American Family Foundation

Cultic Studies Review An Internet Journal of Research, News & Opinion Volume 3, Number 1 2004

CONTENTS Authoritarian Culture and Child Abuse in ISKCON Nori Muster

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Compassion Betrayed: Spiritual Abuse in an American Zen Center Katherine V. Mass, M.A.

19

Generational Revolt by the Adult Children of First-Generation Members of the Children of God/The Family Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D.

35

News Summaries Ananda Apostles and Prophets Church of Jesus Aum Shinrikyo The Body/Attleboro Sect Dutrox, Marc/Child Abuse Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints God‘s Creation Outreach Ministry Hare Krishna/ISKCON Harrod, Allen International Churches of Christ Jehovah‘s Witnesses Juan Pablo Delgado Lord‘s Resistance Army LaRouche Mind Control Mungiki Polygamy Satanic Cults Scientology Tvind (Humana) Unification Church United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors Yongsaenggyo

45 45 45 48 49 49 53 53 54 54 54 55 55 55 55 56 56 57 57 58 59 59 60

*Note: these pages referenced are different than the original published journal. Please check the end of each article for the original pagination.

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Additional documents on www.culticstudiesreview.org *Note: at the time of original publishing, these articles were available on the above web site. They are included at the end of this document, as listed below.

Articles Ancient Wisdom for Modern Predicaments: The Truth, Deceit, and Issues Surrounding Falun Gong Frank Tian Xie, Ph.D. Tracey Zhu, M.D.

61

AFF Statement on Chin and Falun Gong

92

The ―Helpmate‖ of Males: An Ethnography on Sex Segregation and Theocracy Cliff Cheng, Ph.D.

93

Book/Film Review The Superpower Syndrome by Robert Jay Lifton Reviewed by Rev. Walter Debold

124

My Life in Orange by T. Guest Reviewed by Lois Kendall

126

Holy Roller: Murder and Madness in Orgon‘s Love Cult By T. McCracken & R. T. Blodgett Reviewed by Frank MacHovec, Ph.D.

126

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown Reviewed by Joseph Szimhart

128

Devotee Farm by George Vaisnava Reviewed by Joseph Szimhart

133

The Protest by Dianne Kozdrey Bunnell Reviewed by Marcia Rudin

135

News Summaries

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All Stars Project, Aum Shinrikyo, Baruch Ha Shem, The Body/Attleboro Cult/Karen Robidoux, Brainwashing, Branch Davidians, Child Abuse/Brainwashing/False Memory, Executive Success Programs (ESP)/NXIVM, Faith Healing, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Allen Harrod, Iglesia Candelero de Oro, International Churches of Christ, Rhema Lifesavers Ministry, Satanic Cults, Scientology, Terrorism, White Supremacists, Yongsaenggyo

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 3

Authoritarian Culture and Child Abuse in ISKCON Nori J. Muster Abstract Five hundred plaintiffs are suing the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON, the Hare Krishna movement, for alleged child abuse suffered in the organization‘s school system in the 1970s and 1980s. Nori J. Muster, a former member and researcher, explains what happened in the schools and how it remained secret for twenty years. She also discusses indoctrination into authoritarian attitudes in ISKCON and offers suggestions on how to prevent future child abuse. In an authoritarian system, everyone obeys someone else in a chain of command. People near the top have more power over others, while a large segment at the bottom has no power in the system whatsoever. When a few people control everything, abuse is practically inevitable. A high concentration of power means that only the higher-ups get what they want, while everyone else must take what they get. People may find themselves in a system like this for a variety of reasons. Some people are born into countries or subcultures or groups with closed boundaries and intolerant leaders. Others may choose to join authoritarian groups. Some of these people may feel comfortable in an authoritarian environment, perhaps because they were raised in an authoritarian family and feel isolated and empty on their own or because a temporary experience of extreme stress and self-doubt makes the certitude and structure of an authoritarian environment look appealing. Still others may not recognize or appreciate the implications of an authoritarian environment and may join because of what the group claims to be, not what it is. Eric Fromm said that people join authoritarian religious groups for a sense of belonging, meaning in life, and direction. He describes the move toward conformity as a longing to ―fuse one's self with somebody or something outside of oneself in order to acquire the strength which the individual self is lacking.‖1 What Fromm identified as the natural human tendency to conform may be the element that allows authoritarian groups to thrive and make new members. Although some people join voluntarily, as Fromm suggests, there is a large gray area in what is meant by voluntary. For example, people may join the military voluntarily, but also for financial reasons because they lack the money to attend college. Someone might take a job in an authoritarian corporation for the same reasons, so that survival, not authoritarianism, is the main attraction. In the case of religious groups, people may join because they think it will lead to enlightenment. Later they may realize the group is less enlightening than it originally appeared. People may remain in the group if they feel psychologically or financially dependent. Converts‘ children may find themselves trapped, simply because their parents are in the group. Some people get along fine in a coercive authoritarian structure, perhaps because they instinctively know how to navigate the system. Others have a moderately hard time, while still others are seriously hurt. Usually the weakest link in the system receives the most abuse, and so it was for the children of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 4

Between the years 1970 and 1988, an estimated eight hundred ISKCON children suffered criminal neglect, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Most of the abuse took place in the boarding schools system for members‘ children called gurukula, Sanskrit for ―school of the guru.‖ During the 1970s and 1980s, members were required to send their children to gurukula at the age of five (or younger). Children were cloistered in the gurukulas and totally isolated from daily temple life. Parents were only allowed to see their children once or twice a year in most cases. Emotional, physical, and sexual abuse also took place within ―arranged marriages‖ between girls as young as eleven to men who were twice or three times the girls‘ ages. A smaller number of children endured abuse at festivals and other social functions at the ISKCON centers, or from parents in family settings. In April 2004 ISKCON was facing a $400 million lawsuit, Children of ISKCON vs. ISKCON, brought by one hundred former students. (As of the date of publication, this suit was still pending.) In his statement to the press, the attorney for the plaintiffs, Windle Turley, said: This lawsuit describes the most unthinkable abuse and maltreatment of little children which we have seen. It includes rape, sexual abuse, physical torture and emotional terror of children as young as three years of age. . . . As a result, a generation of ISKCON children are permanently, and many profoundly, injured.2 The purpose of this paper is to examine how the authoritarian culture of ISKCON contributed to child abuse and its cover-up. My analysis is based on my personal experience as a member of ISKCON from 1978 to 1988, and subsequent study of the child abuse problem for ten years (1994 to 2004). In my research I read approximately two hundred pages of survivors‘ writings about their experiences, and have met and interviewed approximately sixty ISKCON child abuse survivors. In 1995 I befriended three ISKCON child abuse survivors as god children and worked with them (and their families) to help them to find their place in mainstream society. In 1996 one of my Hare Krishna godsons wrote his autobiography for my research and read some of my manuscripts to help me refine my portrayal of the abuse history. I also reviewed the legal documents submitted by all sides in the lawsuit, and have worked as an advocate and media spokesperson for the plaintiffs for the last four years. The ISKCON Pyramid Structure ISKCON started out as a relatively benign autocracy with founding guru A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada as the absolute authority on all matters material and spiritual. In 1970, he designated a twelve-member Governing Body Commission (GBC) to help manage the organization. When Prabhupada died in 1977, eleven gurus arose to take his place and head the organization. The gurus took on the roles of oligarchs for the GBC and the whole organization. Beneath the gurus and GBC was a network of ministers, secretaries, temple presidents, temple commanders, and others appointed or confirmed by the GBC. During the 1970s and 1980s, the entire ISKCON hierarchy was male. As of April 2004, the hierarchy included one woman guru, one woman GBC member, and four female temple presidents. As in most authoritarian systems, the people on the upper rungs were there because they were willing to do anything to please the people at the top. All full-time ISKCON members worked under an authority figure, who in turn answered to one of the oligarchs. ISKCON members usually lived communally in centers that could be anything from a single family home, to a church surrounded by apartments, to an estate with various buildings and grounds. All ISKCON centers worked under the auspices of the GBC. If any center rejected GBC authority, then it would have to relinquish the name ―ISKCON‖ and leave the organization. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 5

Indoctrination in the Authoritarian System Surrender In ISKCON during the 1970s and 1980s when the bulk of the child abuse took place, the concept of ―surrender‖ was important. It meant that the only way to please Krishna was to move into a temple, forsaking all contact with the ―material world‖ of friends, family, school, career, and any other ―material attachments.‖ Preachers looked for naïve spiritual seekers who were attracted to the exotic ceremonies and chanting in ISKCON. If a potential convert had a numinous experience while gazing at the Krishna deity in the temple (e.g., while chanting or while meeting or seeing Prabhupada), preachers would help the person interpret the experience as a sign to join ISKCON. People also joined for mundane reasons, such as the need for friendship, housing, and food. The temples provided room and board to practically anyone who agreed to work full time and follow the rules. Once someone moved into an ISKCON center and felt committed to full surrender, the indoctrination phase began. New people learned the group‘s ways through formal classes and darshans. Classes took place morning and evening in the temple room; new converts also attended extra classes in their ashrams (dorms). The word darshan means audience, and referred to an audience with the guru, or after the death of Prabhupada, one of the successor gurus. People who accepted ISKCON doctrine received congratulations and positive reinforcement from peers. People learned to repeat ISKCON slogans and introduce Sanskrit sayings into their speech, voluntarily molding their characters to please the hierarchy. In addition, members learned how to indoctrinate others. Indoctrination, called ―preaching,‖ came from all directions in the tightly controlled environment. Teachings that Reinforced Authoritarian Control Mistrust the outside world. The first lesson ISKCON taught new converts was to mistrust the outside world, which was populated with meat-eating non-devotees they called ―karmis,‖ or people caught up in karma. No matter how smart they seemed, people in the material world lived in maya (illusion) because they had not surrendered to ISKCON. ISKCON's gurus are infallible. The second important lesson was that ISKCON provided shelter from the material world because of the ―pure devotees‖ in the hierarchy. ISKCON portrayed its gurus as infallible, pure, and perfect human beings. In classes new devotees learned to recite the ―Ten Offenses to the Holy Name.‖ 3 The first offense was: ―To blaspheme the devotees who have dedicated their lives to the propagation of the holy name of the Lord.‖ Since the gurus were dedicated members of the hierarchy, it was an offense to doubt them. Everything they said was true and good. There were terrible consequences for blaspheming pure devotees. They called it the ―mad elephant offense,‖ because it was like letting a mad elephant into your garden to stomp all over your devotional creeper. The creeper, in Sanskrit bhakti-lata, was a metaphor for growing love of god. Open dissent may cause catastrophic consequences. Since the leaders knew what was best for everyone and were always right, all one had to do was follow. Any doubt would make you fall back into material life. ISKCON‘s glossy magazine was called Back to Godhead, but the implication was that everybody would go back to Godhead except those who rebelled. In classes and darshans speakers gave concrete examples of former members who criticized the leadership and became ―snakes‖ and ―demons‖ in the outside world. The indoctrination made it easy to cover up child abuse. If the leaders said there was nothing going on, that was the end of the discussion. Simple living saves ISKCON money. The Hindu scriptures say that material life is temporary, but ISKCON interpreted this scripture to mean that members didn‘t need Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 6

material things. Devotees usually slept in sleeping bags on the floor, had few belongings, and did not indulge in worldly comforts like vacations, hobbies, or recreation. This dogma saved ISKCON a lot of money and also gave the organization an excuse to neglect the basic needs of children. The misinterpretation of the Hindu philosophy of simple living was twisted into a doctrine that deprived growing children of food, shoes, beds, and toys. Scriptures twisted to the leaders’ advantage. The hierarchy promoted a distorted view of the scriptures that allowed them to shift the blame for all problems onto their followers. For example, they said that according to the scriptures, the gurus had perfect, spiritual bodies. The only way a guru could suffer physical distress was if his disciples committed sin. Therefore, when our gurus got sick, we were supposed to pray for forgiveness for whatever we did to cause it. If a guru had to sleep in and could not get up for the early morning services, it was the disciples‘ fault. The gurus told us that according to the scriptures, everything in the world depended on whether Krishna was pleased. If the movement got into trouble with the law, or a bad article came out, they told us to work harder, ask for less in return, and learn to control our material senses. In fact, if anything bad happened anywhere in the world, heavily indoctrinated members felt responsible; something they had done must have failed to please Krishna. With all the followers blaming themselves for everything, the leaders were freed of responsibility for anything. Informational isolation and control. To isolate members further, ISKCON preached that exposure to outside information in the form of books, movies, television, and so on, would result in material consciousness. Good devotees could only listen to ISKCON music, watch ISKCON movies, and read ISKCON books. Along with keeping devotees‘ minds ―pure,‖ it also kept them uninformed. There was a joke on the fringes at the end of the 1980s that devotees were like potatoes (―they have eyes but they can‘t see‖) and mushrooms (―keep ‘em in the dark and feed ‘em a lot of s--t―). Keeping members in ignorance made it easier to conceal the organization‘s problems, including child abuse. ISKCON was in the news frequently in the 1970s and 1980s, usually for its eccentricities and crimes. If members could have known what outsiders knew about the organization, they may have decided to take their children and leave. Information about what was going on inside the hierarchy was also heavily controlled and censored. The publications Back to Godhead and ISKCON World Review (where I worked) had a strict policy of printing only the good news of the organization. In the public relations office, our job was to unite the organization and help members feel proud of ISKCON. Manufacturing crises to enhance control. If followers cut ties with the outside world, crises will force them to turn to the coercive leadership for protection even more. In the mid-1980s, during the height of child abuse, the leaders announced that a devastating nuclear war was imminent now that Prabhupada had ―left the planet.‖ They said the war would bring about the total collapse of society, but after that ISKCON would arise as the one world religion and the ISKCON hierarchy would rule the world. Whether they actually believed this or not, they put the organization into crisis mode. Everyone was frightened and worried about what would happen after the war, rather than the here and now. Coercive organizations usually have a grandiose mission, such as saving the world. No matter how hypocritical life in the organization gets, the leaders can point to the mission to distract people from the organization's problems. Due to the sense of crisis and urgency in ISKCON, people were willing to overlook everything. The mission of saving the world through Krishna consciousness became all-consuming, for the end was supposedly near. Moreover, in this climate of crisis, the thought of defecting from ISKCON was unthinkable.

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Thus, with founding guru Prabhupada gone and the new gurus failing, war fears became another ploy to stop people from ―blooping,‖ or falling like a stone into the material ocean. Abuse in the Authoritarian System In a corrupt authoritarian system, there are various abuses. One of the most common is financial abuse, because plutocrats will reward themselves first, and then distribute the leftovers. A system like this often leaves people at the bottom lacking basic necessities. This was the case in ISKCON, where funding the gurukula was at the bottom of the organization‘s list of priorities. Even though parents often paid high tuition fees, children did not receive proper food, clothing, or medical care. The following accounts illustrate the poverty level of the gurukulas. The first excerpt is from an interview with former Dallas gurukula teacher Krsna Kumari: I can remember Bhakta-rupa used to cook the Sunday feast and all we had was USDA stuff plus what we could beg down at the market. . . . I can remember the kids covered in rotten vegetables! Sorting through the rotten bhoga [food] to try to find the good things.4 Nirmala Hickey, one of the Children of ISKCON vs. ISKCON plaintiffs, described the situation in these words: We were hungry all the time. I distinctly remember that, being starving all the time, always wanting food and never getting enough. I believe that‘s why a lot of us ended up shorter. I was always hungry, and I don‘t think that was unusual. That we were starving was normal, I would say. That was something I remember myself and other kids saying very often, ―I‘m starving.‖ Especially if you weren‘t a teacher‘s pet. If you were one of their chums, brahmana initiated, or if you were having sex with the higher-ups, you would be okay. You would get all the food you wanted.5 Following is Nirmala‘s description of the stark reality at the boys‘ school in Vrindavana, India: One [bathroom] was the teachers‘. One was the monitors‘ and second initiates‘. Another bathroom was for boys like me that were maybe a little stronger that could fend for themselves but didn‘t really have any alliance with monitors or teachers. This group wasn‘t necessarily being sexually molested for different reasons, usually having to do with [who their parents were]. The fourth bathroom was just for the children that were not in any position to speak or stand up for themselves. The children who were just being totally neglected used that bathroom. That bathroom was always filthy. . . . Their things would be stolen all of the time. When we lost or had our supplies stolen, the punishment was that we would have to wait until the next time they distributed supplies. Subsequently, these boys would always be wearing dirty rags and smelling badly. The only exception was during festival times when people would visit. At those times the teachers would make sure, by whatever means necessary, that everyone looked clean and acted as if everything was okay.6 The very nature of an authoritarian structure means that a few people will make all the important decisions for everyone else. A system like this is bound to go out of control if the leaders are ruthless and uncaring. Living under tyranny is humiliating, so the natural tendency for victims is to rebel. If people rebel, they can sometimes overthrow unwanted dictators or find a way to escape. Thus to prevent rebellion, the authoritarian system Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 8

constantly seeks ways to increase its control. The coercion may be overt (threats, border guards, torture), or subtle (fear, guilt, etc.). One of the plaintiffs said, ―I know that the philosophy behind the school was to break our spirits. This was blatantly spoken to us all the time.‖7 In gurukulas, teachers used emotional abuse to discipline the children. For example, children who wet their beds were forced to drink urine or wear their wet underwear on their heads. One teacher made children wear a sign that said, ―I am a dog.‖ Teachers punished children by isolating them for hours or days in closets, walk-in refrigerators, or trash bins. Some gurukula teachers were large, muscle-bound men who never should have been around children. One such teacher allegedly threatened to maim or kill any child who misbehaved. One teacher was said to cup-slap children‘s ears so hard that they could experience bleeding and loss of hearing. Teachers also pinched children‘s ears, painfully breaking the cartilage. Teachers regularly beat children. Here is one former student‘s description: It was school policy, that every morning after breakfast there was an assembly, and at that assembly one student would be brought in front of the group and ―punished‖ for something he had done the day before. This would show the other children that they should behave well. ―Punishment‖ consisted of [the principal] picking up the boy by the ears, dropping him, and slapping both his ears with his hands as the boy fell. If a boy tried to escape the slaps, a teacher standing next to them, would punch the child with his fist, and the kid would collapse on the floor, screaming. This would ―teach‖ the other children a lesson, to be afraid of the teachers and to behave. 8 Here is another example of physical abuse as coercion: Two friends (10 years old) decided to run away. They went off by themselves, with 50 rupees, and were running away from the gurukula. Some people, who recognized the boys to be from Bhaktivedanta Gurukula, informed the gurukula and the principal brought them back. He took the boys from door to door of every ashrama in the gurukula building, and in front of every door, beat these boys to show the other children how bad they were. The witness says the boys were ―bleeding from their ears, screaming in pain.‖ 9 Sexual abuse permeated the gurukula school system during the years in question. Teachers created an atmosphere of sexual harassment by peeping on children in the shower rooms or watching them dress. Here is an excerpt from an ABC TV interview with Ben Bressack, a plaintiff in the lawsuit: I was pretty much sexually raped every day. My monitor was a teacher that I lived with in the same room with, like, five other students and he used me as his — for his sexual pleasures at any time . . . This was probably the one person that raped me the most, but I had maybe ten or fifteen different men rape me as a child.10 Following is an excerpt from Nirmala Hickey, speaking on the same broadcast: I remember nights sleeping all night with the boy next to me being raped. Yeah, and — and hearing the sounds of it and, you know, wanting to just close my eyes and not, you know — but this was normal.11 Victims also suffered spiritual abuse, where authorities used rituals or symbols of the religion as punishment. Raghunatha, a former student, described an incident where one of the teachers beat him using a special ring as brass knuckles. The ring had a lion‘s head and the teacher called it his ―Nrsimadev ring,‖ named for the man-lion incarnation of Krishna.12 Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 9

Teachers and gurus told children that the abuse was their karma because they must have hurt children in a past life and said that to oppose the abuse would only bring more bad karma. Many children who were born and raised with such rhetoric believed that the abuse was their fault. In 1985, ISKCON leaders started to complain that children were turning into nondevotees.13 Many former gurukula students left the authoritarian organization with bitter feelings toward the religion. Spiritual abuse may result in a complete loss of faith, or victims may imagine a cruel and violent god that resembles their abusers. Raghunatha once said that he thinks god gets some kind of sick pleasure out of punishing him. I asked another former student if he ever prayed for help. He said: Yeah, but you quit that after a while. I prayed like I‘ve never prayed in my life, but not once has God ever answered one single prayer of mine. Every time I pray, it seems to be answered with some bullshit.14 The school authorities covered up the abuse and censored children‘s letters home. The organization purposely tried to make the schools look good in self-promotional publications and movies, including the ISKCON World Review, where I worked. The first issue of the organization‘s official newspaper carried a flattering article about one of the abusive gurus. On the same page was a picture of a billboard in India that depicted smiling gurukula children on the cover of Life magazine. For the next eight years that I was there, our publication continued to publish articles to protect the secrets of gurukula and quell criticism. While I was writing for the ISKCON World Review, I knew that it was a public-relations publication meant to counteract bad publicity outside and negative attitudes inside the organization. I knew that there was something wrong with the leadership, but had no idea about the depth of their secrets. I knew that the gurukula authorities were strict with the children, but didn‘t know they were beating or sexually exploiting them. There was one incident of sexual abuse in the Los Angeles temple nursery school in 1984, but the police arrested the perpetrators and a judge sentenced them to prison. I was not aware of any other child abuse in ISKCON, even though all the classic symptoms were present: a rigid, tightly controlled system with a demand for blind, absolute loyalty; a low level of appropriate touch, and so on. I left ISKCON in 1988, obtained my master‘s degree in 1992, and found out about the child abuse in 1994. If I had known what was going on when I was a member, I would not have agreed to cover it up. I honestly thought that the gurukula schools were as good as we portrayed them and that any criticism was completely without merit. Attitudes Toward Women Probably the biggest factor that led to child abuse was the organization‘s chauvinistic attitude toward women. In her paper, Fundamental Human Rights in ISKCON, Radha Devi Dasi points out that in ISKCON, ―Women and children have been neglected and abused in numerous ways, which allegedly range from dismaying to truly abominable.‖ 15 She attributes this to ―imbalanced‖ policies, ―misconceptions about women,‖ and members who were ―immature in their faith.‖16 The roots of the problem are deep. The Hindu scriptures offer old-fashioned concepts of women‘s place, comparing women to menacing animals or children.17 ISKCON could have tried to modernize the philosophy for a late twentieth century Western audience. Other American Hindu groups have done this, but Prabhupada and other men in the hierarchy amplified the chauvinistic points instead. According to ISKCON, the only official role for women was to be a man‘s daughter, wife, or mother. If a woman was independent, they called her a prostitute. In July 1975 Prabhupada Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 10

told a female Chicago newspaper reporter that women had smaller brains and were therefore intellectually inferior to men. That became the bottom line in ISKCON. A smaller brain meant ―less intelligent‖ due to an unfortunate birth. Even more ominously, ISKCON portrayed women as lusty temptresses who could force men to break their vows of celibacy. Therefore women had to stand at the back of the temple and could not lead chanting sessions or give classes. Men used to spit at the site of women to show their renunciation. Women would show their chastity by covering their heads with cloth and lowering their gaze to avoid eye contact with men. Radha Devi Dasi illustrated the ISKCON effort to minimize women when she sited the example of the Mayapur samadhi (memorial shrine for Prabhupada). Historical photos were reproduced as paintings to decorate the shrine, but ―Surprisingly the female disciples of Shrila Prabhupada are not in the paintings although they were in the original photographs.‖18 She concluded that the paintings send a clear message to women, which goes beyond ―don‘t speak,‖ ―don‘t act,‖ and ―don‘t give class.‖ The murals tell ISKCON women: ―Don‘t exist.‖19 ISKCON men who could renounce women with lifelong vows of celibacy were welcomed into the hierarchy as priests called sannyasis. These men enjoyed material comforts and prestige within the organization. They were the only people who could get close to Prabhupada; they had cooks, maids and laundresses doing their chores; they could travel throughout the organization giving classes, and everyone had to bow down to them at least once a day. In the 1970s, men in the renounced order waged a war against married men and women that Prabhupada characterized as a ―fratricidal war.‖20 Misogynistic attitudes led to spousal abuse because some gurus and others in the hierarchy thought hitting was the only way to make women cooperate. Author Mineka Schipper points out that wife-beating maxims exist in most cultures. In England and the United States, it is said, ―Women, like gongs, should be beaten regularly.‖ In India they say, ―The nails of a cart and the head of a woman, they work only when they are hit hard.‖ 21 In ISKCON the common saying was, ―Both a wife and a mridanga [drum] require beating.‖22 Prabhupada‘s correspondence showed that he was aware of spousal abuse as early as 1972. In 1973 some ISKCON marriages were ending in divorce, so in 1974, in an attempt to deal with the problem, Prabhupada refused to sanction any further marriages. 23 Radha Devi Dasi and others have gone further, arguing that ISKCON should codify the place of women to protect them from further abuse in the organization.24 Into the Light The child abuse came out in the open in several stages. The first significant event happened in 1990, when Raghunatha first published ISKCON Youth Veterans Newsletter. He printed his own essays, letters from friends, news of the gurukula alumni, such as birthdays and weddings, and articles that discussed the abusive conditions in the gurukula schools. Raghunatha published his autobiographical essay, Children of the Ashram, and it was the first widely circulated personal account of gurukula abuse. He explained, ―What started out to be a couple paragraphs ended up growing into almost a hundred handwritten pages.‖25 Many people in and around ISKCON read Children of the Ashram and found it deeply disturbing. Some ignored it or turned against Raghunatha. The late guru Tamal Krishna told Raghunatha to ―cease and desist‖ because his essay could ―make the Robin George case [another costly lawsuit] look like peanuts.‖26 The essay offered a key to unlock the secrets that the organization had been hiding for twenty years. The GBC quickly passed a resolution on the subject of child abuse.27 Still, even with Children of the Ashram in print, no ISKCON leader would openly acknowledge the abuse.

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Raghunatha also helped start the annual gurukula alumni reunions. The first one took place in Los Angeles in the summer of 1990. As young adults, the survivors could finally talk about what happened. Validating each others‘ experiences set the process in motion; it was only a matter of time until the survivors could make their story known. The reunions continued throughout the 1990s and took place in about a half-dozen cities around the world. After publishing his own newsletter for several years, in 1993 Raghunatha joined several other alumni to form a new publication, As It Is: The Voice of the Second Generation. One of the editors, Manu, had been interviewing survivors and documenting their cases. In 1995 Manu accepted a position from the GBC as head of the newly-created ISKCON Youth Ministry. Later, in 1997 he attended the GBC meeting in India as a non-voting member and successfully lobbied for two resolutions to help ISKCON youth. The first encouraged temples to offer housing to gurukula alumni attending college, and the other encouraged ISKCON leaders to support the victims in other ways.28 Apart from Raghunatha and the As It Is editorial staff, Nirmala Hickey probably had the greatest influence on bringing the history to light through his V.O.I.C.E. (Violations of ISKCON Children Exposed) web site.29 Written in conjunction with another former gurukula student, Maya Charnell, the site includes an analysis of the failure of the gurukula system, twenty pages of anonymous personal accounts of abuse, and an essay on the matter of Srila Prabhupada‘s responsibility. These were the most sophisticated and outspoken writings on gurukula, made even more noteworthy because Nirmala was the son of ISKCON Minister of Education Jagadish, and his mother also held a position of authority in the gurukula system. Nirmala began writing after an accident at the Gita-Nagari (Pennsylvania) gurukula left him quadriplegic in 1985. Progress in the Years 1996 - 1998 The ISKCON hierarchy‘s main attempt at reconciliation happened in 1996, when the North American Temple Presidents and GBC members met at the ISKCON center in Alachua, Florida. Youth Minister Manu led a panel of gurukula survivors to discuss what gurukula was like for children. According to an editorial by ISKCON World Review publisher Kunti Devi, ―Sannyasis cried. You could see the shame in some of the men‘s eyes. I believe it was even more than the awful threat of lawsuits that spurred these men, so committed to ISKCON to go beyond passing resolutions.‖30 After hearing the survivors‘ stories, the ISKCON officials acknowledged that they understood the full extent of abuse. They pledged money and resolved to form an organizational entity to manage the funds. This was the beginning of Children of Krishna, Inc., which ISKCON incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization headquartered in Alachua. Children of Krishna, Inc. helped some abuse survivors; in particular, several who spoke on the 1996 panel. However, grants could go to anyone raised in the movement, not just those who survived abuse. In addition, Children of Krishna, Inc. set a limit of $2,000 per victim. In this writer‘s opinion $2,000 is a mere pittance, considering what ISKCON took away. In 1998 ISKCON formed the Office of Child Protection, headed by two ISKCON disciples. 31 Dhira Govinda and Yashoda Devi were charged with helping the victims, preventing future incidents of abuse, and investigating and punishing past abusers. In the summer of 1998 they attended the Los Angeles gurukula reunion to give out $500 to $2,000 checks to any survivor who would sign legal documents waiving any further claims against ISKCON. Many took this as an insult; some who signed off felt ashamed to take the money. In 1998 Anuttama Dasa, current public affairs director of ISKCON, and the ISKCON Communications Ministry commissioned an academic report on the history of gurukula from Professor Burke Rochford.32 Dr. Rochford, a sociology professor from Vermont and author of Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 12

a book about ISKCON, had been studying the gurukula for almost twenty years. He learned of the child abuse in the same way everyone else did, beginning in 1990. The ISKCON reformers showed Dr. Rochford‘s analysis to a few people—but no one from the opposition— and then published it in the ISKCON Communication Journal, an academic publication by and about ISKCON.33 The public relations office supplied copies to the media and The New York Times published a front-page report.34 A similar article by Associated Press35 appeared in newspapers across the United States and Dr. Rochford went on numerous talk shows to discuss his findings. My opinion as an outside observer to this turn of events was that it was the single most meaningful gesture that ISKCON had made toward reconciling with its children. Unfortunately, not everyone in the organization shared my opinion. Some ISKCON officials supported Dr. Rochford, like this one in England who told the media: ―Even if we have to go through ten years of court cases and we lose every building in North America, it's more important [to clear up the issues so] we can give people spirituality.‖ 36 Other ISKCON officials denounced Dr. Rochford and those who published his paper. Dr. Rochford said that he felt torn over his involvement. He wrote his paper to help the survivors, but he expressed regret over the way it was received. He said, ―Essentially I had been drawn into writing the article and exposing child abuse to promote a partisan political agenda.‖37 The publication of Dr. Rochford‘s paper led to internal divisions, party-line bickering, rumors, and outright hostility toward abuse survivors, including fistfights at temples. By 1999 ISKCON seemed to polarize into two camps. The reformers are in the Communications department, Children of Krishna, Inc, the Youth Ministry, the Office of Child Protection, the ISKCON World Review and other liberal publications, the fledgling Women‘s Ministry, and various concerned individuals. The liberals sincerely wanted to help the victims and bring the matter out in the open. The right wing, which consisted of the majority of gurus and GBC members (and their followers), were afraid of lawsuits. They desperately wanted the problems to just go away, and they were opposed to any open discussion or acknowledgement of the problem. In 1999 the ISKCON Communications Office published a press release stating that it would raise $1 million for Children of Krishna and the Office of Child Protection. 38 Unfortunately, the money never materialized. Some ISKCON officials gave thousand of dollars, but it was nowhere near a million, a half a million, or even a hundred thousand. Aside from the initial enthusiasm in 1996, the bulk of the money for Children of Krishna, Inc. came from Anuttama Dasa, the man who issued the press release. The lawsuit filed in 2000 caused even deeper internal divisions in ISKCON and more ambivalence toward abuse survivors. Some people believe that ISKCON is currently trying to send some of its centers into bankruptcy in order to address the lawsuit.39 The Office of Child Protection started to falter in about 2000 due to a shrinking budget and lack of cooperation from key people in the hierarchy. In February 2004 Dhira Krishna announced that the office would close due to lack of funding.40 ISKCON will continue to bear the stigma of child abuse. It is regrettable that the organization could not stop the abuse when it was happening and turn over the perpetrators. Failing that, at least when the abuse came to light in 1996, the organization could have done more to help the victims. Unfortunately, it did not. Most of the victims are now in their thirties. Some are doing okay; others have given up on life. I know of at least two cases of suicide where the victims left notes stating that the memories of their gurukula experiences were too difficult to bear. Others have committed suicide, died in car accidents, or drug overdoses, but did not leave notes. Many young fathers have dropped out of their children‘s lives. Young mothers have had to move back in with their parents or depend on welfare to support their children. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 13

Abusive gurukulas did not prepare students to earn a living. Rather, they taught children that working for ―karmis‖ in the ―material world‖ would place them at the lowest rung of the caste system (outcaste, sudra). This training was partly due to the organization‘s eccentricity, but it was also a ploy to make children dependent on ISKCON so they would remain in the organization as adults. Gurus promised the children that someday the organization would be theirs, and that each of them would someday lead a temple, farm, restaurant, or project within ISKCON. This didn‘t happen. For many former gurukula students, recovery involves staying away from ISKCON. If they go around the temples they see that men who abused them or conspired to cover up abuse are still privileged ISKCON leaders. The fact that the perpetrators are getting away with their crimes can be infuriating and only leaves victims contemplating their revenge. Despite ill feelings, many who were abused continue to go to the temples because they can meet other survivors. Surprisingly, some still feel sentimental about the religion, and some still find value in the institution because, after all, it is the religion they inherited from their parents. The second generation has an interest in the fate of ISKCON and therefore some of them continue to interact with the institution and work for change. Conclusions In a coercive organization, the mission and religiousness of the group are used as tools to control the followers. The leaders reinforce guilt and denial to hide their negligence. Followers learn to blame their problems on themselves or the cruel outside world, rather than find fault with the leaders. Even if people try to deny the problems or blame themselves, most of the dysfunction in an authoritarian system comes from the top. This was the case in ISKCON. The GBC was teeming with secrets and members were indoctrinated to ignore those secrets. Once in a while a guru‘s crimes came out in the open. The GBC would then expel (or excommunicate) the man and say that all ISKCON‘s problems were solved. However, exposing one corrupt guru never fixed the system. The problems were systemic, a consequence of the organization's authoritarian structure. Some of the child molesters may have been devotees who became molesters; others may have been molesters who became devotees. ―Devotional service‖ in the gurukula was frequently granted in exchange for a big donation. ISKCON did not do background checks on teachers, and it did not ask prospective teachers to give their legal names or show any identification. Large contributors were also awarded with arranged marriages. The rest of ISKCON‘s money came from devotees collecting donations from the public. The best collectors were women, but having children limited the amount of time they could work. In his paper published by ISKCON, Dr. Rochford said that the gurukula functioned as childcare so mothers could go back to work collecting donations.41 Thus, money played a role in the child abuse. Reforming the Authoritarian System Outside observers and ex-members like myself thought ISKCON was turning the corner in 1996, but as of the time of this writing, in my opinion and the opinion of many others, the organization has yet to make an honest effort to settle things with the survivors. I offer this brief summary with the hope that it will spark more dialogue and action on behalf of the child abuse victims. Instead of the mire of lawsuits and bankruptcy, I would rather see the organization acknowledge the child abuse history, fire all the alleged perpetrators and conspirators, and reorganize ISKCON around the purpose of helping the victims. ISKCON has a responsibility to its first generation of children. That obligation is not something the leadership can brush aside. ISKCON must do something tangible to resolve the situation, or

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the plight of the victims could be forgotten and even repeated in future generations. Or, the lawsuits filed on behalf of the victims could drive ISKCON into ruin. There are many things ISKCON can do to change. The more fairly people in an organization share power, the more their system will move from authoritarianism to egalitarianism. Following is a summary of issues addressed in this paper, along with suggestions that could reform the system. 1. Problem: Power centralized around charismatic gurus. Suggestions for change: ISKCON is a Hindu-based organization, so it will always have gurus. However, gurus should concentrate on spiritual and religious responsibilities and refrain from managing other aspects of their disciples‘ lives. Also, disciples should think for themselves. They should take wisdom from a variety of sources, not just their guru. 2. Problem: Followers cut off from their former lives. Suggestion for change: Just as congregational members keep their old friends and connections with outside family, ISKCON should afford this freedom to all full-time, live-in devotees. They should pay devotees for their work and give them time off to spend with their families and others outside the organization. 3. Problem: A worldview of ―us and them.‖ Suggestion for change: ISKCON needs to be more inclusive and interact with the outside world for mutual benefit and understanding. Instead of just criticizing the outside world, become part of the solution. 4. Problem: Followers taught to blame themselves for leadership‘s defects. Suggestion for change: Create an atmosphere and ethic within the organization that allows disciples to question the leadership. Members need to develop personal boundaries and speak out if someone in the group tries to take advantage of them. 5. Problem: Dire consequences for criticizing the leaders. Suggestion for change: The leaders should take responsibility for their own behavior, listen to feedback, and answer questions, especially from devotees. 6. Problem: Using scriptural tenets to induce guilt. Suggestion for change: People in ISKCON need a stronger grounding in Hindu philosophy so they can get beyond mind-numbing sound bites, such as ―everything is temporary‖ and ―women are ten times lustier than men.‖ ISKCON members need to periodically reexamine their interpretation of the philosophy to avoid stereotypes and superficial understandings. 7. Problem: Censorship and control over information. Suggestion for change: Allow members to make their own choices about information and media. If ISKCON is faithful to its precepts and way of life, then it won‘t have to manipulate its members or subject them to dehumanizing controls in order to win and keep their faith. In fact, manipulation and control may derail the faith of innocent followers and drive them away. 8. Problem: Peer pressure to follow the organization‘s dogma. Suggestion for change: Concentrate on improving the organization instead of covering up problems with dogma. Allow members to think for themselves. 9. Problem: Atmosphere of chaos and crisis to keep followers off balance. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 15

Suggestion for change: The organization needs more transparency to keep the leaders accountable and honest. One way to achieve this would be to join an alliance of Hindu organizations and ask for their help in living up to the highest standard. 10. Problem: Grandiose mission used to manipulate followers. Suggestion for change: ISKCON devotees should look at their organization realistically and stop inflating its relative importance in the world. 11. Problem: Misogynistic attitudes toward women and children. Suggestion for change: Encourage women to fill up to fifty percent of the leadership positions in the organization, and lead up to fifty percent of the temple functions, such as giving classes, leading temple services, etc. Establish laws in ISKCON to guarantee protection from violence and discrimination. Hire qualified consultants to provide training on how to implement protections for women and children. 12. Problem: Arrogant and nonresponsive leadership. Suggestion for change: Develop a fair system of checks and balances to hold leaders responsible for their actions. Institute a system of voting and term limits to elect the GBC, temple presidents, and other high-ranking officials. 13. Problem: Employing people with questionable backgrounds in the school system; taking money from drug dealers and other criminals. Suggestions for change: Do background checks and screen out people with unsuitable histories. Keep records of employees‘ devotee name(s) and legal name(s). Don‘t take money from tainted sources. 14. Problem: Reluctance to acknowledge past abuse and make amends to victims. Suggestions for change: Come clean about the history of child abuse and other abuse. Make amends to people the organization has harmed, and make that ISKCON‘s highest priority. Perhaps the current members of ISKCON can change things for the better. ISKCON has a progressive faction that wants to modernize the organization, but they face a highly structured, rigid, plutocracy that has been in place since the 1970s. The reformers may not have enough influence to enact any real change. End Notes 1

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1969) p. 140. Windle Turley, Press release: "Hare Krishna" Sued for Child Abuse (June 12, 2000) – see: http://www.wturley.com/news/2_News-HareKrishna.htm 3 The ten offenses against the Holy Name are attributed to a sixteenth century saint of the religion, Rupa Goswami. 4 Krsna Kumari devi dasi, interview. Kumari is also the author of "From a Teacher," As It Is, 5 (Summer 1994) – see http://surrealist.org/gurukula/fromateacher1.html. 5 Nirmala Hickley, "Vrindavana Gurukula," p. 1. Unpublished manuscript – author's collection. 6 Ibid., pp. 10-11. 7 Ibid., p. 7. 8 V.O.I.C.E., ―Accounts of Child Abuse in Hare Krishna Schools,‖ p. 4, author‘s collection. The V.O.I.C.E. web site went off line in 1999, several months before the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit. They gave no explanation for why they closed the site. 9 Ibid, p. 4. 10 ABC News, 20/20, "Childhood of Shame" (Nov. 27, 2000). 11 Ibid. 12 The story about the Nrsimhadev ring appears in Raghunatha, "Children of the Ashram," ISKCON Youth Veterans Newsletter, Vol. 14 (Aug., 1990) See: http://surrealist.org/gurukula/children.html. He 2

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made his comments about god in an informal interview to the author in 1995. 13 E. Burke Rochford, " Child Abuse in the Hare Krishna Movement:1971-1986," ISKCON Communications Journal, 6/1 (1998), pp 41-69 (quotation on p. 50). 14 A. Das, interview, Oct. 15, 1997, author's collection. 15 Fundamental Human Rights in ISKCON, by Radha Devi Dasi, p. 1. This paper was reprinted in Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001, Group Report: http://www.culticstudiesreview.org/csr_ articles/rahda_devi_dasi2_full.htm. It was reprinted with permission from ISKCON Communications Journal, Volume 6, Number 2, 1998, pages 7-14. The journal's address is: 63 Divinity Rd, Oxford, OX4 1LH, UK (E-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.icj.iskcon.net). 16 Participation, Protection and Patriarchy: An International Model for the Role of Women in ISKCON, by Radha Devi Dasi, p. 3 - 4. This paper was published in Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001, Group Report: http://www.culticstudiesreview.org/csissueidx/toc2001.1/grprept2001.1_harekrishna/ grprept_hk_women/rahda_devi_dasi_p1.htm. It was reprinted with permission from ISKCON Communications Journal, Volume 6, Number 1, 1998, pages 31-41. The journal's address is: 63 Divinity Rd, Oxford, OX4 1LH, UK (E-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.icj.iskcon.net. 17 ISKCON‘s books have numerous stories that describe the inferior status of women. For example, in the Fifth Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam (Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1974), a story called, ―The Material World as the Great Forest of Enjoyment,‖ says, ―wife and children act like tigers and jackals . . . he [the husband] miserably trying not to waste his wealth, feels like a lamb that is seized by force.‖ SB 5.14.3. 18 Participation, Protection and Patriarchy: An International Model for the Role of Women in ISKCON, by Radha Devi Dasi, p. 4. 19 Ibid., p. 4. 20 Rochford (1998) p. 49. 21 Mineke Schipper is the author of Never Marry a Woman With Big Feet: Women in Proverbs From Around the World, Yale University Press, 2004. The quoted maxims were drawn from her editorial on the subject in the Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2004, Section B, p. 15. 22 The maxim about beating both the drum and the wife is sometimes attributed to Prabhupada, but in her discussion on the subject, Radha Devi Dasi said, ―I have personally not seen any proof that Shrila Prabhupada endorsed wife beating.‖ This citation can be found in Participation, Protection and Patriarchy: An International Model for the Role of Women in ISKCON, p. 8. 23 Rochford, p. 49. 24 In her paper, Participation, Protection and Patriarchy: An International Model for the Role of Women in ISKCON, Radha Devi Dasi, argues in favor of establishing official ―participation rights and substantive rights‖ for women, based on the principles of human rights, as established in international law. See pp. 8 – 9. A good example of international human rights law is the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948. Article 1.6 states: ―Men and women have the right to live their lives and raise their children in dignity, free from hunger and from the fear of violence, oppression or injustice. Democratic and participatory governance based on the will of the people best assures these rights.‖ At this time, there is no ―democratic, participatory governance‖ for women in ISKCON, since women do not participate in governing the organization. The UN declaration also set a goal ―To combat all forms of violence against women and to implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women‖ (5.25). ISKCON could adopt similar goals if the leadership was willing. 25 Raghunatha, p. 1. 26 Raghunatha made this statement in a Dec. 16, 1999 letter circulated on the Internet and posted at Vaishnava News Network, see http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET9912/ET16-5091.html. 27 The 1990 GBC resolution on child abuse is posted online at: http://surrealist.org/gurukula/documents.html#19. 28 Manu‘s resolutions were [Law] 302 and [Law] 303 of the 1997 GBC Resolutions, author‘s collection. See: http://surrealist.org/gurukula/documents.html#29. 29 V.O.I.C.E., In 2000 Nirmal-Chandra and Maya Charnell joined Children of ISKCON vs. ISKCON. 30 Kunti-devi‘s article was published in the Spring/Summer 1996 issue of Priti-laksanam, author‘s collection. See: http://surrealist.org/gurukula/documents.html#26 31 The heads of the Child Protection Office were disciples of Bir Krishna Goswami and their names were Dhira Govinda (David Wolf, who holds an M.S.W. and Ph.D.) and Yashoda Devi Dasi. I interviewed Dhira Govinda at the Los Angeles gurukula reunion in 1998. See: http://surrealist.org/gurukula/documents.html#31

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32

Dr. Burk Rochford did his doctorate on ISKCON, wrote the book Hare Krishna in America (Rutgers University Press, 1985) and numerous journal articles about ISKCON, and studied the gurukula system since 1979. 33 See Rochford (1998). 34 Laurie Goodstein, "Hare Krishna Faith Details Past Abuse at Boarding Schools," The New York Times (Oct. 9, 1998) p. 1. 35 Julia Lieblich, "Report Details Hare Krishna Child Abuse," Associated Press (Oct. 9, 1998). 36 Kim Asch, "Stuck in the Middle: Research and Religion Clash as Scholar Uncovers Uncomfortable Truths," Middlebury College, June 2002. See: http://istagosthi.org/archive/open-forum/000337.htm. 37 Rochford‘s comment cited in Asch (2002) p. 2. 38 ISKCON Communications Media Release, "Krishnas Pledge One Million Dollars to Child Protection (April 29, 1999) – author's collection. 39 ISKCON attorney David Liberman explains the bankruptcy in a press release and cover letter, "Re. Turley Suit / Gurukula & Other Youth Abuse Claims," April 29, 2003 ISKCON Legal Office, see http://surrealist.org/gurukula/bankruptcy1.html and the following year, Liberman issued ―For Immediate Release,‖ a press release dated Feb. 27, 2004. The following month, ISKCON attorney Joseph Fedorowsky issued a press release entitled, ―ISKCON Chapter 11 Reorganization Plan Filed,‖ March 4, 2004. See http://surrealist.org/gurukula/bankruptcy2.html for the 2004 press releases. 40 As of Feb. 29, 2004, devotees are trying to reinstate the Child Protection office by raising donations. Here is an article dated March 1, 2004, at Vaishnava News Network: CPO Office Donations, by Jiva Goswami Dasa, see http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET0403/ET01-8566.html 41 Rochford (1998).

Nori J. Muster is the author of Betrayal of the Spirit: My Life Behind the Headlines of the Hare Krishna Movement (University of Illinois Press, 1997) and Cult Survivor’s Handbook: How to Live in the Material World Again (Surrealist.org, 2000), and a contributor to Hare Krishna: The Post-Charismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant (Columbia University Press, 2004). She was an ISKCON member for ten years (1978 – 1988) and associate editor of ISKCON World Review: Newspaper of the Hare Krishna Movement. She has a master‘s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Western Oregon University (1992), using art therapy to treat juvenile sex offenders. She is currently an advocate and media spokesperson for the plaintiffs in Children of ISKCON vs. ISKCON. This article is an electronic version of an article originally published in Cultic Studies Review, 2004, Volume 3, Number 1, pages 1-27. Please keep in mind that the pagination of this electronic reprint differs from that of the bound volume. This fact could affect how you enter bibliographic information in papers that you may write.

