins, and William Shaffir).
Custody Workshop
The Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute will conduct a workshop titled, "Conducting Custody Evaluations in the Best Interests of the Child" on November 1-3, 2002. The workshop will take place at the Sheraton Gateway/San Francisco Airport in Burlingame, California. For further information on this or future FVSAI workshops,
contact Melissa Collins at 858-623-2777 ext. 442 or Rocky Rowley at 858-623-2777 ext. 455.
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Books and Articles Brought to Our Attention
Hollywood’s Celebrity-Lobbyists
Kent, S. A. (2002, Spring). Hollywood's celebrity-lobbyists and the Clinton administration's American foreign policy toward German Scientology. The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. This article takes basic insights provided by resource mobilization theory in order to discuss how Scientology celebrities used
their status to influence the international debate over Scientology between the United States and Germany. Their ability to have done so is another indicator of the access to American political elites that Hollywood cultural elites have gained in recent years, most especially during the administration of President Bill Clinton (1992-2000). The shortcomings, however, of some of the
celebrities’ efforts reveal the weaknesses that are associated with cultural elites entering political debates. As is common in other instances of celebrities’ political involvement, Scientology’s celebrities have contributed to the trivialization of serious issues that confront the international community.
Saying Goodbye to the Guru
Dubrow-Eichel, S. K. (2001). Saying goodbye to the guru: Brief intermittent developmental therapy with a young adult in a high demand group. Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, 16(1-2), 153-170. Presents the case of a White male high school student (aged 16 yrs) involved in a high demand group, or cult, and diagnosed with
oppositional-defiant disorder. During a 5-yr period brief intermittent development therapy focused on the subjects’ developmental processes of autonomy, decision making, and affect and impulse regulation. Findings suggest that there are similarities between addiction counseling and cult devotee counseling.
Women After the Utopia
Boeri-M. W. (2002). Women after the utopia: The gendered lives of former cult members. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 31(3), 323-360. Research on former members of cults, also known as new religious movements, often focuses on psychological issues. Little has been written about the everyday lives of former members, and
rarely has gender been placed at the center of analyses. Based on participant observation at ex-cult reunions and in-depth interviews, this analytical ethnography examines the everyday lives of women who are former members of a religious cult. Their experiences and concerns are analyzed with a focus on 4 qualitative themes: identity, roles, interactions, and contexts. The salient issues
that emerge are alienation, depression, spiritual confusion, changing wife and mother roles, limited friendships, sexual abuse, lack of education and work history, and health concerns. The minority status of cult survivor is proposed as a core concept, and the implications of this study for intervention and future research are discussed.
Turn of the Century Update
Schwartz, L. L., & Kaslow, F. W. (2001). The cult phenomenon: A turn of the century update. American Journal of Family Therapy, 29(1), 13-22. A variety of groups that function on the fringes of both religion and psychotherapy have been evident in the US since the 1960s, with perhaps their greatest presence noted in the 1970s.
There were as many as 3,000 cult- type organizations identified in that period. Many of these groups created havoc with their followers' lives and the lives of the followers' families. The authors examined the cults in the late 1970s and early 1980s, comparing their activities and requirements to those of "standard" religions and sects. The present article looks at the changes in the 2
decades since then, noting modifications in the cults' target populations as well as the increases in many kinds of violence in some of the groups.
Transformational Leadership
Tourish, D., & Pinnington, A. (2002). Transformational leadership, corporate cultism and the spirituality paradigm: An unholy trinity in the workplace. Human Relations, 55(2), 147-172. Leadership is a perennially popular topic in the academic and practitioner literature on management. In particular, the past twenty years have
witnessed an explosive growth of interest in what has been termed 'transformational leadership' (TL). The theory is closely linked to the growth in what has been defined as corporate culturism - an emphasis on the importance of coherent cultures, as a means of securing competitive advantage. This article outlines the central components of TL theory, and subjects the concept to a critical
analysis. In particular, similarities are identified between the components concerned and the characteristics of leadership practice in organizations generally defined as cults. This connection has been previously unremarked in the literature. These similarities are comprehensively reviewed. Trends towards what can be defined as corporate cultism in modern management practice are also
discussed. The authors conclude that TL models are overly concerned with the achievement of corporate cohesion to the detriment of internal dissent. Such dissent is a vital ingredient of effective decision-making. It is suggested that more inclusive and participatory models of the leadership process are required.
