Exploring Cults - The Dark Side of Belief
Exploring Cults - The Dark Side of Belief
This months Moot : A dip into the dark work of cults.
Cults - The Dark Side of Belief
In this month's Moot, I have planned to look at Cults and Cult Leaders. We will be talking about the “dark side of belief”
People under the influence of cults is similar to that we observe in addicts. Typical behaviour for both includes draining bank accounts, neglecting children, destroying relations with family and losing interest in anything except the drug or cult. - Keith Hanson
What is a Cult?
A cult is a group or organization, typically led by a charismatic and authoritarian leader, that promotes a set of beliefs or practices that are often considered extreme or unconventional.
Cults often isolate their members from the outside world and exert control over their thoughts, behaviours, and actions. They may use techniques such as manipulation, coercion, and brainwashing to maintain control over their followers. Cults can have harmful effects on their members, leading to psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical harm. It is important to be aware of the warning signs of a cult and to seek help if one suspects they or someone they know may be involved in a cult.
Typical Behaviours of Cult Leaders
Cult leaders often exhibit behaviours that are manipulative, controlling, and narcissistic. They may demand unquestioning loyalty from their followers and use fear tactics to maintain their power.
Cult leaders often present themselves as all-knowing and infallible, discouraging any form of criticism or dissent. They tend to also isolate their followers from friends and family members who do not belong to the cult, further solidifying their control over their followers' lives.
Cult leaders may also exploit their followers financially, demanding large sums of money or donations in exchange for spiritual enlightenment or salvation.
Types of Cults
It is important to remember that the meaning of the word “cult”, like all language, has evolved.
Prior the the 1930’s, the word cult was applied to a set of religious devotional practices that is conventional within its culture, is related to a particular figure, and is frequently associated with a particular place.
References to the imperial cult of ancient Rome, for example, use the word in this sense.
A derived sense of "excessive devotion" arose in the 19th century.
Beginning in the 1930s, cults became an object of sociological study within the context of the study of religious behaviour.
Since the 1940s, the Christian counterculture movement has opposed some sects and new religious movements, labelling them "cults" because of their unorthodox beliefs.
Since the 1970s, the secular anti-cult movement has opposed certain groups and, as a reaction to acts of violence, frequently charged those cults with practising brainwashing.
There are thousands of cults around the world. Groups labelled "cults" range in size from local groups with a few members to international organizations with millions.
Broadly we can think of ‘cults’ in the following way.
Doomsday cults: Certain cults come together to prepare for the allegedly imminent end of the world. For instance, the Branch Davidians stockpiled firearms and explosives in a Waco, Texas, compound over the 1980s and ’90s to prepare for the apocalypse. This led to an infamous standoff with the federal government.
Political cults: Political groups on both the left and right can morph into cults. Janja Lalich wrote an entire account of her own experience in such an environment.
Religious cults: Spiritual beliefs serve as the bedrock for many cults. Some cults are offshoots of mainline religions while others offer brand-new dogmas and theology.
Sex cults: All types of cults might have a component of sexual abuse, but some focus on sex as one of their primary functions. For instance, New York-based NXIVM encouraged rampant sexual behaviour between its group members.
It is worth remembering that many cults are defined as such against the backdrop of what we consider as “normal” behaviour and/or belief.
For example in an article on Al-Qaeda published in The Times, journalist Mary Ann Sieghart wrote that al-Qaeda resembles a "classic cult". She stated:
Al-Qaeda fits all the official definitions of a cult. It indoctrinates its members; it forms a closed, totalitarian society; it has a self-appointed, messianic and charismatic leader; and it believes that the ends justify the means.
However, Christianity does have its fair share of cult-like groups.
Christian scholar Walter Ralston Martin defines Christian cults as groups that follow the personal interpretation of an individual, rather than the understanding of the Bible accepted by Nicene Christianity, providing the examples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Unity Church.
The question is where the line is drawn between cult and non-cult.
New Religious Movement (NRM)
A new religious movement (NRM) is a religious community or spiritual group of modern origins since the mid-19th century, which has a peripheral place within its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or part of a wider religion, in which case they are distinct from pre-existing denominations.
In 1999, Eileen Barker estimated that NRMs, of which some but not all have been labelled as cults, number in the tens of thousands worldwide; and that the great majority of which have only a few members, some have thousands and only very few have more than a million.
In 2007, religious scholar Elijah Siegler commented that, although no NRM had become the dominant faith in any country, many of the concepts which they had first introduced, often referred to as "New Age" ideas, have become part of worldwide mainstream culture.
NRM and Religious Cults are associated with beliefs in a divine element in the individual; it is either soul, self, or true self.
There is a major theme in many of the recent works that show the relationship between cults and mysticism.
Some researchers have described cults as non-traditional religious groups based on belief in a divine element in the individual, bringing two major types of such to attention – mystical and instrumental – dividing cults into either occult or metaphysical assembly.
There is also a third type, the service-oriented, that evolves in the development of religious organizations. In this group, there is a direct link between the founder or founders and the nature of their “claimed” religious experience.
Cults you may never have heard of.
Warning!
The following may shock you!
NXIVM (pronounced NEX-ee-um) positioned itself as a self-help organization with workshops and classes on empowerment. NXIVM amassed more than 18,000 followers across North America until 2017 when NXIVM members came forward to expose the abusive practices of a secret society within the group.
Women were recruited under the false pretence that they were joining a sisterhood of sorts—but it ended up being a sex cult. A pyramid scheme existed within the group, with the “leader” Raniere, who members called Vanguard, at the top; “masters” who recruited other women to the secretive group; and at the bottom were the newest recruits, who were referred to as “slaves.”