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Compassion Betrayed: Spiritual Abuse in an American Zen Center Katherine V. Masis, M.A. Abstract This paper describes spiritual abuse in an American Zen center. Drawing on the author‘s fifteen-year experience at this center and one of its international affiliates, elements of religious conversion, authoritarianism and thought reform are highlighted. Difficulties emerging from Western Zen students‘ prior vulnerabilities, transference relationships, and idealization of Zen teachers are discussed. The rhetoric of the Zen institution‘s legitimation of authority is portrayed as a significant reinforcer of the above. Finally, education about the Zen institution is proposed as a tool for preventing excesses at American Zen centers. The last decade has witnessed a growing interest in the subject of abuse in spiritual and religious contexts. Recent revelations of past sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church and the spiritual and psychological damage caused to its victims have stimulated a rethinking of the roles of the clergy and the rights of the laity. The ―anti-cult‖ literature has dealt with psychological abuse, but mostly as it relates to large organizations with overtly charismatic or manipulative leaders and aggressive recruitment tactics (Langone, 2003). There has been far less coverage on abuse in less visible, more subdued, non-proselytizing religious sects such as Zen Buddhism. Perhaps because of its non-proselytizing stance, Zen Buddhism has acquired some immunity to accusations of cult-like endeavors. Over the last decade or so, numerous reports have documented incidents of sexual misconduct and financial exploitation in American meditation-oriented Buddhist centers of various denominations (Boucher, 1988; Butler, 1991; Downing, 2001; Finn & Rubin, 1999; Sherrill, 2001). But it is only recently that the more subtle but nonetheless insidious forms of spiritual abuse in American Buddhist, and specifically Zen centers have come to light (Gopfert, 1999; Lachs, 1999). Spiritual abuse, as used in this paper, refers to any type of physical, sexual, or psychological harm perpetrated by a spiritual or religious leader on a member of a spiritual or religious group. Typical outcomes of spiritual abuse to members of dysfunctional organizations include rage, anxiety, and symptoms of depression such as low self-esteem, dysphoria, and withdrawal (Gopfert, 1999; Rubin, 1996). Abusive spiritual leaders tend to invalidate the perceptions of their abused followers and are hard-pressed to find anything wrong with their own behavior (Gopfert, 1999; Lachs, 1999; Rubin, 1996; Wehr, 2001). This paper has two parts. The first part documents my fifteen-year experience in a Zen center based in a New England state and one of its international affiliate centers. This center‘s organization, membership, and relationship dynamics are far from unique to American Zen, as shown in findings about other Zen centers (Downing, 2001; Gopfert, 1999; Lachs, 1999). In the second part, spiritual abuse in American Zen centers is discussed in the light of individual motivations to undertake Zen training, problematic transference relationships with Zen teachers, and problems arising from the Zen institution‘s legitimation of authority.

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I. Portrait of an American Zen Center Organization and Membership Heir to a Japanese Zen lineage, this particular center was under the direction of one sole Teacher. The center‘s bylaws stipulated that the Teacher was vested with absolute authority to direct its spiritual and administrative affairs. The Teacher imparted instruction in Zen meditation, conducted ceremonies, led retreats, and assigned roles and duties to the center‘s students. The Teacher unequivocally expressed rejection of ―rule by consensus.‖ Occasionally, the Teacher asked students to express their opinions and vote on matters such as wearing robes versus street clothes during meditation periods, but the Teacher could later overrule these decisions by fiat. While devotion-oriented Asian-American Buddhist temples are visited by families who practice together and have usually been Buddhists by birth, meditation-oriented American Buddhist centers of various denominations tend to have mostly Caucasian, middle-class, educated converts practicing under a monastic model while leading lay lives (Fields 1992, 1998; Finn and Rubin, 1999; Imamura, 1998; Nattier, 1998; Prebish, 1998). This center was no exception. At the time that I broke with the Teacher, this center was made up of lay practitioners, with only one novice monk. The vast majority of students had jobs, spouses and children; many attended college or graduate school. As is the case in most American meditation-oriented centers (Preston, 1988), most students at this center were the only family members practicing Zen Buddhism. A casual tour of the grounds and buildings of any of the sites under this Teacher‘s direction would reveal nothing but thoughtful attention to detail and efficient organization. Meticulously tended gardens, lawns and ponds with fish, immaculate floors and walls, beautifully decorated interiors, the delicate smells of incense and fine cooking, and the faraway tinkling of chimes in trees all contributed to an atmosphere of exquisite taste and quiet reflection. Visitors were welcome to tour the grounds at all times. The Teacher would regale nonpracticing spouses, children, parents, and friends of practitioners with broad smiles, lingering chitchat, and casual jokes. Ignored greetings, the cold shoulder, looking bored, rude interruptions, scathing remarks and scoldings were not unusual fare for the Teacher‘s longstanding students, with three exceptions: pregnant students, students with infants or young children, and students who had a non-practicing spouse, family member, or friend within the Teacher‘s earshot. Most, if not all regular attendees to the center‘s meditation sessions were active members of the center and had formalized their status as the Teacher‘s students through a ceremony. Longstanding students practiced sitting meditation, listened to the Teacher‘s formal talks, held private interviews with the Teacher regularly, and participated in liturgical rites, rituals, chanting, meditation retreats, outreach activities, and social events with other students. Zen practice became increasingly identified with the contextual tradition and worldview of Zen Buddhism, a natural and expected development in meditation-oriented centers (Lachs, 1999; Preston, 1988; Shapiro, 1994). Only a handful of practitioners, usually single men and women, rented individual rooms at any of the center‘s sites. Living there was entirely voluntary and those who chose to rent space could leave at any time, and usually did after a year or two, albeit retaining their membership status. A small number of residents stayed on for more than five years. Residents were expected to perform extra chores for the center in exchange for low rent. Most residents had outside full- or part-time jobs and/or were enrolled part-time in college or graduate school.

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Designed to give attendees a taste of Zen meditation and the basic principles of Buddhist doctrine, the Teacher held introductory workshops every two months. These were announced in small ads in the cultural events sections of local newspapers and posted on the center‘s website. The attrition rate at these workshops was high; about eighty percent or more of workshop attendees never came back to the center to attend a formal meditation session or ceremony. Former attendees were never called or tracked down; attendance records were kept for the sole purpose of saving attendees the trouble of repeating a workshop before joining the center as full-fledged members. At workshops, the Teacher described Zen as a sect of Buddhism and presented Zen meditation as a difficult practice. In keeping with most Zen Buddhist centers, the Teacher discouraged proselytizing and asked students to invite and welcome non-practicing family members to ceremonies and social events only, as the decision to start the long, hard road of meditation practice was a highly personal one that could never be forced. The Teacher often emphasized the difficulty of maintaining a disciplined meditation practice and the privilege this represented. At the same time, the Teacher warned students against falling prey to Ego and feeling ―special.‖ Ego as Enemy Spiritual abuse of students in Zen centers may be the result of leaders‘ blatant disregard to ethical norms and moral codes, or the outcome of leaders‘ harshness, fundamentalism, and what Storr (1997) aptly calls the ―charisma of righteousness.‖ At this particular center, the latter was the case. The center had no external enemies, no secular foes to hide from or attack. Families, jobs, and school in the ordinary world were perceived as opportunities to challenge and thus refine Zen meditation practice. The identified foe was internal: the human Ego or sense of self, also referred to in Zen Buddhism as ignorance. Denigration of the Ego replaced the Judeo-Christian fundamentalist denigration of the Fall; the dichotomy of Enlightened action versus acting out of Ego replaced the Judeo-Christian dichotomy of good versus evil. Absolute faith in the Teacher‘s guidance and submission to the Teacher‘s authority supplanted the Christian fundamentalist‘s clinging to Bible-based religious beliefs. The Teacher encouraged wholehearted, intense meditation practice and participation in Zen liturgy as ways to see through the false layers of Ego and experience Enlightenment, that is, a direct epistemic experience of one‘s true, original nature of wisdom and compassion, an experience that some twentieth-century schools of Zen have unfortunately described as pure and free from cultural and historical influences (Sharff, 1993, 1995). Just what was this notion of Ego? Other than vague generalities about Ego consisting of a ―separate sense of self,‖ and being ―different from the concept of Ego in Western psychology,‖ most students didn‘t quite know how to define what was so attacked and vilified. The Teacher described Ego as manifesting in human beings at about age two and as useful ―for not walking into walls‖ After early adulthood, the Teacher said, Ego had basically outlived its purpose. The Teacher seemed to conflate the concept of a psychologically differentiated self, with an ontological notion of self or ―the feeling or belief that there is an inherent, ontological core at the center of our experience that is separate, substantial, enduring, self-identical‖ (Engler, 2003, p. 52). As is all too common in Western Buddhism, the Teacher undervalued healthy ego strength, which contains hidden resources and which classical Buddhist texts present as a prerequisite to meditation practice (Engler, 1984, 2003; Gopfert, 1999; Rubin, 1996; Welwood, 2000). Overhearing a student remarking on the concept of embeddedness of the self in Western psychology to another student, the Teacher impatiently interrupted the conversation and expressed surprise that psychology was moving away from its preoccupation with ―strong Egos.‖ In a similar vein of misunderstanding, the Teacher seemed to enjoy dressing down Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 21

self-confident students. The Teacher scornfully told a student in a private interview that such dressing down was not necessary, given this particular student‘s ―low self-esteem.‖ When another student asked the Teacher about keeping ―appropriate boundaries‖ regarding the center‘s expectations, the Teacher did not let the student explain further and answered, ―We‘re not here to build boundaries, we‘re here to dissolve them‖—likewise without explaining further. The Teacher often quoted Buddhist texts illustrating the illusory nature of Ego, yet constant reification of Ego was at play by virtue of its denigration. The Teacher claimed that the root of all social, political, and environmental evils was to be found in Ego; consequently, the remedy for all human evils was to become enlightened by seeing through Ego, which in turn was to be accomplished through intense, dedicated meditation practice and participation in ceremonial practices such as chanting, repenting of one‘s faults, and commitment to the Buddhist precepts or ethical guidelines. Some longstanding students were wary of talking too much about themselves, at least within the Teacher‘s earshot, as the Teacher usually cut them short by rudely interrupting, changing the subject, or stopping the conversation altogether. Doubts about the doctrine or the Teacher, critical thinking, questioning of unfair decisions, the wish to explore Buddhist doctrine through scholarly reading, and disagreeing with the Teacher‘s views were seen as manifestations of Ego. The Teacher quickly squelched disagreements among students, and interpreted them as manifestations of Ego. The primordial manifestation of Ego was anger: it was almost forbidden for students to express anger; to acknowledge its existence was shameful. As happens at many American Zen centers (Gopfert, 1999), the Teacher seemed to have the right to express anger at students or in situations in which students were involved without being labeled as ―acting out of Ego.‖ Students usually interpreted angry words hurled at them as ―for their own good.‖ Censorship and Information Control Claiming that Zen is a tradition ―outside the sutras‖ (i.e., not dependent on Buddhist canonical texts), many Zen masters in the West have misunderstood the role of competency in the literary traditions of Zen in the course of training, and thus tend to discourage their students from educating themselves in this regard (Sharff, 1993, 1995). The Teacher openly disparaged ―intellectual stuff‖ and claimed that reading books about Zen Buddhism (except for a few recommended titles) would only clutter students‘ minds with concepts and notions that would hinder their progress in meditation. The Teacher presented intellectual discernment regarding Zen Buddhism as a handmaiden of Ego and a potential trap to lure students away from Zen meditation. Many students unquestioningly practiced in ignorance of the historical, cultural, and social roots of Zen—some despite yearnings for such knowledge. The only knowledge officially acquired by students in this regard was through the Teacher's formal talks. In these talks, the Teacher often read and commented on selections from classical texts, usually in a spirit of moral admonishment and inspiration so as to increase commitment to meditation practice. The Teacher also disapproved of indefinite seeking and questing, and urged students to ―be finders‖ instead. The Teacher frowned on reading novels or watching TV programs, but apparently seeing movies (at the theatre or on video) was all right. Many students followed suit. Some senior students even rented the Teacher‘s favorite movies for home viewing and recommended them to other students. When the Teacher objected to one popular Buddhist magazine, several senior students stopped subscribing to it. Except for attendance to events at affiliate centers, this particular center was isolated from the greater American Zen and the greater American Buddhist communities. Nobody Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 22

announced news or activities from other local Buddhist centers, even if such news and activities were in keeping with a Buddhist ―ecumenical‖ spirit. When an internationally known Zen monk, author, and peace activist came to the New England city where the Zen center was located, only a handful of center members went individually to his public talks, albeit with some inner conflict of loyalty. When members of a prison group where senior students facilitated meditation requested this author's tapes and books, senior students expressed concerns about this afterwards, for this author did not belong to the Teacher‘s lineage. But in spite of its isolation from the greater Zen and the greater Buddhist communities, the center fostered links with its geographical community through meditation classes for prisoners and occasional peace vigils. In several talks, the Teacher mentioned that Zen masters from ancient China and Japan had a senior monk serve as their ―Eyes and Ears.‖ Apparently, the Teacher had entrusted a senior student with this task, someone who observed and reported what was going on in others students‘ lives to the Teacher, often disregarding the private nature of these events. In the early years of the center, the Teacher expressed great reserve concerning mental health professionals, especially psychologists and counselors. Over time, the Teacher modified this view and occasionally recommended that students see a therapist, if only to avoid ―burdening Dharma brothers and sisters‖ with their problems. Feeling that their meditation practice should be sufficient to attain wholeness, several students expressed feelings of guilt or shame for needing to see a therapist in the first place, feelings shared by many American Buddhists of various denominations (Finn and Rubin, 1999; Welwood, 2000). In the first few years of the Zen center, the Teacher proclaimed that psychotherapy was not as effective as Zen meditation, and assumed that forms of specific, personal suffering would automatically disappear when Ego was sufficiently atrophied, a belief upheld in many Zen Buddhist circles (Gopfert, 1999; Young-Eisendrath, 2003). As time went by, the Teacher began to acknowledge that perhaps psychotherapy was effective for certain kinds of personal problems. Psychiatrists who prescribed psychotropic medications, on the other hand, enjoyed a better status. Rather than consider the possibility that the Teacher‘s leadership style, problems with the Zen tradition of authorization, and faulty group dynamics were at least contributing factors to troubled relationships within the center, the Teacher readily advised upset, angry or confused students to ―take medications,‖ not before being labeled as ―mentally ill‖ or ―severely disturbed.‖ The center‘s newsletter contained only good news about the center, the meditation practice, the ceremonies, and the Teacher. In keeping with the Japanese tradition of ―conversion stories,‖ (Shimazono, 1986), albeit without acknowledging them as such, tales featuring gratitude for having found Zen practice, the Teacher, and the teachings prevailed, as did reports of positive experiences following attendance at a meditation retreat, ceremony, or social event at the center. Personal essays summarizing conversations with the Teacher about life decisions and the good results of following the Teacher‘s advice were also printed. Every piece submitted for publication was read and edited by the Teacher. Articles of a questioning, critical nature were never published, and were dismissed as detrimental to meditation practice. Troubled Relationships American Zen students who are hurt or troubled in their relationships with their leaders or fellow students are usually alone in their suffering and have no one to turn to within the group (Downing, 2001; Gopfert, 1999). Attempts to find solace in fellow Zen students at this center, if only to share difficult feelings, were met with horrified stares, cold silences, scoldings, sermonizing or, more often than not, interruptions followed by a sudden change of the subject under discussion. After breaking with the Teacher, several former members Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 23

of the center reported struggling to admit to themselves or to fellow students that anything was wrong with the Teacher or the organization; they had ignored the warning signs of dysfunctional relationships, a common phenomenon among American Buddhist students grappling with cognitive dissonance (Butler, 1991; Gopfert, 1999; Lachs, 1999; Sherrill, 2001). Teacher and students often cited two precepts or ethical guidelines, that is, abstaining from gossip and not slandering the teachings or the community of practitioners. Following these directives, students refused to share their feelings of confusion and consternation with each other regarding the Teacher‘s or senior students‘ behaviors. The Teacher also stated in public talks that ―Dharma brothers and sisters‖ were not to ―burden‖ one another with their problems. ―If you need to have a cry, you cry alone,‖ said the Teacher to one student struggling with a personal problem. Teacher and students acknowledged universal suffering (death, illness, and old age) as the springboard for engaging in Buddhist meditation and at the same time avoided discussions of personal suffering, a common trend in American Zen centers (Young-Eisendrath, 2003). Acknowledging and sharing personal suffering were approved only when obviously related to universal suffering, such as the death of a loved one or having a family member with a serious illness. Typical behaviors of Zen masters in dysfunctional centers include direct private scoldings, scorning, shaming, and blaming. Students at such centers suffer from loss of self-esteem, feelings of invalidation, loneliness and symptoms of depression, rage, and anxiety (Gopfert, 1999; Young-Eisendrath, 2003). Also typical is the complete unwillingness of these Zen teachers to acknowledge any responsibility for harming their students in these ways (Downing, 2001; Gopfert, 1999; Lachs, 1999). At this particular center, the longer students practiced under the Teacher, the worse the Teacher‘s treatment toward them seemed to get. Students explained away such treatment by saying that the longer they practiced, the higher the Teacher‘s expectations were. Some students would receive a gift from the Teacher or an invitation to a home dinner with the Teacher‘s family. Conversely, after accepting these invitations, relaxing and letting their guard down a bit, these students would be harshly upbraided or coldly ignored by the Teacher at their next encounter. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explain the Teacher‘s motivations for such behavior. Spiritual and religious leaders have perpetrated unusual behaviors in the name of the tradition they represent, for reasons that are difficult to understand. Was this Teacher emulating masters in ancient Zen stories who behaved in bizarre ways as a model for teaching? Was the Teacher feeling guilty for being too hard on students and trying to make up for it? Conversely, was the Teacher having misgivings over being too ―chummy‖ with some students and acting harshly to prevent them from feeling ―special‖? Was the Teacher attempting to find the Buddhist Middle Way between extremes? Or was the Teacher merely acting whimsically or getting a kick out of exercising power? This paper does not attempt to answer these questions, but one thing is certain: students who were confused about these behaviors kept their confusion to themselves, never questioned these behaviors openly, and often struggled to come up with explanations that satisfied Zen Buddhist doctrine and the principles of wise and compassionate action. In formal lectures, the Teacher publicly aired matters that students brought up during private interviews with her. The Teacher would praise students and their way of handling a difficult situation, or criticize them, scoff at the situation, or belittle their feelings. The Teacher always omitted names, but most students well knew whom the Teacher was alluding to. During such lectures, the Teacher spoke about marital disharmony, difficulties on the job, conflicts among students, and even complaints by female students of sexual Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 24

harassment by male students. Without the benefit of a second opinion, the Teacher publicly commented on matters that some students had unwittingly brought up privately with the ―Eyes-and-Ears‖ student. The Teacher often stated that conflicts among ―Dharma brothers and sisters‖ were ways to ―show your Ego in a mirror.‖ At the same time, the Teacher seemed to offer no tools to deal with conflicts other than to privately rebuke and shame, publicly air the issues, preach the Buddhist precepts, and prescribe more meditation. The following example illustrates the way in which the Teacher seemed to foster jealousy and confusion among students for its own sake. Once, the Teacher wished to have Jane (not her real name), work as head cook for the Teacher‘s own Zen master, who was visiting at the center for a few months. But, long ago, the Teacher had appointed Mary (not her real name) for this duty, considered an honor at the center. The Teacher assigned the ―Eyes-and-Ears‖ student the task of calling Jane longdistance with strict orders to ―not say a word‖ about this change in plans to Mary, the original candidate. Mary quickly found out about the situation by glancing at the center‘s newsletter and through third parties who innocently mentioned that Jane was going to cook for the Teacher‘s master. Very upset, Mary asked the Teacher about the situation. The Teacher scolded Mary in private, and publicly alluded to the third parties and their faulty Egos during a talk on the precept of abstaining from gossip. Hurt feelings and rifts between Jane and Mary were the result. Jane, Mary, and the third parties never questioned the Teacher‘s secrecy and apparent scheming about these matters and fully attributed their hurt feelings and resentment to their own ―Egos.‖ Some senior students, when troubled and perplexed by the Teacher‘s tendency to foster confusion, jealousy, and resentment, would sometimes explain the Teacher‘s actions as free-spirited, non-attached behavior that transcended logic, or as ―Zen testing‖ of the students‘ limits, nevertheless lacking the cultural and social contexts in which such testing— if that is what it was—would have made sense. Stoic Service Always very busy, the Teacher carried out the administrative duties of running the center and traveling to the international sites to conduct retreats and ceremonies. Even when seriously ill or recovering from surgery, the Teacher ignored the doctor‘s advice for rest and carried on as usual. Ill students on retreats who performed their usual duties, such as leading chanting sessions in spite of sore throats and bronchitis, were commended for ―being an inspiration‖ to others—I was one of them. Numerous talks given by the Teacher and conversations among senior students at social events featured people who went through tremendous pain and suffering ―without complaining‖ and who had endured hardship ―with a smile.‖ The Teacher often encouraged students to ―always do more‖ for the purpose of fulfilling the Mahayana Buddhist ideal of compassion for all sentient beings: sit more, work more, do more community service, be more self-sacrificing in all areas of life. For this Teacher, it would seem as if fulfilling the Mahayana Buddhist ideal meant fulfilling the impossible task of being better than one actually was. Students with the most seniority were encouraged to donate blood and platelets as often as was medically possible, in part to serve the Mahayana Buddhist ideal of compassion, but mostly to rid themselves of ―attachment to Ego.‖ The Teacher expounded the view in formal talks that the more ―enlightened‖ or spiritually advanced people were, the busier they became. The Teacher derided an American public speaker‘s characterization of American Zen as Calvinist in nature, only to complain a year

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later that one of the center‘s international affiliate sites was slow to blossom because of its cultural and historical ―lack of a Protestant work ethic.‖ Individual and Group Monitoring An essential part of Zen practice consists of private interviews between Zen teachers and their students, mainly for the purpose of monitoring progress and clarifying questions about the mechanics of meditation practice. A significant portion of Zen teachings is communicated during these private exchanges between students and their teachers (Gopfert, 1999; Lachs, 1999). Private interviews were held three times a day during meditation retreats and at least twice a week during formal meditation sessions when there were no retreats. The Teacher often used private interview times to point out and scoff at students‘ shortcomings, a common occurrence in many Zen centers (Gopfert, 1999). On the grounds of not sharing highly personal information not meant for others to hear, students generally followed a rule to never disclose what transpired in a private interview. Several times a year, the Teacher announced month-long periods during which students were to commit themselves to increasing their daily quota of meditation practice, community service, and/or adherence to the Buddhist precepts. Students chose their own practice goals in writing, submitted them to the Teacher, and read them out loud in front of fellow students as part of a ceremony. Signing up for these periods was voluntary, but many students felt subtly pressured to do so. Following these periods of augmented practice, the Teacher held group check-in sessions. In the early days, some students sheepishly confessed how they fell short of their desired goal, but as the years went by, the Teacher made it clear that there was no desire or need for sharing difficulties in complying with the practice, and that this was ―not what others wanted to hear.‖ Sure enough, group check-in sessions quickly turned into glowing reports of how wonderful and energized students felt after increasing their daily quota of meditation practice and/or commitment to Buddhist principles or center activities, and how this enabled them to ―do more.‖ Special Powers A booklet with instructions for students who helped to run workshops admonished students to ―avoid answering questions‖ about the Teacher‘s ―enlightenment.‖ The Teacher often said that Zen masters had special knowledge about their students‘ inner depths that the students themselves could not (as yet) access. The Teacher hinted at having psychic powers, such as being able to read people‘s thoughts and see people‘s past lives, and even made remarks about previous familial relationships that some students may have had among themselves in a past lifetime, such as having been twin siblings—pronouncements that were readily believed by the students in question. The Teacher even made auspicious predictions to some students about future situations in their lives, such as romantic relationships, predictions that caused them to feel especially honored. At the same time, the Teacher cautioned that seeking psychic powers was an obstacle to ―real enlightenment,‖ and warned that involvement with them was ―feeding into Ego.‖ Complaining that psychic powers were a burden, the result of ―bad karma‖ and behaved as uninvited guests, the Teacher nevertheless appeared to exercise them at will. Quoting the Zen dictum of ―we‘re all One Mind,‖ the Teacher stated that perceiving others‘ thoughts was ―no big deal.‖ Some students feared the Teacher‘s reputed abilities to read thoughts and became hypersensitive to cues, not only from the Teacher, but from senior students as well. These students second-guessed the Teacher‘s actions, only to be admonished, in private and in public, that doubting or second-guessing the Teacher‘s motives and actions was a ―sure sign of Ego‖ and of slandering of the teachings. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 26

Emulating the Teacher Reports about other Zen centers in the United States reveal that teachers have counseled their students in areas far removed from their scope of competence (Downing, 2001). The Teacher of this center was fond of announcing that Zen masters were not the same as gurus and, therefore, not involved in the details of students‘ personal lives. Nevertheless, senior students felt a need to consult with the Teacher over major life decisions such as marriage, changing jobs, following a course of study, and moving closer to or farther away from the center. The Teacher was ready to give advice—and did. Openly urged by the Teacher to have children, some married students privately expressed mild concerns among themselves about not being able or willing to fulfill the Teacher‘s wish. When the Teacher‘s husband was running for office in the community, the Teacher personally requested me to vote for him (an action which I did not carry out). After several years of Zen practice, many American Zen students tend to imitate the Teacher‘s personal style of relating to others. Typical examples are exhibiting standoffish behaviors and withholding expression of affect (Gopfert, 1999). At this center, longstanding students imitated the gestures and mannerisms of the Teacher, appeared to hold back smiles and maintain neutral expressions when newer students or workshop attendees displayed humor or plain fun, and extended long silences in conversations, even when newer students seemed to shuffle and squirm awkwardly. But when the Teacher laughed at a humorous story or told a joke, all students, especially senior ones, would also laugh. When the Teacher showed disgust at a situation, senior students also showed disgust. As the years went by, some of the more experienced students, both male and female, began to dress in the same dark colors and plain style as the Teacher; some men shaved their beards, moustaches, and heads; some women cut their hair very short. After one talk in which the Teacher expressed pride at having grayed and aged, some female students stopped touching up their hair and gave up what little make-up they did wear. II. How Spiritual Abuse Occurs in American Zen Centers Conversion to American Zen Committed, contemporary American Zen practitioners of meditation are rarely born into the tradition. Generally Caucasian, educated, and middle-class, they join Zen centers in adulthood in an entirely voluntary manner. With the exception of Soka Gakkai, most Buddhist denominations such as Zen, Tibetan, and Theravada are for the most part nonproselytizing (Nattier, 1998). Whether gradually or quickly, practitioners develop an affiliation with the contextual and liturgical tradition of Zen and adopt its worldview; in this sense at least, conversion takes place. At the same time, Lifton‘s (1989) thought reform categories of loading the language, milieu control, sacred science, doctrine over person, demand for purity, and mystical manipulation can be easily identified in the day-to-day affairs of the Zen center portrayed in the first part of this paper. Nobody joins a Zen center with the goal of being deceived, betrayed, or abused. But people do seek out Zen centers, and engage in meditation practice for reasons that do not seem to differ from those of people who seek psychotherapy. Achieving ordinary developmental tasks such as obtaining stable, meaningful work, engaging in significant long-term relationships and belonging to a supportive community has become increasingly difficult in American society (Engler, 2003; Welwood, 2000). As opposed to ethnic, family-centered Asian-American Buddhist temples, educated, middle-class Americans usually discover Buddhism ―as isolated individuals in the midst of pain and confusion‖ (Imamura, 1998, p. 236). The common motivations for engaging in Buddhist meditation practice are to seek freedom from behavioral, cognitive, or emotional confinement, to identify a larger and deeper meaning in life, and to enhance human potential. More specifically, these Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 27

motivations include loneliness, alienation, existential angst, death of loved ones, separation and abandonment issues, and the desire to overcome early emotional losses, restore a fragile sense of self, and heal addictions (Gopfert, 1999; Imamura, 1998; Finn & Rubin, 1999; Lachs, 1999; Welwood, 2000). Of particular interest in this regard is low self-esteem, which seems to be prevalent in the West and which has baffled the Dalai Lama and other Eastern Buddhist teachers of various denominations (Goleman, 1997; Engler, 2003). Zen teachers often say that suffering is what brings human beings to meditation practice. This is not to say that American Zen centers actively recruit troubled people to join their ranks; they do not proselytize. But people who join Zen centers likely have a combination of psychological pain and spiritual angst, and it is often difficult to sort out which is which. There are likely more Zen students in psychotherapy than is generally acknowledged. Many students learn meditation as an adjunct to psychotherapy. A small handful recognize that psychological pain will not necessarily be eased with more meditation (Gopfert, 1999; Kornfield, 1993; Welwood, 2000) and begin psychotherapy after several years of meditation practice. The subjugation of Zen students to the often unkind authority of the Zen master is viewed as a paradoxical way to break through Ego and thereby connect with an internal, immanent, numinous, transhistorical, and transcultural power that increases autonomy, and from which wise and compassionate action spontaneously emerges (Lachs, 1999; Sharff, 1993, 1995; Young-Eisendrath, 2003). Considered ―a hierarchical relationship that fosters true independence‖ (Magid, 2003, p. 286), this connection is sometimes viewed paradoxically and, more often, sequentially. In other words, present subjugation leads to future autonomy. Because this connection supposedly consists of merely tapping into, accessing, and uncovering what already exists in their inner depths, students do not perceive this connection as a merging with the ―otherness‖ of an external source. It is likely that many committed American Zen students mistakenly think that herein lies their protection against falling prey to a ―cult.‖ After all, if one only taps into one‘s own pure, original resources, how can that be harmful? But harm does occur at some centers and with some Zen masters. Alongside the tapping into one‘s own inner resources is a powerful idealization of the Zen master—the belief that, because the Zen master is enlightened regarding his or her True Nature, he or she is mostly, if not absolutely, infallible. Thus, every action carried out by, every word uttered by the Zen master, no matter how harmful, is considered to be ―for your own good.‖ As mentioned before, feelings of confusion and symptoms of depression, including dysphoria, low self-esteem, guilt, and withdrawal are common in students who train with problematic Zen teachers. In addition to depression and confusion, shattered faith, and lack of trust in other human beings and spiritual practices are typical outcomes of Zen students who sever ties with abusive Zen teachers (Gopfert, 1999). The subjugation of students to their Zen masters may compromise the very spontaneity, creativity and spiritual autonomy that they seek. Why, then, do Zen students remain under the direction of a harmful teacher? Two main processes are at play: (a) students are engaged in problematic transference relationships that foster idealization of the teacher and (b) the structure of the Zen institution itself promotes subservience to authority that is assumed to be historically veracious and spiritually justified. Transference and Idealization As anyone who has sat for a thirty-minute period of Zen meditation knows, Zen training is arduous and produces no instant gratification. At most American Zen centers, it is assumed that teachers have gone through ten, twenty or thirty years of training and have been subjected to stringent testing by their own teachers. Committed Zen students who have begun the process of contextual identification with the Zen tradition earnestly wish to tap

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into their own spiritual potential, and develop feelings of awe and profound admiration for their Zen teachers. Japanese Zen masters teaching in the United States have almost mockingly remarked on the degree of solemnity and seriousness with which American students embrace the Zen tradition, in contrast to Japanese students, who seem to be able to take the often exaggerated claims of the spiritual accomplishments of Zen masters with a grain of salt (Downing, 2001). Japanese Zen students seem better able than American students to ―take what‘s good‖ from a Zen master and disregard the rest (Butler, 1991). Going through the outer motions of deference while privately withholding respect in the face of disappointment at a Zen master‘s questionable behaviors would likely be considered hypocritical by American but not by Japanese Zen students (Butler, 1991). This may explain in part why committed American Zen students tend to give themselves over entirely to their relationship with their Zen masters and develop sensitive, intense transference relationships with them in which over-idealization takes place. When interacting with their Zen teachers, Zen students may perceive their Zen teachers as parental figures, and may reenact or elicit problematic familial behavioral patterns from their childhood. Buddhist teachers of many denominations become repositories for projections of perfection from their students (Gopfert, 1999; Magid, 2003; Rubin, 1996; Young-Eisendrath, 2003). Many Zen students fantasize about their teachers and communities in terms of ―super-parents‖ and the ―super-family‖ (Tart & Deikman, 1991, p. 46). Transferences between meditation teachers of Eastern traditions and Western students tend to be mostly Kohutian mirroring and merging types. Students invest hope that their teachers will mirror them by providing a source of approval and validation, or perceive their teachers as a source of extraordinary power with which to merge (Cushman, 1986; Engler, 1984; Rubin, 1996). These hopes may be fulfilled or thwarted, depending on the Zen teacher‘s personality and teaching style. Unconsciously induced to act as if they were indeed their students‘ parents, many Zen teachers engage in projective identification. An oscillating kind of transference may also occur between Buddhist teachers and students, who alternate between veneration and devaluation of the teacher (Engler, 1984). When students‘ need for idealization is coupled with debasing of self and others, they may attribute extreme virtues to their teachers. But when the teacher is unable or unwilling to meet the student‘s high expectations, students may engage in extreme debasement of their teachers (Engler, 1984). Over-idealization of spiritual teachers may arrest development and set the stage for the perpetration of unhealthy patterns of relatedness learned from the past (Gopfert, 1999; Rubin, 1996; Tart & Deikman, 1991). This situation is complicated because Zen teachers often have little or no understanding of the nature of transference relationships or they choose to ignore their importance (Gopfert, 1999; Magid, 2003; Young-Eisendrath, 2003). Zen teachers ―may underestimate the extent to which an apparently devoted student may spend years stuck in a role of compliance, having formed a morbid dependency on the teacher or otherwise succumbed to some form of pathological accommodation, masochistically enduring a painful training solely as a way to maintain a tie to an idealized selfobject‖ (Magid, 2003, pp. 257-258). Moreover, the Zen teacher-student relationship discourages the expression of overwhelming or negative emotional states. Trained to ignore such states as unimportant distractions to meditation practice, Zen students lack the benefit of interpretation of and reflection on these states in the teacher-student relationship, thus paving the way for unconscious and problematic transference, countertransference, and relational reenactments (YoungEisendrath, 2003). If Zen students‘ submissiveness, self-devaluation, and over-idealization Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 29

of their Zen master remain unexamined and unresolved, these dynamics may play themselves out in other relationships, especially if after long years of training with an overidealized teacher, those students go on to become teachers themselves (Young-Eisendrath, 2003). The Authority of the Zen Master Zen masters do not necessarily proclaim their Enlightenment or spiritual attainments to their students or the world at large, at least not directly. To do so would be considered an act of pure Ego. Rather, the Zen institution makes those claims for them (Lachs, 1999). Zen students who are affiliated with the contextual and liturgical traditions of Zen, over time come to believe that their Teacher is at least considerably more spiritually ―advanced‖ than they are. Thanks to the means of authorization facilitated by the Zen tradition, some Zen masters themselves may come to believe that as well. Others, however, may play the role even though they may know at some level that they are not as spiritually ―advanced‖ as the Zen institution claims (Lachs, 1999). The legends, texts by Zen masters, chanting, and other rituals foster idealization of the Zen master and hierarchical styles of authority (Gopfert, 1999; Lachs, 1999; Young-Eisendrath, 2003). One of the most influential factors in fostering idealization of the Zen master is the received tradition of Dharma transmission, which has the dual meaning of (a) the passing on of the Buddha‘s teachings through generations of teachers, and (b) the ceremony or ritual that sanctions this transmission (Downing, 2001; Gopfert, 1999; Lachs, 1999; Sharff, 1993, 1995). Zen Buddhist tradition states that the purest teachings of the historical Buddha have been passed on from teacher to teacher without recourse to canonical texts. That is, the Zen master‘s mind is as enlightened as his or her own master‘s, whose mind is, in turn, as enlightened as his or her own master and so on: ―It is the continuity of this chain of enlightened minds in an unbroken lineage, supposedly unique to Zen, going back to the historical but also highly mythologized figure of Shakyamuni Buddha . . . that forms the conceptual basis for the present teacher's considerable authority. . . . Dharma transmission justifies giving the teacher the authority that one would accord to the Buddha himself‖ (Lachs, 1999, n.p.). Claiming authentication through lineage traditions with roots that reach as far back as the historical Buddha, Zen masters promote themselves as officially sanctioned agents who have the wisdom and compassion to employ whatever means they deem necessary to bring their students to an inner connection between their mind and the teacher‘s mind. This inner connection is said to consist of a realization that the teacher‘s and their students‘ inner depths are essentially the same. Thus, unkindness in the Zen master may be disguised compassion; bizarre and confusing behaviors may be disguised wisdom—or so Zen students are taught to think (Downing, 2001; Gopfert, 1999; Lachs, 1999). Subjugation to the authority of the Zen master is perceived as a tool that will open the door to greater spontaneity and spiritual autonomy. Committed, serious, and solemn about their meditation practice, American Zen students who have at least begun the process of affiliation with the liturgical and contextual traditions of Zen seem to embrace the Zen narrative of authorization wholeheartedly, and therefore seem to deal with their cognitive dissonance by readily explaining away unethical or simply cruel behaviors on the part of Zen masters as serving some ―greater good,‖ as yet unperceived by the students. It is possible that contradictory, bizarre, or otherwise confusing behaviors may be better tolerated and interpreted by Japanese than American students. Accustomed to the nuances of paradox and indirect communication that might be considered manipulative, deceptive, or simply unclear by Americans (Becker, 1986; Tannen, 1994), Japanese students may not have to expend as much effort in second-guessing their Zen masters or in going through the outer motions of respect and obeisance, as noted above. Perhaps taking lineage narratives Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 30

and the hagiographies of past Zen masters in their stride, Japanese Zen students may well have less all-or-nothing idealization and therefore less cognitive dissonance to struggle with in the face of their Zen masters‘ unethical, unkind, or bizarre behaviors. American Zen and Cultural Adaptation Did the Teacher betray her belief system with her behaviors, or did she believe in it wholeheartedly, albeit failing to make the necessary cultural adjustments? I do not offer a conclusive answer to this question, but the following is a speculation on the interplay between the Teacher‘s belief system and the question of cultural adaptation. The Teacher attempted to achieve consistency with the belief system as portrayed by the center‘s particular teaching lineage. The Teacher also adhered to the injunction to not read or pursue scholarship and rejected intellect as a valid way of gaining knowledge of Zen Buddhism. This injunction was in keeping with the lineage‘s unquestioning obedience to authority and, perhaps, to the authoritarianism peculiar to Japanese Zen in general (Lachs, 1999). At the same time, this very injunction contributed to further ignorance and thus to the betrayal or at least a serious compromise of the broader Buddhist principles of wisdom and compassion. Thus, transplanting a highly authoritarian position common in Japan to a Western setting, the Teacher‘s behaviors were consistent with a belief system that was poorly investigated due to the conflation between behaviors peculiar to Japanese authoritarianism and behaviors that supposedly would be a wise and compassionate outgrowth of years of practicing meditation. The injunction to avoid scholarship further aggravated this conflation. On the one hand, the Teacher, partly due to ignorance, likely believed in that poorly investigated and largely unchallenged belief system. On the other hand, the Teacher may have also engaged in deceptive behaviors. It is highly probable that the Teacher knew on some level that she was not as ―Enlightened‖ as the Zen narrative maintains Zen teachers are, if at all. Likely knowing that she did not match what the Zen institution proclaimed she was, the Teacher nevertheless continued to play the role according to institutional definition, through rituals, liturgy, and top-down management of the center‘s affairs. As mentioned before, the Zen institution itself staked the claim to spiritual advancement for the Teacher (Lachs, 1999). Eventually, this role likely played into the Teacher‘s needs— needs that apparently consisted of inculcating a dogmatic adherence to a ―greater good,‖ according to the lineage‘s belief system. The Teacher‘s dogmatism and rigidity seemed to grow in time, perhaps partly in response to the sheer authority she wielded over her students, perhaps partly because, as mentioned before, Zen students idealize their Teachers and induce them to behave in ways that emulate past parental relationships. Religious institutions come to match the cultural context of the places where they take root, and Buddhism is no exception (Lachs, 1999). American Zen teachers like to talk about the ability of Buddhism to adapt to the cultural context of the time and place where it takes root (Kapleau, 2000). Within Buddhism, Zen is but one denomination and is practiced in different ways in Japan, Korea, China and Vietnam. Even within Japan, Zen‘s major schools of Soto, Rinzai, and Obaku differ on doctrinal and liturgical aspects. In the United States, American Zen Buddhists have talked about Western contributions to Zen, such as the role of women as Zen teachers and the impact of a largely lay Zen community. American Zen Buddhists have debated over the desirability of wearing robes, displaying shaved heads, or practicing liturgical rites in the mother tongue. But American Zen Buddhists have had very little to say on aspects of the Zen institution such as its authoritarian structures, its mythology, and its hierarchy (Downing, 2001; Gopfert, 1999; Lachs, 1999). Perhaps this discussion is lacking in part because many Zen Buddhists do not see scholarship as a valid way of gaining knowledge about Zen.

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Because American Zen Buddhists can never be Japanese Zen Buddhists, they cannot afford to practice in ignorance of the historical and cultural roots of Japanese Zen Buddhism without risk of harm. The better educated about these aspects American Zen students become, the more immunity to excesses of authority they are likely to acquire and the better able they will be to facilitate necessary cultural adaptation. Concluding Thoughts Most Americans who join Zen centers and continue their membership do so through a process of conversion; that is, they become increasingly affiliated with the contextual tradition of Zen. The Zen tradition fosters intense transference relationships between Zen teachers and their students which are in part the result of Western Zen students‘ prior susceptibilities and in part the outcome of the narratives of the Zen institution itself and how they have been interpreted in the West. It would seem that Western Zen teachers‘ conflation of psychological differentiation of ego with an ontological sense of ego leads to an attack on both, with particularly harmful consequences to their students. Heirs to a culture and a time in which normal developmental tasks are achieved with difficulty as compared to their parents‘ generation, and likely struggling with a much lower baseline of self-esteem than their Eastern counterparts, Western Zen students may well be at a high risk for spiritual abuse. American Zen teachers‘ expectation of their Western students to ―break through Ego‖ in part by confusing, shaming, scorning, and belittling them, far from eliciting a healthy psychological response or deep insights into the nature of the self, seems to foster maladaptive coping strategies and defense mechanisms such as extreme, masochistic subjugation and/or identification with the aggressor. Such coping strategies and defense mechanisms are likely to play themselves out further as advanced students, who, emulating their teachers‘ behaviors and deprived of the opportunity to question, examine and reflect on their relationship with their teachers, become Zen teachers themselves, or assume other roles of authority in their Zen centers. Moreover, the Zen institution itself seems to foster Western students‘ idealization of their Zen teachers. Usually ignorant of and often discouraged by their teachers to investigate the cultural, social, and political trappings of Zen Buddhism, Western Zen students may easily swallow wholesale the rhetoric of unbroken lineages of Zen masters who have transmitted pure teachings that transcend history, tradition, gender, culture, and social conditions. Unable to contain both a public self who goes through outward motions of obeisance to authority and a more discriminating private self who only takes what is good from the teacher-student relationship, most Western Zen students develop intense transferences with their Zen teachers and tend to over-idealize them. Heirs to language systems that view paradox, contradiction, and indirect communication as problematic, and discouraged from education about the narrative of the Zen institution, Western Zen students may be highly disquieted by and unable to interpret Zen masters‘ confusing, bizarre, and unkind speech and behaviors. Education about the narrative of the Zen institution and its legitimation of authority, the nature of transference and the dangers of idealization would seem to afford some immunity to excesses and abuses of power in Zen centers. Unfortunately, as has been the case with countless leavetakers of American Zen centers, such education often comes after one or several traumatic incidents. Preventive education in this regard is a challenge that cannot be postponed and must be undertaken by the American Zen community at large. Undertaking this challenge will likely imply an uncomfortable yet necessary revision of the role of intellectual discernment in Western Zen practice.