Deconstructing “Brainwashing”
Walsh, Y. (2001). Deconstructing 'brainwashing' within cults as an aid to counselling psychologists. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 14(2), 119-128. Argues that counselling psychologists need to be aware of the problem of the psychological damage with which some members or ex-members of cults continue to present and of the techniques
of control practiced within the cult and the effect that these techniques have on members. The author aims to begin to educate counselling psychologists in the techniques used within cults which effect social control, and intends to equip counselling psychologists to work with this group of clients.
Hyper Compliance in Charismatic Groups
Zablocki, B. (1999). Hyper compliance in charismatic groups. In D. D. Franks & T. S. Smith (Eds.), Mind, brain, and society: Toward a neurosociology of emotion (Vol. 5. Social perspectives on emotion). Stamford, CT: JAI Press, Inc. Develops an interdisciplinary theory of brainwashing to account for the emergence of
hyper compliance with the dictates of charismatic leaders observed among some members of contemporary cults. This speculative model draws from sociology insights into charismatic leadership and the generative stage of new religious movements. It draws from psychology theories of attitude change and the dynamics of persuasion. From psychiatry, it takes its understanding of trauma and
extreme stress. From the biological sciences, it takes ideas about addiction and socioendocrinology. Topics discussed include: statement of the problem; functional requirements of charismatic organization; the need for a model encompassing believing and belonging; hyper credulity: the chronic suspension of disbelief; charisma and emotional restructuring; the role of brainwashing in
charismatic restructuring; and prospects for testing the model.
A Comparison of Cults and Gangs
Knox, G. W. (1999). A comparison of cults and gangs: Dimensions of coercive power and malevolent authority. Journal of Gang Research, 6(4), 1-39. This paper explores the similarity and differences between gangs and cults. It examines several concepts such as: the risky-shift phenomenon, the group-think effect, the concept of
collective moral neutralization, and the dependency-critical thinking effect. Recent data is analyzed to examine the effect that violence from within the gang (i.e., intragang violence) has on its members. The author examines the coerced-motivation phenomenon and discusses how the conversion process is almost identical when cults and gangs are compared. Finally he addresses the matter of
reconciling free will and mind control in the gang.
Vampire Cult
Miller, T. W. et al. (1999). An adolescent vampire cult in rural America: Clinical issues and case study. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 29(3), 209-219. The emergence of cult related activities in rural America are examined. Cults and their attraction to adolescents are addressed as are methods of cult indoctrination
and a profile of cult members and their leader. Clinical management along with a rationale for the attraction of some adolescents to cults are discussed. A case study of a vampire cult and the psychopathology identified in the leader of the cult are provided. Import for clinicians is offered.
Unification Church in Spain
Santamaria del Rio, Luis. (2001). La Iglesia de la Unificacion en Espana: De la acusacion a la legalizacion. Pastoral Ecuménica 54, 93-113 (Journal of the Ecumenical Centre “Misioneras de la Unidad”, Madrid, España)
Mystics and Messiahs
Apologia Report (http://www.apologia.org) gives a synopsis of a review of Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History, by Philip Jenkins – reviewed by Michael J. McClymond in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (Vol. 70, No. 2, 2002, pp. 420-422). The book
brings a historical perspective to the study of new religious movements in North America. The author “notes that many groups now regarded as mainstream were once decidedly marginal.” He argues that extreme and bizarre religious ideas are so common in American history that one cannot speak of them as fringe. .He also discerns a cycle of cult development and anti-cult reaction, which he
describes in a four-stage formulation. The author claims that “the term cult carries a 'prefabricated script' that assimilates diverse groups to a common stereotype,” which change from generation to generation. The emergence of new religions correlates, according to Jenkins, with a youthful populace. Given demographic trends, he predicts another burst of new religious activity
around 2010, when the population of adolescents will approach the highs of the 1970s. “In terms of tone, Jenkins sometimes veers toward becoming a new religions' apologist.... It is not that Jenkins defends specific groups but, rather, that the new movements generally represent for him 'the laboratories or proving grounds for religious innovation.'" Journal of the American Academy
of Religion,
Encyclopedia of Modern American Extremists and Extremist Groups
This book by Stephen E. Atkins (published by Greenwood House, 2002) provides information on 275 of the most influential and significant homegrown extremists and extremist groups that have operated in the United States since 1950, as well as entries on important extremist events, terms, and concepts.