A former member recounted to the New York Times that to be admitted to the secret club, she had to give her “master” naked photos and other compromising documents that would be used as blackmail if she ever told anyone about the group’s existence. She was also told that another part of the initiation process was getting a small tattoo. But instead of a tattoo, the new members were told to undress and the “master” branded them with a design that included Raniere’s initials right above their pelvic area. Each woman was instructed to say: “Master, please brand me, it would be an honour.”
In 2020, Raniere was tried in court, where more than a dozen women came forward with statements regarding his psychological and sexual abuse. He was convicted of many crimes, including sex trafficking, racketeering, and child pornography. Victims were as young as 15 years old. Raniere was sentenced to life in prison, but in a court filing, his lawyers wrote, “He is not sorry for his conduct or his choices.”
The Church of God. Initially called Teens for Christ, Children of God was founded in 1968 by rogue preacher David Berg in Huntington Beach, California.
Attracting young runaways and hippies, Berg preached a kind of worship that combined the ways of Jesus Christ with the free love movement of the ’60s. Group living, zealous proselytizing, and isolated communes were all pillars of the Children of God church.
Members, who amounted to 15,000 people across the world at its peak, didn’t work or go to school. The COG didn’t believe in the nuclear family, so children were grouped and lived separately from their parents.
In the late 1970s, COG became notorious for the sexual practices that one of Berg’s own daughters later described as “religious prostitution.” Berg coined the term “flirty fishing,” a sexual practice in which women would allegedly have sex with men to bring them into the cult.
Berg promoted and encouraged the sexualization of children within the COG community. As Berg manipulated the COG family with his sadistic practices, members started leaving the community, including the families of actors Joaquin Phoenix and Rose McGowan, who both grew up in Children of God communes.
Former COG members began coming forward in the early 1990s, describing an environment that permitted and encouraged the physical and sexual abuse of young children. Ricky Dupuy appeared on a talk show in 1993 and revealed that he’d been ordered by the group to rape a 10-year-old. Dupuy later committed suicide, like many other members of the group, including Berg’s son Ricky Rodriguez, who was sexually abused throughout his life by his father and the group.
Although Berg died in 1994 (while under FBI investigation), the Children of God cult continues to exist and now goes by the name Family International, although the group claims that the horrific practices are a thing of the past.
The Church of the Lamb of God: Founded by who the press dubbed Mormon Manson, the Church of the Lamb of God was started by Ervil LeBaron in Chihuahua, Mexico, after he clashed and left his brother Joel’s sect.
LeBaron convinced his followers that he received direct instructions from God, which included using an abandoned Mormon doctrine, “blood atonement,” that allows the killing of sinners to cleanse them of evil. LeBaron had 51 children with 13 different wives and over two decades amassed hundreds of followers, who allegedly murdered more than 20 people on behalf of LeBaron and his orders.
Mexico authorities arrested LeBaron in 1979 and handed him over to the FBI, where he was charged with the murder of another polygamous sect leader and jailed for life in Utah. Although LeBaron died in prison in 1981, his reign of terror persisted for several years, as he left behind a “hit list” of people he believed were traitors.
Synanon may just be one of the most dangerous cults in American history. It started as a drug rehabilitation program.
Founded by Charles Dederich in 1958, Synanon transformed into an alternative community centred on group truth-telling sessions (known as “the Game”) in the early 1960s, and by the 1970s, it had evolved into the Church of Synanon.
Over the years, Dederich grew more and more hungry for power, charging his members exorbitant fees and forcing them to do taxing physical labour. He also developed a “hit list” for those who tried to shut his community down, which included lawyer Paul Morantz, who nearly died as a result of a murder attempt arranged by Dederich.
Eventually, Synanon was shut down in 1991 due to tax fraud, destruction of evidence, and terrorism, and Dederich died six years later.
Aum Shinrikyo: Founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984, Aum Shinrikyo first made headlines in the late ’80s amid accusations that Asahara was forcing members to donate money to the group and holding them against their will.
Like many cult leaders, Asahara believed in an imminent doomsday, this time caused by a world war started by the United States. According to him, only his followers would survive.
In 1995, the group executed a sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway, which caused the deaths of 12 people and injured 50 more. After that attack, Japanese authorities learned that the group had also been responsible for the murder of lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, who was working on a class-action lawsuit against Aum Shinriyko at the time of his death (the group also murdered his wife and child). Asahara was eventually sentenced to death in 2018.
These examples highlight several questions.
Firstly, most Cults seem to be run by men. Sometimes with a female partner, as in Heaven’s Gate (which we will explore in the Moot); sometimes with the collusion of other men. Why?
What draws followers to such groups and why do many stay even when there is something “not quite right” with the direction the group is taking?
Why do some people equate an interest in The Occult with Cult-like behaviours? As we will see this has a lot to do with genuine misunderstandings about the practices of those who "study” the Occult.
Why aren’t some of the major religions identified as Cults? Think about it for a moment. A group that celebrates the death and the resurrection of their leader; drinks his blood eats his flesh at celebrations and has engaged in wars, crusades and acts of genocide sounds very much like a cult. Is it perhaps, not a cult because it has global power and influence and has an acceptable face?
It can be argued that all prophets in every religion have a similar “profile” to that which the FBI and others, define as a ‘cult leader’.
You might be interested in this FBI bulletin which has an article on NRM’s and Cults,
In the Moot we look in more detail at some Cults, their “beliefs” and in particular their leaders.
As stated previously the common factor in all those groups we choose to label as a cult, is a charismatic leader with a specific interpretation of some written text, religious, social or political,
We hope to welcome you to the Free Moot on Zoom this coming Friday.
Alan /|\