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References Becker, C.B. (1986). Reasons for the lack of argumentation and debate in the Far East. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 10(1): 75-92. Boucher, S. (1988). Turning the wheel: American women creating the new Buddhism. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Butler, K. (1991). Encountering the shadow in Buddhist America. In J. Abrams & C. Zweig (Eds.), Meeting the shadow: The hidden power of the dark side of human nature, pp. 137-147. Los Angeles: Jeremy Tarcher. Cushman, P. (1986). The self besieged: Recruitment-indoctrination processes in restrictive groups. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 16:1-32. Downing, M. (2001). Shoes outside the door: Desire, devotion and excess at San Francisco Zen Center. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint. Engler, J. (1984). Therapeutic aims in psychotherapy and meditation: Developmental stages in representation of self. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 16(1): 25-61. Engler, J. (2003). Being somebody and being nobody: A reexamination of the understanding of self in psychoanalysis and Buddhism. In J.D. Safran (Ed.), Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: An unfolding dialogue, pp. 35-79. Boston: Wisdom Publications. Fields, R. (1992). How the swans came to the lake: A narrative history of Buddhism in America. 3rd edition. Boston: Shambala. Fields, R. (1998). Divided Dharma: White Buddhists, ethnic Buddhists, and racism. In Prebish, C.S. & Tanaka, K.K. (Eds.), The faces of Buddhism in America, pp. 196-206. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Finn, M. & Rubin, J. (1999). Psychotherapy with Buddhists. In P.S. Richards & A.E. Bergin (Eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy and religious diversity, pp. 317-340. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. Goleman, D. (1997) Healing emotions: Conversations with the Daliai Lama on mindfulness, emotions and health. Boston: Shambhala. Gopfert, C. (1999). Student experiences of betrayal in the Zen Buddhist teacher/student relationship. Doctoral dissertation, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Dissertation Abstracts International 60, 05B: 2409. Imamura, R. (1998). Buddhist and Western psychotherapies: An Asian American perspective. In C.S. Prebish & K.K. Tanaka (Eds.), The faces of Buddhism in America, pp. 228-237. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Kapleau, P.K. (2000). Zen: Merging of East and West. New York: Anchor Books. Kornfield, J. (1993). A Path with Heart: A guide through the perils and promises of spiritual life. New York: Bantam. Lachs, S. (1999, November). Means of authorization: Establishing hierarchy in Ch‘an/Zen Buddhism in America. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Boston, Massachusetts. Available: http://www.darkzen.com/, http://www.mandala.hr/summary.html, and http://www.terebess.hu/English/lachs.html. Langone, M. (2003). Cults, conversion, science, and harm. Cultic Studies Review 1(3). Available: http://www.csr.org . Lifton, R.J. (1989). Thought reform and the psychology of totalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Magid, B. (2003). Your ordinary mind. In J.D. Safran (Ed.), Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: An unfolding dialogue, pp. 251-286. Boston: Wisdom Publications. Nattier, J. (1998). Who is a Buddhist? . In C.S. Prebish & K.K. Tanaka (Eds.), The faces of Buddhism in America, pp.183-195. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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Prebish, C.S. (1999). Luminous passage: The practice and study of Buddhism in America. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Preston, D.L. (1988). The social organization of Zen practice: Constructing transcultural reality. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rubin, J.B. (1996). Psychotherapy and Buddhism: Toward an integration. New York: Plenum Press. Sharff, R.H. (1993). The Zen of Japanese nationalism. History of Religions 33(1): 1-43. Sharff, R.H. (1995). Sanbokyodan: Zen and the way of the new religions. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 22(3/4): 417-458. Shapiro, D.H., Jr. (1994). Examining the content and context of meditation: A challenge for psychology in the areas of stress management, psychotherapy, and religion/values. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 34(4):101-135. Sherrill, M. (2001). The Buddha from Brooklyn: A tale of spiritual seduction. New York: Vintage Books. Shimazono, S. (1986). Conversion stories and their popularization in Japan‘s new religions. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 13:(2/3). Storr, A. (1997). Feet of clay: Saints, sinners and madmen. A study of gurus. New York: Free Press. Tannen, D. (1994). Talking from nine to five: Women and men in the workplace: Language, sex and power. NY: William Morrow. Tart, C. & Deikman, A. (1991). Mindfulness, spiritual seeking and psychotherapy. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 23(1): 29-52. Wehr, D. (2001). Spiritual abuse: when good people do bad things. In M. Miller & P. Young-Eisendrath (Eds.), The Psychology of Mature Spirituality: Integrity, Wisdom, Transcendence. New York: Brunner-Routledge, pp. 47-61. Welwood, J. (2000). The psychology of awakening: Buddhism, psychotherapy, and the path of personal and spiritual transformation. Boston: Shambhala. Young-Eisendrath, P. (2003). Transference and transformation in Buddhism and psychoanalysis. In J.D. Safran (Ed.), Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: An unfolding dialogue. Boston: Wisdom Publications., pp. 301-318. Correspondence concerning this article may be sent electronically to [email protected]

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Generational Revolt by the Adult Children of FirstGeneration Members of the Children of God/The Family Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D. Department of Sociology University of Alberta Abstract This study identifies a widespread rejection of the Family‘s/Children of God‘s teachings by young adults who, as children, grew up in the group. Beginning in the 1970s, policies that the group‘s founder, David Berg, initiated and imposed upon his members laid the groundwork for this rejection and revolt. These policies, and the practices that resulted from them, made many of the group‘s younger members feel abused, exploited, and hostile toward various adults. In 1977, the Children of God‘s leader, David Berg, supposedly received a prophecy that his 2-year old stepson, Davidito, was ―THE FUTURE FATHER OF THE FAMILY OF LOVE‖ (Berg, 1977b:4765 [capitals and underline in original]). ―So guard him well,‖ Berg told his followers, ―and teach him well the words of his father David, that he may know what is truth, that he may feed My people‖ (Berg, 1977b:4758). The way in which Berg, his partner and Davidito‘s mother Maria, and their nanny Sara reared Davidito was to have been a model for raising children in the faith. How wrong Berg was. In June 2002, Davidito—now using his secular name, Ricky—wrote a scathing indictment about what life was like in the Berg household, especially for Berg‘s granddaughter Merry (called Mene in the group). After documenting countless instances of sexual abuse, assaults, Berg‘s alcoholic behaviour and racism, and the adult leaders‘ relentless monitoring of all the children‘s actions, Ricky concluded an Internet essay with the hope ―that one day Berg and Maria‘s evil legacy wi[ll] die with the Family, and it will be only a distant, or better yet, forgotten bad memory‖ (Ricky, 2002:10). He posted this essay on a Website, MovingOn.org, founded by another adult child of the first generation, Julia McNeil (McNeil, 2003). As of late February 2004, over 5,500 hits had occurred on this message, many of them from other adult children of the first generation, and probably some from current Family teens and adults. Ricky‘s denunciation of the Berg household environment is the latest in a history of revolts by adult children who grew up in either the Family‘s elite World Services leadership facilities or in Family homes and compounds around the world. Once touted by Berg and others as the hope for the organization‘s survival and expansion around the world (see Berg, 1985; Van Zandt, 1991:172), the adult children of first-generation members have become the organization‘s most articulate and precise critics. Having lived through the Family‘s social experimentation on their generation, these adult children are a cohort that interacts on the Internet and whose members have formed loose networks as friends. As with any agebased cohort, individual members experienced the social experiments of their parents‘ generation somewhat differently. Nevertheless, all members of this generation—born in and around the decade of the 1970s—grew up in a highly mobile, eroticized environment whose adults were hostile to the wider culture. Moreover, these first-generation adults used corporal punishment, which sometimes crossed over into torture and physical abuse, against them in an attempt to elicit compliance among their children to the teachings of David Berg, Maria, and other leaders. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 35

I will present an overview of the relationship of the first wave of children and teens—now adults—to their parents‘ generation in the Children of God/the Family, making extensive use of the group‘s own publications. I argue that the seeds for the generational revolt that began in the 1990s and continues to this day lie in early policies and decisions that the group leaders and adult members made early in their organization‘s history. These policies and decisions created a social climate in which many of the group‘s younger members felt abused, exploited, and hostile toward various adults. The Doctrinal Seeds That Eventually Contributed to the Teens’ Revolt At least seven basic doctrinal positions and policies appear to be central to both the Children of God and its more recent variant, the Family, and these doctrines and policies contributed to the generational revolt that began in the early 1990s. Adult members internalized these policies and acted upon them in ways that frequently had dire consequences for their children. First and foremost, David Berg claimed, and adult group members accepted, that he was God‘s End Time prophet—a vehicle for conveying God‘s word to the world before the final judgment day arrives (and which, according to Berg‘s own calculations, was supposed to occur in 1993 [Berg, 1972b]). The group, therefore, did not tolerate challenges to Berg‘s missives, and even quiet expressions of doubts about them—what the group called murmurings—were punishable offences. Second, God‘s fundamental message was supposed to involve the importance of love, and, through Berg‘s prophecies and teachings, the form of love that the group emphasized heavily involved sex. Rebelling, in part, from his own restrictive and sexually punitive childhood (Kent, 1994), Berg instituted what he called the Law of Love, which he posited as the central teaching of Jesus and which, to the spiritually pure such as himself and his followers, knew no boundaries according to age. Especially during the late 1970s and the 1980s, therefore, the social environment of the Children of God/the Family households and compounds was highly eroticized (see World Services, 1979). In locations around the world, teenagers and even some children became involved in various degrees of sexual behaviour with their peers and often with adults (see World Services, 1979). Third, the propagation supposedly of God‘s word, as prophesied by Berg, was to be the top priority for all members—ranking in importance above family obligations or ties. Childcare, therefore, was supposed to be a collective responsibility, so that family obligations and emotional ties did not interfere with doing (what members believed was) God‘s work. As Berg‘s partner Maria wrote to parents in 1990, ―You may have been able to commit the care of your children to other teachers, helpers & overseers, & in many cases, you‘ve virtually had to do that in order to fulfil [sic] the different ministries to which the Lord has called you‖ (Maria, 1990:615 [underline in original]). Likewise, the religiously ―sanctified‖ sexual ethics among adult members led to frequent pregnancies whose paternity was uncertain. Consequently, women routinely gave birth to numerous children, and these children frequently had uneven, if not non-existent, amounts of paternal support (see Berg, 1981a). Often, emotional bonds between children and parents were severely strained, and many children did not know their biological fathers. Fourth, the wider society was evil—the realm of the devil—and members were to avoid it as much as possible. Consequently, the group avoided calling in secular authorities—police, social workers, and so on—if and when they discovered probable malfeasance or criminality committed by members. For the most part, members were to have limited contact with society, contact involving only efforts to gain resources from it in the form of donations, material contributions (such as clothes and food), and converts. The group‘s unstable financial base, however, required that many members spend long hours fund-raising; and, at an early stage, adult fund-raisers learned the appeal of children and teens to potential

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resource providers. Consequently, many children and teens spent countless hours at fundraising activities, which often involved singing and performing. Fifth, the reputed lure of the devil was strong, especially toward secular society and away from the group. Members of the group, therefore, felt justified in using harsh measures, including corporal punishment on children and teens, against anyone who appeared to be deviating from Berg‘s reputed interpretations of God‘s word (see Berg, 1975b). Sixth, the beliefs and lifestyle of the group had a dramatic, and negative, impact on children‘s educational programs. Generally speaking, the group‘s adults believed that secular educational institutions, and the reputedly permissive atmosphere that they cultivated, were particular lairs of the devil. Consequently, the group initiated its own educational programs and held inconsistent policies about sending children to outside schools (see Berg, 1972a: 1184; 1975a; Home Services, 1988). Teachers, however, usually lacked professional instructional training, and they were notoriously weak in subjects such as science and advanced math. Moreover, the group‘s social studies programs were infused with its own ideological positions (Berg, 1977a). Besides, different family facilities placed different emphases on education, with some locations allowing youth fund-raising and other work assignments to take precedence over studying and instruction. Seventh, group members remained highly mobile, in part as a response to what these persons felt was the constant likelihood of persecution by local authorities. For this reason and others, many children and teens lived in numerous places around the world and within various countries. In doing so, they developed extensive, informal, social-network ties with peers. In essence, teens developed some ability to communicate outside of the group‘s existing, formal communication lines. Educationally, however, this mobility greatly disrupted children‘s learning. Taken together, these doctrines and policies had real consequences for the group‘s children and teenagers. Growing up under their regime had profound, and largely negative, implications for the second generation's attitudes toward the group‘s leaders and their own parents, who, the offspring feel, allowed them to suffer unnecessarily under their yoke. Policies and Publications A. Corporal Punishment By the mid-1970s, members of the Children of God were practicing heterosexual ―sharing‖ within the group and ―flirty-fishing‖ —a form of religiously sanctified prostitution designed to bring in resources and recruits—toward outsiders (see Berg, 1978b; Davis with Davis, 1984:118-120, 122-124). Eschewing birth control, the group experienced an explosion of births, and so much doubt existed about the identities of the children‘s fathers that, in 1978, Berg referred to these children as ―Jesus Babies‖ (Berg, 1978a). According to Berg, the analogy was appropriate because these children, like Jesus, were born to mothers whose fathers were unknown (except, Berg clarified, Jesus‘ father actually was God [Berg, 1978a:5757]). Within the group itself, among the best-known Jesus Babies were two of Maria‘s children—Davidito (born in 1975 [see Berg and Maria, 1975) and his half-sister Techi (born in 1979). Both of these children became the subject of leadership-produced books (Davidito, 1982; Techi, 1982), and Berg and his inner circle documented their childrearing practices as models for their members‘ own families. Throughout the mid-1970s and into the 1980s, the Children of God published information about pregnancies and childrearing, some of which Berg‘s eldest daughter Deborah wrote (see, for example, Family Care Services, 1981). With the large number of children growing up in the group, problems constantly emerged, as often-overworked mothers living in communal dwellings tried to cope with their own offspring as well as the offspring of others. Some of the children had birth defects and/or Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 37

behavioural problems, and Berg‘s response to parents attempting to cope with these conditions and other children had profound implications as the children matured into their teenage years. Children‘s behavioural and physical/developmental problems, Berg concluded, usually reflected the problems of the parents, and these problems likely were chastenings by God. When, for example, Berg discussed children‘s problems, he concluded, ―DON‘T BLAME IT ON THE POOR LITTLE KID! HE‘S JUST THE PRODUCT OF [THE PARENTS‘] LACK OF DISCIPLINE & THEIR LACK OF OBEDIENCE, THAT‘S ALL!‖ (Berg, 1983a:217 [capitals in original]). Berg felt that, in a social atmosphere of disobedience and poor discipline, the children were susceptible to evil spirits or demonic possession, and their resultant foolishness required spankings and beatings to drive out the evil. These kids were ―rotten apples‖ whose behaviours had to be corrected before they hurt or corrupted others. Berg quoted approvingly the passage from Proverbs (Pr. 22:15) that says, ―Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him‖ (quoted in Berg, 1981b: 7875). This doctrine of spanking, if not beating, supposedly disobedient children and teens brought untold pain and suffering upon the children of the first generation, and many of the victims harbor lasting anger toward perpetrators who often used rods, wire, or other implements to punish them. Some of these perpetrators were their own parents. B. Defection of Berg’s Eldest Daughter Deborah Parental blame, however, was not an explanation that Berg and other leaders could apply to all instances of rebellion, since Berg experienced explosive rebellions among members of his immediate family. Most dramatically, Berg‘s eldest daughter Deborah left the organization in 1978 and within a few years of leaving became a damaging critic of her father and his group. For either Berg or his group to insist that parents were responsible for disruptive or rebellious teens was to indict Berg himself for his daughter‘s defection. And only in desperate circumstances—when a court forced them to—has Family leadership ever criticized Berg‘s teachings or practices directly (Amsterdam, 1995; Maria, 1995a). In a 1983 publication, which advocated using a stick or rod when spanking children, for example, Berg stated, ―I certainly don‘t think I was a failure as a parent with Deborah . . .‖ (Berg, 1983b:222). Even before Deborah‘s denunciation of her father and his movement, however, another Berg child may have rebelled against his father. In 1973, hikers in Switzerland found the body of Berg‘s son, Aaron, at the base of a high cliff. According to Deborah, Aaron had been questioning his father‘s claim to be God‘s End Time prophet, and finally the son concluded that the claim was not true. She is convinced, since she ―lived through the same hell he did,‖ that Aaron took his own life over their father‘s religious claims (Davis with Davis, 1984:129). Several years after his death, Aaron‘s daughter, Merry Berg, would cause the group no end of trouble, but at a high cost to herself. Deborah‘s 1984 book was a scathing denunciation of her father and his spin on Christianity, and this denunciation included allegations that Berg had tried to commit incest with her (Davis with Davis, 1984:9, 204). She documented what she claimed to be his carnality, anti-Semitism, antinomianism, egomania, and his obsessive need to control; and through various Christian and secular media outlets, she denounced her father and his mission. Berg struck back by publishing negative accounts against his daughter and her new partner, which included allegations of physical violence and pedophilia against him (Berg, 1984:283). The damage, however, against Berg and his group was substantial. Within a few years of her book‘s publication, Deborah would play an important role in the life of another rebellious relative—her niece and Berg‘s grandchild, Merry Berg.

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C. Merry Berg Born in 1972, Merry grew up in the Children of God, even traveling with members who visited Libya‘s Moammar Gadahfi in 1975 (Kent interview with Merry Berg, 1992:4-5; see Davis with Davis, 1984:120). As a 9-year-old, Merry and a girlfriend allegedly suffered sexual assaults by adult men who were involved with the group‘s ―Music with Meaning‖ program, including, she claims, one of the group‘s more famous converts, former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Jeremy Spenser (Kent interview with Merry Berg, 1992:41-43; Ward, 1995:91). In late December 1983, Merry arrived at her grandfather‘s household (Kent interview with Merry Berg, 1992:19), and soon she allegedly was involved in a wide range of sexual activities with Berg and other males, often having adult women facilitating the sexual encounters (Kent interview with Merry Berg, 1992:31-37). She remained in the Berg household for three and one half years (Kent interview with Merry Berg, 1992:34), but over time her inflated image of Berg collapsed as she repeatedly saw him drunk, depressed, unable to eat properly (because of throat and stomach damage from his alcohol consumption), contradicting himself and making unfulfilled prophecies, all the while assaulting her (Kent interview with Merry Berg, 1992:60-62). After Merry expressed doubts about her grandfather, Berg and other adults around him initiated six months of intense and forceful efforts to dissuade these doubts, which included exorcisms, lengthy prayer sessions, spankings, head-shakings, threats of severe beatings, and various humiliations (see Davidito, 1987; Maria, 1992:9-10). A British judge later concluded that what Merry Berg ―went through was a form of torture‖ (Ward, 1995:152). Berg finally shipped off his rebellious granddaughter to her uncle‘s house in Macau. This location developed rapidly into a forced labour and re-indoctrination program—the group called it a Detention Teen Camp—designed to break the wills of the rebellious teen children of the Family‘s adult leaders (see Kent and Hall, 2000). For another three and one half years, Merry endured sexual and physical assaults, hard labour, constant humiliations, and obligatory study of her grandfather‘s teachings until a nervous breakdown landed her in a mental institution. Eventually, she left Macau and went to recuperate in the United States, and she soon ended up living with her aunt—the Children of God critic and daughter of Berg, Deborah. Even though, in 1982, Berg himself had written about his alcoholism and its dire consequences on his ability to eat (Berg, 1982b), he and other Family leaders continued to deny that Merry‘s doubts about her grandfather‘s elevated spiritual status might have been warranted. Instead, as it had with other rebels against Berg, the group wrote off Merry as having been possessed by a devil. The Family leadership repeatedly followed this pattern— disdain the critiques by teens and others, and attribute them to an evil force. In a particularly telling comment in 1992, Berg wrote that one morning he received a scripture (reputedly from God) along with ―a rather horrible picture‖: And I got the most gruesome picture of Mene [i.e., Merry] with her mouth all red & dripping, drooling with blood like a vampire! Of course, she‘s just a little ignorant nobody, but it shows you how the Devil is using her. Even Deborah is just being used (Berg, 1992:3 [underline in original]). This identification of teen critic Merry as a blood-dripping vampire is an image that Family leadership would use again against its critics, this time to demean the criticisms by adult children of first-generation members whom Family leaders have labeled as demons called Vandari (Roselle, 2003). D. Teen Training Camps and Victor Programs Merry became only one of hundreds of teens whom Family adults placed in various kinds of teen training camps or delinquent teen/―Victor‖ programs where they were supposed to gain Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 39

―victory‖ over their doubts and accept or reaffirm Berg as God‘s End Time prophet. During the mid- to late-1980s, pre-teens and teens around the world entered these programs in countries such as Brazil, Denmark, England, Italy, Japan, Macau, Mexico, Norway, the Philippines, Scotland, Switzerland, and Thailand (Kent and Hall, 2000:57). Certainly, variations existed among different camps, and generally the camps were less assaultive than the Victor or Delinquent Teens programs. Nevertheless, some the leaders of these camps still committed egregious, and probably criminal, abuses against teens. Often, children as young as 11 or 12 years old attended these camps, subsequently living in countries far away from their parents or step-parents (Van Zandt, 1991:171). E. The Cover-Up and Its Impact upon the Teens By the early 1990s, the Family had dissolved the Victor programs, and probably the severe pressure and scrutiny under which governments, the media, and a British court had placed the group help to explain the programs‘ demise. Government apprehensions about the Children of God/the Family kids took place as early as 1983 near Vancouver, Canada (Mulgrew and Budgen, 1983); but a series of raids in the late 1980s (in Argentina) and early 1990s (Spain, Australia, France, and again in Argentina) indicated to leaders that secular authorities had learned of the group‘s sexual and physical abuses and were willing to act upon them. Moreover, in January 1994, a child custody case in England pitted a grandmother against her daughter over the daughter‘s fitness to rear her child within the Family. The Family, in response, burned controversial documents, published public denials of sexual impropriety between children and adults, and created media homes containing carefully selected teens who rehearsed probable questions and appropriate answers before reporters or academics arrived (Kent and Krebs, 1998:38). While no researcher has published an extensive analysis of the impact that these events had upon teens within the Family, many of those teens observed serious discrepancies between the group‘s public posture and their own private experiences. Externally, to government officials, to the court, and to the media, Family leaders—often with the assistance of some teens themselves—were denying abuses that they had either suffered or witnessed. Internally, however, the Family cautiously acknowledged that at least adult/teen sex had occurred. A 1990 publication, for example, reported what members already knew, and in the process managed to eroticize, the group‘s teenage girls: 8. But we‘re sure you‘re probably aware of the fact that there can be a strong natural attraction between men & blossoming teen girls. And in the past, before our hypocritical enemies started slinging all their child abuse accusations at us, we enjoyed certain God-given liberties, & that natural attraction occasionally did lead to some involvement & affection shown between some of our adult men & teen girls. (The same thing occasionally took place between some teen boys & adult women) (Home Services, 1990:5). The same document, however, instructed teens who had early, inappropriate sexual encounters to put them in the past. Paraphrasing Paul‘s epistle to the Philippians, the publication told teens to ―Forget those things which are behind, & reach forward to those things which are before!‖ (quoted in Home Services, 1990:5 [underline in original]). Besides, according to a missive published a year earlier, Maria blamed the teenaged girls themselves for having been molested: ―I know that sometimes the men sort of invite it, but I would say that some of you little hot patootie teens are often the main culprits‖ (Maria, 1989:230 [underline in original]). Clearly, the Family told its teens that they would not get any justice for the abuses that they suffered, and that they even may have been responsible themselves for much of their own sexual victimization. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 40

Family leadership has conveyed a similar message to the adult children of the first generation. In the Family‘s 1994 program, ―The Ministry of Reconciliation,‖ Maria offered, I‘m sorry–very sorry–for our past failures and mistakes and shortcomings, of which I know there are many that affected both you and our dear . . . Supporter members. Please accept my humble apology.... We, the Family, will be generous in our forgiveness of you, and we ask that you do the same (quoted in Davis and Borowik [compilers], N.d.:7). The adult children of the first generation, in response, resented the implication that they had done anything that requires forgiveness, and—once again—Family leadership failed to discuss justice or appropriate compensation for the harms that their doctrines and resultant behaviours caused. In 1993, a number of teens in Europe were fed up with the Family, its leadership, and the group‘s harsh restrictions on even minor aspects of their lives. Likewise, they were tired of raising so many funds for the group yet being personally poor and always having to ask for money to purchase even small items. Apparently, they also were resentful of leadership‘s efforts to control the kind of music that they listened to (see Maria, 1993a; 1993b; 1993c; MG, 2002). A glimpse into the disaffections of many European teens comes through a brief account written by a former member, Andrew McMillon, who as a 16-year-old left the group along with six other young people. At the same time that they were ―in secret communication with the teens and young adults still in the commune and knew that there were a lot of them who also wanted to leave‖ (McMillon, 2002:14), he and his brother debated for months with adult Family leaders over the group‘s rules and policies. For a few months afterward, it appeared that McMillon and his brother had gained more freedom from the group, but a tip from a young leader warned them of an impending ―crackdown‖ (presumably on teen freedoms), so he and six other teens left on April 1, 1993 (McMillon, 2002:14-15). It is impossible to know how many other teens departed from European homes during this period, but a group publication from that year acknowledged that ―quite a few teens & YAs [young adults] have left the Family‖ (Maria, 1993a:para. 15), and many Family leaders traveled throughout Europe and attempt to get the teens ―back on track‖ (Maria, 1993a, 1993b, 1993c). The effort, however, may not have been successful, given that one Christian academic who had unprecedented access to Family documents and personnel concluded, ―[r]elatively few of the first wave of children born in the early 1970s have remained‖ (Chancellor, 2000:242). Among the wave of young adults who departed was Julia McNeil, and in June 2001 she established a Website, MovingOn.org, as a forum for others of her generation (McNeil, 2003). As young adults both inside and outside the Family posted accounts of alleged abuse they suffered as children and teens within the organization, some members of that generation (such as Daniel Roselle) began demanding accountability. Family leaders, however, responded in much the same way as did their founder (David Berg) when his granddaughter Merry challenged him. They published a letter in which their younger critics turned into blood-dripping, grotesque demons named Vandari (Maria and Peter, 2002:para. 135-146). In essence, the leaders of the older generation quite literally had demonized the leaders of another, and in doing so disregarded their cries for justice. Even though the Family‘s charter ostensibly gave most teens limited degrees of freedom (The Family, 1995), the older leaders continue their attempts to intrude into the private lives of youth with publications such as the Loving Jesus! series. This series instructed males and females to imagine, while masturbating, that they were making love to Jesus (Maria, 1995b; 1995c). Then, in 1996, leadership seriously considered a program called the

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―marriage of the generations,‖ which presumably would have strongly encouraged sex between first- and second-generation members (Maria and Peter, 2000:sec. 174-181). Leadership‘s consideration of fostering sex between the generations actually may reflect a growing fear on the part of first-generation members. As those members approach old age, most of them lack any long-term financial or medical planning for their declining years. This aging generation will face a fundamental crisis in the next decade or two, and leadership‘s serious consideration of attempting to bond the two generations very well may be looking to the future. Outside of the group, it is very unlikely, however, that the adult children of the first generation will respond kindly when their parents begin requesting support from them. They feel that their parents made bad mistakes by joining, blinded themselves to the abuses against their children (and often contributed to those abuses), and continue to delude themselves by remaining attached to the group and sending it money. Having felt exploited as children and youth, this cohort is unlikely to let the first generation exploit its members again. In the Family and other controversial groups that burst onto the scene during the early 1970s, a crisis of the elderly looms over the horizon, and many adult children of that greying generation firmly believe that their parents deserve whatever hardships befall them. References Amsterdam, Peter. 1995. ―World Services‘ Response to Mr. Justice Ward‖ (Letter), (September):1232, Attached to Maria, 1995a:12-32. *Berg, David [Moses David]. 1972a. ―Reading, Pinups, Mistakes & World Conquest!—Thru Love!‖ Mo Letter 151 (January 26): Reproduced in David Berg. The Mo Letters, vol. II. Geneva: Children of God, 1976 1179-1193. ------1972b. ―The 70-Years of Prophecy of the End,‖ Mo Letter 156 (March 1). Reproduced in David Berg [Moses David]. The Basic Mo Letters. Geneva: Children of God, 1976:940-947. ------ [Mo]. 1975a. ―The Education Revolution!‖ Mo Letter 371 (November); Reproduced in David Berg, The Mo Letters, vol. III (301-400). Rome: The Children of God: 1976: 3407-3415. ------ [Moses David]. 1975b. ―Lashes of Love.‖ Mo Letter 606 (August 15). Reproduced in David Berg [Father Moses David], The Mo Letters, vol. V (601-700). Zurich: World Services, 1979: 46824697. ------[Mo]. 1977a. ―The Big Lie!—Exposed!‖ Mo Letter 736. (April 1977). Reproduced in David Berg. The Mo Letters, vol. VI. Zurich: World Services, 1980:5721-5739. ------ [Mo]. 1977b. ―Prophecy for Davidito.‖ Mo Letter 619 (March 2[? – the original has the date "23-77"; however, it is not clear if that refers to February 3rd or March 2nd]). Reproduced in David Berg, The Mo Letters, vol. V (601-700), Zurich: World Services, 1979:4757-4767. ------. 1978a. ―Jesus Babies!‖ Mo Letter 739 (June 24, 1976). Reproduced in David Berg, The Mo Letters, vol. VI (701-800). Zurich: World Services, 1980:5751-5758. ------. 1978b. The Mo Letters, vol. IV (the FF vol.), 501-600. Rome: Family of Love. ------[Father Moses David]. 1980. The Mo Letters, vol. VI (701-800). Zurich: World Services. ------. 1981a. ―Desertion!‖ Mo Letter 1022 (June 17). Reproduced in David Berg [Father David], The Mo Letters, vol. 9 & 10 (1001-1099), Zurich: World Services, 1982:7864-7869. ------ [Father David]. 1981b. ―Rotten Apples!‖ Mo Letter 1023. Reproduced in David Berg [Father David], The Mo Letters, vol. 9 & 10 , Zurich: World Services, 1982:7870-7876. ------ [Father David]. 1982a. The Mo Letters, vol. 9 & 10, Zurich: World Services. ------. 1982b. ―My Confession!—I Was an Alcoholic!‖ Good News 27, (Summer); Reproduced in Good News Book 1 (27-30). Zurich: Home Services, 1987:1-32. ------. 1983a. ―Delinquent Parents! —Make Delinquent Kids!‖ Reproduced in World Services, Daily Bread, vol. II. Zurich: World Services. 1985:217-225. ------. 1983b. ―The Rod of God!‖ Reproduced in Good News Book 11. Zurich: Home Services:218-224. ------. 1984. ―Deborah & Bill Davis‘ Dirty Book.‖ Lifelines, vol. 15. Zurich: World Services:283-284. ------. 1985. ―Teens!‖ (September); Reproduced in Daily Bread, vol. III. Zurich: World Services, 1987:99-100. ------. 1992. ―Persecution and Backsliders.‖ Good News No. 530. Zurich: Home Services:1-15.

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Berg, David [Mo] and Maria. 1975. ―It‘s a Boy! —The Story of Baby David.‖ Mo Letter 587 (January 27). Reproduced in David Berg, The Mo Letters, vol. IV (the FF vol.), Rome: Family of Love, 1978b:4418-4449. Chancellor, James D. 2000. Life in the Family: An Oral History of the Children of God. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Davidito, Sara. 1982. The Story of Davidito. Zurich: World Services. ------. 1987. ―The Last State.‖ Good News 2306. Zurich: Home Services, March:23pp. Davis, Deborah, with Bill Davis. 1984. The Children of God: The Inside Story. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Books. Davis, Lonnie, and Claire Borowik (compilers). ―The Ministry of Reconciliation‖ (Statement). N.d.:9pp. The Family. 1995. ―The Love Charter‖ and ―Fundamental Family Rules.‖ Zurich: The Family:218 pp. Family Care Services. 1981. The Childcare Handbook, vol. 1. Zurich: Family Care Services. Home Services. 1988. ―The School Vision!‖ The New Good News GN 329 DO (August): 15pp. -------. 1990. ―Don‘t Be Ignorant of the Devil‘s Devices!—2Cor.2:11.‖—More on ―Informing Our Children‖ by WS [World Services] Staff. The New Good News! GN 430 DO (June):12pp. ("DO" is an internal code, meaning "Disciples Only," that designates who can receive and read the publication.) Kent, Stephen A. 1994. ―Lustful Prophet: A Psychosexual Historical Study of the Children of God‘s Leader, David Berg.‖ Cultic Studies Journal vol. 11(2):135-188. ------. 1992. ―Merry Berg‖ (Unpublished Interview). December 11:84pp. Kent, Stephen A., and Deana Hall. 2000. ―Brainwashing and Re-Indoctrination Programs in the Children of God/The Family.‖ Cultic Studies Journal, vol. 17:56-78;Available at: http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/%7Eskent/Linkedfiles/cog_brainwashing.htm. Kent, Stephen A., and Theresa Krebs. 1998. ―When Scholars Know Sin: Alternative Religions and Their Academic Supporters.‖ Skeptic, vol. 6(3):36-44. Available at: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c25.html. Maria [Karen Zerby]. 1989. ―Flirty Little Teens, Beware!‖ Maria #113 (October). ; Reproduced in Daily Bread, vol. 10. Zurich: World Services, 1992:226-235. ------. 1990. ―JETT/Teen Discipleship Revolution Needed Now!‖ Maria #136 (October). Reproduced in Daily Bread, vol. 10. Zurich: World Services, 1992:612-622. ------. 1992. ―False Accusers in the Last Days!‖ Maria #174 (July); Reproduced in The New Good News 532, November:1-16. ------. 1993a. Getting Back on Track for Jesus!—Part One. Maria #205 (September): 14pp. ------. 1993b. Getting Back on Track for Jesus!—Part Two. Maria #206 (September): 21pp. ------. 1993c. Getting Back on Track for Jesus!—Part Three. Maria #207 (September): 23pp. ------. 1995a. ―An Answer to Him That Asketh Us!‖ Good News 653 (October): 11pp. ------. 1995b. Loving Jesus!—Part 1. Maria #3024 (July); Reproduced in The New Good News 659, December 1995: 20pp. ------. 1995c. Loving Jesus!—Part 5 for Junior Teens. Maria #312Jnr (December); Reproduced in The New Good News 663JNR, January 1996: 20pp. Maria and Peter. 2000. ―None of These Things Move Me!‖ (Internet download): [42pp]. CM/FM [Charter Members/Family Members] 3307. ------. 2002. ―Pray, Obey and Prepare.‖ CM [Charter Members] 3420 (September) (Internet download). Excerpts retrieved from MovingOn.org, May 31, 2003. McMillon, Andrew. 2002. ―Growing Up and Leaving the Children of God.‖ FAIR News, Issue 2:13-16. McNeil, Julia. 2003. ―Moving On: Creating an On-Line Community for the Second Generation of the Family.‖ Paper presented at the AFF‘s annual conference, June 13-14, 2003, at Chapman University, Orange, California; Available at: http://www.movingon.org/article.asp?sID=4&Cat=46&ID=1389. MG. 2002. ―Events after the Teen Revolt.‖ (May 3 [repost]) (Internet download). Retrieved from http://www.exfamily.og/chabbs/acad/posts/168.htm, June 1, 2003. Mulgrew, Ian and Mark Budgen. 1983. ―B.C. Officials Seize 13 Children After Claim that One Molested.‖ Globe and Mail [Canada] (February 24): 10. Ricky. 2002. ―Life With Grandpa—The Mene Story.‖ (Internet download), Retrieved from http://movingon.org/print.asp?sID=3&CAT=25&ID=445, February 19, 2004. Roselle, Daniel. 2003. ―The Vandari Prophecy: The Family/COG‘s Response to Their Estranged Children.‖ Paper Presented at the AFF‘s annual conference, June 13-14, 2003, at Chapman

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University, Orange, California; Available at: http://www.movingon.org/article.asp?sID=4&Cat=46&ID=1390. Techi, Dora. 1982. Techi’s Life Story. Zurich: World Services:chapters 1-38. Van Zandt, David E. 1991. Living in the Children of God. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ward, The Right Honourable Lord Justice Alan. 1995. ―Principal Registry in the Matter of ST (a Minor) and in the Matter of the Supreme Court Act 1991.‖ w 42 1992 In the High Court of Justice, Family Division. London, October 19:295pp. World Services. 1979. ―My Little Fish!‖ Zurich: World Services:5pp. ------. 1985. Daily Bread, vol. II. Zurich: World Services.

*David Berg used several pseudonyms over the years. All publications that came from Berg list him as the first author. Second names, in brackets (e.g., [Mo]) are the pseudonyms under which Berg published that particular piece. Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, University of Alberta, teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the sociology of religion and the sociology of sectarian groups. He has published articles in numerous sociology and religious study journals. His 2001 book, From Slogans to Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era, was selected by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries as an "Outstanding Academic Title for 2002." This article is an electronic version of an article originally published in Cultic Studies Review 2004, Volume 3, Number 1, pages 56-72. Please keep in mind that the pagination of this electronic reprint differs from that of the bound volume. This fact could affect how you enter bibliographic information in papers that you may write.

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New Summaries Ananda Strong Psychological Pressure to Gain Followers’ Property Nine people heading the Ananda, an international religious association based in Nocera Umbra [sic], Italy, near Perugia, have been arrested and accused of inducing followers, ―under strong psychological pressure,‖ to turn over their possessions to the organization. The charges include coercion into slavery and swindling the mentally incompetent. (Perugia, Internet, 3/2/04)

Apostles and Prophets Church of Jesus Government Ban Uganda police have moved to shut down the Apostles and Prophets Church of Jesus, a group in the Kanungu District, fearing a mass suicide like the one involving The Restoration of the Ten Commandments movement. The Apostles, based in Kampala, Uganda, and with a branch in Kanungu, have reportedly sold off their property and are waiting for a dramatic event that will take them to heaven. (Catholic World News, Internet, 2/20/04)

Aum Shinrikyo/Aleph Death Sentence Aum Shinrikyo chemist Masami Tsuchiya has been sentenced to death for leading the effort to create the nerve gas used in the group‘s 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway that killed 12 and injured thousands. Prosecutors said Tsuchiya, the eleventh Aum member to be sentenced to death, was second in responsibility for the attack only to Aum leader Shoko Asahara. (AP, Internet, 1/30/04) Guru Allegedly Influenced Followers in Prison Prosecutor‘s say that Aum Shinrikyo leader Shoko Asahara, now awaiting sentencing for the 1995 Tokyo subway poison gassing, wrote letters to followers — while they were in custody and he himself had not yet been arrested — successfully urging them not to renounce him and not to cooperate with authorities. ―The effect of the letters was tremendous,‖ said a senior prosecutor. ―Many followers changed their minds after having decided to leave the cult. (Yomiuri Shimbun, Internet, 2/12/04) Many Return to Aum Some 120 of 450 Aum Shinriko members arrested in the wake of the 1995 poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway have returned to the group, now called Aleph, following their release or after serving their prison terms. (AP, Internet, 2/13/04) Shoko Asahara Sentenced to Death Aum Shinrikyo guru Chizuo Matsumoto [also known as Shoko Asahara] has been sentenced to death for masterminding the series of crimes that included the 1994 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system and the murders of a lawyer and his family in 1989. Reflecting national interest, 4,600 people lined up for the 38 seats open to the public in the courtroom. Matsumoto showed no emotion as a judge read the sentence, then smirked and occasionally groaned as he heard the reasoning behind the decision. He was the twelfth sentenced to death among 189 indicted in Aum-related cases.

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Judge Ogawa said Matsumoto had ordered his followers to commit the crimes, and rejected the defense argument that the guru had lost control of them and that they acted on their own initiative. The trial lasted eight years because the defense denied all the charges in order to prolong the proceedings. To expedite matters, prosecutors reduced the number of sarin attack plaintiffs from 3,900 to 18 in December 1997. Nevertheless, 256 hearings took place during the trial, the second highest number in the history of the Tokyo District Court. (Yomiuri Shimbun, Internet, 2/28/04) Mind Control Not Seen as Mitigating Factor The mind control defense argued by Aum Shinrikyo members sentenced to death or life in prison for the group‘s crimes had little if any effect on the decisions, although the court in some cases seems to have recognized the commanding influence of guru Shoko Asahara. In one case, the Tokyo District Court determined the accused was in ―a state of absolute obedience to the guru, in which it was unthinkable to refuse his orders.‖ Yet the judge went on to say: ―It is very common in organized crimes that a member of a lower rank blindly follows the orders of his senior, [but] that does not lessen his criminal responsibility.‖ Journalist Yoshifu Arita says the court failed to understand that Shoko Asahara used brainwashing techniques, including religious visions induced by LSD in unsuspecting followers, to get them to do his bidding. Arita says Yoshihiro Inoue, the commander of the 1995 subway attack, received a iife sentence rather than death after the judge allowed him to undergo psychoanalysis, which indicated Asahara still controlled his mind. A religious studies professor at Tokyo University who counseled Inoue criticized the court for not allowing other Aum members to receive similar treatment. ―Cultists,‖ he said, ―were not given a chance to look back and repent, and were just sentenced to death, as if that was the objective of the trial. Those in the judiciary feel they are above having to learn (about mind control) even if that may be relevant.‖ But a professor of criminal law at Chuo University said remorse, or the mind control argument, should not be mitigating factors in verdicts for the kinds of crimes that were committed. He said mind control was too elusive an argument to determine punishment, especially for Aum members, who voluntarily joined. (Yumi Wijers-Hasegawa, Japan Times, Internet, 2/24/04) Ex-Member Groups Retain Doctrine More than 60 former Aum members have set up at least five new, apparently independently acting groups based on the doctrine of Aum founder Chizuo Matsumoto (Shoko Asahara), according to police. Aum, now named Aleph, has at least 630 members active in Tokyo, police say, with about 300 more in Moscow, where in 1999 Russian authorities uncovered a plot to free Matsumoto. (Yomiuri Shimbun, Internet, 2/27/04) Why They Joined The young people who joined Aum Shinrikyo had not been rebellious teens, nor did they have violent tendencies before becoming members, according to Taro Takimoto, a lawyer who for many years fought Aum, which once tried to kill him. ―They were from good, stable households and were normal kids,‖ he said. But this made them more vulnerable than others. ―Many . . . were naïve about the corrupt nature of some people in society . . . They joined Aum with the true belief that they were going to make the world a better place,‖ Takimoto said. Andrew Marshall, the author of The Cult at the End of the World: The Incredible Story of Aum, says the ―straight-jacketed‖ Japanese educational system made youth vulnerable because it did not nurture their critical faculties. Ian Reader, a lecturer in religious studies at Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 46

Leeds University, in the U.K., says Japan‘s traditional Buddhist and Shinto religions fulfill cultural rather than emotional needs, and former leader Asharah‘s followers ―were looking for something more spiritually nourishing.‖ (Sahar Buckley, BBC News Online, Internet, 2/26/04) Recruits Reflected Japanese Society Many Aum Shinrikyo members turned out to be science graduates because people with superior reasoning abilities, who tend to see the limits of reason and knowledge, seek a simpler path, like Aum‘s, in their search for happiness. If this were the 1960s, they might have become political activists. In addition, Aum‘s doctrine and sins should not be discussed separately, since ―there was something inherently anti-social and criminal in the founder‘s doctrine. The more ‗pious‘ the disciple, the more determined he or she was to live up to the guru‘s message — that to bring salvation to the world, Aum should even work evil.‖ An additional reason for the rise of Aum, one stimulated by the collapse of the Japanese economic ―bubble,‖ is a new popular sympathy for the three ―principles‖ or systems that supported pre-World War II Japan — the emperor system, state Shintoism, and the military— which were denounced after the war as the causes of the nation‘s ruin. One can see a similarity between the processes by which Japan ―marched inexorably toward war‖ and by which Aum became a ―homicidal entity . . . Aum emerged from a crack in the era, a monstrous caricature or scaled-down version of Japanese society.‖ Aum leader Chizuo Matsumoto (Shoko Asahara) provided the basic religious training that ―must have been a refreshing experience‖ for former science students. And for this particular generation of people who were raised to gauge their own worth by test scores, the Aum system of promotion by merit worked perfectly.‖ (Keiji Ueshima, former professor of religious anthropology, Asahi Shimbun, Internet, 3/23/04) Asahara’s Defense Lawyers Got $4.5 Million Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara’s eleven state-appointed lawyers received some $4.5 million from the government for their services, provided over a span of almost eight years. (Mainichi Shimbun, Internet, 4/17/04) New Aum Businesses Aum has set up ten businesses across Japan run by live-in followers with the stated goal of helping victims of its crimes. The government believes. However, that the real aim is to increase the organization‘s revenue. Some members work at outside companies and contribute part of their salaries to the group. (Kyodo News Service in Japan Today, Internet, 4/16/04) Victims Call for Compensation Victims of Aum’s 1995 sarin gas attack, reiterating previous appeals, have petitioned both the prime minister and the governor of Tokyo to take responsibility and pay compensation. (Kyodo News Service in Japan Today, Internet, 4/16/04) Banned from Philippines The Bureau of Immigration has banned two Aum members from entering the country. An official said that although there was no evidence the two planned a terrorist attack, ―the government cannot take chances by allowing the entry of aliens who are considered threats to our peace and security.‖ (G. DeLosSantos, ABC-CBN, Internet, 4/19/04)

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The Body/Attleboro Cult/Karen Robidoux Mother Acquitted of Murder in Starvation of Infant Karen Robidoux has been found not guilty of second-degree murder in the starvation death of her infant son Samuel while she was a member of The Body, a small Attleboro, MA-based sect that refuses, on religious grounds, to seek medical treatment. But the jury found her guilty of assault and battery in the case for bowing to sect pressure and the Godinspired vision of a fellow member not to feed solid food to the already weaned 10-monthold. Robidoux‘s lawyer, Joseph Krowski Jr., argued that she was psychologically and emotionally battered by her husband Jacques — found guilty last year of murder in the child‘s death — and other members who forced her to continue to try, albeit in vain, to breastfeed. Krowski did not maintain that Robidoux — isolated from the rest of society for virtually her whole life, and the mother of two out-of-wedlock children by the age of 16 — was mentally ill or insane, but rather that she was a victim of mind control. Two mental health specialists testified that Robidoux suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and a Department of Mental Health forensic psychologist told the court that the order for Robidoux to breastfeed Samuel every hour of every day might have drastically impaired her ability to make rational decisions. Ex-member Nicole Kidson, daughter of sect founder Roland Robidoux, said women in The Body were submissive ―baby machines. . . You felt like a cow — nursing and pregnant all the time. . . It‘s a prison. Where are you going to go? Especially with your kids. I was fortunate enough to have a husband with a head on his shoulders or I would still be there today.‖ A ―vision‖ that banned eyeglasses in the group once meant Kidson and another member had to rely on friends and family to drive them around; she broke the rule and was banished. Kidson reports that visions became extreme in the late 1990s as the group withdrew from what was seen as the satanic systems of the modern world such as government, medicine, and entertainment. Krowski hopes the case will spur more research into mind control and cults. After anguishing over whether to advise Robidoux to plea bargain for a 10-year prison term, he says he decided a jury would acquit her of murder if they learned about her life and experience. ―Karen‘s story got told,‖ he said. Prosecutor Walter Shea stated: ―What‘s confusing about the verdict is how they could find that she did in fact take part in the assault, but not to the extent that includes the death of the child.‖ The jury foreman said the jury searched for proof that Robidoux acted jointly with her husband to murder Samuel but could not find it. ―Obviously, she was present, but we determined her intent was not to kill the baby. If the prosecutor did not bring this case as a joint venture, the results may have been different. I am satisfied by the verdict. I feel that she had to bear some responsibility.‖ He said the verdict was not based on mind control or battered woman‘s syndrome, but solely on intent. Michelle Mingo, whose vision instigated the starvation, faces charges of being an accessory to the crime, while others, who failed to intervene, were not charged. Robidoux has now entered MeadowHaven, a treatment center for former cult members. Founders Robert and Judith Pardon say that ―eighty percent of the therapy that goes on here‖ — the typical stay is six to eight months — ―is outside of the formal therapy.‖ Treatment will involve interacting with other residents (some of whom hold part-time jobs outside the center), understanding the cult experience, and making peace with her past. The Pardon‘s court-requested interviews of members of The Body, and the couple‘s review Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 48

of sect member journals, led last year to the removal of 13 children from sect parents‘ custody, including Robidoux‘s. The Pardons, devout Christians, say they don‘t impose their faith on anyone. Their website says: ―Christian love and care will under gird programs of spiritual restoration, emotional healing and acquiring life skills.‖ They say they distinguish ―aberrant‖ Christian groups from ―cults,‖ adding that not all aberrant groups are destructive enough to be labeled cults. Pardon once served as pastor of the First Congregational Church in nearby Middleboro. MA. His wife holds a master‘s degree in psychology. (John Element, Boston Globe, 2/3/04; Dave Wedge, Boston Herald, Internet, 1/24/02 and 2/4/04; Michelle McKinney, Providence Journal, Internet, 1/24/04; Jeannette Barnes, New Bedford Standard Times, Internet, 2/5/04; David Linton, Attleboro Sun Chronicle, Internet, 2/6/04)

Dutroux, Marc/ Child Abuse He Allegedly Brainwashed Children A Belgian prosecutor who led the investigation says that Marc Dutroux, accused of kidnapping, imprisoning, and raping six girls, and killing four of them, brainwashed two of the survivors so well that they thought their liberators were part of a gang he said was after them. Jean-Marc Conneroite testified that the girls, then 12 and 14, kissed Dutroux when he led police to the dungeon where he kept them. Some of the witnesses in the case are using the term ―network‖ to imply that Dutroux was part of a pedophile ring. (BBC News, Internet, 3/4/04)

Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Ex-Member Threatened with Death The conflict over leadership within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) continues even as the states of Utah and Arizona become more involved in investigating allegations of bigamy, incest, underage marriages, sexual abuse of children, and welfare fraud said to be rampant in the polygamous communities of Colorado City, AZ and the adjacent Hilldale, UT. Ross Chatwin, one of a score of members recently excommunicated by FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, has refused to leave his home and family as ordered. ―This Hitler-like dictator has got to be stopped before he ruins us all and this beautiful town,‖ said Chatwin. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff calls the FLDS a ―cult‖ and Jeffs a racist ―evil dictator.‖ State investigator Ron Barton says: ―Families are being destroyed.‖ Critics contend that the group brainwashes women to believe they have no other choice. Pam Black, who had 14 children while in an arranged marriage before she was evicted from her home five years ago says: ―We‘re programmed from babyhood to say ‗yes, yes, yes.‘‖ Other critics say the expulsions are connected to Jeffs‘ attempts to consolidate wealth and power. (The FLDS is reportedly worth $100 million.) Colorado City and Hilldale, home to about 10,000 FLDS members, who constitute the great majority of inhabitants, form what is believed to be the center of the American polygamist movement. The attorneys general of both states have been investigating the communities for some time, but have stepped up their efforts in the last year in the wake of several highly publicized prosecutions of polygamists. They say they are developing a plan to assist an expected exodus of women and children from the FLDS towns. The plan includes a special justice center to which they can flee, and fliers and a billboard displaying a domestic abuse hotline number. But no billboard has yet gone up and the hotline, which only operates during the day, advises those who call after hours to dial 911, which gives them local law enforcement, probably staffed by officers associated with the FLDS. The hotline Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 49

coordinator says: ―We have met with people with families down in that area. They‘re going to take our information back down there. Educating them that it‘s a safe place to call is the first thing we have to do.‖ There has as yet been no exodus. Even though Ross Chatwin says the church is notorious for retaliating against dissidents — a former member writing a book about the FLDS has received death threats — he is speaking out, he says, to encourage others to stand up to Jeffs. Chatwin emphasized during a news conference on his front lawn that his argument is not with the church or with plural marriage, only with Jeffs, who two years ago succeeded his father, Rulon Jeffs, as leader. Yet the next day Chatwin and his wife renounced polygamy. She said that when her husband was excommunicated leaders told her to seek a more worthy mate. ―I do not fear that I am risking my salvation by staying [with him].‖ Mrs. Chatwin related how her father told Jeffs he wanted his daughter to marry Chatwin. ―I actually had my eye on another guy, she says, ―but they gave me [the traditional] 24 hours to think it over and I came to a testimony that I should marry Ross. I don‘t have a testimony to leave him.‖ The couple said the marriage was a success. ―We learned to love each other,‖ her husband added. (Church member Eugene Johnson has obtained an injunction to keep Chatwin and his wife from seeing Johnson‘s daughters; Johnson accused Chatwin of trying to woo them as new wives. Chatwin first said the girls simply sought his help to leave the community. Later he admitted that he did, indeed, have some thoughts about taking a second wife.) Anti-polygamist Flora Jessop has removed from a safe house provided by the state two girls who ran away from their FLDS families. She said they would be getting ―a complete makeover,‖ cutting their long hair, wearing makeup, and putting polish on their nails. Jessop, a member of the board of ―Help The Child Brides,‖ recently engineered the removal of director Bob Curran, who had said that her approach jeopardized the group‘s credibility Shurleff says investigators are looking mostly at crimes against women and children, and will soon include organized tax and accounting crimes. But he thinks multiple wives is a more difficult matter. ―If we start charging people with just bigamy all those polygamists who are helping us with investigations of child sexual abuse are going to go underground.‖ Moreover, ―I don‘t have the resources to go after 4.000 people. If we arrest all the men, what happens to all the women and children in those polygamous families?‖ Shurtleff‘s attempts to subpoena information about underage marriages have not yet succeeded, and Jeffs has not answered authorities‘ calls to come forward. ―We are being told that underage marriages are being performed by Warren Jeffs. Then we hear it‘s not happening and they have nothing to hide. Then we‘re hearing from women and children who have been down there that it is happening,‖ Shurtleff said. Community members seem especially suspicious of the state‘s renewed interest because of a raid five decades ago in which many children were rounded up and taken into custody for a time by authorities. Jeremy Kingston, of Utah‘s polygamous Kingston ―clan,‖ was recently sentenced to one year in jail for marrying his 15-year old cousin, who is also his aunt. LuAnn Kingston, who left him last year and went to police, is now with her children in a new marriage, away from the group. She says: ―This has been happening for generations. My mom is married to her uncle and she married him as a minor and they continue to do this. . . they are marrying minors to adults and they are now marrying minors to minors . . . It needs to stop.‖ (Nancy Perkins, Deseret Morning News, Internet, 1/22/04 and 1/26/04; AP in New York Times, Internet, 1/23/04; Hilary Groutage Smith, Salt Lake Tribune, Internet, 1/25/04 and 1/28/04; KLS TV, Internet, 1/26/04; Patrick O‘Driscoll, USA Today, Internet, 1/26/04; Mark Hall, Havasu News, Internet, 2/5/04; Paul Davenport, Casper Star Tribune, Internet, 2/5/04)

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Girl’s Protective Custody Order Rescinded An Arizona judge has vacated a protective order that a 17-year-old obtained against her father‘s reclaiming her after she ran away from her home in the polygamous town of Colorado City, AZ, with her 23-year-old boyfriend. The girl sought the order after an interview with social service officials who, along with other state agencies, are investigating alleged abuses, including underage marriages in polygamous communities in Utah and Arizona controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [FLDS]. The father, Dan Wyman, who gained his own court order against the boyfriend‘s seeing his daughter in order ―to ensure her safety,‖ said: ―People talk about these young girls being married off [in the FLDS towns]. I was just trying to keep her from running off to get married until she‘s older.‖ He said he and his wife and 13 children are a ―peaceful family,‖ but came under state scrutiny when his daughter complained about being punished ―with a few whacks with a willow [in the words of this report]. But Arizona officials found no abuse and the girl remained at home. It is likely now that she will return there from foster care in which the agency placed her. (Hilary G. Smith, Salt Lake Tribune, Internet, 1/31/04) Families Split as Control Tightens The Wylers, of Colorado City, AZ, provide an example of family splits as Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader Warren Jeffs seeks to consolidate his control of the polygamous church by casting out those who will not obey him. Five grown daughters and sons of Marvin Wyler, 59, consider their other 24 siblings apostates. ―This one just broke us clear wide open,‖ says Wyler, who remains a member of the church but does not believe in Jeffs as its prophet. ―That‘s pretty heartbreaking. My grandkids, I can‘t even see. I can‘t even give them a hug.‖ Jeffs forbids members from associating with apostates — whose land the church owns and whose wives are being reassigned to other men. He has canceled group gatherings, church activities, community dances, holiday celebrations and the hanging of American flags. Members who speak to the press risk losing their families and homes to the church. Marvin Wyler‘s son Isaac, whose wives urged him not to leave — they have now been given to other men [so that their souls will be saved] — says: ―Today, only a few will dare to think for themselves. They‘ve been indoctrinated with the idea that their salvation with this life and the life to come depends on this man, so with that, he has all power over everybody.‖ But another of Wyler‘s sons, Stephen Chatwin, says: ―I believe just like father taught me. I don‘t see why he should be sad. We all get our choice of belief.‖ Marvin Wyler says that he became disillusioned with Jeffs when the prophet ordered the congregation to ―fast and pray for the execution of Jason Williams.‖ Williams unsuccessfully sued the church alleging his ex-wife was brainwashed to divorce him and become the plural wife of another man by former prophet Rulon Jeffs, Warren‘s father. ―I couldn‘t go along with it,‖ Wyler says, so church members started shunning him. (Jane Zhang, The Spectrum [So. Utah], Internet, 2/13/04) Federal Grant Sought Utah officials are seeking a $900,000 federal grant from the Department of Justice to help serve victims of domestic violence in rural areas, especially women and children who live in polygamous communities. The money would be used to operate a hotline and provide counseling and legal assistance. (Pamela Manson, Salt Lake Tribune, Internet, 2/11/04)

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Another Perspective on “Runaways” The father of Fawn Broadbent, one of the two Colorado City, AZ, teenagers who ran away from home in the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints community earlier this year, says his daughter had refused to go to school and that he and his wife are now willing to let her live away from them, provided this agreement is not seen as an admission that she was mistreated at home. Esther Holm, the mother of the other runaway, also named Fawn, says her daughter is a loving child but troubled by the departure from the community of some of her brothers. ―She‘s had a really hard time. We know that. We haven‘t talked religion to her in our home for a long time. This is my eighteenth teenager. I‘ve never had anyone take a child away from me. This is just terrible.‖ (Brooke Adams, Salt Lake Tribune, Internet, 2/26/04) Both Fawns are technically in state custody, but officials have not yet been able to locate them for assignment to foster homes. Joni Holm, Fawn‘s sister-in-law, says she speaks with her niece every day, ―but I‘m not going to advise them to come out because I can‘t guarantee their safety.‖ It is said the girls fear being sent home. (Nancy Perkins, Deseret Morning News, Internet, 4/7/04 Ideology of Control Leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) towns in Arizona and Utah control followers through the doctrine that a man must have a least three wives in order to go to heaven, according to Ben Bistline, an excommunicated member, in his new self-published book, The Polygamists: A History of Colorado City, Arizona. He adds that FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, who has been excommunicating men who oppose his policies and very leadership, does not grant wives unless the men are deemed worthy, and worthiness is measured, says Bistline, by the amount of money they give to the people in power. ―Your first responsibility is to the leaders. Your family comes second‖ in a community where the FLDS owns all the property and has the right to evict anyone, says the non-polygamous Bistline. Those who brought Jeffs to power, Bistline adds, ―created a God, and their God got out of control.‖ Bistline calls Jeffs ―an egotistical maniac‖ who ―just does insane things.‖ (Jane Zhang, The Spectrum, South Utah, Internet, 3/17/04) Great Contrast between Two FLDS Towns The town of Centennial Park, AZ, begun 20 years ago by polygamous families when they split with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, appears to be a different kind of society. Unlike the FLDS towns, said one resident, ―We have no political agenda. We don‘t threaten men and we don‘t threaten women.‖ In Centennial Park, in contrast to Colorado City, homes are well kept and neat, rather than unfinished and apparently unplanned, people are friendly to outsiders, church services are open to visitors, and the congregation seems integrated into the surrounding community. One plural wife, for example — who lives with her businessman husband and several other wives in a 33,000 square foot hotel-like home — teaches technology at the local high school. She and her co-wives each have luxurious living quarters, including jetted tubs, balconies, and walk in closets. The approximately 50 children sleep two or three to a room equipped with bath, computer, TV and VCR. ―Ours is a lifestyle choice,‖ says the husband — who asked to remain anonymous — where people stay married. ―Nor is coercion or constraint a factor. If a woman approaches me and wants to join the family, I tell her: ‗Tell me about the exciting things you‘re doing in your life. I want to be stimulated when I talk to you. Don‘t follow three steps behind me.‘ ‖ (Hilary Groutage, Salt Lake Tribune, 3/14/04) Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 52

Controlled Election The recent Colorado City primary election for city council was a sham and indicates the tight control by Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leaders over a population living under the unspoken rule that a break with church authorities, or questioning them, will lead to being thrown out of the community. When asked if residents voted under duress — three church-supported men received, respectively, 95.4 percent, 93.9 percent, and 97.2 percent of the vote — one local man replied, ―absolutely not.‖ ―But the fact is, vote results like this indicate a likelihood of a repressive community where, although residents may be legally allowed to challenge the existing authority, they could risk everything if they don‘t fall in line.‖ Editorial, The Spectrum, South Utah, 3/14/04)

God’s Creation Outreach Ministry Life for Killing Son Christy Edgar, alleged ―ringleader of a group [God’s Creation Outreach Ministry] that tortured little kids and killed one of them,‖ has been sentenced in Olathe, KS, to life in prison for killing her 9-year-old adoptive son. She wrapped him in duct tape as punishment for stealing cookies. The child was left overnight with only his nose uncovered and suffocated at the family home in Overland, Park, KS. Barbara Clark, who helped restrain and gag the child, was sentenced to two years‘ probation. Christy Edgar‘s husband Neil and baby sitter Chastity Boyd were convicted of first-degree murder and child abuse last September and sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole for 20 years. (Stephanie V. Siek, AP, Internet, 1/21/04; AP in Topeka CapitalJournal, Internet, 2/8/04)

Hare Krishna (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) Changing Face The Hare Krishna movement in the United States appears to have outgrown its counterculture image and matured, although the organization is still dealing with a sexual scandal stemming from activities in the 1970s and 1980s. ―It‘s entirely possible these days that a Hare Krishna could be living next door to you and you wouldn‘t know it,‖ says Burke Rochford, a professor at Middlebury College, in Vermont, who has studied the group for three decades. ―They are now just part of the culture in ways that the average person couldn‘t have imagined some 20 or 25 years ago.‖ Many Hare Krishna — Rochford estimates there are now 50,000 devotees in the U.S. — live with their families outside the group‘s temples, work in a full range of occupations, and dress like people in the mainstream rather than in the saffron robes that made them famous. A latter-day emphasis on family includes encouragement to maintain ties with relatives outside the Krishna community. Proselytizing, once found annoying by outsiders, has diminished in favor of what some characterize as attending to the needs of existing members. ―The shift from just monks and nuns to a more congregation-based religion has really led to openness and has had consequences in a lot of areas,‖ according to Maria Ekstrand, a member of the group and co-editor of the forthcoming book, The Hare Krishna Movement: the Post Charismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant. (Michael Kress, Dallas Morning News, Internet, 3/19/04) Moscow Demonstration against Hare Krishna Two thousand members of the Russian Orthodox Church recently demonstrated in Moscow against the planned Hare Krishna cultural center on land donated by the city. They Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 53

protested that the organization was a brainwashing totalitarian cult with no connection to traditional Hinduism and no place in Moscow. In January, a coalition of Orthodox, Muslim, and Jewish leaders declared themselves against the center because it would not fit in with Russian traditions. (Citoyen, Internet, 3/22/04)

Harrod, Allen Two Life Sentences Self-proclaimed prophet Allen Harrod has been sentenced to two life prison terms plus 62 years for molesting, in weekly sexual ―offerings,‖ four children, three of them his own. Harrod told the court that those who didn‘t follow him would be damned. His 18-year-old son told the court: ―I just want to say to my mother and father that I‘m not their slave anymore. I won‘t do what they want anymore. The bars are between us so you can live your life and I‘ll live mine. Happily. Well, at least I‘ll be happy.‖ (AP in San Francisco Chronicle, Internet, 2/24/04)

International Churches of Christ Recruiting at U of Oregon The International Church of Christ (ICOC), banned from a number of campuses in the US and Canada, and having lost thousands of members in recent years following revelations of financial abuse and authoritarian control of followers, is now recruiting among students at the University of Oregon, in Eugene. Church founder Kip McKean, senior minister in the ICOC Portland church, who has sent 18 members to proselytize among the 30,000 students at nine colleges in the Eugene area, acknowledged that some campus bans for ―over-the-top‖ proselytizing were justified. ―Someone would say, ‗I‘d rather not come to your church,‘ and if we pressed it again, then we‘re ‗harassing‘ — that‘s the buzzword,‖ he said. McKean agreed there was some truth to charges of excessive control of members, but said the church has worked hard to correct any abuses. ―There definitely was a problem, but absolutely we‘ve addressed it.‖ Nonetheless, several former members who live in the area have mounted a flier campaign warning students against involvement. Chad Reyes says he was pressured to recruit members and tithe 10 percent. When he fell short he said he was told he was ―‗in sin‘ and not in relationship with God,‖ and that questioning his mentor was like questioning God. He said there were many young people ―who will drop everything to be a fry cook until they can be a disciple,‖ if that‘s what they‘re told to do. McKean, he added, ―taps into that zeal . . . he loves campuses and young people.‖ (Jeff Wright, Eugene Register-Guard, Internet, 1/26/04)

Jehovah’s Witnesses Not Found Liable in Child Abuse Case A Minnesota Court of Appeals Panel has ruled that a Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation in Annandale is not liable for the sexual abuse in the 1980s and 1990s of two child congregants by one of its members. Though elders received a complaint of abuse at the time, and didn‘t report it immediately to authorities, they weren‘t responsible for protecting the girls, the court said. The victims, now grown up, say they followed the Witnesses doctrine to report abuse to the elders, rather than to law enforcement or anyone else, and that the elders told them to stay silent or risk their membership in the group. The court said the church wasn‘t responsible because it didn‘t have control of custody of the girls when the abuse happened — away from church premises, at the perpetrator‘s home. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 54

The women‘s attorney says the ruling gives the Witnesses the freedom to live by their own laws and not the rule of mandatory reporting. (Pam Louwagie, Minneapolis /St. Paul Star Tribune, Internet, 3/10/04)

Juan Pablo Delgado Doomsday Vision Father Alfredo Prado, a San Antonio, TX, Catholic priest, now being accused of molesting boys 30 years ago, is serving as spiritual advisor to Juan Pablo Delgado, leader of a cult in Costa Rica, who predicts the end of the world and believes he will become Pope. Parents are leaving their boys in Delgado‘s settlement because, Delgado says, the Virgin Mary told him they should do so. Delgado dresses like a priest and his hands and feet are stained with blood, Christ-like. Catholic Church leaders in Cost Rica are outraged by what they see as a sham, and the child welfare group Casa Alianza calls Delgado‘s ministry ―a rip off.‖ Allegiance to Delgado stretches back to San Antonio, and a number of families have been spit as a result of one or another spouse going to join him. Costa Rican Alvaro Matamore, whose wife and daughter left him for Delgado says of the Costa Rican priest: ―He‘s a very temperamental person. Sometimes he‘s calm, normal. Then, he‘s aggressive, violent. For example, one time he broke an image of the Virgin Mary just because he didn‘t like it. He demanded a new one. In my opinion, he‘s crazy, just like a lot of people who are following him.‖ (Holly Whisenhunt, WAOI, San Antonio, Internet, 2/13/03)

Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) 337 Massacred The Lord’s Resistance Army massacred 337 people last month, mostly civilians living in a displaced persons camp. Led by self-proclaimed mystic Joseph Kony, ―LRA rebels have abducted and brainwashed hundreds of children and forced them to fight for it, spreading fear throughout northern Uganda, paralyzing economic activity, and defying attempts to crush them.‖ (Reuters, Internet, 3/16/04)

Lyndon LaRouche Recruiting on Campus Followers of Lyndon LaRouche, who have set up a recruiting table on Sproul Plaza at the University of California, Berkeley, are meeting daily in an office in downtown Oakland. Most of them are college dropouts in their late teens or early twenties — some having severed contact with friends and family. They are dedicated to spreading LaRouche‘s belief that the world financial system is collapsing and that he is the one to save it. After attending one of the group‘s meetings, UC Berkeley freshman Andrew Lai was asked to drop out and become a full-time organizer for LaRouche. Followers maintain a rigorous recruiting schedule, attend regional conventions and ―Cadre Schools‖ — weekend camps where they study LaRouche and his ideas, which include the notion that Queen Elizabeth II is the center of a drug conspiracy, and the belief that Sir Isaac Newton was a pagan worshipper. A LaRouche organizer says some think the group is a cult simply because it espouses unpopular ideas. (David Cohn, Daily Californian, Internet, 2/11/04)

Mind Control/Mental Manipulation Letter Protests Italian Law on “Mental Manipulation” A number of scholars and researchers [many noted for their defense of cults and new religious movements] have signed a letter to the president of Italy, on the letterhead of CESNUR [the Center for Studies of New Religions], protesting the Senate Judicial Commission‘s approval of a draft law creating the crime of “mental manipulation” and Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 55

proposing a two to six year jail term for the use of ―personality conditioning or suggestion techniques capable of excluding or greatly limiting the capacity to make free choices.‖ The law, according to the CESNUR letter, proposes even greater penalties when a group is accused [in the reported words of the law] of ―practicing or sponsoring activities aimed at creating or exploiting the physical or psychological dependence of members.‖ The signatories say ―there is in Italy a legitimate concern with crimes committed by a handful of religious minorities and with frauds perpetrated by some psychics. In our experience however, these concerns are much more effectively addressed by the enforcement of existing laws on common criminal activities . . . Special laws against ‗sects‘ and ‗cults‘ endanger the religious liberty of every citizen.‖ (CESNUR, Internet, 4/5/04)

Mungiki School for Killing Kenya‘s outlawed Mungiki sect indoctrinates young men to murder or execute the group‘s adversaries, police say. They recently arrested sect members found in a Nairobi slum taking the ―bagation‖ oath, which initiates them into a Mungiki ―death squad.‖ Mungiki [which appears to be a Mafia-like organization trying to dominate the taxi and private transport system in the capital], has been in open conflict with authorities for a number of years. Police found paraphernalia including human hair and a fly whisk, as well as a human body with some parts missing, and a register of concoctions to be taken during the oathing, including human urine, human umbilical cords, and snuff. Officials have called on Mungiki members to follow former leader Ndura Waruinge, leave the group, and convert to Christianity. (Evelyn Kwamboka, East African Standard, Internet, 3/8/04)

Polygamy Bill to Criminalize Bigamy The Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved a bill to create the crime of child bigamy, which would making it a felony for a married adult to marry a child or otherwise cohabit as husband and wife with a child. The proposed law would also make it illegal to arrange such marriages or cohabitations. The bill is aimed at polygamists who marry teenage girls, a practice found in the neighboring polygamous communities of Colorado City, AZ, and Hilldale, UT, peopled by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A similar law passed in Utah last year was invoked to successfully prosecute a polygamist there. (Paul Davenport, AP, Internet, 2/12/04) Issue for Hmong Refugees The Deputy head of Thailand‘s Internal Security Operations Command is concerned about reports that at least one U.S. state would limit potential immigrants among the Hmong people to men with only one wife. Large numbers of Hmong people, former allies of the U.S. in Laos during the Vietnam War, among whom polygamy is widespread, have been living in Thai refugee camps for many years. The official said that such a denial would be ―against human rights.‖ Anthony Newman, of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said that in practice the issue of polygamy was negotiable. ―On paper they can have one wife only. But in reality they can all move together to the United States and stay together as a family group.‖ [There have been reports of abuse of women in polygamous marriages among the Hmong already settled in the U.S.]. (BBC News, Internet, 3/2/04)

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Satanic Cults “Monster of Florence” Case Reopened Authorities in Florence, Italy, have reopened after almost two decades their investigation of a series of murders because they now suspect that a satanic cult ordered the killings and kept the body parts as prizes in a ―refrigerator of horror‖ in a town in Tuscany. Investigators believe that a doctor, who was himself murdered during the period, was part of a group that shot and ritually mutilated eight couples during romantic trysts at the villa between 1968 and 1985. Authorities are now investigating a pharmacist and questioning a businessman and a lawyer. ―Silence of the Lambs‖ author Thomas Harris attended the trial of a laborer linked to the crimes in order to ―work and gather data.‖ (Reuters, Internet, 1/23/04) Therapists Will Pay for Destructive Treatment Two therapists who persuaded a patient falsely that she had been the victim of her family‘s alleged satanic cult practices have reached a settlement in Cook County (Chicago) Circuit Court with the victim, Elizabeth Gale. Dr. Bennett Braun will pay $500,000 and the Rush Medical Center, with which he was associated, will pay $3.6 million, while psychologist Roberta Sachs will pay $3.1 million. Braun ran a nationally recognized clinic, and his lawyer said he and his associates were using accepted treatment — recovered memory therapy for multiple personality disorders — when Gale was a patient. Gale said the therapists told her she needed help to recover memories hidden beneath layers of multiple personalities. She says she spent more than 2,000 days in psychiatric hospitals over eleven years, cut off contact with her family, changed her name three times, underwent sterilization, and fled Chicago to escape detection by the alleged cult. She also left her job as a legal secretary, quit her business studies at DePaul University, and distanced herself from her friends. (Hal Dardick, Chicago Tribune, Internet, 2/13/04) P&G Suit Versus Amway May Continue Proctor & Gamble has asked the federal appeals court in Austin, TX, to reinstate its Texas lawsuit against Amway over rumors, allegedly spread by a group of Amway distributors, that P&G is linked to Satanic cults. Rumors begun in the 1970s linked P&G‘s former crescent-shaped ―man in the moon‖ logo to Satanism, and said that the P&G president was associated with the Church of Satan. P&G says an Amway distributor in Utah revived the latter rumor on the Amway national voice mail system in 1995. The case has been dismissed by several other appeals courts in recent years. (Jim Verturo, Salt Lake Tribune, Internet, 4/9/04)

Scientology Group’s Program in Schools Scientology is using fronts called ―Drug Free Ambassadors‖ and ―Kids for A Drug Free Future‖ to dupe Australian city councils in Frankston, Whitehorse, and Yarra into giving them information booths and stage time at family events. Booklets handed out by Scientology at the public Sea Festival look like government publications. A Scientology spokesman said: ―I don‘t think we need to say we‘re Scientologists.‖ Scientology was outlawed in the state of Victoria in 1965 following an inquiry into its activities but was later allowed to operate again. (Liam Houlihan, Herald Sun, Internet, 1/31/04) Anti-Psychiatry Campaign Scientology’s anti-psychiatry/anti-drug medication campaign has reached Massachusetts with the introduction of a bill in the State Senate, promoted by Scientology‘s Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), that seeks to require doctors to provide parents with information from the Physician’s Desk Reference Family Guide to Prescription Drugs about a Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 57

medication‘s possible side effects. The bill would require a parent or guardian‘s signature before prescribing Ritalin, Prozac, and other common psychotropic medications. The bill‘s sponsor said he was unaware that a CCHR official had written it. The bill, which reflects Scientology‘s opposition to medical treatment for mental illness, and has been almost unanimously rejected by the medical establishment, could delay treatment and discriminate against mentally ill patients, critics say. They add that the requirements would limit informed consent if doctors rely on an official information sheet rather than a lengthy dialogue with the patient about the medication. Addressing the issue of side effects, the president of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society said: ―There is a massive body of scientific evidence that shows that these disorders [that the drugs in question treat] have a medical basis and respond to medical treatment.‖ (Benjamin Gedan, Boston Globe, Internet, 3/4/04) Banned in Bashkortistan The Supreme Court in the Bashkortistan region of Russia has banned the Scientology Dianetics Center in the city of Ufa because the Scientology ―audit‖ or ―confession‖ [in the words of the report] drives its congregants out of their minds. A psychiatrist at the Ufa Psychiatric and Neurological Clinic said that the Scientology processes led to specific psychiatric disturbances that destabilized mental health. A Scientology spokesman said psychiatrists want to make sure people don‘t improve themselves and the world so that they, the psychiatrists, can control everything. The Scientology center remains open pending an appeal of the ban. (Russia TV, BBC Monitoring, Internet, 3/11/04) Court Challenge to Tax Break In a case with great potential ramifications, a Jewish couple, Michael and Karla Sklar, has sued to deduct the cost of their five children‘s religious education using the argument that the federal government has allowed such a tax deduction to Scientologists — and to members of no other religious organization. Scientologists were allowed the deduction under an officially secret 1993 agreement with the IRS [to settle tax claims], even though a 1989 Supreme Court ruling denied tax deductions for money paid as fees set by Scientology for its ―auditing‖ and ―training‖ services. The Sklars lost a similar case a decade ago, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in Los Angeles) two years later also ruled against them. But in doing so the appeal judges said it appeared to be true that Scientology received preferential tax treatment in violation of the First Amendment. ―Why is Scientology training different from all other religious training?‖ asked Judge Barry Silverman in his opinion. He replied that the question could not be answered immediately because the court was not dealing then with the question of whether or not ―members of the Church of Scientology have become the IRS‘s chosen people.‖ He went on to recommend litigation to determine whether the government is improperly favoring one religion. Scientology appears to argue that the activities for which its members are allowed to deduct fees are religious services, or observances, rather than the kind of religious education for which the Sklars have unsuccessfully claimed deductions. (David Cay Johnston, New York Times, 3/24/04)

Tvind (Humana) Group Sought Troubled Youth Leaders of Tvind, the Denmark-based charity that collects used clothing in developed countries and sells it in developing countries, reportedly tried to recruit foster children and Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 58

juvenile delinquents in Dowagiac, MI, to work in its operation. Tvind has been accused of cultic controls over idealistic youth it has recruited for its operations in the U.S., Europe, and the developing world. Tvind last year applied for a permit in Dowagiac to operate a 15-bed boarding school for state wards with drug problems, behavior disorders, and criminal backgrounds. A Tvind representative said the young people would ―help the truck drivers to collect clothes from used clothes containers, or help in one of the shops, or repair and upgrade used clothes containers. It‘s good to do good.‖ When Dowagiac residents protested that property values would decline if the facility were established, the Planning Commission denied the Tvind application. Tvind Chicago director Eva Nielson says that the youth would benefit from working for Tvind. She said troubled youth have to be busy all the time or they will make trouble. And they have to learn about different aspects of life.‖ Moreover, she said, at ‗Gaia‘ [one aspect of the Tvind program] the youth would learn about ―environmental things. It would be good for them.‖ (David Jackson, Chicago Tribune, Internet, 2/12/04)

Unification Church Ballet Link to Moon Fading The Unification Church-financed Universal Ballet Company has since its inception two decades ago substantially shed the popular perception that it is connected with the controversial church. New York Times and New York Post art critics have praised the company, which is headed by Juliqa H. Moon, Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon‘s daughter-in-law. (Kim Min-hee, Korean Herald, Internet, 2/20/04) Prejudice Alleged Missouri Republican Party delegate John Lawlor has sworn out a warrant against fellow Republican Peter Hayes alleging Hayes struck him during an altercation just after the party convention when he, Lawlor, tauntingly called Hayes a ―Moonie‖ several times. Hayes reports: ―I said, ‗You don‘t call people Moonies.‘ Just like you don‘t call a black person a nigger or a Jewish person a Kike.‘ ‖ Hayes says Lawlor blocked his candidacy to be a delegate because he is a member of the Unification Church. (Joseph Gerth, Courier Journal, Internet, 4/16/04) Church Awards at Senate Office Building The Unification Church’s International Federation for World Peace honored church founder The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, 84, and his wife, as well a number of other religious and civic leaders at its ―Crown of Peace Awards in late March at the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Recipients included seven members of Congress and The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, former District of Columbia delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, honored for his civil rights work and efforts to make low-income communities prosper. (Cheryl Wetzstein, Washington Times, 3/24/04) [The Rev. Moon owns The Washington Times.]

United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors Issuing Own “Official” Documents The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, followers of Malachi York [recently convicted of systematic sexual abuse of children in the group], now call themselves the Yamasee Native American Moors of the Creek Nation and say they have the right to issue their own official documents. Nuwaubian official Michael Jenkins told the Macon, GA, City Council that the Yamassee had made a treaty with the state to issue it‘s own driver‘s licenses, birth certificates, and automobile license plates.

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Local authorities have issued citations to drivers of cars displaying only Yamasee plates. One driver, Kevin Anthony Love, provided police with an identification card in the name of Sekhem Re Khem Love El and papers purporting to show he had diplomatic immunity. Since its inception in 1967, in New York, the Nuwaubians have identified alternately with Christians, Jews, ancient Egyptians, cowboys, and Native Americans. York once said he was from another planet. (Liz Fabian, Macon Telegraph, Internet, 2/22/04) York Sentenced to 135 Years Nuwaubian leader Malachi York has been sentenced to 135 years in federal prison, without the chance of parole. His attorney says he will file an appeal because some of the witnesses against York have allegedly recanted their testimonies. Before sentencing, York told the court he did not get a fair trial and that the jury consisted of the judge‘s peers, not his own. ―The case,‖ he said, ―had nothing to do with child molestation . . . I‘m being prosecuted for my religious beliefs.‖ Regarding his claim to be a Native American, he said: ―I know you look at the color of my skin or the texture of my hair and decide that I‘m not a native American Indian. But I am Chief Black Thunderbird.‖ (Sharon E. Crawford, Macon Telegraph, Internet, 4/23/04)

Yongsaenggyo Leader Sentenced to Death Cho Hui-song, head of the Yongsaenggyo cult, has been sentenced to death by the Suwon District (South Korea) Court for ordering assistants to kill six followers between 1990 and 1992 because they challenged his doomsday vision or threatened to reveal what he had done. One of the assistants received a life term and two others were sentenced to 15 and 12 years respectively. (Kim Ryan, Korea Times, Internet, 2/2/04)

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Electronic Edition

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Predicaments: The Truth, Deceit, and Issues Surrounding Falun Gong Frank Tian Xie, Ph.D. Department of Marketing Drexel University Tracey Zhu, M.D. New Haven, CT Editor's Note: This paper is a revised version of a presentation given at AFF's conference in Enfield, Connecticut, October 17-18, 2003. It includes an appendix, a statement by Mr. Gang Chen, also presented at the conference. It is part of an ongoing print dialogue concerning Falun Gong and the Chinese government. Other articles on this subject include: Rosedale (2002), Langone (2003), Luo (2003), Rahn (2003), Robbins (2003), and Rosedale (2003). On April 23, 2004 AFF's directors approved a statement clarifying the organization's position on Falun Gong and the Chinese government.

Abstract This paper presents the point of views of two practitioners in Falun Gong. The authors intend to give their personal accounts of the issues, explain what Falun Gong really is and is not, discuss the deceit of the Chinese government, explain the motivations behind the persecution of Falun Gong in China, and respond to the issues and questions raised at previous American Family Foundation (AFF) conferences and publications. In addition, the authors offer a caveat to scholars in the field about the limitation of conducting research on qigong and cultivation under the auspices of empiricism and positivism. Key words: Falun Dafa, Falun Gong, cultivation, China, persecution, qigong I. What Exactly Is Falun Dafa (Falun Gong)? 1. Falun Gong is a Cultivation Practice Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, was introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in 1992 as a form of qigong. The term ―qigong‖ appeared during the Great Cultural Revolution and became popular in China since the 1960‘s. Modern in its name only, it actually represents many forms of cultivation practices, including those in the Taoist and Buddhist schools, throughout ancient history. Cultivation is the oriental method of attaining the Buddhahood and/or the Dao (or Tao), and is highly regarded and well respected in Eastern cultures. In Chinese history, many high-ranking court officials and even emperors were Taoist cultivation practitioners or Buddhist monks in their early life. Two examples were Prime Minister Zhang Liang of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) and Minister Liu Bowen of the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 13681644). Cultivation to achieve the "Dao" ("Tao") was considered the ultimate achievement of personal self-realization. The Dao is an indigenous Chinese name for deity. The concept of Buddha was introduced into China from India. Derived from the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, a Buddha is an enlightened being or someone who has achieved the highest level Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 61

of human fulfillment in his/her system of cultivation. Buddhism should not be considered the only method of cultivation in the Buddha School since Buddha Sakyamuni indicated that there were eighty-four thousand cultivation ways in cultivating Buddhahood or reaching enlightenment. Other than Buddhism and Daoism, many more methods of cultivation were secretly taught from master to disciple in seclusion in history. In Mr. Li Hongzhi‘s 9-day lectures, which were later compiled into the book Zhuan Falun, he began his introduction by pointing out that Falun Gong is a way of cultivation practice in the Buddha School. Falun Gong‘s core principles are Truthfulness, Benevolence (compassion), and Forbearance (tolerance), and it aims at bringing practitioners to a higher level of morality through cultivation of these principles and doing the exercises. Although healing and curing diseases are not the goal of Falun Gong practice, the healing and health efficacy of Falun Gong made it extremely appealing to many who suffered various chronic, serious, and even life-threatening diseases. Because of its healing power and the fact that it is free to everyone, Falun Gong spread quickly by word of mouth from its introduction to the public in 1992 until today. Many started to practice Falun Gong because of its healing capability but then became dedicated practitioners after realizing its unique ability in upgrading people‘s moral standards. Others first came to learn Falun Gong‘s principles and then started to cultivate even before they realized Falun Gong‘s health benefits. 2. Is Falun Gong a Religion? Falun Gong is not a religion. The founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi, never intended to make it a religion but foresaw that ―future generations will regard it as one‖ (Li 1996). Precisely, Falun Gong is a cultivation practice that is deeply rooted in Chinese history and tradition, and such a practice does not have a word ―directly corresponding to the Western term ‗religion‘‖ (Madsen 2000). Like many religions and cultivation methods, Falun Gong does have spiritual content and beliefs. Practitioners‘ personal experiences have proved that by cultivation in line with the guidelines of Falun Gong‘s principles, one is able to become a better person who is able to contribute positively to the society. So in this regard, Falun Gong‘s goals are similar to that of other cultivation practices and orthodox religions. However, Falun Gong does not have all of the other aspects of religion, including worship of a god or a deity; religious ceremonies and rituals; places of worship such as churches, temples, and synagogues; and organizational forms of membership or hierarchy. Falun Gong is most appropriately called an ancient form of self-cultivation practice, or a form of qigong. 3. What Falun Gong is not Falun Gong is within the spectrum of indigenous Chinese spiritual practices, and cannot be considered to be a cult (Madsen 2000). Neither is Falun Gong a ―xie jiao‖ (―devious religion,‖ or more loosely, an ―evil cult‖), as the Chinese government under Jiang Zemin‘s regime denigrated it. If ―cult‖ is defined according to Margaret Singer and other scholars, Falun Gong is not a cult (Wong and Liu 1999). It is further argued that ―the style of governance (in Falun Gong) is neither totalitarian nor suggestive of exclusivity and isolation‖ and ―there is no clear evidence of any public idol worship of Li Hongzhi‖ (Wong and Liu 1999). As we will discuss in later sections, in Falun Gong there is no amassing of wealth for the founder, no worship of idols, and no harm towards practitioners for the benefit of its ―leader‖. So Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, as a cultivation practice, is not a cult or a religion, let alone an ―evil cult‖ or ―devious religion.‖ 4. The Growth of Falun Gong between 1992 and 1999 Mr. Li Hongzhi started teaching about Falun Gong on May 13, 1992 in the city of Changchun, Jilin Province, with about 180 people attending. Between 1992 and 1995, 54 classes were held, with nearly 100,000 people attending those classes. In 1995, Mr. Li Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 62

discontinued his teaching inside of China. From 1995 until the start of the persecution in 1999, Falun Gong had been promulgated in China mostly via word-of-mouth among friends and families. An investigation by the Public Security Ministry of China in 1997, using undercover agents, found no culpability of practitioners nationwide, and estimated the total number of practitioners at around 70 million, or about 5% of China's population. Beginning in Paris on March 13, 1995, Mr. Li started giving lectures overseas, traveling to countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North America. Now Falun Dafa is practiced by millions of people in over 60 countries with the book, Zhuan Falun, now translated into over 30 languages, with nine more translations currently in progress. II. What Has Happened Since the Persecution? Persecution of Falun Gong started in 1999. Hundreds of thousands of practitioners were expelled from the parks where they used to do their morning exercises, and thousands were detained, nationwide, in the morning of July 22, 1999. An intense, all-encompassing campaign of propaganda immediately ensued. In the first 30 days of the persecution, between July and August of 1999, as many as 347 articles appeared in The People’s Daily alone, criticizing and ridiculing Falun Gong, with more than 10 articles per day. It was a Cultural Revolution style of a concerted state scheme almost akin to organized crime and state-sponsored terrorism against a group of unarmed civilians. The persecution is cruel and vicious, and the slogan used by the regime is that they will crush and devastate Falun Gong and its practitioners ―financially, spiritually, and physically.‖ The ―self-immolation‖ in Tiananmen Square has confused and deluded many people in China and abroad. As Zhuan Falun (Li 1999a, p.266) clearly states, killing of even small animals is strictly prohibited among Falun Gong practitioners, let alone killing oneself. The original China Central Television (CCTV) footage, when played in slow motion, indicates that the act was most likely staged by the Chinese government (Clearwisdom 2001). The movie, "False Fire: China's Tragic New Standard in State Deception," which analyzes the 2001 Tiananmen Square "self-immolation" incident, won a Certificate of Honorable Mention in Religion at the 51st Columbus International Film & Video Festival. New Tang Dynasty TV, a non-profit privately owned Chinese TV station, produced the movie. The award ceremony was held in the Kansas Center, Columbus Arts College, Columbus, Ohio: http://www.chrisawards.org/pages/downloads/chriswinners.pdf. Another recent example of the CCP regime‘s lies is the censorship of the Chinese version of Hillary Clinton‘s new book, Living History (Kahn 2003), while Clinton and the whole world are watching. As of February 5, 2004, there have been 879 confirmed deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in China, with hundreds of thousands of them detained in forced-labor camps, brainwashing centers (the ―Re-education Center‖), and prisons. Even under such harsh conditions, there has not been any violent resistance or rebellion ever reported, not even in the government‘s own propaganda. The China Anti-cult Association was founded on November 13, 2000. (WOIPFG 2003) Organized by some high-ranking CCP and governmental officials who have religious or scientific background, the ―non-governmental‖ organization serves to provide the rationale and theoretical justification of the persecution of Falun Gong. The Association provides ideas to use in criticizing Falun Gong, participates in the brainwashing of Falun Gong practitioners, and makes other suggestions relevant to the persecution of Falun Gong. This association rapidly established branches in many cities, provinces, and even work units and schools. This organization is also sponsoring various anti-Falun Gong activities overseas such as exhibits during the human rights summits in Geneva every year. Notably, members of this organization have had close communications with AFF and attended AFF conferences.

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Since the persecution, Falun Gong practitioners throughout the world have stepped forward to expose the persecution, to clarify the lies made by the Chinese government about Falun Gong, and to appeal to the world to stop the persecution (see, for example, Global Coalition to Bring Jiang to Justice: . http://www.grandtrial.org/English/). In China, despite enormous pressure from the government, including, but not limited to heavy fines, brainwashing, torture, and even death, Falun Gong practitioners still uphold their beliefs (see Supplement – Personal Account of Chen Gang). Their actions manifest Falun Gong‘s principle of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Overseas, Falun Gong practitioners started to explain the facts to all levels of governments and the media because the Chinese officials have been sending fabricated stories and slanderous materials to them since the onset of the persecution. Many foreign governments and individuals gave proclamations and other forms of support to Falun Gong, which helped to ease the persecution in China. The following sources document abuses perpetrated against Falun Gong practitioners in China: Amnesty International Reports: China (2003); Human Rights in China (2004, March 23); Human Rights Watch (2002); The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group (2003, October); United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (2000). III. Why is Falun Gong Being Persecuted in China? The reason why Jiang Zemin‘s regime banned this popular cultivation practice is still something that is being questioned, speculated, and studied by many, both inside and outside of China (for a thoughtful analysis, see Ping, 2003). The true reason and internal decision-making processes may never be known to the public, due to the secretive nature of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) resulting in a complete lack of transparency in government operations. The following are just a few explanations that have been offered. 1. Due to Falun Gong’s Popularity The first reason cited is the popularity of Falun Gong. In the height of Falun Gong before the persecution, the Public Security Ministry of China estimated that there were 70 million Falun Gong practitioners in China, which outnumbered the CCP membership of approximately 60 million. Practitioners come from all walks of life and include CCP members and top government officials. As the worldwide communist movement diminishes and communist governments in the former Soviet Union and Eastern block countries fall, the legitimacy of communist rule in China has become an ever-increasing concern for both the ruler and the ruled. As a result, the communist party has tightened its grip on power even as more freedom is granted in Chinese economic lives (Nathan, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023107/0231072856.htm). In the West, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO‘s) and various civic, religious, and professional organizations exist completely outside of direct government control. A government having ultimate say in the daily operations of a Homeowner‘s Association or American Marketing Association is simply unimaginable. This is not the case in China, a strict totalitarian society under communist rule. As a part of the communist tradition, all organizations, from the equivalent of the Boy Scouts of America in China to the Chinese Paleontologists‘ Association, are all tightly controlled and closely monitored by party cadres and their designees. Intensive and extensive infiltration of the Party into people's daily life is simply beyond the wildest imagination of anyone living in the West. Even monks are assigned a government cadre rank and are paid a salary commensurate with these ranks. For example, monk Zhao Puchu, former Chairman of the Chinese Buddhist Society, was said to have held a deputy minister level rank and was compensated accordingly for his "buddhist" work until he died in the No. 301 Army Hospital in Beijing, a hospital reserved for high-ranking leaders.

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In the seven years before the persecution in July of 1999, a typical day of a Falun Gong practitioner consisted of the following. He/she would go to a city park in the early morning and spend 1 to 2 hours doing exercises. Then he/she would merge into the morning traffic to work. At night he/she would read Falun Gong books at home or in a group after finishing his/her house chores. But when more and more Falun Gong practitioners emerged in parks and city blocks for their morning exercises, their sheer number and presence were enough to cause concern among some communist leaders. For reasons given above, an entrenched and defensive regime would speculate on any group‘s political motives, let alone the motives of millions of people across the country. The objective of cultivation is personal consummation (enlightenment) and fulfillment, which transcends all earthly matters, including the pursuit of power, money, and political goals. Mr. Li Hongzhi states ―A cultivator does not need to mind the affairs of the human world, let alone get involved in political struggle. We should not get involved in politics‖ (Li 1996). By its very nature, Falun Gong, and all other genuine qigong practices, are apolitical and are not affiliated with any political entity. Yet the apolitical nature of Falun Gong by itself may be a "punishable" enough reason in the eyes of the communist leaders. They would not tolerate a group of people that they cannot control with their communist ideology and political power. It has to be noted that the spiritual content of Falun Gong (the Fo Fa, or the Buddha Law) and that of many orthodox religions is inconsistent with, and is in fact opposed to, the official atheist view of the CCP. Initially, the Chinese government supported Falun Gong, among other qigongs, as a way to encourage people to maintain health and fitness. That objective is in line with the government‘s efforts to curb medical expenses under the nearly defunct medical system. When the spiritual beliefs became popular, the CCP's opposition to all faiths and fear of losing control over the hearts and minds of the Chinese people were intensified; the regime did an about-face and began to denounce Falun Gong. A regime that faces huge discontent of its citizenry resulting from income inequalities, unemployment, and rural migrants must urgently want to root out any independent group that has gained popularity with a belief other than their atheist doctrine (Madsen 2000). Essentially, the persecution is a result of a combination of the government's lack of legitimacy, its intolerant nature, and its fear of losing power and control because of its legitimacy crisis following the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of the students. 2. Due to Jiang’s Personal Jealousy The second speculated reason for the persecution is Jiang Zemin‘s personal jealousy and insularity. It is believed that the persecution is largely a personal decision and the personal campaign of Jiang Zemin, the then ―core‖ or the highest leader of the state, the CCP, and the People‘s Liberation Army of China. Jiang took power after the June 4th massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989. He was hand-picked and appointed to the party secretary position by the former communist strongman, Deng Xiaoping, without going through any national election. Because of a lack of support from the military as well as civilians, he was believed to be particularly attentive to any threat to his power, real or perceived, from the populace or from his fellow party leaders. The event of April 25, 1999 might have ignited his jealousy and intensified his deepest fears. Jiang‘s role is evident in a documentary book (in Chinese) called June 4: The True Story (Zhang 2001). On April 25, 1999, about 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners peacefully gathered outside the Public Appeal‘s Office of the State Department of China, appealing to the government to release some 45 Falun Gong practitioners detained on April 23 and 24, 1999, in the city of Tianjin, a city 120 kilometers (75 miles) from Beijing. During the incident, several Falun Gong practitioners were asked to come in to Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound, to speak directly with then Chinese Premier, Zhu Rongji. After the talk, Zhu agreed to release the detainees, and then all 10,000 practitioners quietly dispersed, picking up all the trash and debris on their way home, an act unusual in contemporary Chinese Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 65

society. Zhu handled the situation very well and, for the first time in Chinese history, peacefully resolved a disagreement between the central government and the people. Overseas media proclaimed that "April 25" set a great precedence in "the Chinese Government's open dialogue with the general public" and demonstrated an "elevated level of civility among Chinese people". That same night, Jiang Zemin wrote a personal letter to all members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the group of Party elders who have the bulk of power, and demanded an emergency meeting about Falun Gong. His personal letter later became an internal party document and was distributed to party members nationwide. In the emergency meeting, Jiang was reported to have yelled to Zhu in front of other Politburo members and called Zhu ―muddleheaded.‖ It seems to be that Zhu's rising popularity caused great jealousy in Jiang and he was determined to reverse Zhu's decision and to act single-handedly to suppress Falun Gong, for he thought that Falun Gong practitioners were mostly senior citizens, weak, and by following the principle of "forbearance," unlikely to resist. Jiang is said to have written "it would be a joke if the Communist Party can't overwhelm Falun Gong." Three months later, the persecution started. A good analysis of Jiang‘s motives in the persecution of Falun Gong can be found in Wang et al. (2003). One thing about the CCP is that once a decree is issued by the party‘s top leader, the whole Politburo and CCP Standing Committee would have no choice but to follow that decree, in an effort to maintain ―unity and solidarity‖ within the party. This is largely due to the authoritarian nature of the government, an absence of checks and balances of any kind within the government, the lack of legitimacy of the CCP in ruling China, and its declining reputation and decaying moral grounding due to widespread corruption. A reversal or an apology from the government for its wrongdoing is simply unheard of. The persecution seems to be primarily a personal campaign by Jiang, and this is evident in his interview with the CBS 60 Minutes program in September 2000 when Jiang said, ―Their (Falun Gong‘s) leader, Li Hongzhi, claims himself a reincarnation of Bodhisattva, and a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. He said that the end of the world is coming, and the Earth is going to explode," and ―after careful considerations, we decided that Falun Gong is an evil cult.‖ This statement of Jiang is actually something very significant, for he revealed that his decision to label Falun Gong an ―evil cult‖ was based upon the ideas of ―reincarnation‖ and ―doomsday,‖ yet these two points were both made-up by Jiang Zemin (Dai 2003). As to the ―reincarnation,‖ Mr. Li has never said he was the reincarnation of anyone, and has told his students clearly that ―I am Li Hongzhi. And I am not Sakyamuni‖ (Li 1994a). As to the ―doomsday‖ claim, Mr. Li stated, long before 1999, that ―I can tell everyone explicitly, that the so called doomsday disaster is no longer in existence. In the past, people talked about the explosion of the earth, collision of earth with another celestial body, etc., this kind of disaster no longer exists‖ (Li 1994b), and ―the so-called 1999 disaster on earth or the end of the universe no longer exists‖ (Li 1998). The fact that the leader of a nation of one billion people lied in front of world media cannot be explained by a temporary lack of rationality. During the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in New Zealand in September 1999, Jiang made a very unusual move: he hand delivered to each national leader, including then U.S. President Bill Clinton, an anti-Falun Gong brochure. Before Jiang‘s state visit to France on October 25, 1999, he accepted a written interview by French newspaper Le Figaro during which Jiang attacked Falun Gong and called Falun Gong an ―evil cult (xie jiao)‖ before any documents and Chinese state-controlled media first used that word to refer to Falun Gong. That again showed that it was quite likely Jiang who personally made the decision to persecute Falun Gong and kept pushing it forward (Wang et al. 2003).