Article Review: Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology
This fascinating article (http://www.policyreview.org/AUG02/harris_print.html), written by Lee Harris and published in the Hoover Institution’s Policy Review, provides a compelling psychological analysis of why 9-11 happened. Although it is not about cults per se,
many of the author’s insights could be applied to some cult situations.
The author maintains that nearly everybody has interpreted 9/11 within categories that are meaningful to US, and that most such interpretations implicitly accept Clausewitz’s famous statement that war is politics carried out by other means. He says:
This common identification of 9-11 as an act of war arises from a deeper unquestioned assumption — an assumption made both by Chomsky and his followers on one hand and Hanson and National Review on the other — and, indeed, by almost everyone in between. The assumption is this: An act of violence on the magnitude of 9-11 can only
have been intended to further some kind of political objective. What this political objective might be, or whether it is worthwhile — these are all secondary considerations; but surely people do not commit such acts unless they are trying to achieve some kind of recognizably political purpose.
Dr. Harris lays the groundwork for his argument by stating:
I would like to pursue a line suggested by a remark by the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in reference to 9-11: his much-quoted comment that it was “the greatest work of art of all time.”
Despite the repellent nihilism that is at the base of Stockhausen’s ghoulish aesthetic judgment, it contains an important insight and comes closer to a genuine assessment of 9-11 than the competing interpretation of it in terms of Clausewitzian war. For Stockhausen did grasp one big truth: 9-11 was the enactment of a fantasy —
not an artistic fantasy, to be sure, but a fantasy nonetheless.
Relating an anecdote from his youth, Dr. Harris tells us about a friend who planned to attend an anti-war rally, even though he knew that it was likely to generate more hostility against protesters than against the war.
What I saw as a political act was not, for my friend, any such thing. It was not aimed at altering the minds of other people or persuading them to act differently. Its whole point was what it did for him.
And what it did for him was to provide him with a fantasy — a fantasy, namely, of taking part in the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors. By participating in a violent anti-war demonstration, he was in no sense aiming at coercing conformity with his view — for that would still have been a political
objective. Instead, he took his part in order to confirm his ideological fantasy of marching on the right side of history, of feeling himself among the elect few who stood with the angels of historical inevitability.
Such behavior reflects a “fantasy ideology,” which refers to the use of political and ideological symbols and tropes “for the benefit of furthering a specific personal or collective fantasy,” not to advance a political agenda. Dr. Harris discusses Nazism and Italian fascism as telling examples of fantasy ideology in action.
(Dr. Janja Lalich has suggested [personal communication, 9/6/02] that “extremist ideology” would be a more useful term, since “fantasy” has derogatory connotations (i.e., fanciful reverie) that don’t capture precisely what the author is driving at.) His comment on the Italian invasion of Ethiopia is illuminating:
Any attempt to see this adventure in Clausewitzian terms is doomed to fail: There was no political or economic advantage whatsoever to be gained from the invasion of Ethiopia. Indeed, the diplomatic disadvantages to Italy in consequence of this action were tremendous, and they were in no way to be compensated for by anything that
Italy could hope to gain from possessing Ethiopia as a colony.