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According to the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (ICHRD), Jiang Zemin felt that denouncing Falun Gong as an illegal organization was still not enough for them to use legal means to persecute Falun Gong (ICHRD 2002 – this is not in reference list). Therefore, the authorities declared Falun Gong a cult and ordered the National People's Congress to draft a "law against cults" in order to further persecute Falun Gong. This law was passed in October 1999. It should be noted that Falun Gong was denounced to be an ―evil cult‖ by the Chinese government, not because of its teachings or intellectual content, but because of its being perceived as containing seeds of rebellion (Madsen 2000). So, is Jiang‘s fear of Falun Gong‘s ―threat‖ to his grip of power real and solid, or illusory and fictitious? A careful examination of the original book by Mr. Li Hongzhi (Li 1999) and all the teachings of Falun Gong, which can be downloaded free from the Internet (www.falundafa.org), would easily substantiate the later. As Madsen (2000) indicated, the so-called social harm, if any, caused by Falun Gong‘s belief in the efficacy of cultivation practice over medicine seems no greater than that alleged of Christian Science, a religion in the United States that publishes the international daily newspaper Christian Science Monitor. In fact, while allowing ―religious freedom‖ for some state sanctioned temples and churches, the regime has also been persecuting ―Underground Christians‖ and Tibetan Buddhists, and has considered any organization a threat regardless of its ideological content. It is therefore no surprise that there have been many lawsuits filed in the U.S., France, Finland, Armenia, Belgium, and Spain against Jiang and the ―610 Office,‖ a Gestapo-style secret operative agency that Jiang created and that is directly responsible for the execution of the persecution of Falun Gong. In October 2003, amidst worldwide condemnation, the government claimed the 610 Office closed but actually only changed its name. IV. Issues Raised and Questions Asked at AFF Conferences In this section we address the issues raised and questions asked by several authors whose writings appeared in AFF publications. 1. The Rosedale and Robbins articles (Rosedale 2001, Robbins 2003, Rosedale 2003) Even though the late Herbert L. Rosedale held the belief that a group should be examined based upon their behavior, not their beliefs (Rosedale, 2001), his words apparently met the deaf ears of government officials in Beijing during the height of the persecution. All they cared about and echoed was Rosedale's parallelism of Falun Gong to evil cult, harmful cult, and even terrorist groups. It needs to be noted that all the alleged ―law-breaking activities‖ of Falun Gong practitioners in China happened either after the persecution started or resulted from attempts to break the information blockade under communist rule, which deprived practitioners of their right of expression to defend their belief. Elsewhere in the world, Falun Gong practitioners are all law-abiding citizens, including in countries/regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore where the majority of practitioners are also Chinese. Regardless of Rosedale's best intention, this speech (Rosedale 2001) was indeed viewed as an endorsement of the persecution (Robbins 2003), and added fuel to the Chinese government‘s persecution of Falun Gong by giving them the "international" support they badly needed. Robbins‘ (2003) fear of the ―distressing possibility that elements of Anti-Cult Movement (ACM) may support the Chinese government‘s severe measure against Falun Gong‖ has in fact become an unfortunate reality. Take for example, the web page of Hefei University of Technology in China, where a reference was made to imply just what Robbins was worried about (HFUT 2002). The Chinese public is led to believe that academic and professional Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 67

institutions such as AFF in the West also consider Falun Gong an "evil cult" and should be banned and abolished. As Robbins argued, the context of Chinese authoritarian state control and the rejection of ideological pluralism are ignored by Rosedale‘s article, and the problem of Falun Gong cannot be intelligently discussed outside of the context of totalitarian control and suppression of dissidents (Robbins 2003). While Rosedale‘s observation of destructive cult groups from the perspectives of leadermember relations, member-nonmember relations, and group-society relations is an interesting one (2001), his analysis is not limited to only harmful cults or organizations though. In order to include Falun Gong in his categorization, Rosedale would have to include Jesus Christ and Christianity, Sakyamuni and Buddhism, and the Virgin Mary and Catholicism in his generalization as well. Rosedale‘s (2001) assertion that Falun Gong practitioners sever their ―connections with outside non-members‖ is simply untrue. Mr. Li Hongzhi stated in Zhuan Falun "The majority of people in our school will practice cultivation in ordinary human society, so you should not distance yourself from ordinary human society and you must practice cultivation with a clear mind" (Li, 1999, p. 337). Practitioners of Falun Gong are no different from other people in the society, having families, jobs, hobbies, sorrows, and happiness. They are artists, scientists, businessmen and women, educators, students, people of all ages and races, and people with all nationalities and religious backgrounds. The so-called increasing distance between leader and the membership with respect to power and control (Rosedale 2001) is also not applicable to Falun Gong. It is the lure of power that usually guides the leadership to increase the gulf between them and their members. Power derives from dependence and is a property of the social relations, not the attribute of the actor (Emerson 1962). In Falun Gong cultivation practice, everything a practitioner needs to have to cultivate is contained in the original book Zhuan Falun and the five sets of exercises. The book is freely available on the internet, as are the exercise videos. One can learn the exercises from any of the many exercise sites in cities, universities, parks, and community centers across the world, where volunteers are glad to teach anyone interested in learning the exercises, free of charge. The practice of Falun Gong is completely open, free, and voluntary. Mr. Li has always hoped that ―Dafa disciples can take the Fa as their teacher‖ (Li 1994a) and has been emphasizing it on many occasions. ―The master leads you through the door, but cultivation is up to you‖(Li 1999a). There is no physical or financial dependence on the master whatsoever, because all of Falun Gong‘s teachings are in the freely available book, Zhuan Falun. In fact, after 1994, when Mr. Li Hongzhi discontinued his lectures in China, Falun Gong practitioners grew from fewer than 10,000 (those who attended Mr. Li‘s lectures in person) to about 70 million by 1999, with the vast majority of them (more than 98%) learning the practice by themselves. Without dependence of any kind, from where could the power be derived? Without the existence of power, how could the power ever be asserted? As to control, societal control is normally asserted through the possession of resources (Emerson 1962). Similar to the power and dependence relationship mentioned above, there are no unique resources that are needed for cultivation that are not readily available to anyone on earth, free of charge. For volunteers who help teach the exercises, "the first one (requirement) is that you cannot collect a fee"(Li 1999aa, p.141). Next, is there a gradual distancing of the gap between member and leader once a new member is recruited, as Rosedale (2001) was concerned about? First of all, Mr. Li Hongzhi is never a ―leader‖ of Falun Gong. He is merely a ―Teacher‖ or ―Master‖ who passes on the teachings of the practice to students. There is no ―leader,‖ per se, in Falun Gong, much akin to the situation in a university where a professor is not a ―leader‖ of the students, but merely an instructor or teacher to his students in their pursuit of educational objectives. From the very beginning, the relationship between Mr. Li and Falun Gong practitioners is Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 68

one of a teacher-student, or master-disciple relationship. (See also answer to Langone‘s question No. 5 below) Rosedale‘s assertion that Falun Gong uses an exercise vehicle promoting health as an initial recruiting method that results in eventual ―ultimate requested suicidal conformity‖ (Rosedale 2001) is, factually untrue and grossly mistaken. The very first sentence in Zhuan Falun, in the first section of Lecture One, says clearly that Falun Gong is a practice that is ―Genuinely Guiding People toward High Levels‖ (Li 1999a, p1). Mr. Li clearly indicates at the very beginning that ―Qigong is about cultivation‖ and "I do not talk about healing illness here, and neither will we heal illness" (Li 1999a, p.3). In many instances the first thing that any Falun Gong volunteer at any practice site tells a newcomer to do upon learning the exercises is that he/she needs to read Zhuan Falun in order to find out what Falun Gong truly is. A common Falun Gong flyer lists the main website (www.falundafa.org) which has all of Mr. Li‘s published teachings from Zhuan Falun to the newest articles, all of which are free to download. As to "leaders losing their restraint in their zeal to exert unlimited power," that actually is a vivid and accurate depiction of Jiang Zemin, the communist dictator of the world‘s most populous country. What Rosedale (2001) called ―committing the most despicable acts to further the leader‘s power and achieve their ends‖ portrays not Mr. Li Hongzhi but exactly Jiang Zemin, as he consolidates his power and remains Chairman of the Central Military Committee even after retiring from the party boss‘s position (Wang 2003). It is consequential that Rosedale (2001) mentioned Nuremberg trials and trials of Japanese war criminals after World War II, because, similar to the crimes committed by Adolph Hitler, the genocide perpetrated by Jiang Zemin against Falun Gong practitioners has been the focus of numerous international lawsuits currently underway in the U.S., Belgium, France, Spain, Finland, and Armenia. While Rosedale cited the historical groups of the Yellow Turbans, the Tai Ping, and the Boxers in Chinese history to illustrate his points (see also the comparison table in the section of Rahn), we wonder if Rosedale was aware of the fact that these groups have been the mottoes, models, and de facto ancestors of Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and their worship of and their kinship with these gangsters were the mainstay in textbooks in China. As to the tyranny of a Stalinist leader, in his trip to Beijing, Rosedale probably ignored the huge portrait of Stalin that is still on display in Tiananmen Square where Falun Gong members peacefully appealed daily. Although Rosedale (2001) had the good intention of promoting a ―society [that] must support people‘s rights to leave groups as well as join them,‖ this is sadly not the case in China. (This, ironically, is also true with respect to communist party members, for anyone who dares to leave the Party is also severely punished.) Falun Gong practitioners are simply deprived of their rights to remain in the group, and are tortured and detained again after they decided to resume practice following forced repentance. While talking about the luxury of the ―right of re-entry‖ with the Chinese officials, Rosedale probably did not realize that this ―right of re-entry‖ was denied to Falun Gong practitioners once their practice was outlawed, and there is only a one-way, forced exit and complete denunciation of their beliefs. While Falun Gong practitioners in China simply appeal peacefully to all levels of government, to clarify the facts about the persecution, and to ―inculcate," in Rosedale‘s words, the belief of Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Compassion, it is Jiang‘s propaganda and deceit that have inculcated and distilled, forcibly through the state-controlled media, the hatred towards Falun Gong, its founder, and its practitioners. Lately, the hatred has even been exported to the West, as illustrated by the recent beating of a Falun Gong practitioner doing nothing on the streets of New York (Clearwisdom 2003), and by slanderous articles on Qiao Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 69

Bao (The China Press), a Chinese government-controlled newspaper in the U.S. and Canada. Aside from the ―psychiatric terror‖ in China against Falun Gong practitioners, Rosedale chose to accept at face value the defensive denials and lies of an extremely totalitarian regime, damage is thus already done to the defenseless victims of Falun Gong in China‘s labor camps, mental hospitals, re-educational schools, and prisons. Just like what happened in the former Soviet Union where Soviet psychiatrists admitted their abuses only after the fall of the communist iron curtain, we certainly hope that Rosedale would have agreed with us that abuses in China must be stopped while they are still happening today. Rosedale‘s use of ―suicide conformity‖ is unwarranted (Robbins 2003) and irresponsible, for there is no indication whatsoever in Falun Gong that committing suicide is ever encouraged. In fact, committing suicide is strictly prohibited, just as with other forms of killing (Li 1997). Robbins (2003) correctly asked whether or not, absent of severe Chinese persecution, there would have been Falun Gong suicides. The answer is no. One only needs to take note of the fact that there was no reported suicide in China before the persecution started in 1999, and there are no reported cases of suicides anywhere in the world outside of China in all the eleven years of Falun Gong‘s history. Rosedale was right in saying that a government in a society ―owes its obligations towards all citizens of the polity, not only those who are members of any single group, no matter how numerous or dominant‖ that group is. But Rosedale failed to recognize that it is partly because of the sheer number of Falun Gong practitioners exceeding the membership of Communist party members that Jiang initiated his persecution of Falun Gong. Rosedale (2001) applied, unfortunately, Lord Acton‘s famous quote of ―power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely‖ to the wrong party, for it is Jiang‘s absolute power that made him determined to crush Falun Gong, even with no support from the other members of the Politburo. A native Chinese speaker in that forum would have been arrested for all the vivid depiction of the CCP and Jiang‘s regime in quoting Lord Acton in that conference in China. It is probably just that the regime wanted so badly the ―endorsement‖ of their persecution of Falun Gong from an American anti-cult expert that they temporarily tolerated Mr. Rosedale‘s comments against absolute power and dictatorship. Even worse, Rosedale (2001) seemed disappointed in not seeing United Nations Human Rights reports citing "violations" of Falun Gong members, "destructive practices," and the "harms suffered" by Falun Gong members. This is hardly surprising, because there aren't any. No third party is ever allowed to investigate these claims made by Jiang‘s regime that has all the motivation, willingness to lie, and state power to persecute, deceive, and to fabricate the likes of the ―self-immolation,‖ to denounce, slander, incite hatred, and spread lies about Falun Gong. Rosedale also wondered why there is no public inquiry about why the Chinese government is concerned with Falun Gong, and that in the ―few instances in which Chinese government conduct is discussed, political repression were – check accuracy of quote the primary focus.‖ The fact is that no public inquiry about Falun Gong is ever allowed in China. Anyone who appeals to the Public Appeal Office, the official and legal channel for the general public to voice their concerns, will be sent to forced-labor camps directly, without any due process. There is good reason for people to focus on political repression, because political repression is indeed the main reason, if not the only reason, that Jiang started his personal campaign of persecution. Because of this politically motivated and personal prejudiced-driven persecution, at least 879 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed as of February 5, 2004. Stopping the persecution should be an imperative matter rather than a ―knee-jerk‖ reaction. Even as the severe persecution enters its fifth year, there has never been any reported act of violence, not even violent resistance to torture, among Falun Gong practitioners in China. A so-called ―apocalyptic frenzy‖ is unwarranted and not substantiated, exactly because of Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 70

the teachings in Falun Gong that proclaim peace, non-violence, the highest regard for the value of life, compassion, and tolerance. As Robbins (2003) pointed out, there seems to be a prevailing belief among ―anti-cultists‖ that the cults, or beliefs of any kind for that matter, are a ―con game‖ or a criminal type of organization. This could be due to a lack of understanding of cultivation and selfimprovement and oriental religion, history, and culture, an issue we shall address further in later sections. That lack of understanding may have contributed to what Robbins (2003) called ACM activists‘ ―heresy hunter‖ style of persecuting beliefs. Despite his intention not to do so, Rosedale may well have been on the verge of becoming one of those ―heresy hunters‖ persecuting beliefs, at least toward Falun Gong. When mentioning religious and political representatives, Rosedale seemed to forget that China is not a ―representative‖ society or a democracy. The so-called representatives were appointed by the regime to speak in a tone completely in line with what the Chinese government wanted. Under the pretext of ―not lecturing representatives of another culture on how they should conform to American values,‖ Rosedale overlooked the fact that those are not just American values, but values cherished, valued, and needed by Chinese citizens as well. They are universal values, which is why they are codified in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a covenant that China has signed, but not yet ratified. Rosedale (2003) accused Robbins of relying on ―inaccessible material,‖ while at the same time putting his trust in so-called ―representatives‖ appointed by the Chinese government and in controlled dialogue, as his ―first-hand‖ material. His opinion might have been different had he had the opportunity to visit a forced-labor camp in China without prior notice. It is likely that Mr. Rosedale was not aware that after the bloody crackdown of June 4, 1989, everyone in China (ask any Chinese student studying in the US who came after 1989), including university professors, had to go through a process of denouncing the ―June 4th incident‖ as an ―anti-revolutionary riot‖ and that the persecution was justified. The persecution of Falun Gong also reminds us of the Great Cultural Revolution when everyone except Chairman Mao was deprived of the freedom of expression and belief. Even the former state leader Liu Shaoqi was framed as a traitor and a spy. Freedom of expression and belief is essential for a genuine dialogue on belief. Lacking it, a ―dialogue‖ with an entrenched regime, notorious for its propaganda, is not a real dialogue. Finally, it is shocking to hear Rosedale‘s assertion that ―civil disobedience should not be unqualifiedly justified as a legitimate response to persecution‖ (Rosedale 2003). Without revealing the details of the qualification process and criteria of justifying legitimacy, one has no way to know what else citizens could use other than disobedience when facing a persecution by state power. Is Mr. Rosedale suggesting that while there is no evidence linking Falun Gong with any destructive behavior, blatant violations of the rights of Falun Gong practitioners could actually be ―justified‖? 2. The Rahn articles (Rahn 2000 & 2002) Rahn's (2002) paradigm approach in her article is a plausible one, but there seems to be a "shift in paradigm" that went too far to becoming a "paradigm gone astray," Rahn‘s comparison between historical groups cited indicates a gross misunderstanding of Chinese history. From the Table 1 below, a comparison of the Yellow Turban, the White Lotus, the Taiping, and the Boxers shows that they do possess many similarities. However those similarities closely resemble another, modern, entity in China: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), rather than a non-entity but a spiritual practice of Falun Gong. As it is seen in the table, from the form of organization, use of force, the existence of a charismatic leader, the Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 71

guiding doctrine, and the ultimate objectives of the entities, the Yellow Turban, the White Lotus, the Taiping, the Boxers, and the CCP share astounding similarities to each other. In fact, in Chinese textbooks from elementary schools through colleges, these villainous groups have been glorified, worshiped, and valued as predecessors of the CCP. In contrast to these groups, Falun Gong does not have a formal organization, is always open to the public, denounces the use of force and killing, has no ―leader‖ of any kind, charismatic or not; is not interested in politics or political power, and has only the individual objective of self actualization. The fact that CCP called itself the ―scoundrel proletariat‖ when it first started and followed these villainous groups in their brutal pursuit of power in China, and continues to worship these villainous groups may be of interest to Rahn. Table 1 Comparison of Rahn’s villainous groups and CCP

Entities

Form of Organization

Use of Force

Charismatic Leader

Doctrine

Objective

Yellow Turbans

From secret association to open hostility

Yellow Turbans Army

Zhang Jiao brothers

Folk mysticism

Overthrow Han Dynasty

Secret association

Secret forces

Mao Ziyuan etc.

(黄巾军) White Lotus (白莲教)

(太平道) Mixed Religions

Vary among branches

(茅子元等) Taiping (太平天国) Boxers (义和拳)

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (中国共产党)

From secret association to open hostility

Army

Hong Xiuquan

Christian Sect

Overthrow Qing Dynasty

From secret association to open hostility

Quasiarmy

Zhao Shanduo, etc

Branch of White Lotus

(Martial arts)

(赵三多等)

(Anti-West)

Against Christian missionaries and overthrow Qing Dynasty

From secret association to open hostility

Guerrilla warfare to PLA (army)

Mao

Communism MarxismLeninism

Overthrow Nationalist government

Rahn (2002) portrays Jiang‘s regime as a legitimate governmental body that acts to place "primary importance on the good of the collective over the right of the individual." Nothing else could be further from the truth because this exists only in theory, and has never been the case in reality. Since taking power under the communist doctrine of ―proletarian‘s liberation‖ in 1949, the CCP has always existed for the good of the privileged few, over the collective rights of the Chinese people. They used the promise of ―Beating down the landlords and giving you their land‖ to attract poor peasants to join them, and then they took the land back to the government after they consolidated their power. A recent example is the June 4, 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square, when they used tanks to crush student demonstrations, just to protect their own power and interests. After the tumbling collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, their "millennial sense" Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 72

intensified, as they kept losing confidence and support from the grassroots. rose to power on the blood of the June 4th student massacre.

Jiang actually

Rahn's analogy of a cultural paradigm from Chinese history is imprecise, because emperors in ancient Chinese history had legitimacy in protecting the state (his state) from the perils of challengers, while the Communist regime might have had some grounds to support their legitimacy when the communism doctrine was used and liberation of the proletariats were their goals. They certainly do not enjoy that legitimacy today, when the communism doctrine is abandoned by all in China and they have become like the very party that they threw out 50 years ago. This is especially the case for Jiang, as we have discussed earlier. Religious syncretism may be true for some religious and church groups in America and in China. But it is not true for Falun Gong, for Falun Gong‘s basic tenets are based on ancient cultivation practices. In China, cultivation has a history that is much longer than that of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confuciousnism. For example, the word ―cultivation‖ is ―cultivo‖ in Spanish, ―coltura‖ in Italian, and ―cultura‖ in Latin. A person could reasonably conclude that probably Spanish, English, and Italian have all inherited something from Latin, but it would be incorrect to argue that Latin is a result of "syncretism" of English, Spanish, and Italian. The ancient wisdom of cultivation, including those ideas expressed in Falun Gong, far precedes all the religions we observe today, based on unearthed archaeological relics. When Rahn argues that the Chinese government's (in fact, Jiang's) campaign methods and justification in use against Falun Gong are indigenous Chinese and part of her historical paradigm, a horrifying and potentially harmful tendency emerges. This could be of value and be used by the Chinese government (in fact, they have been using AFF in justifying their persecution, as we discussed in the Rosedale section) to justify their repression of Falun Gong, Buddhists, and Christians. This also sets an unfortunate precedence in suggesting that Chinese citizens today are not worthy of enjoying the same universal freedom of speech and belief that is enjoyed by not only Westerners, but also China's Asian neighbors. Rahn's suggestion of Falun Gong as a contender to the Chinese state is purely speculative. Nowhere in Zhuan Falun was a pursuit of political power ever mentioned or inferred. In fact, Mr. Li wrote several articles teaching practitioners not to be involved in politics, such as ―Cultivation Practice is Not Political‖ (Li 1996) and ―No Politics‖ (Li 2002). So this proposition serves nothing but to support the brutal persecution carried out by Jiang‘s regime, giving it a ―legitimate reason‖ for using police power to crush a peaceful cultivation practice. Falun Gong is now practiced in over 60 countries in the world including the United States and Canada. None of the practitioners overseas, under the same teachings, has ever become "contenders" of the state he/she lives in. Why haven‘t practitioners in Taiwan, Singapore, or Hong Kong been a challenge to their respective governments, where most of the people share the same cultural heritage as that of mainland Chinese and therefore would more accurately fit Rahn‘s paradigm? In Taiwan, the number of practitioners increased from 3,000 in 1999 to over 300,000 today. That would be a force to be reckoned with if Falun Gong is indeed a contender to their government. It is not so. In fact, Taiwan's vice president went to a Falun Gong conference to give a congratulatory speech to acknowledge the positive contributions Falun Gong has brought to the well-being of the people of Taiwan (http://dajiyuan.com/gb/2/12/31/n261383.htm). Rahn gave a long list of actions, such as "recruiting from within the ranks of CCP, organizing across provinces and countries, membership that proselytizes, making criticism of CCP, claims by the leader to be a god or emperor, spreading superstition and heterodoxy, and receiving support from ‗forces overseas‘" without a clear indication of to whom these apply and a necessary substantiation. Therefore Rahn's stance on these issues is not clearly known. Rahn‘s notion of ―recruits‖ of Falun Gong suggests she might have assumed that Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 73

Falun Gong is an organization with concealed motives. Falun Gong does not have any objective other than passing on to people the cultivation practice, and Falun Gong does not have or need an organization. Doesn‘t everyone, including high-ranking CCP officials, have the right to choose a righteous way of cultivation practice? In fact, no one would even think about asking your personal information when you come to a Falun Gong practice site in a park. Cultivation is a personal, individual matter, and it is based on cultivating one‘s heart. People cannot be forced into doing something they don‘t want to do. Also, Falun Gong practitioners never criticized the CCP before the persecution started in July 1999 and even today they are still not against it. All they asked is that the persecution be stopped. On July 23, 1999, three days after the ban of Falun Gong, Mr. Li stated to the media, ―We are not against the Chinese government. Other people can be unfair to us. We should never treat others with the same approach.‖ (Clearwisdom 1999) All of the teachings of Falun Gong are contained in Zhuan Falun, a book compiled and based on nine lectures Mr. Li gave between 1992 and 1995, when it was first published. All Rahn has to do is to listen to all the audio and video recordings of Mr. Li's lecturing in China and elsewhere to find that all the books in Falun Gong are the original works of Mr. Li solely. When Mr. Li gave lectures in China during the nine-day-lecture series, there was not a notepad, or printed, typed, or written pages for him to read from. There was only one piece of paper with his handwritten notes during the approximately 2 hour lecture every day, for nine days. The so-called "challenger" to Mr. Li‘s role as the Master in Falun Gong is simply baseless. When the Chinese government claimed, falsely, that the book Zhuan Falun was not the work of Mr. Li, wouldn‘t they be saying that they are after the wrong person? Citing the words of Barend ter Haar, Rahn seems to suggest that Falun Gong's "exorcising demons" justified using violence by the Chinese government. ―Exorcising‖ is to seek to expel an evil spirit by religious or solemn ceremonies, not an act of violence in the physical world. Was Jesus Christ ―committing violence‖ in Biblical times when he ―drove out the demons?‖ (Matthew 7:22, New International Version) Falun Gong practitioner ―send forth righteous thought‖ to ―exorcise demons‖ to clean out their mind and body. This cleansing is done in another dimension, and, for all practical purposes, it can be considered metaphorical. Through the mind‘s power, rather than physical violence, we eliminate bad things including karma, dirty thoughts, and wrong mentalities in our body and in the dimensions connected to ours. When genocide against Falun Gong practitioners is carried out by Jiang, and Jiang lied and slandered to justify his persecution, when the weaker party, the innocent victims, pleads for help to eliminate evil forces behind Jiang‘s atrocity, everyone on earth, including Ms. Rahn, has to choose with one‘s conscience. And when the persecution extends to the soil of the United States, as evidenced by the recent beating of a Falun Gong practitioner simply standing on a New York City street doing nothing, it certainly is no longer a ―war of words‖. (Clearwisdom 2003) In addition, American citizens are also being persecuted for their practice of Falun Gong. One such person is Dr. Charles Li, who has been imprisoned since January 2003 for attempting to tell the Chinese people that their government is brutally persecuting its own citizens. Rahn and Rosedale both cited the self-immolation in Tiananmen Square in January of 2001, but apparently they did not realize that it was staged by the Chinese Government as we discussed earlier (Clear Wisdom 2001). Additional statements by Rahn such as ―(Practitioners) getting information only from Falun Gong websites,‖ ―everything placed on the website is pre-approved," and ―additional teaching literature written by Falun Gong practitioners," signified her speculation and a lack of common sense, as if a website of Minghui.net can censor the web browsers of hundreds of thousands of practitioners outside of China. Practitioners outside of China have free access to any websites, including those published by the Chinese government, as our belief in practicing Falun Gong is a clearminded decision based on rational and careful analysis, not by blindly taking on something Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 74

in haste. We do browse websites expressing different or opposite views of Falun Gong and always try to exchange opinions with them. That is why we are attending AFF conferences and writing this paper. We as practitioners are doing this with truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Rahn seems to forget the fact that the Chinese Government is the most notorious regime in the world that blocks, filters, and hacks the internet using its state power. It is equally disturbing when Rahn talks about ―China's incremental openness and freer reporting.‖ When it is even illegal to possess the book Zhuan Falun, to sit in a public park with one‘s legs crossed, or to stretch one‘s two arms upward above one‘s head in Tiananmen Square, one really wonders where the sumptuousness of ―openness‖ and ―freedom‖ exists in China. A lack of serious scholarship is evident in Rahn‘s works where factual mistakes and crude errors abound. One such case is Rahn‘s reference of ―The ‗Ending Period of Catastrophe‘ is here…only those who are Falun Gong practitioners will be saved, Notes 11, Rahn (2002).‖ In the original text (Li 1995), nowhere can the words ―catastrophe is here‖ or ―only practitioners will be saved‖ be found. Also, Rahn failed to distinguish between ―gongfu‖ (a martial art) and "qigong" (a cultivation system); lacked knowledge of the term ―qigong‖ itself, citing its being ―marvelous tales and paranormal found in Chinese stories‖; and used incorrect quote in the article (Rahn 2002, quote 34 ). All of which, of cause, could not simply be blamed on a mis-translation into English. Rahn‘s incorrect quoting of Mr. Li‘s works is also evidenced in another of her writings (Rahn 2000), where she misquoted Mr. Li as saying that ―He warns that if you have contact with a non-practitioner you run the risk of …‖ (Rahn 2000, p. 172). While in fact, Mr. Li was talking about practitioners in other schools of qigong, not ordinary people or non-practitioners (Li 1999a, p.250). And because of that, her accusation of Falun Gong‘s possibility ―of isolating practitioners from family and friends as well as non-practitioners in general‖ (Rahn 2000, p. 172) is, simply, false. More blatantly and without giving any references, Rahn basically fabricated the following: ―Li also says that the Chinese government is unfit to handle China‘s problems and that only by the Chinese people becoming Falun Gong practitioners can China resolve its problems‖ (Rahn 2000, p. 178). This is not found in any of Mr. Li‘s published books, speeches, and audio and video recordings. Overall, it is a noteworthy effort to try to apply a paradigm to the current Chinese affair. But Rahn's fixation on a flawed paradigm fails to provide any insight into the ongoing persecution by a notorious regime led by a jealous leader. Her oversimplification and use of an inappropriate paradigm may only mislead innocent readers and be used as a weapon by the transgressors in this unfair battle. 3. The Langone article (Langone 2003) In an effort to eliminate the prejudices and preconceived opinions for a fair and unbiased discussion, Dr. Langone did a praiseworthy job in clarifying and eliminating a lot of presumptions and preconceived notions (Langone 2003). But the process is, unfortunately, still incomplete. We‘ll elaborate on this further. Langone (2003) would not hold that China is so bad or so akin to a ―Gulag‖ to warrant a presumption of deception. Sadly enough and to our dismay, it is indeed that bad. An entrenched communist regime essentially holds all Chinese people as their hostages. Even the ―economic strides‖ quoted by Langone is in question. Thomas Rawski, a Pittsburg professor and an expert on the Chinese economy, found that between 1996 and 1999, accumulated GDP growth reported by the Chinese government totaled 25.6%, while reported energy consumption during the same period had declined by 12.2%. This is not possible, because rapid increases in national output are always accompanied by even larger increases in energy consumption (Rawski 2003). When Chinese premier Zhu announced that China would achieve an annual growth rate of 7%, all but one of the 30 provinces and Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 75

direct administrative municipalities reported growth rates of over 7%. Even the central planners in China do not believe in their own numbers, but rely on those from the World Bank or CIA. Books by Chang (2001) and He (1998) analyze the serious problems with China's economy. Langone used Hong Kong‘s example to illustrate China‘s relaxation of control to the former British colony. However, the recent protest by 500,000 Hong Kong citizens was precisely sparked by China‘s extending its control and restriction of freedom to Hong Kong through Article 23 legislation. Human rights watchers have seen increases in China‘s human rights violations, towards not only Falun Gong practitioners, but also other dissident groups, such as underground Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, and democracy advocates (HRIC 2003). Langone (2003) called for ―examining the evidence critically and laboriously.‖ That is a part of the effort of what Falun Gong practitioners are doing in China. This includes their efforts in breaking the information blockade by the government and broadcasting video clips about the truth of the persecution, as well as sending those files to the outside world. Contrary to what Langone speculated, Falun Gong, from its very beginning, was never intended to be a system for ―improving and maintaining good health‖ (Langone 2003), but a practice that is ―genuinely guiding people toward high levels‖ (Li 1999a, p.1), despite the fact that practicing Falun Gong does have a beneficial effect on a person‘s health. It has never been the case that Falun Gong suddenly changed its direction midway. It was the government, or more precisely, the Jiang Zemin‘s regime, that changed its stance from supporting Falun Gong, to neither supporting nor being against it, to being totally against this cultivation practice. The reasons for this about-face were previously addressed. Langone (2003) inferred properly that for a group as large as Falun Gong, there are bound to be some incidences of mishaps that might be ―associated‖ with Falun Gong, but not necessarily ―caused‖ by Falun Gong. Because of that, the Chinese government ―would not have to lie‖ in order to compile evidence of harm associated with practicing Falun Gong. But the Chinese government nonetheless did lie to strengthen their propaganda, such as in the case of Ms. Du Weiping (Clearwisdom 2002), among the 1400 cases of death. This reveals from another perspective how desperate the government was in incriminating Falun Gong and justifying their persecution. Next we would like to answer the five questions Langone asked Falun Gong practitioners. Obviously we address them from our own perspectives, and don‘t speak for any other practitioners or for Falun Gong as a whole. All practitioners have different understandings regarding the teachings in Falun Gong. On healing, taking medicine, and seeing doctors, etc. (Langone Questions 1&2) First of all, there is no teaching on healing, per se, in the works of Falun Gong, for healing and keeping fit is not an objective of Falun Gong cultivation practice. Mr. Li Hongzhi has expounded on diseases, taking medicine, and cultivation. Never has he ever said that a practitioner should not take medicine. In fact, he has said the direct opposite. ―Some people want to damage [Falun] Dafa, and say things about not taking medicine like, ‗We aren‘t allowed to take medicine once we start practicing this.‘ Actually, it‘s not that I don‘t allow you to take medicine... Nor have I said that the person absolutely can‘t cultivate once he takes medicine‖ (Li 1997b). ―We have not said that you should not take medicine when you are not feeling well. We have not‖ (Li 1997a). When being asked what to do in the situation of food poisoning, Mr. Li said, ―If you really have food poisoning, you really have to go to a hospital‖(Li 1994a). Just like one who does not practice Falun Gong, a practitioner has his or her own judgment about when to go see a doctor. As far as we know, all the female practitioners have their

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babies delivered in the hospital and some of them choose to receive anesthesia for natural birth and some of them choose to have C-section delivery. Since July 22, 1999, the state-controlled media in China first claimed that 700 people died as a result of practicing Falun Gong, and in the next week the number mysteriously became 1,400 and then this number was increased to 1,700. For cases that Falun Gong practitioners were able to verify, none of them were caused by practicing Falun Gong. Besides the fact that these cases have never been investigated by an independent third party and that the Chinese government is notorious for its handling of statistics (as shown during the recent SARS epidemic), there are serious doubts about the Chinese government‘s way of interpreting the data. Let us use for now the number of two million Falun Gong practitioners which was underreported by the state media in China since the start of the persecution (the actual estimate by Public Security Bureau was 70 million). Among two million practitioners, 1,700 of them supposedly died since July 22, 1999, which constitutes a death rate of less than 0.03%. Yet this is much lower than the nation‘s natural death rate of 0.65%. If, according to the Chinese government, ―Falun Gong does not allow people to take medicine or go to the hospital,‖ these data suggest, to the government‘s dismay, that Falun Gong is quite effective at healing disease and keeping fit, for it resulted in a death rate 20 times below the national average. If one keeps in mind the fact that a large portion of the practitioners were seniors and those with illnesses that could not be cured by hospitals, this healing effect is actually even more significant. It is true that most Falun Gong practitioners do not take medicine, both of us included. This is because after practicing, we became healthy and therefore do not need to take medicine. In fact, before the persecution, the Chinese government lauded Falun Gong practitioners for saving the country‘s medical expenses. In December 1993, at the Beijing Oriental Health Expo, Mr. Li received the highest honor of ―The Cutting-Edge Science Award," a ―Special Expo Golden Award," and a title of ―The Most Popular Qi-gong Master‖ for the incredible healing power of the practice during the Expo. In December 2002, Professor Hu Yu-Whuei of National Taiwan University published a research report that showed that 72% of Falun Gong practitioners in Taiwan used their health insurance card only once a year after practicing Falun Gong, a reduction in usage of almost 50% (Hu 2002). The report pointed out that Falun Gong had a remarkable effect on getting rid of many unhealthy habits, such as smoking (-81%), alcohol abuse (-77%), gambling (-85%), and chewing betel nuts (an addictive and unhealthy habit common in Asia, -85%). The data suggested that practicing Falun Gong indeed has positive and remarkable effects on improving the social environment (Hu 2002). While Falun Gong is indifferent as to whether a practitioner takes medicine or not, it does encourage and discourage many other activities. For example, in cultivation one is encouraged to cultivate diligently, cultivate in only one way at a time, and to be truthful, benevolent, and tolerant all of the times. A practitioner is also discouraged from killing, smoking, drinking alcohol, doing drugs, being jealous, committing adultery, and showing off. On “internal dissent within the Falun Gong organization” (Langone Question 3) Does Falun Gong have any organization or membership? When Langone (2003) welcomed the reform movement within ISKCON and believed that ―dissent is an essential aspect of any organization that permits members to think for themselves," and then extended the same logic to Falun Gong, he had indeed made an assumption that Falun Gong had an organization and/or a membership. In reality, Falun Gong does not have an organization. Local practitioners voluntarily gather to study, practice the exercises, and share experience in cultivation together. Mr. Li Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 77

Hongzhi is the only teacher who passes down the teaching, and all practitioners are equal. ―At the same time, you cannot call a practitioner (a disciple) who passes on Falun Dafa ‗Teacher‘ or ‗Master,‘ for there is only one master in Dafa. All practitioners are disciples, no matter when they began the practice‖ (Li 1999a, p.142). To ―organize‖ such a large group of people would require substantial financial resources, human capital, and physical facilities, all of which Falun Gong simply does not have nor intends to have. Whatever organizational structures Langone (2003) had in mind, be it hierarchical, horizontal, vertical, or grass root, they really don‘t apply to Falun Gong practitioners. Falun Gong is a cultivation practice. And, ―cultivation depends on one‘s own efforts‖ (Li 1999a, P34), everyone must do it through upgrading his/her own ―xinxing," the mind or heart nature including morality and tolerance, in order to succeed in cultivation. Having an organization does not help with this self-cultivation in any manner. This is rather similar to college students whose ultimate goal is to obtain their degrees, a goal that is utterly up to them to achieve individually, and not collectively. Neither does Falun Gong have any membership. Whoever happens to download the book and instruction video from the internet, free of charge, and starts practicing becomes a practitioner, and no one else may even know about his practicing. After the persecution started in July 1999, Falun Gong practitioners worldwide have become ―organized," or more accurately, coordinated, in a way only to do one thing and one thing only—call for an end to the persecution in China. Yet they are not organized to practice cultivation, for it remains an individual matter. Facing Jiang‘s regime‗s organized crime using unlimited state power against Falun Gong, a coordinated effort is needed to expose and end the persecution. The Jiang regime‘s persecution has utilized deceit, torture, brainwashing, forced-feeding, and even murder, while Falun Gong practitioners have responded with only truth clarification, great compassion, tremendous tolerance, and have never resorted to violence of any kind. These ad-hoc ―organizations‖ are for purely practical reasons. For example, if the Chinese consulate has distributed slanderous material to all of the government officials, as they have done in the past, it is inconsiderate for practitioners to call senators and representatives over and over to ask them the same questions. On the other hand, had the persecution never happened, we would not have to have ―organized‖ or coordinated ourselves. If the persecution stops tomorrow, we would not need to have these make-shift ―organizations‖ anymore. Then, Falun Gong practitioners worldwide would be practicing their cultivation, just as Chinese practitioners did before 1999, in parks or in living rooms, quietly and peacefully. Is there any ―dissent‖ among Falun Gong practitioners? In Mr. Li‘s first lecture, he says: ―The most fundamental characteristic of this universe, Zhen-Shan-Ren, is the highest manifestation of the Buddha Fa. It is the fundamental Buddha Fa‖ (Li 1999a, p15). Zhen-Shan-Ren, when translated into English, means TruthCompassion-Forbearance. These are the highest teachings of Falun Gong and are always followed by true practitioners. There is no ―dissent‖ among Falun Gong practitioners regarding this teaching, since a practitioner would not practice Falun Gong if he/she did not believe that the goal of cultivation is to assimilate oneself to Truth-CompassionForbearance. Mr. Li also points out, ―different levels have different Fa‖ (Li 1999a, p8). Therefore Falun Gong practitioners all have different understandings regarding Mr. Li‘s specific teachings. In the process of cultivation, we always have lots of questions or even doubts. In fact, Mr. Li has always encouraged practitioners to think independently and to find our own answers through reading the books and from daily practice. When asked specific questions, Mr. Li frequently refuses to answer the specific issues and instead speaks broadly. ―If I explain all

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the questions in your life, what will be left for you to cultivate? You must practice cultivation and become enlightened on your own‖ (Li 1999a, p383). Having questions and/or doubts is an essential element in self-cultivation and an important checkpoint that ensures practitioners in the same school of cultivation follow the right path. A practitioner will not be able to advance him/herself if he/she does not have any questions. Practitioners are encouraged to share their different understandings at conferences or at our many forums of exchange and sharing, such as the Minghui.net (or ClearWisdom.net) as well as through means of personal communications. Practitioners are also encouraged to bring ―outside‖ opinions into discussion. Langone had the concern that Falun Gong practitioners may be ―only likely to hear that all is well within Falun Gong and all ‗bad‘ events are due to negative ‗outside‘ forces.‖ This is unnecessary, for the opposite is true. We completely understand that as practitioners, we make mistakes and stumble on the road of cultivation. That is how we make progress and advance. We pick up from where we fell and learn from our mistakes. We actively look for problems within ourselves and in practitioners around us, everyday. Our non-practitioner friends and families are often the best source to get direct and honest criticism of our attitude and behavior, and we take note of that and correct ourselves. Furthermore, as we are all doing this independently, the actions of one individual does not translate necessarily to the entire group. Mr. Li has repeatedly told us that we should never attribute our problems to ―outside forces," but rather that we need to seek inside ourselves. As far as self-cultivation is concerned, Mr. Li told us, ―You must cultivate your inner self and not pursue things externally‖ (Li 1999a, p28). ―You should always look within whenever you run into problems - it's guaranteed that many of the problems are your problems‖ (Li 2001). Practitioners are encouraged to compassionately point out others‘ mistakes. ―Since every one of you is cultivating Zhen-Shan-Ren, you should be a good person in any circumstance. If you see his shortcomings and see when he can't move upward, why can't you point them out to him with a kind heart?‖ (Li 1999b) On “what goes on inside practitioners’ mind during the exercises” (Langone Question 4) Simply put it, there is ―nothing‖ going on in practitioners‘ mind when doing the five sets of exercises. ―If you can‘t think of good things, at least you should not think of bad things. It‘s best if you don't think about anything‖ (Li 1999a, p194). ―Our practice is unlike ordinary practice that makes one absent-minded, in trance, or infatuated. Our practice requires you to cultivate yourselves with full awareness…. We have said that your Main Consciousness must be conscious, because this practice cultivates your own self. You should make progress with a conscious mind…. How do we practice meditation? We require of everyone that no matter how deeply you meditate, you must know that you are practicing here. You are absolutely forbidden to be in a state of trance wherein you know nothing‖ (Li 1999a, p339). For that reason, there is no explicit or implied affinity with so-called ―mind-emptying forms of meditation‖ Langone (2003) keenly worried about. Because we are fully in control of our mind, we are not letting anyone else attempt to control our thinking. Neither do we seek any alternate levels of consciousness or mental states but we try and become more ―awake‖ and more sober-minded. Apparently Ching (2001) was not aware of the true meaning of qigong exercises. Qigong does not seek to ―cease‖ human thinking; rather, it seeks to pause human‘s thinking of bad things, such as greed, lust, ideas harmful to others, and thoughts that aim at personal gains at the expense of others. In doing so, the mind (main consciousness) is freed from these bad, tiring ideas and is fully rested during meditation. That is why people who practice meditation feel rejuvenated afterward. Numerous scientific

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studies have found that relaxation techniques associated with meditation have been shown to be healthy (e.g., Davidson 2003). In fact, not only will Falun Gong not cause any ―adverse psychological effects‖ (Langone 2003), but it can correct abnormal physical and psychological states. Mr. Li has discussed in great length some phenomena, mentalities, and behaviors in qigong practices that may cause harm, such as ―cultivation insanity‖ (Li 1999a, p214). He pointed out how the perceptions were developed, the reasons and underlying causes for these phenomena, and most importantly, how to avoid these problems. In fact, some practitioners who were depressed, had social problems, or thought about leaving ordinary society and their families have fully recovered and have been living a very normal and healthy life (Dolnyckyj 2001). On “Mr. Li Hongzhi and his relationship with his students” (Langone Questions 5) First of all, nowhere in Mr. Li Hongzhi's books, lectures, speeches, or any published audio and video files has he ever claimed to be a god, a buddha, or a deity. Instead, he has instructed practitioners to treat him like a man. ―So you should just regard me as a human being like you. What I‘ve discussed isn‘t alarmist talk—I‘m only teaching the Fa and telling you the principles of the cosmos. Whether to believe it and whether you can cultivate are fully up to you, yourselves‖ (Li 1998a). He also discourages any kind of religious ritual. ―We do not practice the ritual of kowtowing or bowing. That kind of formality serves little use, and it performs like a religion. We do not practice it‖ (Li 1999a, p93). Practitioners at different levels will have different understandings and perceptions as they advance through their course of cultivation. Our personal relationships with Mr. Li are as follows: [Frank] Initially, when I first studied the book Zhuan Falun, I was, of course, a reader of the book and Mr. Li was the author. Later, I found this book to be an excellent book that explained many of the questions that had puzzled me for a long time, such as: Where are we from? Where are we in the universe? Why are we here? Is there a god or gods? Are there beings beyond what we can see? What is the meaning of life? Are Buddhism, Christianity, and Daoism real? One by one, the book Zhuan Falun provided answers to my questions. I then decided to practice the exercises, and therefore became a student of this cultivation practice, and Mr. Li became my teacher. As I continued my study and exercises and went through rote learning, comprehension, and ―critical‖ thinking, there had been much improvement in my physical body, mental health, as well as my temperament, compassion, and level of tolerance. With all these incredible improvements spiritually and physically, consciously and clear-mindedly, I became a disciple in Falun Dafa cultivation, and Mr. Li became naturally my master in guiding my cultivation. [Tracey] I started my practice of Falun Gong in 1997 after reading Zhuan Falun. I never thought about my relationship with Mr. Li until the persecution started in July 1999 when various personal attacks on Mr. Li poured in from Jiang‘s regime. Some of them, I knew by my heart that they were not true from my then two year experience of practicing Falun Gong. Some of them I was not sure about. I had to re-think why I chose to practice Falun Gong and how I should regard Mr. Li. I remembered that when I first started to practice, I did have many doubts in my mind regarding specific teachings in the book although I very much agreed with the principle of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance. Nevertheless I decided to try cultivating myself according to the teachings. In the process of cultivation, I found many of my questions answered while many new questions emerged. However, it always turned out that it was me who failed to realize the meaning of the teaching rather than that the teaching having any problem. The improvement in my health and refinement of my mind has constantly been happening as Mr. Li promised in the book. I practice Falun Gong to my own benefit and not to that of Mr. Li. I consider him a sage or an enlightened person.

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I feel very fortunate and grateful to be his student. However, I never considered worshiping him. [Frank] In Zhuan Falun, Mr. Li systematically and thoroughly explained all the requirements of cultivation in Falun Dafa, the steps involved, the purification of the body, the extraordinary phenomena in the community of cultivators, etc. Personally, I have experienced the cleaning up of my body to an illness-free state, the celestial eye, and precognition & retro-cognition, all happened under my clear, conscious, and sentient state. I was fully aware of what was happening and clearly knew where I was, what I was doing, what I was thinking, and what I was experiencing. All of these happened according to the specifications described in Zhuan Falun. I have to rationally conclude that one would have to have gone through that whole process oneself in order to possibly describe, explain, and elucidate all these phenomena to the fullest extent. In other words, the person who has explained and explicated all these must have completed the process of cultivation successfully oneself. The ultimate goal of cultivation practices, when achieved, is enlightenment. This person who has completed the cultivation process is, then, an enlightened person in cultivation. An enlightened person through cultivation is, in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, a Buddha. So in my eyes, Mr. Li Hongzhi is a man; he is the author of a great book that has awakened the sleeping souls of millions of people; he is a teacher of some 100 million students studying Falun Dafa worldwide; he is a master for millions of true practitioners; and he is an enlightened person through Buddha Fa cultivation. [Tracey] When I heard that Falun Gong practitioners in China were beaten and tortured with electric batons and cruel slavery tools, female practitioners were stripped naked and thrown into male cells, babies were tortured as a way to subdue the parents, healthy practitioners were forcefully injected with neurotoxic drugs in mental hospitals, spouses were forced to divorce practitioners, families were so financially broken that they had to beg for food, and that the number of deaths as result of the persecution increased everyday, I had to think even harder what I would have done had I been in China. I could not understand why Jiang‘s regime would utilize the whole nation‘s resources to persecute a practice that is so beneficial to its citizens. What is wrong with following the principles of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance to become a better person? Then I realized that all the measures that it used were only for one thing – to force the practitioners to give up their belief. It is an ideological battle. Calling it ―Spring wind transforming into rain," the Jiang‘s regime has been using various brainwashing methods to ―re-educate‖ and ―transform‖ Falun Gong practitioners. A very vicious brainwashing method they are using is to take Mr. Li‘s words out of context and distort his true meanings. Other methods include continuous propaganda attacks, sleep deprivation, and physical torture. If a practitioner has any uncertainties about his/her cultivation or blind trust for Mr. Li, he/she would not be able to endure even a fraction of this kind of persecution. Willing to accept it or not, the persecution has become a part of our cultivation. Mr. Li has actually foreseen problems like this and taught us, ―Your mind must be right‖ (Li 1999a, p245). I realized that as a practitioner of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance, I must truthfully and compassionately explain what I know about Falun Gong to people who have been deceived by the lies and help to end the persecution in China. In this process I must tolerate any prejudice or misunderstandings people may have and not use violence. Because of Mr. Li‘s teaching, I have been able to achieve this. I felt that his wisdom, or his Fashen (Li 1999a, p200), has always been with me. I believe that his wisdom, or Fashen, is also with practitioners in China all the time, otherwise they would not be able to uphold

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their belief in this extremely difficult time. We have to attribute this extraordinary strength to the teaching of an enlightened being. But again, regardless of how we might personally think of him, Mr. Li has said, on numerous occasions, to just treat him like a man. On other issues raised by Langone (2003) As to the leader/leadership argument, there is no leadership versus membership relationship among cultivation practices, including Falun Gong. The mentality seems to derive from the cultic group presumption that a group must exist for the benefit of its leader. But what if there is no ―leader‖ but only a ―teacher‖ in the group? What if the teacher does not seek anything in return for his teaching? All Langone‘s assumption and subsequent analyses would fall apart under such conditions. For Falun Gong, that is exactly the case, as we have indicated earlier. The teaching is there, free, including the guiding principles and the practice exercises. When one practices by relying on the ―Fa as the teacher," one really does not need anyone to ―lead‖ him/her. The leadership-membership disagreement argument doesn‘t apply since there is no leadermember relationship. In cultivation practices, there does not need to be disagreements. Instead, goal congruency is omnipresent because the teacher aims at bringing students to higher levels, and students aim at achieving higher levels and improving themselves with the help of the teacher. One does not have to disagree, because one simply does not need to disagree. If one disagrees, one can simply stop practicing, join another way of cultivation, or give up cultivation altogether. If one has to argue for a resolution of a ―disagreement," then there are indeed three ways to resolve it: stop (practicing in this method), seek (an alternative cultivation method), and stop (cultivations altogether). In the light of this, the crisis resolution methods of coercion, emotional manipulation, and ostracism all become irrelevant and meaningless. Besides, coercion, emotional manipulation, and ostracism are all directly against ―benevolence and tolerance‖—two of the three principles in Falun Gong, and are therefore never going to be considered by practitioners. We can certainly understand how conventional thinking of ACM (anti-cult movement) personnel leads to their eagerness to link Falun Gong to a cult, or a group that is unscientific, or something outright ―paranormal.‖ There seems to be at least two reasons for that. One might be that it is easy to classify something inconceivable to something familiar, under the categorization theory. The second is that there might be some who do not believe in the existence of beings beyond our physical dimension. They would not believe it when it is derived from their own cultural heritage, let alone believe it when it is from afar, for the term cultivation and the process from cultivator to deity is totally foreign to them. We‘ll address these issues further in section V. V. Positivist Research on Qigong? A Caveat Modern empiricist and positivist science stipulates that laws are in the form of a generalized conditional, having empirical content, possessing nomological universality, and being systematically integrated (Hunt 1991). That is, all laws are in the ―if-then‖ form of relationship, empirically testable, the phenomena do not occur by ―chance," and form an integrated whole with existing theories. One important aspect of the modern empiricism and positivism-guided research tradition is the requirement of ―inter-subjective verifiability.‖ It is meaningful that Langone (2003) also mentioned ―empirical evidence‖ in his attempt to study Falun Gong. Those people who felt that what is in Zhuan Falun is inconceivable are probably not aware of the profoundness of qigong in general, and Falun Gong in particular. In this section, we explain some of the scientific experiments carried out by top scientists in China during the 1980s. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 82

[Frank] A caveat on research on qigong and cultivation practices needs to be given. In studying cultivation or qigong, because of the supernormal nature of the subject area, traditional empirical or positivist approaches may not always work. In answering Dr. Langone‘s question in section IV, I described some extraordinary phenomenon that I have experienced, such as the third eye (Celestial eye). The ability of seeing things that do not exist in our physical world is not a unique phenomenon among Falun Gong practitioners. It is a relatively common phenomenon among other qigong practitioners or even everyday people. There have been many discussions in science about ―the third eye‖ or the pineal body located at the base of the brain. In 1999, Lucas et al. published an article in Science where they found that the pineal body can actually perceive light (Lucas 1999). It has the same photosensitive proteins and a whole optic transduction system. This research shed light on the mystery of the Celestial eye. With regard to my experience with the third eye, how could I possibly prove this observation ―empirically‖ to someone and anyone? How could this be inter-subjectively verified? Inter-subjective verifiability is something essential to positivist research and prevailed in virtually all subject areas of study in modern sciences, natural and social. In studying something supernatural like qigong, one would encounter numerous obstacles in using this approach. One is either led to not believe it happened, or one would have to admit that there are facts beyond what can be empirically tested in this dimension. As first a physical scientist and then a social scientist by training, I would be untruthful to deny what I actually experienced. Let me give another example regarding the profoundness of qigong. I was a graduate student in science in China in the mid-1980s, during a time when the enthusiasm about qigong was at its peak. My advisor in my alma mater (Peking University) for my graduate studies was also very much involved in qigong research. Together with my advisor, I was in contact with some researchers on supernormal human capabilities associated with qigong exercises. One day in 1986, we went to see a documentary in a conference room of a government office building in Beijing. This internal documentary recorded, using high-speed cinematography, an experiment involving a then famous qigong master in Beijing, Baosheng Zhang. Under tight scrutiny, Zhang held a glass medicine bottle with both of his hands. The bottle's cap was sealed with wax and the seal had the signature of a researcher to ensure that the seal was not broken. He shook the bottle slightly, and the numbered pills inside the bottle fell to the tabletop in front of him. After all the pills were out, the seal, the cap, and the bottle were all examined and determined to be intact. The whole experiment was designed and executed by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Science, Peking University, Chinese Navy Headquarters, and the Defense Science and Technology Commission of China, which oversees all military related research and development and is responsible for the recent launch of China‘s manned space mission. Any and all possibilities of falsification and cheating were carefully eliminated by methods such as double-blind experiments. In one still picture from the high-speed cinematography, a medicine pill was, astonishingly, photographed stuck in the middle of the wall of the glass bottle, with half of the pill inside the bottle, and half outside. Basically, this qigong master had some supernatural capabilities that he was not fully aware of as to where they were from, what they were for, and why he had them while most other people did not. Scientists involved in this study were deeply puzzled because they could not explain what was going on, except that they knew something very extraordinary happened, and it was documented. Some ten years after I watched this experiment, in the book Zhuan Falun, I was able to get an answer. Indeed, qigong is profound and supernatural, just as Mr. Li indicated, ―qigong was not invented by this human kind of ours…it was inherited through a quite remote age and it was also a type of prehistoric culture‖ (Li 1999a, p22). Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 83

Even though healing and curing diseases are not a goal in Falun Gong cultivation, Falun Gong has, nonetheless, surprising healing capabilities. I have been very healthy most of my life. The only ailment I had in the past thirty some years was a hernia that started in my high school years and worsened during my college years. This problem, which recurred every couple of months and continued on and off for decades, suddenly disappeared soon after I started practicing Falun Gong. This phenomenon, which can‘t be explained by modern medicine, is actually nothing compared to the healing stories of other practitioners, where there have been reports of healing of chronic, serious, and even life-threatening illnesses. Some of the modern empiricist research has actually touched upon the profound nature of qigong and meditation. Using brain topography, Wisconsin neuro-psychologist Richard Davidson published a study in Psychosomatic Medicine which showed that meditation makes one‘s attitude better. In addition, researchers at University of California San Francisco studied the heartbeats and blood pressure of the participants, and found that sitting in meditation improved psychological states of the participants (Davidson 2003). [Tracey] My last visit to Beijing, my home city, was from September to October in 1998. When I was there, a health survey was conducted among Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing. Hundreds of practitioners at the site, where I did my morning exercises, were given survey forms with detailed questions about their health information. I did not participate since I was just visiting. As it turned out, a total of 12,731 valid forms were collected. The data showed that 93.4% of those 12,731 practitioners suffered from chronic illness, with 48.9% having had at least three diseases before they started their practice. Through cultivation and exercises in Falun Gong, the overwhelming majority of them (99.1%) reported improved health.. For those who suffered from diseases of any kind, a healing rate of 58.5% was reported. The category of people belonging to "extremely energetic and healthy" changed from 3.5% in the sample population before cultivation to 55.3% after cultivation. A total of 96.5% of the practitioners experienced enhanced energy and health level (Clearwisdom 1998). Another survey conducted in Taiwan in 2002 gave similar results (Hu 2002). I once saw the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) reports of a patient who had liver cancer with metastasis to his omentum. After three month of practicing Falun Gong, the repeated MRI showed disappearance of the omentum mass and shrinking of his two original liver tumors. Many senior women who practiced Falun Gong experienced regaining of their menses – the same effect as hormone replacement therapy and a sign of rejuvenation. Many people who had thyroids removed came off of their thyroxin and were tested as having normal thyroid functions. All these can be researched and verified by independent medical examiners. The human body has the most complicated system. If Falun Gong can make things out of ―nothing," as in the case of thyroidectomy patients, and turn genealternated cancer cells into normal ones, would it be such a surprise that it could do other things as well? We believe that body, mind, and sprit are one entity. If even plants have the ability to adapt to human wishes and to communicate with man, respond to music, and possess curative powers (Tompkins and Bird 1996), would one still be laughing at various extraordinary capabilities in humans, the most intelligent beings on earth? If even water has memories (Benveniste 1988) and can distinguish between good and bad (Emoto 1999), shouldn‘t we humans, the most capable beings on earth, be more conscious about our choices? Before the microscope was discovered, people thought that the first person who suggested that diseases were caused by microbes was crazy. Now everyone agrees that bacteria and viruses are associated with the majority of diseases. Ancient Chinese doctors with Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 84

extraordinary capabilities have seen the operations of meridians or energy channels in the other dimension of human body and developed Chinese Traditional Medicine and acupuncture. Qigong practice works at transforming materials in a more microscopic level than where bacteria and viruses are in other dimensions. Although no one knows how it works at the present time, it does not mean that science will not advance to be able to measure it one day and we may actually see it making miracles. In order to hasten this day, we need to first admit that these phenomena are not just some crazy people‘s illusions and that these facts are not just fabricated stories. Only then, can we adopt a humble attitude and truly devote some effort to investigate the underlying causes. This is actually how true science should advance itself. ―What today‘s scientific and technological community has discovered is sufficient to change our present textbooks. Once human kind‘s conventional mentalities form a systematic way of working and thinking, new ideas are very difficult to accept‖ (Li 1999a, p20). We encourage psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals to put down their preconceived notions about Falun Gong, qigong, and cultivation, and examine, carefully and completely, the potential benefits of Falun Gong to your patients, customers, friends and families, and even yourselves. VI. Closing Remarks Contrary to the slander of Jiang Zemin‘s regime, Falun Gong is an ancient cultivation practice based on the principles of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance, and is characterized by its open, non-discriminatory, peaceful, and non-violent nature. Practitioners from over 60 countries worldwide have benefited from its ability to upgrade one‘s physical health and morality. We explored the ―reasons‖ behind the persecution, which is centered on Jiang‘s prejudice, jealousy, and narrow-mindedness. No matter what the reasons for the persecution, this prolonged, brutal persecution, initiated and led by Jiang, is illegal, immoral, against freedom of belief, and against universal human rights It must be stopped immediately. There seems to be some unfriendliness, antagonism, and even hostility among cult critics towards qigong, meditation, and cultivation, as evidenced in their adoption of terms such as ―irrational and strange ideas‖ (Rahn 2000), ―paranormal‖ (Rahn 2002), ―cease human thinking‖ (Ching 2001), ―mind-emptying forms of meditation‖ (Langone 2003), and ―the risk of adverse psychological effects‖ (Langone 2003). In Rahn's (2002) vocabulary on her writing about Falun Gong, internet blockage and censoring by the Chinese government had become "internet restrictions.‖ There really need not be such hostility, if one is able to look at meditation and cultivation from a new, objective perspective, as truth and scientific discoveries are often derived from inconceivable, ―strange‖ ideas. Cultivation is profound, extraordinary, and oftentimes regarded as ―inconceivable.‖ But ―if human beings are able to take a fresh look at themselves as well as the universe and change their rigid mentalities, humankind will make a leap forward‖ (Li 1999a, Lunyu). It also appears to be the case that some cult critics might have pre-judged Falun Gong as a cult. Subsequent study then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where all succeeding ―evidences‖ that support this notion are accepted, while those refuting it are rejected. As we have mentioned above, the teachings in Falun Gong contradict the core definition of a cult. Moreover, in the eleven years since Falun Gong has been practiced worldwide, in over 60 countries, there has never been a single, credible case of Falun Gong causing any practitioner any harm whatsoever. The only so-called examples of these concerns have come from Chinese state-controlled media and a handful of anecdotal cases that were onesided and not peer-evaluated (e.g., Luo 2003). In actuality, our own investigation of Luo‘s two subjects revealed starkly different responses. Some cult researchers claimed to have

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surveyed family members of Falun Gong practitioners, but they had not directly surveyed the Falun Gong practitioners themselves, or heard the practitioners' side of the story. A fair and unbiased evaluation of Falun Gong by non-practitioners is not often seen in Western media and academics, with the notable exception of Schechter (2000). The major obstacle in scholarly research and evaluation of Falun Gong and its practitioners seems to be that the beliefs of researchers and people who are concerned about this cultivation practice are in opposition to the beliefs held by Falun Gong practitioners. Therefore, based on their own beliefs, notions, and previous experience with cults, and fearing that Falun Gong practitioners might indeed do harm to themselves or others in the society as the Chinese government has described, they would come to the conclusion that Falun Gong is probably a ―harmful cult," or has the ―tendency‖ to become one, regardless of a lack of concrete evidence. If unfamiliar, ―strange," and ―inconceivable‖ ideas were all that were needed to label something a cult, wouldn‘t the story of God commanding Abraham to kill his son and feeding thousands with five loaves of bread and two fish make Christianity and Judaism cults as well? Some cult critics believe that what is happening in China is a standoff between a government that might have done something wrong or too harsh and a group that has also done something wrong, and therefore a ―reconciliation," or ―backing off‖ by both sides is needed (Rosedale, personal communications, 2003). This is not the case. The so-called ―misconduct‖ of Falun Gong took place after the persecution started and are a result of the persecution, not a cause. On one side of this standoff is the police power of an authoritarian regime with unlimited use of state resources, on the other side are defenseless civilians, many of them women and retirees. On one side is a government that controls all the propaganda machines of TV, newspapers, radios, and the Internet; on the other side are civilians who could not openly defend their views with a single word in newspapers or a single voice on radio or TV, and who are lucky if their truth clarification video clips could be inserted in TV signals for a few minutes. On one side is a regime that is notoriously known for lying and has all the motivation to lie in this case; On the other side is a group of people who hold ―truthfulness‖ as one of their basic principles. To ―back off‖ from this standoff they were forced into, Falun Gong practitioners would have no choice but to give up their beliefs and practices, for they are already against the wall. They have been deprived of their right to defend themselves, in public or in court. They have been forced to work in labor camps. They have been brainwashed in ―re-education‖ centers using sleep deprivation and torture. They cannot sit quietly in lotus position anywhere in the 960,000 square kilometers of Chinese soil, when all they need is an area no larger than a page of a newspaper. And, they cannot even open a blue-covered book to read in the privacy of their homes. For Falun Gong practitioners, to ―back off‖ from this standoff would mean to give up a cultivation practice that is peaceful, benign, and beneficial to the practitioners and to the society. Asking practitioners to ―back off‖ is tantamount to asking them to give up their beliefs, which is precisely what the goal of the repressing regime in this persecution against Falun Gong is. It is a persecution against a belief, simply and straightforwardly. Looking back at history, we all know and understand the persecution against Christianity and the hardships Christians endured hundreds of years ago. It wasn't until hundreds of years after Jesus Christ was crucified and his followers persecuted that people started to see the value of what they believed. Now, a persecution against a righteous belief is happening again, and on a much larger scale—the entire world. How long does it have to take the people of today's world to see through the misinformation, regardless of the intended malice, and know that Falun Gong is good and its practitioners should not be persecuted? As history turns the pages, we believe that people in the future will realize that Falun Gong practitioners have been following the principles of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance. Now at Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 86

this very moment of persecution when history is being written, what is one‘s conscientious choice and where does one stand? That is a question all of us on earth will have to answer. References 1. Amnesty International Reports: China. (2003). http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/chn-summary-eng 2. Benveniste, Jacques (1988) et al, "Human Basophil Degranulation Triggered by Very Dilute Antiserum Against IgE" Nature, Vol. 333, No. 6176, pp. 816-818, 30th June, 1988 C Macmillan Magazines Ltd., 1989, http://www.digibio.com/cgibin/node.pl?lg=us&nd=n4_1 3. Chang, Gordon G. (2001). The coming collapse of China. New York: Random House. 4. Ching, Julia (2001), ―The Falun Gong: Religious and political implications,‖ American Asian Review, Winter, 2001. 5. Clearwisdom (1998) ―Brief Summary of Health Survey 1‖ http://clearwisdom.net/emh/download/infopack/healthsurvey1.html 6. Clearwisdom (1999) Falun Gong – The Real Story, on-line video http://clearwisdom.net/emh/download/download_media.html 7. Clearwisdom (2001), Video "Deconstruction": ―What's the Real Story about Tiananmen Self-Immolations‖ http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/special_column/selfimmolation.html 8. Clearwisdom (2002), ―How CCTV Used the Death of a Mentally Ill Woman to Slander Falun Dafa The Truth About Du Weiping's Death‖ http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/9/17/26610.html 9. Clearwisdom (2003), ―U.S. Congress Holds Hearing on the Group Attack Case in New York‖ http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/7/27/38584.html 10. Dai, An (2003), ―An analysis of Jiang‘s conspiracy plot in his interview with CBS‘ 60 Minutes program," Minghui Net, October 11, 2003. 11. Davidson, Richard (2003), http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/302/5642/44 12. Dolnyckyj, Zenon (2001) ―Why I go to Tiananmen Square‖ http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/11/20/15964.html ―Three and a half years ago I was defeated by society, and chose to give up on all of you and my family, get rid of all my ID and head into the mountains to learn martial arts. That's when I found Falun Dafa. It taught me transcend my vices, shortcomings and remain in society, which would naturally benefit society. I got ride of many habits including alcohol, smoking, and doing drugs. My heart was filled with Truth-Compassion-Forbearance. My mother started to practice Falun Gong after she witnessed this huge change in me. Her arthritis was cured and she lost weight from obesity.‖ 13. Du, Weiping case http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2001/5/29/11585.html 14. Emerson, Richard M. (1962), "Power-Dependence Relations," American Sociological Review, 27, 31-41. 15. Emoto, Masaru (1999) Messages from Water in Japanese and English 16. He, Qinglian. (1998). China's Pitfall. (This book is a Chinese best seller. However, there are many English reviews about the book on the Internet. – urls?) 17. HFUT 2002 (Heifei University of Technology) http://www.hfut.edu.cn/studentlife/www/c&i/new%20site/html/fxjjs.htm 18. Hong Kong ICHRD (2002), or The Hong Kong Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy is one of the most recognized organizations that provide China's human rights information to international media, the UN and governments. Noticeably is their in-depth report ―China Is Intensifying Its Persecution on Religions and Spiritual Movements Using the ‗Law against Cults‘ ‖ published in March 2000. Website: http://www.89-64.com 19. HRIC (2003), Human Rights in China Report, (http://iso.hrichina.org/iso/index.adp) 20. Hu, Yu-Whuei (2002) http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/1/1/30401.html Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 87

21. Human Rights in China. (2004, March 23). Internet Dissident Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison. http://iso.hrichina.org/iso/ 22. Human Rights Watch. (2002). Dangerous Meditation: China's Campaign Against Falungong. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/china/ 23. Hunt, Shelby D. (1991), Modern Marketing Theory: Critical Issues in the Philosophy of Marketing Science, South-Western Publishing Co., Cincinnati, OH. 24. Kahn, Joseph (2003), ―Clinton ‗History‘ Doesn‘t Repeat Itself in China,‖ New York Times, September 24, 2003. 25. Langone, Michael D. (2003), ―Reflections on Falun Gong and the Chinese Government,‖ Cultic Studies Review, 2(2), 2003. 26. Li, Hongzhi (1994a), ―Fa Explanations of Zhuan Falun‖ (Not translated into English. p317 in Chinese version) 27. Li, Hongzhi (1994b), ―Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa," http://www.falundafa.org/eng/books.htm 28. Li, Hongzhi (1995) ―Zhuan Falun II," http://www.falundafa.org/eng/books.htm 29. Li, Hongzhi (1996), ―Dafa Will Forever be Pure Like Diamond," ―Cultivation Practice is Not Political‖Essentials for Further Advancement 30. Li, Hongzhi (1997a), ―Lecture in Sydney," ―Question: The third question is the issue of killing as mentioned in the book. Killing a life is a very big sin. If a person commits suicide, does it count as a sin or not? Master: It counts as a sin.‖ 31. Li, Hongzhi (1997b), ―Lecture in the United States‖ 32. Li, Hongzhi (1998a), ―Lecture at the First Conference in North America," p. 42, March, 1998. 33. Li, Hongzhi (1998b), Falun Fofa (A lecture in Switzerland Fa Conference), September 45, 1998. 34. Li, Hongzhi (1999a), Zhuan Falun, Third translation edition (updated in March, 2000, USA), The Universe Publishing Company, New York, NY. On killing: ―For practitioners, we have set the strict requirement that they cannot kill lives. Whether it is of the Buddha School, the Tao School, or the Qimen School, regardless of which school or practice it is, as long as it is an upright cultivation practice, it will consider this issue very absolute and prohibit killing—this is for sure.‖ 35. Li, Hongzhi (1999b), Lecture at the Fa-Conference in Canada (Toronto, May 23, 1999) On religion: ―As to religions, I have talked about this subject many times. I don‘t object to your practicing any religion. Yet we are not a religion, so don‘t treat us like a religion.‖ ―I would also like to take this opportunity to tell everyone that I don‘t oppose any religion, especially those orthodox religions, such as Catholicism, Christianity and Judaism, etc. I have never opposed those religions, including Buddhism.‖ 36. Li, Hongzhi (2001), ―Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.‖ 37. Li, Hongzhi (2002), Essentials for Further Advancement II 38. Lucas, R.J., et. al. (1999), Science, 284:505,1999 39. Luo, Samuel (2003), ―What Falun Gong Really Teaches," Cultic Studies Review, 2(2), 2003. 40. Madsen, Richard (2000), ―Understanding Falun Gong," Current History, 99 (638), 243247, September 2000. 41. Morehead, John W. (2002), ―Terror in the Name of God," Cultic Studies Review, 1(3), 2002. 42. Nathan, Andrew. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023107/0231072856.htm. 43. Ping, Hu. (2003, No. 4). The Falun Gong Phenomenon. China Rights Forum. http://iso.hrichina.org/download_repository/2/a1_Falungong4.2003.pdf 44. Rahn, Patsy (2000), ―The Falun Gong: Beyond the Headlines,‖ Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 17, 2000, 168-186. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 88

45. Rahn, Patsy (2002), ―The Chemistry of a Conflict: The Chinese Government and the Falun Gong,‖ Terrorism and Political Violence, 14 (4), Winter 2002. 46. Rand report (2002) http://www.rand.org/hot/press.02/dissent.html 47. Rawski, Thomas (2003) http://www.pitt.edu/~tgrawski/ 48. Robbins, Thomas (2003), ―Cults, State Control, and Falun Gong: A Comment on Herbert Rosedale‘s ―Perspectives on Cults as Affected by the September 11th Tragedy‖," Cultic Studies Review, 2(2), 2003. 49. Rosedale, Herbert L. (2001), ―Perspective on Cults as Affected by the September 11th Tragedy," A paper presented in Beijing at the meeting of the China Anti-Cult Association in December, 2001. 50. Rosedale, Herbert L. (2003), ―Ideology, Demonization, and Scholarship: The Need for Objectivity – A Response to Robbins‘ Comments on Rosedale, the Chinese Government, and Falun Gong," Cultic Studies Review, 2(2), 2003. 51. Schechter, Danny (2000), Falun Gong’s Challenge to China: Spiritual Practice or ―Evil Cult‖? Akashic Books, New York, NY. 52. The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group. (2003, October). United Nations Reports on China's Persecution of Falun Gong. http://www.flghrwg.net/reports/UN20002003/UNReport2000-2003.pdf 53. Tompkins, Peter and Christopher Bird (1996), The Secret Life of Plants, Earthpulse Press, copy right 1996-1999. 54. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. (2000). 2000 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom: China. http://uscirf.gov/dos00Pages/irf_china.php3?scale=1024 55. Wang, Tao, Levi Browde, Jason Loftus, Shiyu Zhou, and Stephen Gregory (2003), http://www.faluninfo.net/specialreports/jiangspersonalcrusade/ 56. WOIPFG (2003) - The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong: 57. Wong, John and William T. Liu (1999), ―The Mystery of China's Falun Gong: Its Rise and Its Sociological Implications," Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. and Singapore University Press. 58. Zhengjian (2003), ―A Review of July 20: Persecution of Falun Gong Resulted from Jiang Zeming‘s Narrow-mindedness and Jealousy 4 Years Ago,‖ http://zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2003/7/17/22573p.html 59. Zhang, Liang (2001). June 4th: The True Story. 60. Zimbardo, Philip G. (2002), ―Mind Control: Psychological Reality or Mindless Rhetoric?‖ Cultic Studies Review, 1(3), 2002. About the authors Dr. Frank Tian Xie is Assistant Professor of Marketing, in the Department of Marketing, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. ([email protected]). He received his Bachelor‘s degree in science from Peking University and MBA in finance and Ph.D. in business administration from Georgia State University. Prior to his career in academia, he had eight years of experience in the industry, serving in technical, supervisory, managerial, and consulting positions in scientific, retailing, financial, and marketing services companies. His research appears in The Meteoretics, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, Journal of Interactive Advertising, Journal of Marketing Channels, and World Economic Review. He is also the Director of Marketing, of the Greater Philadelphia Asian Culture Center (GPACC), a non-profit organization serving to bridge between Chinese and Western communities. His weekly column on marketing and selling appears on Epochtimes, a worldwide Chinese language newspaper. Dr. Tracey Zhu is a board-certified physician of internal medicine practicing in New Haven, CT. ([email protected]). She has done five years of research on Molecular Biology at Yale Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 89

Medical School, before starting her residency at Hospital of Saint Raphael in 1997. She has published molecular cloning articles on scientific journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Her other publications on Falun Gong include ―Falun Gong – A Way of Cultivation Practice," Qi – The Journal of Traditional Eastern Health and Fitness, Winter 2000. (http://qi-journal.com/Qigong.asp?token.SearchID=Falun%20Gong:%20A%20Way%20of%20Cultivation%20Practice) Appendix: A Personal Statement from Mr. Gang Chen (Presented at AFF conference on October 18, 2003 in Hartford, Connecticut) Ladies and gentlemen: My name is Gang Chen and I am from Marlton NJ. I came to U.S. three months ago from Beijing. I used to be the logistics manager at the Beijing branch company of Carlsberg int‘l Corp. I would like to share my personal experience as a Falun Gong practitioner in China. In June 2000, I was sent to Beijing Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp for 1-year detention without trial, simply because I practice Falun Gong. In the labor camp, the police guards used a whole set of brainwash methods to force me giving up Falun Gong. The methods they used included threats, lying, propaganda, physical and mental tortures. On one day of September, 2000 I saw police beating and shocking another Falun Gong practitioner named Tiantong Sun with about 10 electric batons simultaneously, because he refused to attend the convention condemning Falun Gong. During my detention I was always forced to read or watch the ―brainwashing‖ materials. Some of them were filled with personal attacks of Mr. Li, some of them were distortions of Mr. Li‘s teachings by taking his words out of context or by making up lies, and some of them were fabricated accusations of Falun Gong practitioners including many bloody scenes. For example, I had to watch the photographs over and over, in which a mad man cut himself open and exposed his bloody abdominal content. One thing that I would like to bring your attention to is that in the labor camp I have seen Chinese state media articles claiming that a certain American anti-cult organization supported the persecution of Falun Gong. When I was in labor camp, I was only allowed to sleep for less than four hours a day. In September 2000, they did not allow me to sleep for fifteen consecutive days while doing intense labor work, or enduring physical torture during the day. On one day of October, 2000, a policeman whose last name is Shi shocked me continuously with an electric baton to such a degree that large areas of my arms, neck, head and back skin were burned. On one day in February 2001, because I refused to slander Falun Gong, the police mobilized a dozen inmates who had given up their Falun Gong practice under pressure to beat me up ruthlessly. Some of them were fellow practitioners whom I knew before. They beat me until my body was full of wounds and my face became deformed. They then taped my mouth and tied me up with my arms behind, forced my body bend forward and tied my head and my legs together. At that moment I was almost suffocated and I felt the excruciating pain in my low back. I almost fainted and felt on the edge of death. This painful torture exceeded my limit of endurance. I collapsed and gave in against my will. I was unable to walk during the next two weeks. Another practitioner named Lu Changjun who suffered the same torture became paralyzed and was never able to stand up again. I would never forget the horrible scene: I lay on my bed, in tears, like a dead fish because of the injuries, hearing the horrible screams from practitioners being tortured! I felt like being in hell! But the most painful wound was in my heart! Since the persecution, I lost my job and was taken away from my happy family. All I received was humiliation and torture. In addition to physical tortures, these police guards Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 90

destroyed my confidence and dignity. They forced me to become a person that I despise, tarnished my soul and destroyed my hope. I fell into deep depression. I felt as if a crowd of malicious monsters were making fun of me while torturing me, saying: ―you deserve living in Hell! You deserve being humiliated and there will never be an end to it!‖ I once promised to follow the principle of ―truth, compassion and tolerance," but I betrayed my consciousness under extreme pressure! I could not imagine how to face my family, friends, and people I know. I did not want them to know that I was a coward. I was suddenly overwhelmed by anxiety, depression and helplessness. I even thought about committing suicide. I have eye-witnessed many former Falun Gong practitioners, after having given up Falun Gong under pressure, beating and cursing others in order to show that they were truly ―transformed‖. Their behavior manifested the true nature of this persecution - turning good and kind people into violent and cruel perpetrators! I said to myself, ―I cannot become one of them. I want to be a good person! Regardless of what happened, I will still follow the principles of ―truth, compassion and tolerance‖! This thought to some extent smoothed my painful heart and carried me through the darkest period of my life. In contrast, some people who were brainwashed by these malicious lies have lost their identities totally and became mentally ill due to tremendous pressure. I witnessed six such cases including my friend Zhu Zhiliang, an engineer with a Master degree. He became delirious and could not recognize his parents and wife, and talked nonsense after he came out of the brainwashing labor camp in Feb 2003. After I was released in December, 2001, the nightmare of my labor camp experience constantly haunted me. I felt dizzy, exhausted, depressed, scared, guilty and helpless. I developed palpitations and insomnia. Because I became so guilty that I gave into the brainwashing, I was frustrated in my cultivation. I felt shame whenever I thought about Falun Gong. I tried many other ways, such as traveling, sports, reading, etc. to get away from the bad feelings, but I failed. I had even developed hostility against the society. The reason was that I had lost respect and hope for myself. Finally, it was Falun Gong that helped me to regain my confidence and self worth. I take comfort in realizing that I have come back to a peaceful and righteous way of life. After my release from the labor camp, I was very fortunate to have received an offer for a position with a U.S. company, because of my specialty in import-export related business. That is how I got an H-1 visa and came to the U.S., where I can now talk freely about my experiences. Other practitioners in China are not so fortunate. I understand that AFF‘s job is to help victims of brainwashing. It is indeed a meaningful thing. I believe that all of you treasure lives and protect human rights and justice. I hope that you could help those people who are being mind-controlled by CCP. Please help us stop this persecution. Sincerely yours, Chen, Gang Marlton, NJ Oct 15th 2003

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AFF Statement on China and Falun Gong In order to dispel misconceptions that may have arisen in AFF‘s ongoing dialogue with independent scholars from various countries, Falun Gong practitioners, and Chinese scientists and government officials, AFF wishes to make three points regarding the controversies involving Falun Gong and the Chinese government. First, AFF upholds every person‘s right of freedom of religion and worship, but is concerned about the use of manipulative techniques and undue influence to diminish the freedom of choice and freedom of mind of a group‘s members. Second, AFF urges the Chinese government and Chinese scholars and professionals to respond constructively to reports by well-respected international human rights organizations that the human rights of members of Falun Gong and other religions in China have been systematically violated. The physical brutality and other human rights violations described in these reports should not be tolerated. Third, reports in the Chinese press and elsewhere that AFF has branded Falun Gong a cult are false, as are reports that AFF has said Falun Gong is not a cult. Although individuals associated with AFF may hold various opinions on this subject, AFF as an organization has not taken a position on the issue. Our Web sites emphasize that lists of groups on which we have information are not lists of ―cults.‖ For more information on AFF‘s concerns about labeling and definitional issues, see: http://csj.org/aff/aff_linknotice.htm http://csj.org/aff/aff_nonendorsement.htm http://www.cultinfobooks.com/bks_idx/idx_affterms.htm http://www.cultinfobooks.com/infoserv_aff/aff_termdefambiguity.htm Approved by the AFF Board of Directors on 23 April 2004.

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The “Helpmate” of Males: An Ethnography on Sex Segregation and Theocracy Cliff Cheng, Ph.D. University of Southern California (USC) Abstract This ethnography explores sex segregation in a cultic communal social change movement - ―The Third Sacred School.‖ ―The Third Sacred School‖ had 12 ―units‖ (communes) in western Caucasian Christian countries. First a study of ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ organizational structure was done. The member‘s view in ―The Third Sacred School‖ is that is has no structure and no hierarchy. Focus groups comprised of 36 members indicated that there was a hierarchical organizational structure. Within individual ―units‖ there were five hierarchical levels. Above the ―units‖ was ―Spiritual Leader.‖ ―Spiritual Leader‘s‖ job has always been held by a male, for ―The Third Sacred School‖ believes ―women focus spirit through men.‖ After the structural study was done, members were coded into the structure based on their job assignments. In the ―units,‖ the top two organizational levels included 6 ―Unit Focuses‖ and their assistants and the ―Unit Managers.‖ Only males held these jobs. At the third level, the ―Unit Managers‖ were assisted by 12 (6 males, 6 females) ―Work Pattern Coordinators,‖ who oversaw a workforce that was sex segregated into the ―Men‘s Work Pattern‖ and the ―Women‘s Work Pattern.‖ The fourth level of hierarchy consisted of departments which were either the women‘s work pattern, i.e., kitchen, household, or men‘s work pattern, i.e., construction/maintenance, farm/ranch. Of the 10 Department Supervisors at the fourth level of hierarchy, 6 were males, and 4 were females. At the worker level, there were 402 workers, 287 females and 115 males, a 2.5:1 ratio of females to males. Most females started at and stayed at the fifth and lowest level of hierarchy. The females at levels two through four were usually wives of high-ranking males. The subject organization used theocracy to justify patriarchal sex segregation. Key Words: Sex segregation. Patriarchy. Theocracy As a graduate student whose interests include organizational theory and social change, I found the literature on communes fascinating, for they purported to be a practicing form of social organization that is an alternative to modernistic organization (Kanter 1972; Zablocki, 1980). Having never seen an actual commune before, which is an alternative form of social organization that is in most cases supposedly non-mechanistic, I invited myself and my students in 1987 to visit one of ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ (Note: in this paper quotation marks are typically used for terms that have a unique meaning for the group‘s members.) communes, after a colleague introduced me to one its leaders. I recognized that the ―The Third Sacred School‖ could potentially be (and later was) the subject of my doctoral dissertation (Cheng, 1991).1 Here was an organization that purported to resocialize itself and its ―members‖ through education and communal living away from conventional modernistic organizational behavior to humanistic organizational behavior. 2 ―The Third Sacred School‖ was utopian, for members believed they had developed through ―living out

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God‘s will‖ a community that was ―enlightened.‖ ideal type, a utopia.

Their purported kind of society was an

Methods The study I did on ―The Third Sacred School‖ was the result of known observer longitudinal fieldwork that began in 1987, while I was a graduate student, and continues to this date, albeit on a limited more focused level. From 1987 to 1991, I immersed myself into the everyday cultural life of the subject organization and did participant observation. I started studying ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ organizational resocialization program (Cheng, 1991). Gaining access to study ―The Third Sacred School‖ was easy, for they have an organizational cultural value of ―welcoming all who come.‖ They believe anyone can see ―The Truth‖ (as defined by their organizational ideology), which will result in a ―new person‖ (recruit) becoming ―enlightened,‖ and thus joining the organization. In this research project, I first studied organizational structure. I noticed that the organization was sex segregated. Then I did a second study to see how the jobs in the organization were sex segregated. I took extensive field notes and kept a personal journal. Tape recording was not allowed due to ―members‘‖ objections over perceived invasions of privacy. To preserve confidentiality, some identifying details have been changed and/or merged together. I was in residence in the field at ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ ―units‖ (communes) from 1987 to 1991 for periods up to six weeks at a time, for up to two to three months of the year. During the four-month period in which I wrote the first draft of my doctoral dissertation I moved my residence near one of the ―units‖ and had daily interaction in the cultural life of that ―unit‖ (Cheng, 1991). On a daily basis I observed and took part in cultural life, made field notes, and conducted interviews, which refined my writing. When not in residence at the ―units,‖ I spent up to thirty hours per week on non-residential fieldwork at ―centers‖ and conducting interviews. During the deep immersion fieldwork, I participated in most of the different types of ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ leadership development and communication training classes, as well as other events which purported to resocialize its participants. As a ―class member‖ I learned the organizational culture and gained crude member‘s competencies to the point where I could communicate with ―members‖ by reproducing their culture in talk-ininteraction (Garfinkel, 1963:191-201; Spradely & McCurdy, 1975:41; Fine, 1980). Additionally, I sampled training classes in which I was a non-participant observer. I also participated in communal life by working along side ―members‖ in their everyday organizational routines, e.g., picking berries, cleaning toilets, cooking meals, mending fences, attending ―services,‖ and so on. Sampling and Data Sources. To examine sex segregation, ―The Schedule‖ of work was a primary data source. A threemonth period was examined because the ―Spiritual Leader‖ of ―The Third Sacred School‖ often refers to changing seasons. Solstices and equinoxes were prominent themes in ―services‖ (sermons). ―Long-term visitors‖ to the ―units‖ often visited ―for a season,‖ which may not have coincided with calendar seasons. For the ―units‖ which were agriculturally based, seasons were very important to their planting, growing, and harvesting. Summer was chosen, for that is the season in which most crops were harvested and canned, the maximum number of ―classes‖ and ―seminars‖ were offered, and the maximum number of ―long-term visitors‖ and ―visitors‖ were at the ―units.‖3 An attempt was made to sample ―The Schedules‖ of all 12 ―units.‖ However, the lack of response, incomplete data, illegible data, and uncertainty of the sex of person assigned to Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 94

the job, resulted in the study of 6 ―units.‖ These 6 ―units‖ included both the ―International Headquarters Unit,‖ and ―Canadian Headquarters Unit,‖ which set the example for all the other ―units.‖ Also in this sample were all four of the ―big units‖ (communes with over 40 unit members). ―Units‖ that sent 80% or more of their schedules and up-to-date ―unit roosters‖ were included in the study. To eliminate uncertainty of the sex of person assigned to the job, a request was made that an annotated ―unit rooster‖ be sent with indications as to who were or were not full-time workers, and what their sex was. If the ―unit roosters‖ sent were not annotated, or were out-of-date, they were not counted. A second data source was structured and unstructured observations on which sex performed which job. The sex segregation of a particular department or production was also observed, e.g., what jobs do females perform in the milking house and what jobs to males perform? The third data source used was semi-structured and unstructured interviewing of hundreds of ―Envoys‖ (a name for members of the ―Third Sacred School‖) at all organizational levels, with varying demographic characteristics, and tenure. More detailed information will be supplied later. As a fourth data source, most of the existing and available ―transcripts‖ (of sermons) from the 1930s onward were read and content analyzed. Internal Labor Market. ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ labor market was internal to itself. That is, only very rarely was labor hired from outside the ―units.‖ ―Envoys‖ who were nonunit members were expected to donate their time and services without compensation, and typically without reimbursement of expenses. With few exceptions, all the labor was performed by ―Envoys.‖ While ―Unit Managers‖ liked to represent their ―units‖ as ―selfsufficient‖ from conventional society, an important organizational cultural value, their organizational structure required more labor, especially skilled labor, than they had amongst their ―unit members.‖ ―Units,‖ while not admitting so, were dependent on ―long term visitors,‖ short term ―visitors,‖ and ―class members‖ to operate. ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ construction plans were often not carried out, or the ones which began construction often stalled in construction due to a lack of skilled labor. ―Envoys‖ with construction skills were ―invited‖ to live in the ―units.‖ They were transferred around from ―unit‖ to ―unit‖ to work on different construction projects. Typically ―Envoys‖ were not ―invited‖ to live in a ―unit,‖ though they may visit, without having completed several levels of ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ educational offerings. I observed that people with needed skills were invited to live in a ―unit‖ that needed their skills much sooner than ―Envoys‖ who have completed several levels of ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ educational offerings and had longer organizational tenure. Skilled ―members‖ who lived ―on the outside,‖ often volunteered their skills to ―units.‖ For example, there was a licensed electrician who was an ―Envoy‖ of ―The Third Sacred School‖ who did not live in a ―unit.‖ He volunteered and went to several of different ―units‖ in different parts of the world to volunteer his skills, usually on major construction projects. The ―units‖ also saved up repairs for him to do, but in times when they needed work to be done, such as in the case of a construction project that was being held up by electrical work, they often hired non-members. Similarly ―Envoys‖ with computer skills also volunteered their talents and went around to different ―units‖ to work. Workforce. The workforce in ―The Third Sacred School‖ was somewhat fluid. The 6 ―units‖ studied had an N of 517 ―unit members‖ (permanent residents). The 517 ―unit members‖ studied live at the four largest ―units‖ and 2 smaller ―units.‖ They made up 74.9% of all ―unit members.‖ Nearly all the ―members‖ who lived in ―centers‖ or by themselves usually

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held jobs in conventional society. Since they did not work in one of ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ businesses, they were excluded from the study. The 517 ―unit members‖ studied were etically categorized, that is according to the schema of members, into 439 working adults and 78 non-workers. The 439 adult workers were easier to count and categorize for they worked a full day or more. The 78 remaining ―unit members‖ were excluded from this study because they were not considered workers by management, for they were either children—less than 18 years of age—or adults who were retired and/or medically disabled. Most ―units‖ had few, if any, children. In the ―units‖ that had children, the infants and toddlers were communally cared for. School-age children went to public school in conventional society. Teenagers were sometimes given work after school and on weekends or helped their parents do their work. Retirees and the disabled were not considered by management to be full-time workers. As ―unit members‖ aged or developed medical conditions, they were assigned less work or no work if their medical condition so dictated. Some of the retired adults were able to work for a short duration on light duty tasks, such as dishwashing, setting tables, stuffing envelopes, or answering telephones. Invalids were assigned people to care for them. A few ―units‖ had nurses or chiropractors who were ―unit members,‖ though typically not currently licensed in their respective professions. The other ―units‖ had aides assigned to their elderly ―unit members.‖ Of the 439 working adults, 37 were management personnel who could set their own schedules. Of the 37 managers who could set their own schedules, 26 were men. Of the 11 women managers who could set their own schedules, 7 of them were wives of senior male managers. The rest were supervisors. The assignable full-time workforce of 402 working adults consisted of 287 females (71.4%) and 115 males (28.6%). This included 18 working female adults whose primary assignments were office jobs. The regular office jobs were not on ―The Schedule‖ since a particular person did those jobs, such as secretary, bookkeeper, or clerk. All those jobs were staffed by females. However, those individuals were put on ―The Schedule‖ and assigned an extra job. The extra job varied day to day. It would often involve some aspect of kitchen work. The 402 full-time workforce was augmented by ―long-term visitors,‖ ―short-term visitors,‖ and ―class members.‖ All able bodied individuals, including paying visitors, were required to work on ―The Schedule.‖ I asked one of the ―Unit Managers‖ ―Why do paying visitors have to work?‖ He replied, ―We are not a hotel. you misunderstand. This is a spiritual community. Everybody must be in focus here. We can‘t have people running around here on vacation. Everybody must have a spiritual purpose.‖ ―Spiritual purpose‖ in this sense meant working for free for the good of ―The Third Sacred School.‖ ―Long term visitors‖ were required to work a full day. Some of them were de facto probationary ―unit members‖ who were listed as ―Long term visitors‖ when they were really ―unit members‖ but could not be counted as ―unit members‖ due to their immigration status. ―Short-term visitors‖ (of under a few weeks) usually worked a half-day. ―Class Members‖ were there for education. Part of that education included daily work of 2-4 hrs. Analysis, Translation, Writing, and Feedback After I gathered data, I looked for patterns by performing a semantic domain and content analysis on the emic terms (Casagrande & Hale, 1967; Spradley, 1979:110-111; 1980:93). These domains were compared and contrasted to generate an emic model (Spradley, 1980:131-139). Then, I looked for corresponding etic domains to ground the theory generated (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). ―Emic‖ terms are those actually used by the members. ―Etic‖ terms are those used by social science or conventional society. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 96

In writing this ethnography, I translated emic (folk, members‘) terms into etic (social sciences, conventional society‘s) terms by using parentheses following the emic terms, if the emic term was different from conventional usage. For instance, the term ―Envoy‖ is emic, which translates into an etic term, ―members.‖ Emic terms that have multiple meanings, depending upon usage, are translated in varying ways throughout the ethnography. To increase validity, I sought feedback on earlier drafts of this and other ethnographies from interested members, managers, executives, and ―Spiritual Leader‖ where there was disagreement of my presentation of the emic view. Background of the Subject Organization In 1923, ―The Third Sacred School‖ was founded in the United States after ―Founder,‖ also referred to as ―Spiritual Leader I,‖ ―came into consciousness‖ (enlightenment) following several days of rapture, which was preceded by a period of severe depression. ―Founder‖ was a Euro-American male from the rural working-poor with a grade-school education. He was the son of a Christian preacher father and homemaker mother. His public ministerial activities started during the American Great Depression of the 1930s, when he began preaching to anyone who would listen to him. ―Founder‖ stated that ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ revolutionary social change mission is to ―assist in the spiritual regeneration of humankind‖ (to act as a change agent to save humankind from its own evil human nature). In 1946, ―Spiritual Leader I‖ founded his first ―unit‖ (commune) where ―mailings‖ (transcriptions of his addresses) could be mailed from, and where residential ―classes‖ (resocialization) could be held, and ―Envoys‖ could live communally to ―prove out‖ his vision. After ―Founder‖ died in a plane crash in 1956, ―Spiritual Leader II‖ succeeded him. During his thirty-three year tenure, ―Spiritual Leader II‖ built a worldwide organization of twelve ―units‖ in western, Caucasian, Christian dominated countries and five front stage organizations.4 The front organizations presented themselves to the general public as nonprofit foundations interested in business ethics, educational improvement, holistic health, media responsibility, and so on. On the backstage, the purpose of these front organizations was to feed recruits into a global chain of patriarchal Christian revisionist charismatic communes (Cheng, 1999).5 At the peak of membership in the 1980s, the total membership was approximately 2,300 6 The typical ―Envoy‖ was a Caucasian heterosexual female who either joined while she was in college, due to ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ college outreach efforts, or after she was divorced. Most ―members‖ had a Christian background. ―The Third Sacred School‖ did not have much of a presence in nations outside of the Christian west. In nonwestern nations, the membership consisted of Caucasian, ex-patriots of western nations. ―Envoys‖ may be classified by where they lived. About 30% (690) of ―members‖ lived communally as ―unit members‖ (permanent full-time residents) in ―units‖ that ranged in size from approximately 20-150 ―unit members.‖ About 5% (115) of the total membership lived in ―centers‖ (suburban and urban communal homes). The rest of the membership lived non-communally in cities and held jobs in conventional society. Most ―units‖ had to varying degrees a semi-dependent relationship with the larger economy (Stein, 1973). Some ―units‖ ran a business such as a health spa, a hotel, or a trailer park while others depended on a combination of farming, ranching, and rent paid by ―unit members‖ (commune residents) who ―worked out‖ (in the general economy). ―Centers‖ (urban and suburban communal houses) were financed by rent from residents who ―worked out,‖ and from businesses, e.g., nut and candy distribution, vitamin distribution, and so on.