Why invade, then? The answer is quite simple. Ethiopia was a prop — a prop in the fantasy pageant of the new Italian Empire — that and nothing else. And the war waged in order to win Ethiopia as a colony was not a war in the Clausewitzian sense — that is to say, it was not an instrument of political policy designed to induce
concessions from Ethiopia, or to get Ethiopia to alter its policies, or even to get Ethiopia to surrender. Ethiopia had to be conquered not because it was worth conquering, but because the fascist fantasy ideology required Italy to conquer something — and Ethiopia fit the bill. The conquest was not the means to an end, as in Clausewitzian war; it was an end in itself. Or, more
correctly, its true purpose was to bolster the fascist collective fantasy that insisted on casting the Italians as a conquering race, the heirs of Imperial Rome.
Relating this to Al Qaeda, he says:
To be a prop in someone else’s fantasy is not a pleasant experience, especially when this someone else is trying to kill you, but that was the position of Ethiopia in the fantasy ideology of Italian fascism. And it is the position Americans have been placed in by the quite different fantasy ideology of radical Islam.
The terror attack of 9-11 was not designed to make us alter our policy, but was crafted for its effect on the terrorists themselves: It was a spectacular piece of theater. The targets were chosen by al Qaeda not through military calculation — in contrast, for example, to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — but entirely because
they stood as symbols of American power universally recognized by the Arab street. They were gigantic props in a grandiose spectacle in which the collective fantasy of radical Islam was brought vividly to life: A mere handful of Muslims, men whose will was absolutely pure, as proven by their martyrdom, brought down the haughty towers erected by the Great Satan. What better proof
could there possibly be that God was on the side of radical Islam and that the end of the reign of the Great Satan was at hand?
As the purpose of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia was to prove to the Italians themselves that they were conquerors, so the purpose of 9-11 was not to create terror in the minds of the American people but to prove to the Arabs that Islamic purity, as interpreted by radical Islam, could triumph.
The author then discusses at length the policy implications of his argument. These are of secondary concern for this publication, and we do not endorse or condemn the author’s views. Other political scientists may come up with telling critiques of his views on Al Qaeda. Nevertheless, Dr. Harris’s psychological
perspective on Al Qaeda is relevant to the cult phenomenon in an analogical sense.
First of all, this article provides an “out-of-the-box” perspective for understanding certain cult horrors, such as Aum’s sarin gas attack, the People’s Temple suicides/murders, and the Heaven’s Gate suicides. These actions seem irrational and bizarre when viewed by common-sense notions of motivation. But when viewed as
fantasy ideologies emanating from the minds of the group’s leaders, then they take on an internal rationality not visible to an outside perspective. Moreover, given the magical, if not psychotic, nature of the leader’s thinking and the leader’s need to keep his fantasy ideology alive in his followers, it follows that he would have to shield them from outside information, separate
them from loved ones, etc. The processes associated with the concept of brainwashing become, in a sense, psychological defense mechanisms protecting the leader’s ruling fantasy. As with 9-11, certain dramatic events, such as a ritual suicide or a doomed failure to bring about Armageddon, serve to “prove” the validity of the leader’s fantasy ideology to his followers and
himself.
The article’s main value to cult researchers and families and former members trying to understand the cult phenomenon lay in its emphasis on understanding the world as seen through the eyes of people embracing what to us is a radical and irrational ideology. If, for example, we assume that a particular cult leader’s behavior must
aim at making him rich or politically powerful (motives that make sense in “our world”), we may lose our credibility in dialogue with current members, if in fact the leader’s behavior is designed merely to make his followers believe in some fantasy ideology to which he clings. Although the members may not see the leader’s vision as a fantasy, they do realize that the leader clearly
is not motivated by money or the desire for political power (which doesn’t mean that SOME leaders aren’t indeed motivated by money or political power). Parents, for example, who push that false interpretation, which will seem utterly silly to the son or daughter in the leader’s group, run two risks: first, they may alienate the son or daughter they love; second, they may squander
valuable time that could be devoted to listening and learning, rather than lecturing about a subject that misses the point from the group member’s perspective.
The fundamental lesson to keep in mind is the desirability to temporarily put aside the fundamental assumptions that structure our view of the world and to try very hard to understand the assumptions that form the group member’s view of the world.