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―Envoys‖ who lived in the ―units‖ farmed, ranched, cleaned house, cooked meals, did administrative work, and so on. They as a ―unit‖ communally ate together and attended four ―services‖ (sermons) weekly. Single ―members‖ lived in small rooms and shared communal bathrooms. Nuclear families lived together in apartments, trailers, or in some cases duplexes, or houses. ―Spiritual Leader II‖ died of natural causes in 1989 and was succeeded by his biological son ―Spiritual Leader III.‖ ―Spiritual Leader III‖ attempted to change the organization by changing his leadership style to be more consultative-participative and less like his father‘s paternalistic, patriarchal leadership style. In ―The Third Sacred School‖ the lesser leaders and ―members‖ were expected to follow the example of the leader. The change in leadership style caused polarizing organizational conflict. One fraction was traditional and opposed the new consultative-participative leadership style. The traditionalists wanted to maintain the paternalistic patriarchy of the first two ―Spiritual Leaders.‖ The progressive faction supported the new leadership style characterized by consultation and participation. A subgroup within the progressive camp made public an institutionalized pattern of sexual harassment, financial improprieties, and power abuses, which were not supposed to happen within ―The Third Sacred School.‖ Subsequently the organization became polarized.7 The resulting organizational conflict caused an organizational decline— high turnover, withdrawal of commitment, decline in donations, and conflict, including lawsuits, over sexual harassment and other causes of action. Within 18 months, the membership dropped to about 500. “Focalizational” and Organizational Structure ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ organizational structure was studied in order to determine if jobs were sex segregated. I convened three focus groups, consisting of 14 ―members,‖ half females and half males, and also interviewed an additional 24 individuals, half females and half males (38 ―members‖ in all) to discuss organizational structure. Two of the focus groups had recently completed either ―Spiritual Expression Class‖ or ―Leadership Class,‖ which were, respectively, ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ basic three-week spiritual educational program and the intermediate program. The third focus group consisted of half male and half female ―unit members‖ in a large ―unit.‖ I asked the ―Envoys‖ ―if a friend or relative who knew nothing about The Third Sacred School asked you to diagram how The Third Sacred School works, what would your drawing look like?‖ I supplied pen and paper and asked them to make a drawing. Two ―Envoys‖ refused to draw saying the relationships cannot be drawn. These ―Envoys‖ recited the often repeated phrase in ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ organizational culture that ―We are all one.‖ In ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ animistic cosmology there was supposedly ―no separation‖ between subject and object. There was supposedly ―no separation‖ (no ego defense boundaries) between ―Spiritual Leader‖ and the ―members.‖ Thirty-six ―members‖ were left at this point in the focus group. Two ―members‖ drew a concentric circle diagram in which ―The Lord‖ or ―Spirit‖ was in the center of the circle. ―Spiritual Leader‖ was at the next ring. Then the next ring consisted of ―The Third Sacred School.‖ The outer most ring was everyone else on earth. They explained, ―spirit‖ was the center of all life. ―Spiritual Leader‖ was the ―spiritual focus of the planet.‖ ―The Third Sacred School is God‘s body in action on Earth.‖ The outermost ring consisted of non-members. I asked the clarification question: ―I notice Spiritual Leader is the only human individual you have on your diagram. Do you mean he is the closest to spirit out of all human beings?‖ They replied, ―yes,‖ and went on to explain that they thought he was the means by which ―spirit‖ comes into the world. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 98

Figure 1 Concentric Diagram of Organizational Structure

―Spirit‖ ―Spiritual Leader‖

―The Third Sacred School‖

Non-members

I asked for further clarification: ―Are Envoys more close to spirit than non-Envoys?‖ They replied, ―yes,‖ and said because they were ―conscious of their spiritual mission on earth‖ and non-members were not. The ―spiritual mission‖ referred to was the organizational mission of ―The Third Sacred School.‖ I asked: ―How do you carry out the mission of The Third Sacred School?‖ They replied, ―by playing my part in The Design.‖ ―The Design‖ meant a perfectly orderly universe in which everybody and everything has a hierarchical place. I presented Figure 1 to focus group members for their feedback (the original figure used concentric circles, but rectangles are used here for technical reasons). The focus group members unanimously agreed that the concentric circle diagram showed how some people were ―closer in‖ to ―The Center‖ (of spirit) than others. The emic concept of ―closer in‖ will be further discussed later in this paper. “Divine Triangles.” The remaining thirty-six ―members‖ drew ―divine triangles.‖ ―Divine triangles‖ were a concept taught in ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ educational program (Cheng, 1991). They diagrammed the emic concept of ―focalization.‖ All living things can be diagrammed into ―divine triangles.‖ Everything and everyone was either classified as a ―responding one‖ (subordinate) or the ―Focus‖ (superior).

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―Envoys‖ were taught that every life form, everything on Earth, has a ―focalization,‖ a control, a motivation. They believe that ―people‖ on Earth, meaning non-members, were spiritually ―unconscious.‖ Envoys were taught that ―people‖ were ―focused‖ (place primary emphasis in their lives) on ―human nature‖—impulses such as greed, sex, fear, anger, envy. By being ―Envoys‖ of ―The Third Sacred School,‖ their ―focalization‖ was in the highest possible realm, ―The Lord,‖ ―God,‖ Spirit,‖ who was represented in human form by their ―Spiritual Leader.‖ ―Members‖ were taught that ―Spiritual Leader‖ was the ―clearest‖ (most enlightened) human on Earth. He was thought to be a direct descendent of ―Jesus‖ (savior). Under this belief, ―giving Sunday service‖ was the most important job not only in ―The Third Sacred School‖ but on Earth. ―Spiritual Leader‖ gave ―The Word‖ (of God) to them every Sunday and every time he spoke. Since ―Jesus‖ was always conceived as a male, all three of ―The Third Sacred School‘s Spiritual Leaders‖ have been male and their successors always must be male. A ―Center Focus‖ told me, almost echoing word for word what was taught in ―The Third Sacred School‘s classes,‖ that ―women focus spirit through men. Women need men to align themselves to spirit.‖ ―The Third Sacred School‖ in its educational program cited the Christian Holy Bible to support the notion that women were the ―helpmate‖ of men (Cheng, 2003).7 Sex roles in ―The Third Sacred School‖ were sharply defined by these beliefs (Cheng, 1999b). The thirty-six focus group participants‘ diagrams placed ―Spiritual Leader‖ atop of a ―divine triangle.‖ The top of the ―divine triangle‖ was the ―focus,‖ while those at the bottom were the ―responding ones‖ (subordinates). The ―divine triangles‖ above ―Spiritual Leader‖ reflected their conceptions of deity, which synonymously was drawn as ―God,‖ or ―The Lord,‖ or ―Spirit.‖ From previous experience, I knew ―Envoys‖ were uncomfortable with questions about ―hierarchy.‖ Previously when I asked questions about ―hierarchy‖ I was met with defensive reactions of silence, quick change of the subject, interviewees suddenly excusing themselves and leaving the room never to return, or they would defend ―The Third Sacred School‖ and repeat the organizational discourse that they have no ―hierarchy.‖ Not only did ―The Third Sacred School‖ claim it had no ―hierarchy,‖ it also said that it is not an ―organization.‖ They claimed instead to be ―God‘s body on Earth,‖ organic as opposed to ―an organization humans thought up.‖ Nevertheless they did think of themselves as a group of people with a common shared goal working together (an organization). They did admit people have different jobs with different levels of responsibility within ―The Third Sacred School.‖ In etic terms they were an organization and as such may be analyzed using the literature on organizational studies. From “Spiritual Leader” to “Councils.” My questions that probed beyond the point where ―Spiritual Leader‖ was drawn atop of ―divine triangle‖ had to proceed with caution. I asked: ―Who responds to Spiritual Leader?‖ The typical answers were: ―We all do‖ or ―Everyone on the planet whether they are conscious or not.‖ However, a few focus group participants were more specific, which allowed me to follow-up and explore the organizational structure. Responding to ―Spiritual Leader‖ in the diagrams drawn were ―Executive Council‖ and ―Central Council.‖

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Figure 2 Emic Version of Divine Triangle (superior-subordinate dyadic relations)a God

Server

Servee

a. There are triangles above and below this one. According to ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ organizational ideology, all life forms can be drawn into triangles that are hierarchically above and below this one.

―Spiritual Leader‖ appointed an ―Executive Council‖ of 12 people, males and their wives, to assist him.8 9 ―Executive Council‖ males were considered to be the ―focus‖ and their wives were their ―response‖ (helpers). ―Executive Council‖ was a permanent body. Membership was for life. Most of the males of ―Executive Council‖ had a region of the world they were responsible for, or in one case were responsible for outreach. 10 11 The regions of the world had at least one ―unit‖ in them where the male Executive Council member in charge would headquarter himself. ―Spiritual Leader‖ convened a ―Central Council‖ each year to meet with him and ―Executive Council.‖ ―Central Council‖ consisted of representatives from across ―The Third Sacred School.‖ This group was made up of approximately 150 people, the maximum number of visitors ―International Headquarters Unit‖ could host. Some males consistently were invited to attend each year with their wives accompanying them. These males held jobs including all of the ―Unit Focuses,‖ ―Unit Managers,‖ ―Regional Focuses,‖ which are all male jobs, the heads of the outreach organizations, and other managers. 12 13 Very few females went to this Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 101

conference without husbands. These females were the current and former ―Spiritual Leader‘s‖ personal secretaries, heads of the outreach organizations, or the ―Women‘s Work Pattern Coordinators‖ at the larger ―units.‖

Figure 3 “The Third Sacred School’s” Spiritual Governance Hierarchy Spiritual Leader (1 male) Executive Council (6 males, 6 females) (Special Session Participants - Jr. Executives) (approx. 12-15 males, 3 females) Central Council (approx. 98 males, 52 females) “Regional Councils.” There were also ―Regional Councils‖ to which many average worker ―members‖ were invited.14 Attendance at these low-ranking ―councils‖ was not read in ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ culture as meaning one is ―closer in‖ (to ―Spiritual Leader‖ and has high status). However, not being invited to these low-ranking ―councils‖ meant that a ―member‖ was not considered by the ―Regional Focus‖ to be ―responding‖ (deferential, committed, and sufficiently participating). “Special Sessions” and “Closer in.” Seven focus group participants drew ―divine triangle‖ diagrams which had ―Special Sessions‖ as a ―responding one‖ in addition to ―Executive Council‖ and ―Central Council.‖ These responses, together with the concentric circle diagram (Figure 1) made it possible to differentiate statuses. The emic concept of being ―closer in‖ emerged. One respondent put it that ―Some people are closer into Spiritual Leader than others. They are more important to the design than I am and most of us (in the focus group).‖ I asked the entire focus group ―would everyone agree that Executive Council is closer in or higher in the design than Central Council, and the people who go to Special Sessions are closer in than the Central Council people?‖ They all agreed this is so. I asked ―does being closer in mean the same thing as being higher-up in a divine triangle?‖ All agreed. The ―Executive Council‖ met in person twice a year, September and April, and monthly by telephone. The men of ―Executive Council‖ spoke with ―Spiritual Leader‖ at least weekly on the phone. ―Central Council‖ met immediately after the ―Executive Council‖ meetings in September of each year. After the April ―Executive Council‖ meetings, there were ―Special Sessions with Spiritual Leader.‖ ―Special Sessions with Spiritual Leader‖ consisted of top leaders invited by ―Spiritual Leader‖ for small group meetings. Those invited changed somewhat year-to-year. Rarely were women invited to ―Special Sessions.‖ Almost all of the male participants who were not on ―Executive Council‖ were on ―Central Council.‖ The seven focus groups members who drew in ―Special Sessions‖ participants called these men the ―junior executives.‖ One of the seven summed it up saying, ―any man who regularly meets with Spiritual Leader must be an executive.‖ After ―Spiritual Leader II‖ died, many members hinted at or even outright asked ―Spiritual Leader III‖ to invite them to ―Central Council.‖ Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 102

―Spiritual Leader III‖ had to address the issue by saying an invitation to ―Central Council‖ is not a sign of having ―made it‖ spiritually. He said people were invited because of their spiritual responsibilities. ―Envoys‖ nevertheless regarded an invitation to ―Central Council‖ as a marker of high spiritual attainment. Councils Do Not Make Decisions. The ―Councils‖ were not governing or legislative bodies. They were not even advisory boards. There were no debates or votes. They ―offered up‖ (deferentially gave to their superior) information that flowed up the organizational hierarchy to ―Spiritual Leader.‖ ―Spiritual Leader‖ said he made no decisions, that ―things became clear‖ (intuited). In practice, ―Spiritual Leader‖ made all key decisions, especially personnel decisions. From “Spiritual Leader” to “Councils” to the “Units.” The structure of ―Spiritual Leader‖ and the ―Councils‖ was ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ spiritual governance hierarchy (figure 3). It was not a day-to-day hierarchy. I continued exploring the cultural concepts of ―closer in‖ and ―divine triangles‖ with the focus groups by asking ―how does the divine triangle get from the executive level where Spiritual Leader, Executive Council, Special Sessions, Central Council are to your unit‖? Their replies had some variations depending on whether they lived in larger ―units,‖ smaller ―units,‖ in a ―center,‖ or by themselves. All ―Unit Focuses‖ were males who were regular invitees to at least ―Central Council.‖ In the larger ―units,‖ the ―Unit Focus‖ was a member of ―Executive Council.‖ These males were the ―spiritual focus‖ of their ―units.‖ They were all drawn atop of a ―divine triangle‖ for their ―units.‖ They had the most important job of all in the ―unit,‖ that of ―focusing‖ the Sunday morning and other ―services‖ (presiding minister). 16 The ―Unit Focus‖ was assisted by the ―Unit Manager‖ who ran the day-to-day operations of the ―unit‖ while the ―Unit Focus‖ ―focused spirit‖ (sermonized, counseled). ―Unit Manager‖ was also a job held only by males. All ―Unit Managers‖ were regular participants in ―Central Council,‖ but not higher. At the ―International Headquarters Unit,‖ the ―Unit Focus‖ was a member of ―Executive Council.‖ He was assisted by two men who were the ―Unit Manager,‖ and the ―Regional Focus.‖ In that region, the ―Regional Focus‖ ―focused‖ everything in his region except the ―International Headquarters Unit.‖ He was the only ―Regional Focus‖ who only had the ―Regional Focus‖ job. All the other ―Regional Focuses‖ were also a ―Unit Focus‖ or ―Unit Manager.‖ ―Spiritual Leaders II and III‖ both lived at the ―Canadian Headquarters Unit.‖ While they were not the ―Unit Focus,‖ they gave the live Sunday morning ―service‖ there. Anywhere ―Spiritual Leader‖ went, he gave live Sunday morning ―service.‖ At the ―Canadian Headquarters Unit‖ the ―Unit Focus,‖ the ―Unit Manager‖ and the ―Regional Focus‖ were the same male. He was a regular participant in ―Central Council.‖ However, since ―Spiritual Leader‖ lived there, his job as ―Unit Focus‖ did not include ―focusing‖ the Sunday morning ―service‖ unless ―Spiritual Leader‖ was on travel. At the other ―units,‖ the ―Unit Focus‖ or the ―Unit Manager‖ served as the ―Regional Focus.‖ While ―units‖ were in regions, made up of several American states or Canadian provinces, the ―Regional Focus‖ job was not as big as the ―Unit Focus‖ or the ―Unit Manager‖ jobs. ―The Third Sacred School‖ emphasized ―units.‖ While there were ―centers‖ and individuals living outside of ―units,‖ ―units‖ were where the most active ―members‖ lived and were the sites where all of the important activities took place. Only five or six ―centers‖ were large enough to have a ―Center Focus‖ who participated in ―Central Council‖ on a regular basis. From “Units” or “Centers” to Individuals. I continued to cautiously explore with the focus group how the ―divine triangles‖ extended downwards towards individual ―members.‖ ―Unit Managers‖ were assisted by a ―Men‘s Work Pattern Coordinator,‖ and a ―Women‘s Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 103

Work Pattern Coordinator,‖ who accordingly were the supervisors of the male and female workers. The smaller ―units‖ referred to their departments, which in practice had only the ―focus‖ working in that function full-time. In larger ―units‖ there were departments with their own ―focuses‖ who were in turn ―focused‖ by one of the ―Work Pattern Coordinators.‖ The maintenance and farming/ranching departments were ―focused‖ by ―Men‘s Work Pattern Coordinators.‖ The Kitchen, and Housecleaning Departments and their ―focuses‖ were ―focused‖ by the ―Women‘s Work Pattern Coordinator.‖ In the headquarters‘ ―units‖ there were office workers who were focused by the ―Unit Manager‖ or by another senior male. In ―centers‖ most of the ―members‖ worked in the regular economy. There was only one ―center‖ that was large enough to support a full-time ―Center Focus.‖ That ―Center Focus‖ was paid a salary from the ―center‘s‖ donations and businesses. There were a few ―centers‖ that had a business that employed more than one person. A few of ―The Third Sacred School‘s members‖ were franchisees of a particular nut and candy franchisor. These franchisees typically employed 2-3 ―Envoys.‖ The other businesses run out of ―centers‖ were usually one person businesses such as carpet cleaning, carpentry, or secretarial services. Thus, most ―members‖ did not work together. There were no organizational levels in most ―centers‖ between the ―Center Focus‖ and ―members,‖ for they were too small. Most of the ―Center Focuses‖ were males. The only female ―Center Focuses‖ were from small ―centers.‖ These small ―centers‖ had few, if any, other ―members‖ or were in parts of the world where ―The Third Sacred School‖ had few ―members.‖ In some larger ―centers‖ there were assistant(s), but few of them were female. The ―Center Focus‖ was supposed to ―focalize‖ all the ―members‖ who lived by themselves in his area. If he did not have a communal house as the ―center,‖ then it was likely he would not have many committed ―members.‖ If there were a ―unit‖ within driving range, then as one male ―Executive Council‖ member told me ―the members (who do not live in units) tended to orient themselves to the unit.‖ He also told me ―The Third Sacred School‖ was the strongest when there was a unit nearby.‖ In ―units,‖ the ―unit members‖ were more interdependent than ―Envoys‖ living in ―centers‖ or by themselves. ―Unit members‖ had to live, work, socialize, and worship together. The emic term ―unit‖ implies ―members‖ working together interdependently as one. For ―Envoys‖ living outside of a ―unit,‖ even living in a ―center,‖ ―focalization‖ was often diffused for there are no other ―members‖ or a ―focus‖ in physical proximity to remind them of expected behaviors of ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ organizational culture. Compiling a Hierarchical “Divine Triangle” Model. Next, I took the data from the focus group and compiled a ―divine triangle‖ model of organizational structure within the ―Units.‖ I fed the model back to the focus group. They all agreed that ―Spiritual Leader‖ was atop of all ―divine triangles‖ and that ―Executive Council‖ and ―Central Council‖ ―responded‖ (were subordinate) to him. When asked about how a ―unit member‖ was ―focalized,‖ all focus groups members agreed that the ―Unit Focus‖ was atop of the ―divine triangle‖ of a particular ―unit‖ and all ―units‖ were ―focused‖ in the same manner. They all agreed that the ―Unit Focus responded to Spiritual Leader.‖ As ―unit members‖ and other ―Envoys‖ they all agreed that ―unit members‖ and others staying at ―units responded to the Unit Focus.‖ However when it came to diagramming the intervening relationship between the ―Unit Focus‖ and ―unit members,‖ there was some discussion and disagreement. One subgroup favored an ―absolute‖ interpretation. ―Absoluteness‖ was an emic organizational cultural concept in which there was a strict literal interpretation of ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ teachings. The Absolutists enthusiastically participated in ―clarification‖ about matters Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 104

relating to ―focus.‖17 For this subgroup there was no doubt that ―unit members were focused‖ by their sex‘s ―Department Focus and/or Work Pattern Coordinator.‖ Their ―Work Pattern Coordinator‖ was focused by the ―Unit Manager‖ who in turn was ―focused‖ by the ―Unit Focus.‖

Figure 4 Hierarchical Structure of Six Sampled “Units” Unit Focuses1 (6 males) Unit Managers (6 males) Work Pattern Coordinators (6 males, 6 females) Dept. Supervisors (6 males, 4 females) Unit Members2 (287 females + 115 males = 402)

Footnotes 1. Most ―Unit Focuses‖ report directly to ―Spiritual Leader.‖ 2. Only ―Unit Members‖ have been counted for the rest of the workforce was highly contingent. They were ―longterm visitors‖ (months or years), ―short-term visitors‖ (overnight, weekend, weeks or months), ―class members‖ (who were there to be educated but worked a few hours a day as part of their education).

Another sub-group said the absolutist model was only administratively true, that the ―Unit Focus‖ was the ―spiritual focus‖ of the ―unit‖ and all others in between the ―Unit Focus‖ and themselves were merely administrators, and not ―spiritual focuses.‖ I shall call this view the charismatic follower view, for they emphasized following specific individuals they deem to be the ―spiritual authority‖ by virtue of a perceived quality of ―consciousness.‖ The absolutists said charismatic followers‘ spiritual understanding is ―unclear,‖ and lacks ―absoluteness.‖ The absolutists ―focus on‖ (emphasized) the ―design‖ (of mankind) in which every life form is ―spiritually focused.‖ As one absolutist put it, the ―design comes down to my level from the Unit Focus to the Unit Manager, to the Men‘s Pattern Coordinator, and then to me.‖ A charismatic follower subgroup member said, ―We are all equal except a few very special people who were born to play a bigger role than we. They may have helpers who have more responsibility than me. I respect that, but they are not my spiritual focus.‖ By ―special people,‖ charismatic follower went on to say he meant ―Spiritual Leader,‖ ―Executive Council,‖ and ―Unit Focuses.‖ An absolutist countered by asking the question, ―When Unit Focus is away, who focuses the Sunday morning service?‖ All agreed that it was ―Unit Manager.‖ This meant in ―The Third Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 105

Sacred School‘s‖ culture that the ―Unit Manager‖ was the acting ―Unit Focus‖ since ―focusing Sunday morning service is the most important job in ―The Third Sacred School.‖ The same absolutist then asked, ―When Unit Focus and Unit Manager are both away, who focuses the Sunday morning service?‖ Not everyone knew for this rarely happened. When it did happen, a few scenarios previously occurred, a male executive from elsewhere in ―The Third Sacred School‖ would fly in and stay in the ―unit‖ and ―give Sunday morning service‖ or the ―Men‘s Work Pattern Coordinator‖ would ―focus‖ the Sunday morning service. The absolutist said, ―What happens is when the Unit Focus and the Unit Manager are both away on a Sunday morning, the Men‘s Work Pattern Coordinator focuses the service. This means he is in charge.‖ Nobody raised any objections. After a pause, I used the opportunity to ask, ―Would the Women‘s Work Pattern Coordinator ever focus the Sunday morning service?‖ All said ―no.‖ I asked, ―Who would focus the Sunday morning service if the Unit Focus, Unit Manager, and Men‘s Work Pattern Coordinator were not available?‖ The answers were varied: ―I don‘t know.‖ ―That‘s not for me to worry about.‖ ―I just play my part and the rest falls into place.‖ ―There are many capable men here who can do it.‖ ―The next most clearest man would focus the Sunday morning service.‖ ―Spiritual Leader would send us someone.‖ In cases when both the ―Unit Focus‖ and ―Unit Manager‖ were away, often the ―Center Focuses‖ would come to the ―unit.‖ I asked one ―Center Focus‖ why he drove over to and stayed at the ―unit‖ in the middle of his work week. He replied, ―The pattern is thin, Unit Focus and Unit manager are both gone. They need some stability at the unit.‖ The ―Center Focus‖ took time off work to stay at the ―unit‖ to reinforce the ―Men‘s Work Pattern Coordinator.‖ The charismatic followers conceded this was true, but most still insisted the real ―spiritual focus‖ was the ―Unit Focus‖ even though he may be on travel and there were other men substituting for him temporarily. Figure 4 represents ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ day-to-day organizational structure. For the average ―unit member,‖ it is the day-to-day hierarchy in the ―unit‖ he/she lives in which manages her/his life, since power is highly centralized and hierarchical in ―The Third Sacred School.‖ The ―Unit Focus‖ made the key decision of whether a ―member‖ would be allowed to live and for how long at that ―unit.‖ A ―member‖ could be ―asked to leave‖ (fired) at any moment. It was the ―Unit Focus‖ through the ―Unit Manager,‖ that decided what kind of housing a ―unit member‖ would live in and where he or she would work. It was the ―Work Pattern Coordinator‖ for her/his sex that determined what jobs, and what extra jobs a ―unit member‖ would be assigned to on a day-to-day basis. Vertical Organizational Mobility I interviewed four ―Unit Managers‖ about career advancement. I asked them, ―How does one get ahead in ―The Third Sacred School?‖ The most succinct response was, ―One does not get ahead. One lives the life of the spirit. Sometimes spirit needs us to assume more responsibility and we do it. Sometimes spirit needs us to play our part just where we are.‖ It was evident from the response above and the other responses that my phrasing of the question was clumsy. I restated the question using ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ emic terms. I asked ―When one is ready for more responsibility, how does one get it?‖ One ―Unit Manager‖ said ―There‘s nothing to get. Spirit provides us with all that we are ready for. When one is ready for more responsibility, Spirit gives it to us.‖ I still was not getting at the issue of career advancement, for ―Envoys‖ tend to frame things in spiritual terms. I restated - ―I notice that most focuses have done their jobs for many years. How does one who is ready for more responsibility assume more responsibility?‖ One typical response was, ―People do move on, but this is rare. People are called by The

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Lord to be part of his conscious body on earth. calling.‖

This is not a job we are doing.

It is a

There were few chances for organizational advancement. ―The Third Sacred School‖ was a small organization of approximately 2,300 members. The largest two ―units‖ had 140-150 people. The membership level was at best stagnant. ―Units‖ were not being started as they were in the 1970s. No growth in organizational size or even a decline in membership meant there was no need for more managers, no room for organizational advancement. I interviewed one male who had a highly coveted job in which he was free to set his own schedule. He also had more spacious housing space than other ―unit members.‖ He had been doing that same job for 16 years. There were few openings for advancement in those 16 years. He not only left his coveted set-your-own-schedule job, he left ―The Third Sacred School‖ in frustration. He said, ―I want to serve the Lord and there is no room to do so in The Third Sacred School. I have to leave and find my own ministry.‖ He went on to tell me that he had an argument with his ―Unit Focus‖ and got angry at him, which is against ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ emotional display rules. He wanted a promotion and was not given one. He was told there were no opportunities and to continue to be patient. In the 1970s, the way to get ahead in ―The Third Sacred School‖ was to found a ―center‖ in a town which did not have one. If a man was able to attract ―response‖ (followers) to him, this would have been interpreted by ―Spiritual Leader‖ as evidence of his ability to ―focus spirit.‖ If progress was made, the small ―center‖ grew into a big ―center‖ with many dozens of ―members,‖ people who went to ―service‖ regularly at the ―center,‖ stay on ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ ―mailing list,‖ wrote monthly ―response letters,‖ made donations, and went to ―Classes.‖ Eventually that ―center‖ would have so many solid ―members‖ that they would desire to live together. They would easily raise the money to purchase land for and operate a ―unit.‖ However, membership was not growing, declining even. Founding a ―center‖ was unlikely in an organization that has zero growth or was in decline. When one was appointed to be a manager, it was in practice assumed he would do that job for life. There was very rarely turnover at the managerial levels. Very few were appointed to ―more responsibility‖ (promoted) for there was a lack of opportunity for advancement. At the very top levels, turnover was the result of the death of that job‘s incumbent. ―The Third Sacred School‖ does have a hierarchical structure. The ―units‖ within ―The Third Sacred School‖ have five levels. Males hold the top two levels of job and most of the third and fourth level jobs. The ―units‖ report to ―Spiritual Leader,‖ a job that also has and will be a male job. Not only is ―The Third Sacred School‖ male dominated, the males are hegemonic, Caucasian, have a Christian background, and are from the first world. The Schedule of Job Assignments Studying jobs in ―The Third Sacred School‖ was somewhat problematic. ―The Third Sacred School‖ lacked the rigid job classifications one would find in mechanical bureaucracies such as governmental, military, or unionized organizations. There was much fluidity between the jobs. Almost everybody except the managers did many other, often very diverse jobs. Few people, except managers, cooks, bookkeepers, and construction personnel, did the same job everyday. The work performed in the ―units‖ was organized by ―The Schedule‖ of work, a written document which was posted in the late afternoon each day so that ―Envoys‖ could check it when they came to dinner in the ―unit dining room‖ (communal dining room). Most ―unit members‖ (permanent residents) knew what their regular job would be the next day but looked on ―The Schedule‖ for their additional job assignments, such as ―after service snacks‖ (setting up and cleaning up snacks after sermons) for females, chapel set-up and clean-up for males, or dishes for both sexes.

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Sex Segregated Supervision ―The Schedule‖ of work at a particular ―unit‖ was set by ―Work Pattern Coordinators‖ (Supervisors, one for women and one for men). They were also respectively referred to as the ―Women‘s Work Pattern Focus‖ and the ―Men‘s Work Pattern Focus.‖ The ―Women‘s Work Pattern‖ was also referred to as the ―Home Pattern.‖ I asked the ―Women‘s Work Pattern Focus,‖ ―Why is the ‗Women‘s Work Pattern‘ called the ‗Women‘s Work Pattern‘ or the ‗Home Pattern?‘― She replied, ―It is natural for the feminine spirit to want to make home. We‘re only letting spirit manifest itself.‖ I then asked the corresponding question to the ―Men‘s Work Pattern Focus,‖ ―Why is the ‗Men‘s Work Pattern‘ called the ‗Men‘s Work Pattern‘ or the ‗Maintenance Pattern‘ or ‗Construction Pattern?‘― He replied, ―That‘s obvious. We gotta lot of building projects go‘in on right now. We‘re actively do‘in construction, and at the same time keeping up with our maintenance of what we‘ve already built.‖18 I followed up and asked, ―Is men‘s work the only work males are allowed to do and women‘s work the only work females are allowed to do?‖ He said, ―Of course anyone is capable but men are better suited to do men‘s work and women are better suited to do women‘s work. It‘s natural.‖ In smaller ―units‖ the ―Women‘s Work Pattern Focus‖ was often the wife of the ―Unit Focus‖ or ―Unit Manager.‖ Most of the baby boom generation ―Unit Managers‖ were at one time in their organizational careers the ―Men‘s Work Pattern Focus.‖ Although the organizational discourse was that work was integrated into the spiritual life of an ―Envoy,‖ the ―Work Pattern Coordinators‖ were regarded by most ―Envoys‖ as mere administrators rather than a higher form of spiritual leadership. ―Envoys‖ typically went to the ―Unit Focus‖ for ―clarification‖ (to seek spiritual counseling), rather than to the ―Work Pattern Coordinators.‖ However, the ―Work Pattern Coordinators‖ did have an important spiritual function. They respectively held ―men‘s meetings‖ and ―women‘s meetings.‖ All the ―Envoys‖ of each sex group, except the top managers and their wives, and the invalids, would go to the meeting for their sex. These meetings usually reinforced gender roles by telling of male responsibilities to ―protect and care for women‖ as I typically heard repeatedly stressed in the 14 men‘s meetings I attended. While I was not allowed to observe ―women‘s meetings,‖ I am told that one common theme was to stop ―nagging‖ or ―distracting‖ men and be deferential to males. Sex Segregation in a Job To determine whether a job was sex segregated, as either female or male or mixed sex, an observation period of four weeks was used. During that time, ―The Schedules‖ from 6 ―units‖ were analyzed to determine the sex of all the person(s) assigned to a particular job, regardless of whether ―unit members‖ or not. The jobs were typically listed on ―The Schedule‖ by function or place, rather than job title, e.g., ―Chapel Set-up‖ meant setting up and taking down chairs for ―service,‖ or ―strawberries‖ or some other crop name meant picking that crop. Following Jacobs (1993:53), a female-dominated job was defined as having 70% or more women. A male-dominated job was defined as having 30% or fewer women (Jacobs, 1993:53). The male-dominated jobs of ―Spiritual Leader,‖ ―Executive Council Member (primary server),‖ ―Unit Focus,‖ ―Unit Manager,‖ ―Regional Focus,‖ have already been discussed. Table 1 Female Sex Segregated Jobs Managerial Levels Executive Council Member - wife or secretary Women‘s Work Pattern Coordinator Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 108

Housing Coordinator Worker Level After Service Snacks - hostess Bookkeeper Chapel Cleaning Child Care - worker Cook Home pattern - housecleaner Elder Care - worker Food preparation - kitchen worker Milk House ladies - cow/goat milker Receptionist Secretary Special Diets - delivery person Table setter Transcriber – typist of ―services‖

Female Sex Segregated Jobs. The female sex segregated jobs that had 70% or more female jobholders were: ―Women‘s Work Pattern Coordinator,‖ ―Housing Coordinator,‖ ―Child Care‖ worker, ―Table setter,‖ ―Housecleaner,‖ ―Secretary,‖ ―Receptionist,‖ ―Nurse,‖ ―Elder Care‖ worker, ―After service snacks‖ hostess, ―Cook,‖ ―Food Preparation‖ worker (also called ―Kitchen Helper‖), ―Special Diets‖ delivery person, and ―transcriber,‖ the typist at ―services.‖ The jobs of ―Women‘s Work Pattern Coordinator‖ and ―Housing Coordinator‖ were 100% female dominated jobs. Both these jobs were supervisory in which the female job holder could set her own schedule. The ―Housing Coordinator‖ did not have people working for her but she was supervisory level. Her job was essentially a combination of comparable larger society jobs of hotel reservations clerk and a nightclub door person. This female helped the ―Unit Manager‖ perform the very important gatekeeper function. ―The Third Sacred School‖ was very concerned that disruptive people would stay or want to move in. Everyone wanting to stay was screened by the ―Housing Coordinator,‖ with close oversight by the ―Unit Manager.‖ The ―Housing Coordinator‖ also performed an important internal function, i.e., coordinating the ―unit‖ housing. Space was an important reward and status symbol. Higher-ranking males (and their wives and families) had the best housing, i.e., more space, private bathroom and kitchen, and laundry facilities. Families also got more space, regardless of their jobs. Where to house ―unit members‖ was such an important decision that the ―Unit Focus‖ made those decisions himself, while the ―Housing Coordinator‖ carried out the decisions. ―Table setters,‖ ―Home pattern‖ (housekeeping), ―Secretaries,‖ ―Receptionists,‖ ―Bookkeepers,‖ ―Nurses,‖ ―Elder Care‖ workers, ―Chapel Cleaning,‖ ―Transcriber,‖ and ―After service snacks‖ hostesses also had 100% female job holders. Eighty percent of ―Cooks‖ were females; 85% of ―Kitchen‖—food preparation—helpers were females. In the smaller ―units,‖ there often was only one ―Cook‖ in the kitchen, who was usually a female. She sometimes would be helped by another female who did the ―Food Preparation,‖ washing, peeling, and cutting of food, and dishes. The ―Kitchen Helper‖ job was considered light duty and was usually assigned to an older female ―unit member‖ or female ―visitors.‖ Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 109

The helpers who were male tended to be older males and or visiting males who could only, because of some medical condition or age, work in light duty job assignments. ―After service snacks‖ was a job that consisted of serving and cleaning up refreshments after a ―service.‖ It was a combination of a hostess job and kitchen worker job. I will discuss the other female dominated jobs in the pages to follow. Male Sex Segregated Jobs. There were jobs which were male sex segregated in which less than 30% of the job holders were female, such as: ―Men‘s Work Pattern Coordinator,‖ ―Farm,‖ ―Ranch,‖ ―Gardener‖ (maintenance), ―Dishes (dish washer of large pots and pans),‖ ―Maintenance‖ worker, ―Construction‖ worker, ―Pipe Change‖ mover, ―Chapel Set-up,‖ ―Usher,‖ ―Control Room‖ audio-visual technician, ―Computers,‖ and ―Night watch‖ (watchman). Males did maintenance gardening, while both sexes did vegetable gardening. Males were assigned to wash large pots and pans. ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ kitchens used commercial kitchen equipment, including commercial dishwashing machines. People were still required to pre-wash dishes, pots and pans before they went into the commercial dishwashing machines. Females were available to wash large pots and pans, since they were already working in the kitchen. However, the females did not want to wash large pots and pans for they thought it was men‘s work which required the upper body strength of a male. I did observe a few instances of tensions over this division of labor. Female kitchen personnel would often let large pots and pans pile up until a male would come pre-wash and load them. Males would be annoyed at this. There were an insufficient number of males to do the male only jobs. If a male had to stop work on a ―more important‖ (male) job to wash large pots and pans, there was tension.

Table 2 Male Sex Segregated Jobs Managerial Levels Spiritual Leader Executive Council Member - primary server Unit Focus Unit Manager Regional Focus Men‘s Work Pattern Coordinator Worker Level Chapel set-up Computers Construction - worker Control Room - technician Dishwasher - large pots and pans Farm - farm hand Garden - maintenance gardener Maintenance - worker Nightwatch - watchman Pipe Change - moving irrigation pipe Ranch - ranch hand Usher

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On ―The Schedule‖ the job of ―pipe change‖ meant irrigation pipe mover. This job was unique to ―International Headquarters unit‖ which had a large farming operation. Its irrigation technology was manual. It was necessary to physically move the irrigation water pipe that watered the crops at sunrise and sunset everyday. As many people as they could find were needed to carry the pipe. The minimum needed was about 6 strong people. If only 6 people could be found they moved the pipe very slowly in sections. If 20 or 25 people turned out they could get it done faster. ―Night watch‖ was a job for an unarmed night watchman who walked or in the case of larger ―units‖ drove around the ―unit‖ at night to be alert for possible intruders or fire. There were few incidents of theft at the ―units‖ of ―The Third Sacred School.‖ Those cases were always attributed to outside thieves. Fire was a concern, for the ―units‖ tended to be of older construction and did not have fire sprinklers. I will discuss the other male dominated jobs in the pages to follow. Non-Sex Segregated Jobs. There were also non-sex segregated jobs in which there was no female or male majority. These jobs were: ―Kitchen Focus,‖ ―Meal Focus,‖ ―Dishes‖— regular dishes, ―Vegetable Gardener,‖ ―Weeder,‖ ―(crop name)‖—crop picking,‖ ―Canning‖— canner of the crops picked, ―Choral Director,‖ ―Musician,‖ ―Camera Operator,‖ and ―Greeter.‖ The ―Kitchen Focus‖ and ―Meal Focus‖ shall be discussed later. There was an ongoing need for ―Weeders‖ to tend the garden. Anyone willing to do this undesirable job was happily accepted. When it came time to pick a crop, everyone was needed as ―fruit pickers‖ and ―canners.‖ In both fruit picking and canning, the men did the heavy lifting. I will discuss the other non-sex segregated jobs in the pages to follow.

Table 3 Non-Sex Segregated Jobs

Managerial Levels Kitchen Focus Meal Focus

Worker Level1 (name of crop) - fruit/vegetable picker Camera Operator Canner Choral Director Dishes (dish washer of regular dishes) Greeter Weeds Vegetable Gardener

Endnote: 1. The jobs of ―Musician‖ and ―Singer‖ were not on ―The Schedule

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Workplaces and Sex Segregation To further study sex segregation, the workplaces that have the largest number of people working at them shall be examined in more depth: services, kitchen, office, and the milk house. “Services.” ―Services‖ (sermons) were productions which were regarded as ―the life blood of the ministry.‖ They were at the center of spiritual and communal life. Everyone, ―unit members,‖ visitors,‖ and ―class members,‖ was expected to attend. The ―services‖ were held four times a week on Sunday morning and evening, and Wednesday and Saturday evenings. The rooms visitors stayed in had invitations inviting the visitors to come to ―service.‖ A typical ―service‖ lasted an hour and 5 minutes to one hour and 15 minutes. Most of the people in the ―unit‖ were in some way involved in the production of a service, ranging from ―chapel set-up‖ (and clean-up), ―greeters,‖ ―ushers‖ ―housecleaning,‖ ―control room‖ (audio/video technician), ―camera operator,‖ ―Focus‖ (speaker), ―musicians,‖ ―singers,‖ and ―transcriber‖ (typist of what was said in the ―service‖). All these jobs except the ―musicians‖ and ―singers‖ were scheduled jobs. ―Musicians‖ and ―singers‖ were mix-sex jobs. They were expected to be ready to perform without taking time from their scheduled jobs. The ―service‘s‖ ―Focus‖ was the one who conducted the ―service.‖ The ―Focus‖ of the ―service‖ was a male job belonging to the ―Unit Focus‖ or his higher-ups who may have been visiting. Each Sunday morning ―Spiritual Leader‖ would give a live ―service‖ from whatever ―unit‖ he was at that Sunday; this ―service‖ was videotaped and transcribed. The videotape and transcript were copied and sent out express to the ―units‖ and other subscribers of the videotapes. Each ―Envoy‖ was individually mailed a packet of ―transcripts‖ twice a month and required to write a ―letter of response‖ (deferential commentary) to ―Spiritual Leader‖ at least once a month. At the ―units‖ and ―centers‖ where ―Spiritual Leader‖ was not giving a live ―service,‖ the ―Focus‖ of that ―unit‖ or ―center‖ would either play the videotape from ―Spiritual Leader‘s‖ previous week‘s ―service,‖ or read ―The Transcript.‖ Occasionally a ―unit‖ or ―center‖ would have a ―hook-up‖ (teleconference) call and listen to ―Spiritual Leader‖ giving a live ―service.‖ Even though the ―Focus‖ of the ―unit‖ or ―center‖ is introducing a videotape or reading verbatim ―The Transcript,‖ this job is regarded very seriously as the most important job in the cycle of a typical work week. After watching the video, or reading ―The Transcript,‖ the ―Focus‖ of the ―service‖ would make his own comments, which interpreted and reiterated what ―Spiritual Leader‖ had just said. It was the job of the ―members‖ to listen and learn the ―themes of the service,‖ both from ―Spiritual Leader‖ and from the ―Focus‘s‖ interpretations and reiterations so that they could mediate upon them and practice them during the upcoming week. ―Chapel set-up,‖ ―ushering,‖ and ―control room‖ were also male jobs. ―Chapel set-up‖ involved setting up and putting away chairs. During a ―service,‖ the set-up people moved the podium and ―Spiritual leader‘s‖ chair on-stage after ―The Choir‖ sang. ―Housecleaner,‖ and ―transcriber‖ were also female jobs. ―Choral Director‖ and ―Musician,‖ ―camera operator,‖ ―greeter,‖ and ―usher‖ were jobs that were mixed sexed. Kitchen. In the communal life of ―The Third Sacred School‖ meal times were the time of day ―unit members‖ and visitors saw each other, usually at lunch and dinner. While ―services‖ were the center of spiritual life, meal times were the times ―unit members‖ socially interacted. As a ―Women‘s Work Pattern Coordinator‖ told me, ―Everything in the unit revolves around the kitchen.‖ Some people did not eat breakfast, or ate in their rooms. Families often ate breakfast together.19 Lunch and dinner were the meals that had the largest turnout and, consequently, required the largest number of kitchen staff. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 112

There was uniformity in the ―food service‖ in ―The Third Sacred School.‖ There was a centralized ―International Food Services Director‖ in ―The Third Sacred School.‖ This was a male job. He also was the ―kitchen focus‖ of the ―Canadian Headquarters Unit.‖ Three ―kitchen focuses‖ told me that the ―International Food Services Director‖ set up all the kitchens to resemble one another to make interchangeability of personnel easier. The food was served cafeteria-style, which eliminated the need for food servers. Diners bused their own dishes. ―Executives‖ were served. The lunch served after Sunday morning ―service‖ at ―headquarters unit‖ was always the biggest meal of the week for that was when the most number of ―visitors‖ came. Sunday lunch at ―International Headquarters Unit‖ often involved serving 300-400 meals. Consequently the largest cooking staff was needed. If ―Spiritual Leader‖ was visiting or there was a ―class,‖ ―seminar,‖ or ―council‖ meeting at a ―unit,‖ there would be more people in residence and more people visiting so more meals were served and more kitchen staff was needed. ―Kitchen Focus‖ and ―Meal Focus‖ were two supervisory jobs which were non-sex segregated. The ―kitchen focus‖ job at the two largest ―units‖ were held by males. 20 At the other large ―units‖ and the medium sized ―units‖ these jobs were also held by males. Only the small ―unit‖ had a female ―kitchen focus.‖ In small ―units‖ breakfast was usually prepped, cooked, and cleaned up by one person. Lunch in small ―units‖ was usually staffed by the cook who only had help to set the tables and wash the dishes. Dinner in the small ―unit‖ was usually staffed by two people—a cook and a food preparation helper. In the medium and large ―units,‖ the meals were staffed by two people—a cook and a food preparation helper. Lunch and dinner at the largest units was usually staffed by two different teams of three to five ―members‖—the meal‘s ―focus‖ or ―chef,‖ one or two cooks, and one or two food preparation helpers. The ―Meal Focus‖ was the cook in charge of a particular meal. This was a supervisory job for a particular meal. At larger ―units‖ there may be multiple things going on at once. For example, the crew from the previous meal might be cleaning up, while the crew for the next meal was starting preparation as deliveries were being made and put away, menus planned, and outside food and supplies purchased. If the ―unit‖ was large enough to need more than a few kitchen personnel, then the females tended to work under males in the larger units. Food preparation helper is a job regarded as a light duty job given to females, especially older ones who may be less physically capable. Dishwashing was regarded as a job everyone was supposed to do, but I rarely observed managers doing this job. This was a mix-sexed job. At ―International Headquarters Unit‖ there were enough invalids that they not only had a nurse, or aide, there was actually a scheduled job of food delivery. The job title ―special diets‖ meant food delivery. This person was a kitchen helper whose task was to deliver food, sometimes a special diet meal, to the invalids and pick-up dirty dishes. Sometimes, if this person was a cook, she/he also prepared the special diet food. Office. The office at the small ―unit‖ only had the ―Unit Focus‖ and receptionist working there full time. The ―focus‖ there as with all the ―Units‖ was a male. And as in all the other ―units‖ the receptionist was a female. The larger sized ―units‖ had bookkeepers and computer personnel. The job of bookkeeper was female dominated. Computer personnel were all males. With few exceptions, all the managers were male. The ―Women‘s Work Pattern Coordinators‖ were female. In smaller ―units‖ this was a part-time job and combined with the part-time job of Housing Coordinator, in addition to working part-time in cooking, housecleaning. All the wives of the ―Unit Focus‖ and ―Unit Managers‖ had some kind of managerial job or were free to set their own schedule. The other women managers were heads of the outreach organizations. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 113

Milk House. Milking the dairy animals is an example of sex segregation. ―International Headquarters Unit‖ had both cows and goats. There was a special barn called the ―milk house‖ in which animals were milked. These animals were milked daily. Their milk was used to drink and to make yogurt and cheese and on special occasions to make ice cream. The cows were usually passive. They rarely bit their milkers. Goats on the other hand often resisted—kicking and bucking—when they were moved or milked. Goats were often muzzled to prevent the milker from being bit. Typically, one lone male milked these animals. This male was expected to move the animal from the pasture, tie it to tethers, muzzle the goat, milk the animal, and lift and carry the milk bucket over to the kitchen. When females milked, they usually only did the milking. They did not move the animals, tie them to tethers, muzzle the goats, or lift and transport the milk buckets, which was a male job. There were not enough males, according to the sex segregation schema, to make milking be solely a male job. It was also thought that females, who are supposedly more nurturing than males, relaxed the animals into giving more and better quality milk. Animals supposedly benefited from the ―maternal touch‖ of females into having a less traumatic experience of being milked. As one female milker told me, ―we (women) are thankful for the men coming to protect us so we can milk the goats.‖21 Crossing Sex Segregated Boundaries Only rarely did the boundaries between ―men‘s work‖ (male dominated jobs) and ―women‘s work‖ (female dominated jobs) get crossed over (Cheng, 1999b). The few exceptions were women doing ―men‘s work.‖ Seldom did men do ―women‘s work.‖ One female observed normally worked with the construction crew. Since building trades skills were in short supply in ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ internal labor market, there was little choice by the ―Unit Manager‖ but to allow her to disrupt sex segregation. When I asked that ―Unit Manager‖ about the atypical job assignment of the female on the construction crew, he replied, ―We never tell anyone where to work. Spirit does this for us. Once a person is clear, then he will know where best to serve the Lord.‖ There were jobs that ―members‖ deemed undesirable, and anyone willing to do the job was accepted regardless of their sex. No one seemed to like to wash dishes, especially large pots and pans. Some ―Envoys‖ were always trying to get others to do their dish duty. Pulling weeds was another job no one wanted. It was a dirty and tedious job. Pipe change was an even dirtier and more physically demanding job. It was also possibly dangerous, for one could easily slip in the mud and drop the pipe, perhaps causing serious injury. There were also jobs in which everyone was needed, such as picking and canning crops, and in which sex segregation was not an issue. Breaching Experiments on Sex Segregation. Personally, I was told where to work, and likewise so were the people I observed. In my participant observer role as a ―Class member,‖ I was told where I was needed to work by the organization based on the chores that needed to be done that day, such as mending fences, tending to chickens, painting the porch. Other male ―Class members‖ were similarly assigned. I also observed that female ―Class members‖ were assigned to different kinds of work: housecleaning, food preparation, and clerical work. I wanted to see what would happen to the sex segregation of ―The Third Sacred School,‖ if I used one of these spiritual justifications in an attempt to get assigned to a female job. I considered what female defined job I could work in and for which I could come up with a credible and compelling spiritual justification. I chose child care, for there were no men who worked in child care. Child care was regarded in ―The Third Sacred School‖ as a naturally

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female job. I seemed to be a male child care worker would breach the social order of sex segregation. I stated to the ―Women‘s Work Pattern Focus‖ that I needed preparation for fatherhood to see if she would assign me to child care, a female defined job. 22 Since my stay at that ―unit‖ began as a ―Class member‖ and after class was over I was reclassified as a ―long term visitor,‖ the ―Women‘s Work Pattern Focus‖ was the person who supervised ―Class member‖ work assignments. She not only gave me the job assignment, she praised me for being so ―personally responsible‖ that I wanted to prepare for fatherhood. 23 24 ―Headquarters Unit‖ had both a nursery for babies and a fully equipped nursery school for toddlers. I was assigned to the nursery school for half-days over the course of a week. The other half-days I worked various male dominated jobs, such as maintenance worker, farm hand, ranch hand. On the first day, I was supervised by a female child care worker. There were six to eight children to look after depending on whether their mothers were working on a job that day in which they could take their children with them. The toddlers ranged from two to five years old. The infants were cared for by their mothers or were cared for in the infant nursery. At age five the children went to nursery school in the larger society. I read stories to the children, served them snacks, played with them, picked up after them, and made sure they were safe. On the third day, my female supervisor left me alone for part of the time. At lunch and dinner that night, a few parents thanked me for doing a good job caring for their children. Thereafter I received more thanks from parents, especially the mothers. I also received ―invites‖ (invitations to come visit someone‘s home) from parents for they were curious about me because I was caring for their children. On the fourth and last days, I cared for the children myself. This was also the first time I was assigned babysitting as an after hours additional duty. The next week I was reassigned to men‘s work full time. The ―Women‘s Work Pattern Focus‖ told me that the ―Men‘s Work Pattern Focus‖ was complaining that she was ―taking a man from him, and that he is shorthanded and needed all the men.‖ I asked her if there were not any women who wanted to do the jobs the ―Men‘s Work Pattern Focus‖ needed to have done? She replied that the women did not want to do men‘s jobs. Clearly the jobs in ―The Third Sacred School‖ were segregated based on sex. There were male jobs that had almost all male job holders and female jobs that had almost all female job holders. Most of the un-sex segregated jobs were undesirable. Etic Analysis of Sex Segregation A patriarchal hierarchical organizational structure that was sex segregated with females at the bottom of the hierarchy was not in itself remarkable. This kind of structural inequality was more typical than not. The reason for this structural inequality, i.e., theocracy, is noteworthy. Before discussing this reason, however, it will be useful to summarize and analyze the data. ―Work Pattern‖ was a term synonymous with the etic term ―formation,‖ an orderly arrangement in which everyone has a place and only one place, such as a military formation. In ―The Third Sacred School‖ every member had a well defined place in the hierarchy. The social position one had was either the ―focus‖ (superior) or ―servee‖/‖responding one‖ (subordinate). In each interaction, one is always one or the other. In ―The Third Sacred School‖ male members were almost always the ―focus‖ in relationship to female members. ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ sex segregation is similar to de Tocqueville‘s (1969[1832]:240) observation that: Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 115

In America, more than anywhere else in the world there are...constantly traceable clear distinct spheres of action of the two sexes and both are required to keep in step, but along paths that are never the same. The jobs in ―The Third Sacred School‖ were divided into the ―men‘s work pattern‖ and the ―women‘s work pattern,‖ which segregated the sexes and reinforced patriarchal sex-gender roles. In conventional society, the particular biological sex of the worker is often the organizing principle in the division of labor, e.g., physicians are supposed to be male while nurses are supposed to be female (Acker, 1990; 1992; Baron, 1991; Williams, 1993:2-3). In ―The Third Sacred School‖ males were the ―spiritual focus‖ while females were supposed to ―respond‖ to ―spiritual focus‖ (males).25 As Acker and Van Houten (1974) noted, female work was designed for passivity and dependence. One example of this phenomenon in ―The Third Sacred School‖ was the sex segregation of cow and goat milking. The job of cow milker was labeled ―Milk House Ladies‖ on ―The Schedule.‖ There is no biological or technical reason why this job should be sex segregated. No males were scheduled for this job during the observation period. Only females were assigned to this job according to the ―Women‘s Work Pattern Coordinator.‖ Sitting on a stool and milking a cow or goat was considered ―women‘s work‖ because it was passive and required relatively little physical strength. But when some of the goats resisted and struggled, male farm hands were assigned to restrained them. The female milkers depended on male farm hands to herd the animal to them and to protect them from the animals as they were being milked. Bailing hay to feed the cows and herding them to and from the milk house was considered ―men‘s work‖ since it is physical and active. ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ job assignments reinforced the concept that females were less physically strong than males. This sex segregated division of labor reinforced the patriarchal gender role that the male protected the female. Similarly, only males were assigned to ―Night watch‖ duty. Atop of ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ hierarchy there was one and only one ―Spiritual Leader.‖ Only males have held this job. ―Members‖ were taught that only males will hold this job. ―The Third Sacred School‖ believes its ―Spiritual Leader‖ was a direct descendant of ―Jesus,‖ the savior of humankind. ―Jesus‖ was believed to have been a male, so his successors also must be male. Not only do ―members‖ acknowledge ―Spiritual Leader‖ as the ―spiritual focus‖ of ―The Third Sacred School,‖ they believed he was also the ―spiritual focus‖ of humankind. Following the Christian Holy Bible, ―The Third Sacred School‖ believed females were the ―helpmate‖ of males. ―Spiritual Leader‖ appointed six males to serve on a committee called ―Executive Council.‖ The males on this committee were the next hierarchical level below him. The wives of these men, along with ―Spiritual Leader‘s‖ personal secretary, and his predecessors‘ personal secretaries were also on this committee. While these females were at the highest council level, their jobs were to travel with and support their husbands rather than have autonomous responsibilities and authority. The males on this committee divided up the globe and the ―units‖ in those areas, or in one case, the male headed up outreach efforts. The annual conference called ―Central Council,‖ which was made up of 150 attendees, was the biggest event on ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ yearly calendar, in which the important leaders of ―The Third Sacred School‖ gathered. The real influence was vested in ―Unit Focuses‖ who were the ―spiritual focus‖ of their respective ―units.‖ All the ―Unit Focuses‖ were male and attended ―Central Council.‖ Some were even members of ―Executive Council.‖ The 6 ―Unit Focuses‖ were assisted by 6 ―Unit Managers‖ who also were all males. These two males jobs were the top two levels of the hierarchy in the ―units.‖

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―Unit Managers‖ ran the day-to-day operations of the ―unit.‖ ―Unit Managers‖ were regular attendees of ―Central Council.‖ ―Unit Managers‖ were assisted by the ―Men‘s Work Pattern Focus‖ and the ―Women‘s Work Pattern Focus‖ who scheduled and oversaw the work-force. The ―Work Pattern Focuses‖ were the third level of ―unit‖ hierarchy. There were 12 of them, 6 for men, 6 for women. They were assisted by department focuses, 6 males, 4 females. It is only this fourth level of ―unit‖ hierarchy where females were found to have hands-on supervisory responsibility but usually only over other females. Since there was only one ―Women‘s Work Pattern Focus‖ per ―unit,‖ and only one wife per male executive, almost all females were workers at the fifth and lowest level of ―unit‖ hierarchy. At the fifth level, there were 402 ―unit members‖; 287 females and 115 males—2.5:1 ratio of females to males. There clearly is a patriarchal organizational structure in ―The Third Sacred School‖ whereby females were sex segregated and often relegated to the fifth and lowest level of organization. Stopping the analysis of ―The Third Sacred School‖ here without an understanding of hierarchical organization is insufficient. The fifth level of unit hierarchy is further organized by sex as an organizing principle. Female jobs were based on assumptions of women‘s nature and their place in a society (Davies, 1982; Vicinus, 1985; Reverby, 1987; KesslerHarris, 1990; Baron, 1991). In ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ society that place was thought to be ―The Home.‖ ―The Home Pattern‖ was an alternative name for ―The Women‘s Work Pattern.‖ The skills required in female jobs were thought to be natural (Davies, 1982; Vicinus, 1985; Reverby, 1987; Kessler-Harris, 1990; Baron, 1991). Females were thought to be the nurturers, who naturally enjoyed raising children and homemaking.26 The female defined jobs tended to be inside—in more pleasant surroundings, in the living areas, kitchen, or offices (Williams, 1995:48). Female defined jobs required the use of machinery or tools that required less skill and more repetition than the technology for male jobs, such as answering telephones, word-processing, chopping vegetables (Williams, 1995:48). Male-defined work on the other hand was more physically strenuous, tended to be outdoors, and, if not more dangerous, had a greater risk of accidents than female jobs (Williams, 1995:48). These jobs include construction, maintenance, pipe change, night watch, farming, ranching.... ―The Third Sacred School‖ thought of female job skills as natural. Job skills for male jobs were thought to require acquired skills from apprenticeships and degree programs (Bradely, 1993:13). The kitchen was one department in which males and females worked together, but males were usually the ―focus‖ (department manager), or the ―focus‖ (chef) of the particular meal preparation. Women tended to be the cooks who worked under the direction of the ―focus.‖ While dishwashing was a mixed sex job, the job of washing large pots and pans was a male job. Large pots and pans were too large for the dishwashing machine and required more upper body strength than smaller pots and pans. ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ patriarchal sex segregation was similar to modernistic organizations, wherein it was found that jobs with higher status were held by males while excluding females (Ortner, 1974). The females at the higher levels tended to be married to male executives or worked as secretaries in the case of ―Spiritual Leader.‖ There were a few higher ranking females in ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ outreach efforts. At the fourth level of hierarchy, there was only one female per ―unit‖—who was the ―Women‘s Work Pattern Coordinator.‖ Theocracy and Sex Segregation. For Pringle, (1993:130), occupational categories and sex roles are socially constructed discourses (Wagner, 1982). To understand ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ organizational Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 117

discourses around occupational categories and sex roles, it is first necessary to explore the basis of authority under which ―The Third Sacred School‖ functions. Weber (1947:152) posited three types of authority: (1) Legitimate—with sub-types of rational-legal, and theocratic; (2) Charismatic; and (3) Traditional—based on hereditary or designated succession, e.g., monarchies. Rational-legal authority has probably received the most attention from scholars. Rational-legal authority is based on a discourse of rationality (Shils & Finch, 1949; Simon, 1955; 1976; 1979; Braybrooke & Lindblom, 1963; Habermas, 1968; Dixon, 1980; Mintzberg, 1989). ―Science‖ is often used to reinforce rationality (Dixon, 1980). Charisma‘s authority is based on a ―gift‖ from ―God‖ (Holy Bible, Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12). Traditional authority has received even less attention. Theocracy is often ignored. Its authority is based on holding religious office. ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ basis of authority was a combination of charisma and theocracy. I shall focus on how theocracy (as a sub-type of legitimate authority) sacralised a sex essentialism in job assignments, rather than charisma. Charisma is important in studying ―Spiritual Leader‘s‖ leadership and the ―members‘‖ followership. This topic is dealt with elsewhere (Cheng, 2003b). Theocracy better explains sex segregation than charisma by itself. ―The Third Sacred School‖ claimed that their organizational structure, with its sex segregation, was not a hierarchy that ―humans‖ (unconscious people, non-members) thought up. They instead claimed it was the result of ―divine manifestation‖ coming through ―The Third Sacred School.‖ This was a theocratic claim. This claim is similar to that of the Catholic Church. Collins (1986:49-52) calls the Papacy—the first bureaucratic state. ―The Third Sacred School‖ was, like the Catholic Church, highly centralized under a male leader who is supposed to be the Prince of God. ―Spiritual Leader‘s‖ ―Unit Focuses‖ and ―Executive Council‖ are akin to Catholic Bishops and Cardinals. ―The Third Sacred School‖ regarded itself as ―God‘s body on Earth.‖ In emic terms the organization claims to be a living entity. The discourse that the organizational structure is organic enables sex segregation by arguing organizational structure, including sex segregation, is natural rather than man-made. Theocracy sacralizes itself; it gives itself the status of being sacred. Something that has the status of being sacred by definition means it is privileged from critical inquiry (Kramer & Alstad, 1993:36-37). One key characteristic of theocracy is sex essentialism, i.e., biological differences between males and females are used as an organizing principle. In ―The Third Sacred School‖ the reason males worked at one kind of job, and females another, was the so-called ―natural‖ differences between males and females. I saw ―members‖ defer to ―higher focus‖ (management) when it came down to what kind of work they did. They checked ―The Schedule‖ at dinner time ―to find out where I am supposed to work tomorrow.‖ I did not see or interview any worker ―Envoys‖ who said their job was ―natural‖ to them. What I did see and hear was that they wanted to ―play their part‖ (in the hierarchy) for they thought this was ―God‘s plan‖ and that ―focus knows where they need to be‖ (management) (Cheng, 2003). ―Members‖ had a sense of duty, which is a learned behavior, not inherent. Work was sacralized, for they were not only picking fruit, they were ―playing their part in God‘s plan.‖ Abstractification facilitates manipulation (Weber, 1965[1922]:118-119; Goodall, 1984:134; Kramer & Alstad, 1993:331-354) of followers by their leaders. ―The Third Sacred School‖ had an animistic cosmology of ―no separation‖ between ordinary ―members‖ and ―Executives.‖ In practice, worker ―Envoys‖ lived in 300-400 square foot rooms, communally shared bathrooms, and ate in the ―dining room‖ (communal cafeteria). The ―Executives‖ flew on ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ corporate jet, were waited on by ―members‖ who acted as their personal servants. ―Executives‖ often ate special gourmet meals and got massages Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 118

from an ―Envoy‖ whose main job was to massage them while preaching the renunciation of the ego, and freeing oneself from desire. Since there was allegedly ―no separation‖ between management and workers, it did not matter what job one had. If a worker were to complain about subordination, then the problem was the worker‘s ego that was preventing her/him from ―oneness‖ between him/herself and ―Spiritual Leader.‖ Conclusion ―The Third Sacred School‖ believed its organizational structure was a ―divine manifestation of God‘s body on Earth.‖ That claim was theocratic in that it made ―The Third Sacred School‘s‖ organizational structure sacred. Sacred status is a defensive mechanism against criticism. Under sacred status, sex segregation cannot be social scientifically examined, for ―outsiders‖ such as researchers, journalists, governmental officials, and so on, are ―unconscious.‖ To be ―conscious‖ was to accept the organizational belief system of ―The Third Sacred School,‖ including sex segregation. If one were ―conscious‖ one would not criticize. At the individual-organizational interface, if the individual wanted to be regarded as ―conscious,‖ which was synonymous with being a ―member,‖ then she/he had to buy into organizational beliefs, including sex essentialism about the nature of females and males. In ―The Third Sacred School,‖ ―Envoys‖ often repeated a phrase they learned in ―classes‖ and heard ―Spiritual Leader‖ say, that they ―were on earth‖ (specifically were born) to ―play their part‖ (in the patriarchal theocratic hierarchy) of ―The Third Sacred School.‖ For a male, buying in to and playing his part was typically very easy for it meant his sex group would be the dominant group within the organization. However, this did not mean he would personally benefit from patriarchy for the opportunities for organizational advancement were very limited. A female ―member‖ had to accept patriarchy, was ignored, or in some cases asked to leave. She had to accept that ―playing her part‖ would mean she would not likely rise in the hierarchy unless she married a high-ranking male. Since almost all high-ranking males were married, and divorce was practically unheard of and not an option for a high-ranking male, there was almost no chance of female career advancement. She had to acquiesce to the organizational reality that she would enter and stay in the organization at its fifth and lowest level for the rest of her life, or until she quit. Endnotes 1

I was given permission by an "Executive Council" member (executive) to use the subject organization's real name in my Ph.D. dissertation (Cheng, 1991). After my dissertation was finished, the organization declined into conflict and lawsuits. The subject organization's leaders, who gave permission to use their actual name, were driven out of power; many were driven from the organization, eventually including "Spiritual Leader III" (the head of the organization). My senior colleagues and attorneys advised me to discontinue using the real name of the subject organization. I adopted the pseudonym "The Group" for the subject organization's name. "The Group" is a functional name. The subject organization is a group. This paper marks a change in the name used for the subject organization from "The Group," which I have used in my previously published works and presented papers, to "The Third Sacred School." The name "The Third Sacred School" was an actual alternative name for the subject organization's backstage culture. There were other emic alternate names of the subject organization: "The Program," "The Ministry," "The Body of God on Earth," or shortened to "The Body of God" or simply "The Body." In presenting other work at the American Family Foundation conference, I discovered colleagues did not know these alternate organizational names (Cheng, 2003). This name change enables a more accurate translation of the culture while still preserving confidentiality. This paper marks the use of an additional term for "member." "Member" is an accurate functional description. The actual term used for members was contained in the actual name of the subject organization. Since the actual organizational name could not be used, the actual name for members could not be used. Hence, I adopted the generic term,

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"member." To increase accuracy, I shall from now on use the "Envoy" synonymously with "member." "Envoy" is synonymous with the actual name of members. 2 The summer chosen was the North American summer since half of the "units" were located there. For "units" in other parts of the world, the North American summer was not their busiest season of the year. 3 It should be noted that in "The Third Sacred School" there were only two visible and acknowledged sexes, male and female. There may have been other biological sex categories that were not visible and acknowledged. 4 Some "Envoys" objected to my characterization that the "units" were in western Caucasian Christian dominated countries. The objecting "Envoys" said the location of the "units" was "natural" and "organic," that "spirit determined where the units emerged." "The response (to The Third Sacred School's teachings) was the strongest in those countries." My observation is factual: the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, and France are western Caucasian Christian dominated countries. It is also factual that these defensive "Envoys" were all Caucasian and had Christian backgrounds. It is also plainly observable that few peoples of color were "members." And most "members" had Christian backgrounds including "Founder" who was the son of a Christian preacher. A major branch of Christianity was founded by the forbearers of "Spiritual Leaders II and III." The lack of racial diversity in the membership, despite outreach efforts, suggests that "The Third Sacred School's" teachings and program were not as "universal" as they claimed. 5 The objection to the characterization that what "Envoys" called "the related organizations" refers to five organizations started by "The Third Sacred School." These organizations had a purpose of diffusing "The Third Sacred School's" discourse to the general public. They were staffed by "Envoys," led by its managers, and reported to the "Executive Council" member in charge of outreach, who in turn reported to "Spiritual Leader." These organizations were fronts for "The Third Sacred School" (Goffman, 1969[1958]; Cheng, 1999a). Eventually after most of these organizations failed to recruit the masses of "members" "The Third Sacred School" desired, even many of those "members" who criticized the characterization conceded that these organizations were front organizations for "The Third Sacred School" (Cheng, 1999a). 6 Defining the population under study is a problematic task. It was not until the mid-1990s, after an organizational decline, that "The Third Sacred School" began to define membership as anyone who subscribed to "The Mailings" (transcriptions of sermons by "Spiritual Leader"). Not defining membership partially enabled "The Third Sacred School" to claim it was "organically organized by the grace of God" as one executive said. This claim naturalized its hierarchy and patriarchy. For purposes of this study, the population was defined by "The Third Sacred School's" own internal figure of "2,300 people on the mailing list." This criterion includes people who were motivated enough to go through the preliminary resocialization to get on and stay on "The Mailing List." In cultural practice of "The Third Sacred School," "The Mailing List" was used as the tool to determine who to call when organizational communication was necessary, e.g., when "Spiritual Leader" came to town to speak, everyone on "The Mailing List" was notified. 7 The view I present here of "The Third Sacred School's" organizational decline is etic. Many "members," especially those who quit, or those who are still "members" but reform-minded, share many of the views presented in this ethnography, or more accurately I report their view as well as the view of traditional minded "Envoys." Most of the anti-reform "members" were forced to quit or have become silent since they are a power minority whose views became unpopular. 8 This paper uses the term "Holy Bible" for the Christian Holy Bible, while acknowledging the diversity of religious groups in America and the world and their sacred texts which may also be referred to as "Bibles." "Holy Bible" and "Bible" are used interchangeably by the subject. 9 There were only three single people on the "Executive Council." The two female single members were the Personal Secretary of "Spiritual Leader III," and the former Personal Secretary of "The Founder" and "Spiritual Leader II." The male member who was single was an early follower of "The Founder." 10 All members of the "Executive Council" were Caucasian. All had Christian backgrounds. All were westerners from the first world. 11 While wives were on the "Executive Council," their main job was to support their husband's "ministry." Even though the wives would conduct "women's meetings," this responsibility was to support the patriarchal male point of view. 12 The world in "The Third Sacred School" was mainly the Caucasian Christian first world countries. They had little presence in Asia and Africa.

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13

The "Related Organizations" (outreach organizations) were run both by males and females who reported to the male "Executive Council" member who was head of outreach (Cheng, 1999a). 14 After having completed all three levels of "classes" I asked the "Center Focus" of the city I lived in why I was not invited to the "Regional Council." He replied that the "Regional Focus only invites people he is comfortable with." The criterion for council attendance was based on personal relationship with the "Focus" of that "Council," rather than organizational tenure, level of training, or membership performance. 15 The "Unit Focus" job is similar to that of a Pastor in mainstream Christianity. 16 One might expect under "absoluteness" that there would be an explicit authoritarian demand by management for conformity. "Absoluteness" was moderated by another important emic organizational culture concept—"personal responsibility." Under "personal responsibility," it was left to the individual to either accept "absoluteness" or not. This is akin to Christians accepting Jesus into their lives. "Taking personal responsibility" must be done freely. Ideally "The Third Sacred School" wanted "Envoys" to "take personal responsibility" and internalize their cultural values, rather than comply with heavy handed authority imposed upon them. 17 Some of the "units" studied did not have construction projects, so they only used the terms "Men's Work Pattern," or "Maintenance Pattern." 18 I asked five mothers why families eat breakfast in the communal dining room. They said it was easier to take out breakfast from the communal dining room or fix breakfast themselves than it was to get their children up, dressed and ready, over to dining room, eat breakfast, back, cleaned-up from breakfast and off to school. Families were housed together as a nuclear family. Most families were housed so they either had an apartment, trailer, or house that had it own cooking facilities. 19 After the observation period, the kitchen focus job at one of the largest "units" turned from a male job to two jobs divided between a male and a female. 20 "The Third Sacred School's" discourse was that animals love to give of themselves, even for slaughter, to humans who love them. While the female milkers and the males who protected the goats handled them with care, even gentleness, petting the animals and speaking to them in a calm voice, the goats' resistance suggests that they were willfully resisting the milk being extracted from them. Their struggle makes it hard to believe that the goats were freely giving of themselves, if in fact goats are capable of giving consent and love. It is possible this discourse is a justification to use the animals for human purposes. 21 It is true that as a single male doctoral student I had no opportunities to develop fathering skills. Also, I really do like children. 22 "Personal responsibility" was a key organizational cultural value. It means one was totally responsible for everything in one's life. Females in "The Third Sacred School" appreciated males who want to be responsible fathers. Several of the females were single mothers. By saying I wanted to prepare for fatherhood, I earned the praise of many female "Envoys." 23 I did think, which was confirmed later, that my request would be granted not only because I had a compelling spiritual justification but because I had just finished one of their educational programs. Education is a main mission of "The Third Sacred School." They want to train people in their world view, engage in resocialization education. My request for job assignment was consistent with wanting to be taught. Ethnographers want to learn as members of the culture they are studying. 24 "Servers" in etic terms means superior; unlike servers or waitpersons in restaurants, who hierarchically are inferior to their customers. A "Server" in "The Third Sacred School" serves "God" by being a spiritual superior to his "Servees." 25 Oddly enough, the naturalist argument was extended from females as nurturers to females as natural at clerical work. Clerical work clearly is a human innovation. Child birth clearly is a biological function of females and predates the innovation of human society. For the sake of argument, if we believe females are natural nurturers due to child birth, or even extend this to raising their children, it is a far stretch to also believe that women are naturally good clerical workers. 26 Oddly enough, the naturalist argument was extended from females as nurturers to females as natural at clerical work. Clerical work clearly is a human innovation. Child birth clearly is a biological function of females and predates the innovation of human society. For the sake of argument, if we believe females are natural nurturers due to child birth, or even extend this to raising their children, it is a far stretch to also believe that women are naturally good clerical workers.

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Acknowledgements I wish to thank Jack Crossley and Bill Rideout for their support. I also wish to thank Joan Weibel-Orlando, Tom Weisner, Ev Rogers, Les Wilber, Bill Millington, Bob Ferris and Pat Rooney. I am especially grateful to Audrey Schwartz for her teaching and tutelage. (c) 1997, 1998, 2002, 2003 by Cliff Cheng. All rights reserved. Do not copy, distribute or reproduce without the author's opinion. Cliff Cheng is a social scientist who earned his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California (USC). His dissertation was on the same group this article describes. He brings the discipline of organizational behavior to the study of cults. After teaching at the University of California campuses at Riverside and Irvine, Dr. Cheng went back to USC, then to UCLA and back to USC. He was recognized in 1998 as the Ascendant Scholar of the Western Academy of Management for his work on organizational behavior. He has served as Los Angles City Human Relations Commissioner, and on the advisory panels of the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission and the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission.

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Book Reviews The Super Power Syndrome Robert Jay Lifton, M.D. Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books, New York, 2003, 210 pp., $12.95 Perhaps we could agree that a review of a serious book ought to answer four questions: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Who is the author? What does he/she have to say? What does he/she mean? Is he/she persuasive?

For readers of the Cultic Studies Review there is hardly need to introduce Robert Jay Lifton. After a long and distinguished career in academe he is now a visiting professor at Harvard. In 1963 he authored the book that became most fundamental for our understanding of modern manipulative cults, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. Later he gave us The Nazi Doctors and, more recently, Who Owns Death, the analysis of Aum Shinrikyo, the group which spread sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. This latest book assesses what its jacket describes as ―America‘s apocalyptic confrontation with the world.‖ Anyone who has read Lifton before will see in this work both progress and consistency in his grasp of the intellectual virus which he labels ―totalism.‖ Those who may be apprehensive about what is evolving in modern society can, at least, be grateful that Lifton makes us aware of what is happening. He raises our consciousness and, maybe our conscience. A quarter of a century ago a journalist, John Lukas, used the word, ―totalitarian‖ to describe what he called the theme of the twentieth century. But long before that, Lifton, Louis Jolyon West and Margaret Singer had worked with recovered prisoners from the Korean War and observed the techniques by which their captors managed to turn their minds. Now, as we begin the twenty first century, Lifton adds the word ―apocalyptic‖ to our vocabulary as he warns, ―the apocalyptic imagination has spawned a new kind of violence.‖ (p. 1) Such a mentality attempts to offer us a ―future‖ after the ―end‖ and the author is warning us that ―America finds itself at the epicenter of the apocalyptic contagion‖ (p. 8) and that ―beneath its belligerence, I believe the country is enmeshed in a landscape of fear.‖ (xii) The war which we have undertaken against terrorism is a manifestation of what Lifton is convinced is a ―superpower syndrome,‖ a medical metaphor meant to suggest ―aberrant behavior that is not just random but part of a more general psychological and political constellation.‖ (xii) We have seen examples of this mentality in Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Osama Bin Laden, and Shoko Asahara, the leader of Aum Shinrikyo. All of them projected a new beginning after the annihilation of everything-even if that meant the death of all mankind. (p. 24). The Nazis came to ―epitomize the principle of killing to heal, of destroying vast numbers of human beings as therapy for the world.‖ (p. 29) We Americans are disturbed to see ourselves absorbed in a philosophy that Lifton calls ―nuclearism‖ which enables us to perceive our atomic bomb as a ―source of transcendent power, of life-sustaining security and peace-potentially life-saving as well as lifedestroying…the bomb was to save the world from itself.‖ (p. 41) The Maoist thought reform had ―the apocalyptic aim of nothing less than the ownership of truth and reality-that is, the ownership of the mind and thus, inseparable from the ownership of death.‖ (p. 51) Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 124

If we see that word, ―ownership‖ as one of Lifton‘s favorite words it is because of the fact that he is fundamentally concerned with power, its use and abuse… Early in this book he had perceived our ―cosmic ambition‖ which seeks not only to dominate history but to control it. (p. 3 and 122) Ironically we are haunted by a fear of weakness. The wounded giant of ―9/11‖ had attracted the sympathy of the world but that compassion under went a turnabout when we decided on a unilateral response. As Lifton says, ―Our fear of being out of control can lead to the most aggressive efforts at total control of everyone else.‖ (p. 178) We are meaning-hungry people as Lifton sees us and thus, he assists us by holding up a mirror for us to see ourselves against the background of the times and the contamination that surrounds us. He is hopeful: ―I wrote this book in a spirit of hope, hope which is always bound up with the rush of imagination.‖ He is hopeful that we can step out of the superpower syndrome and thus cease being a nation ruled by fear. (p. 190) That step will necessitate our surrender of the claim of certainty, of the ownership of truth and reality. (p. 196) The author warns us that ―the war on terrorism has no clear end.‖ (p.112) He sees a danger in the concept of a former CIA director that we are already in a fourth world war. (p. 114) No paragraph is more ominous than this one: The Bush administration‘s projection of American power extends not only over planet Earth, but through the militarization of Space over the heavens as well. Its strategists dream of deciding the outcome of significant world events everywhere. We may call this an empire of fluid world control and theirs is nothing less than an inclusive claim to the ownership of history. It is a claim never made before because never before has technology permitted the imagining of such an enterprise, however illusory, on the part of a head of state and his inner circle. (p. 175) We are warned that the administration‘s radicalism takes the form of aggressively remaking the world in an American image (p. 176) and that the hazards of this are compounded by our presumption that it is our mission to bring about what is ultimately God‘s plan not ours. (p. 122) Is Lifton persuasive? Yes, this reviewer is completely won by the book and its message. The author draws a deeper lesson from Lord Acton‘s famous phrase in which he told us that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely: here we are persuaded that the very quest for and claim to absolute power is beginning of the corruption. (p. 190) Moreover, it becomes even more threatening when the Christian fundamentalist mindset blends with and intensifies our military fundamentalism. In our defensiveness, sometimes, we can grow to resemble the worst aspects of the thing we oppose. As a result when we follow a leader with a sense of mission that empowers him to say, ―I am in the Lord‘s hands‖ and ―there is a reason why I am here,‖ we may not appear very different from some of the worst of Islamic fundamentalists. (p. 119) I am persuaded by a book that concludes with this counsel: ―Were Americans to reject a superpower syndrome, they would also reject a claim to an exclusive American power over life and death. We could rejoin the world as fellow mortals and, in the process rediscover our all too fallible and fragmentary humanity for the precious gift it is.‖ (p. 199) Rev. Walter Debold

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My Life in Orange T. Guest London: Granta Books, 2004, 301 pages, paperback. My Life in Orange by Tim Guest recently appeared in U.K. bookshops; it also has been serialised on Channel 4 and in broadsheet papers in the United Kingdom. With an admirable honesty, Tim Guest recounts vivid memories of his childhood in the late 1970s and early 1980s growing up in the communes of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, including time he spent in England, Oregan, Pune, and Cologne. When you begin to read this book, it will be abundantly clear to you why the average citizen would want to hear about Guest‘s experiences. Despite the book‘s apt title, the author covers the full spectrum of emotions and human experience. This book uses language to paint colourful pictures, clearly and vividly expressing experiences and emotions that are difficult to convey. My Life in Orange captures what for some is the ache of childhood; it is also funny in places. Not afraid to speak of the games and joys of his childhood, Guest also speaks of the acute loneliness he felt living among the Rajneesh group: ―Loneliness was like frozen water, like falling into a pond in the dead of winter and turning blue with cold.‖ (p. 220) The history of the Rajneesh movement and related events is also incorporated in this book, interspersed with the author‘s personal experience. This blending works well; it is informative and allows the reader to realise the context of the author‘s life experiences. The book is deep, yet light and readable, both for those who have had similar life experiences and who, I am sure, will find solace in this book, and for those with no such personal experience, who will find the narrative fascinating. As someone commented on Tim Guest‘s website (http://www.timguest.net/orange.htm) regarding this book, ―As a memoir of childhood, I‘ve never read a better book. You describe such painful emotions with clarity, honesty, and without any kind of self-indulgence or self-pity.‖ I would highly recommend this book; if you choose to read it, I hope you get as much from it as I have. Lois Kendall

Holy Rollers: Murder and Madness in Oregon’s Love Cult T. McCracken and R.B. Blodgett Caldwell, ID: Caxton Press, 2002, 295 pages, paperback. $16.95. ISBN: 0870044249. The authors, a naturalist and a paleontologist with an interest in northwest U.S. history, refer to their topic as the ―long suppressed‖ story of Edmund Creffield‘s Holy Roller movement, started in 1903 in Corvallis, Oregon. (They explain that older folks in Corvallis don't want to talk about the Holy Rollers.) Writing for the general public, the authors present the Holy Roller movement chronologically, with many anecdotes of the people involved and their life situations. The book includes 30 brief chapters averaging 10 pages each, and a 3-page epilogue. Also included is an impressive 15-page bibliography that includes birth, marriage, and death certificates, census data, and newspaper articles of the time. Creffield, a German immigrant who came to the United States at age 20, was a Salvation Army dropout. His real name was Franz Edmund Creffield. He converted an experienced

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Salvation Army officer sent to discredit him, and the Salvation Army later left town—both events evidence of his charisma and verbal skills. Also impressive is how he was able to intrude into the personal lives and lifestyles of leading families in the community. Five feet six inches tall and weighing 135 pounds, Creffield was not physically an imposing figure. His strength was psychological, called a ―hypnotic effect‖ by some who observed him. He began recruiting members using a traditional Christian approach, and then he claimed to be Joshua. Ultimately, he became a self-proclaimed apostle and gradually added his own version of the ideal religion. Creffield‘s strategy was to claim a direct divine connection and the power to ―relieve suffering‖ by the laying on of hands. He appealed to those sensitized by guilt or a deprived childhood, although many otherwise normal people were also converted. His technique was to lower defenses and disinhibit by sermonizing for up to 24 hours to followers, mainly women, who rolled on the floor seeking forgiveness. This ritual, by which followers believed they became ―God‘s anointed,‖ was often repeated daily. Creffield‘s ability to have women cancel their engagements to be married, deter married couples from having sex, and have others drop out of work or school demonstrated his power. Members of the movement burned their furniture and prized possessions, belongings that Creffield called ―carnal.‖ Nonmembers were ―infidels‖ to be shunned, even if they were spouses or a member‘s children. As the result of growing public outrage, the sheriff had two local physicians examine Creffield in the presence of a judge and city attorney. They found him legally sane. Released, he escalated his message, prophesying an imminent end of the world, which drew public interest. Media coverage spread. So did rumors of this man surrounded by women, amid growing suspicion that he had sexual contact with them. He urged followers to remove clothing to be like Adam and Eve. Because the law didn‘t stop him, a vigilante group of men calling themselves ―white caps‖ descended on Creffield. He was tarred, feathered, and run out of town. A follower took him in and allowed him to continue his ministry in the family home. Creffield chose to marry a 16-year-old follower, but her family committed her to the Boys‘ and Girls‘ Aid Society (she was too young for the insane asylum). There, she was diagnosed as ―bright but deranged, mind almost unhinged by religious fanatics.‖ Creffield moved to Portland, Oregon and claimed he was ―the second Saviour.‖ Page 62 refers to Maud Hurt vowing ―to have nothing to do with him‖; but, on the next page, she is referred to as Creffield‘s wife, an unexplained gap. His effect on the mainly female group members was strong and destructive. They prided themselves on being ―brides of Christ,‖ and allegedly to Creffield as the second Christ. This behavior further enraged the public. When he was seen nude with a scantily clad woman, he was arrested, tried, and convicted of adultery. He fled but was discovered hiding under a follower‘s house. Sentenced to two years in the state penitentiary, he was a model prisoner and won release seven months early. Creffield then moved to Seattle with his loyal followers. He claimed to have caused the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. This claim impressed group members and strengthened his hold on them. A brother whose sister was ―ruined‖ by Creffield shot and killed ―the second Christ‖ on a Seattle street. The brother, in turn, was killed by the sister he avenged. She later committed suicide, as did Creffield‘s wife, bringing this tragic history to an end. The book is written in a style more journalistic than scientific, although it is well referenced. Its major contribution is its description of how a destructive cult can develop in an average community. The narrative shows the vulnerability of otherwise normal people, and the escalation of a charismatic leader‘s control over them. Parallels to modern-day destructive cults are obvious, with similarities to Jim Jones‘ People‘s Church, Marshall Applewhite‘s Heaven‘s Gate, and David Koresh‘s Branch Davidians. The book offers evidence that Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 127

wielding total control over others may somehow contribute to a slow deterioration of the leader‘s mental state. On the negative side, the book misleads when the authors present whole paragraphs in italics, written in the first person, as if they were direct quotes, when they are obviously conjecture and speculations about what people thought and said at the time. However, this is a minor flaw. The book provides useful information about the developmental dynamics of cult-like groups and their leadership; as such, it is a valuable addition to the database of how destructive cults develop and to the psychopathology of their leaders. Recommended. Frank MacHovec, Ph.D.

The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown Doubleday (Random House, Inc., 1745 Broadway, New York, NY: April, 2003, 454 pages (hardcover) (fiction/spiritual thriller). List $24.95; amazon.com $14.97. ISBN: 0-385-50420-9. When I purchased this book after the New Year arrived in 2004, I was aware that it was a best seller in 2003 and that millions of people had read it. Until then, I had ignored the reviews and had little idea of the content. Some reviewers early on had said that author Dan Brown‘s research was ―impeccable.‖ Brown‘s editor continues to stand by his man, saying that Brown made nothing up save the fictional, contemporary story wrapped around sensational religious controversy. Ahem! Pardon me while I clear my throat. After I browsed through the story initially, I realized what I was in for, and why all the ensuing critical flack from art historians, religious scholars, and Catholic apologists. I was about to go on another the-Catholic-Church-has-it-all-wrong, New Age ride. Once upon a time, I would read books like this with curiosity and excitement, wondering what new arcane knowledge the author revealed that the academy, the government, or the Church had kept from the masses and me, the poor lumpen proletariat. As a result, I can still identify with those who find inspiration from The Da Vinci Code, which relates the following tale. At night in the Louvre Museum in Paris, an albino monk dressed in a hooded cloak shoots a curator in the stomach. The monk, Silas, is a radical numerary member of the ultraconservative Opus Dei sect of the Catholic Church. He wears a cilice, a thong that cuts flesh, around his thigh, and he flagellates himself bloody as part of a self-purification cult, in accordance with Opus Dei guidelines. Silas works for someone he knows only as ―the Teacher,‖ a wealthy Briton who we later finds out is obsessed with finding the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend. The curator happened to be the leader of a secret sect (the Priory of Sion) that hides and protects the Grail and a cache of ancient manuscripts that could prove Jesus Christ had fathered a child, Sarah, with Mary Magdalene. According to a fringe legend, Mary and her followers, as the true Christians, fled to France and perhaps England to avoid persecution from Peter and the Apostles. Their ―secret‖ and the Jesus bloodline were protected through the centuries via other sects like the Templars. In the novel, a conservative Pope (guess who) has died, and a new, liberal leadership in the Vatican emerges, one that would rescind Opus Dei‘s significant status as a prelature. The Teacher, identified at the end as Leigh Teabing, the wealthy Briton, finds a way to manipulate the Vatican and Opus Dei to get his hands on the Holy Grail. Sir (he is a Knight) ―money-is-no-object‘‖ Teabing utilizes the latest in surveillance equipment and extensive research to pin down that the secret about the Grail should have been unveiled, but he does not want to be exposed as the one who forces the secret from the Priory. So he devises an elaborate scheme. He convinces the Opus leader that the Grail secret will indeed be revealed, thus creating a catastrophe for Roman Catholicism and Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 128

wiping out Opus Dei‘s reason for being. The Opus leader, a bishop, has a secret meeting with Vatican officials who now know about the potentially devastating Grail revelation, and they strike a deal. The Vatican pays the Opus leader 20 million euros in Vatican bonds to find the Grail and destroy the evidence. In return, Opus would retain its standing, and the Church could survive. Teabing, however, plans to get the Grail for himself in the end. Enter Robert Langdon, a well-known Harvard professor of religious studies who specializes in symbolism and arcane wisdom. Langdon is a bachelor described as early middle aged with slightly graying hair, and he wears a tweed jacket. He was in Paris and was to meet with the curator. Langdon had written a manuscript that inadvertently revealed the secret that the curator and only four others held. The elderly and bleeding curator somehow managed to strip off his clothes, then arrange his body according to a famous Leonardo Da Vinci drawing of a naked man in a circle, ―the Vitruvian Man.‖ The curator, Sauniere, also managed to write some symbols in visible and invisible ink and in his blood on and around his body before he expired on the museum floor near the Mona Lisa. Enter Sophie Nevue, a French criminal investigator and code cracker, along with Bezu Fache, the lead French crime investigator. Sophie happens to be the curator‘s estranged granddaughter. As a result of the curator‘s codes and mysterious anagrams created at the crime scene, Sophie and Robert are drawn in (so to speak) to solve the murder and, later, the Grail mystery (and they fall in love in the end). Brown chooses character names with symbolic (hidden from the naïve) meaning to add literary spice to his wildly intriguing narrative that moves from Paris and France to the United Kingdom. Other reviewers have revealed most of these, so to repeat all that would be trivial. But I will say that his choice of Sophie Nevue is only too coy—Sophia is not only the Biblical and Greek Wisdom, but also carries weight in Gnostic myth as the goddess who sent/birthed the Christ to us to reveal true Gnosis. Brown‘s Sophie ends up as a true daughter of the royal line of Magdalene and Jesus, as the renewed Sophia. I hope I‘m not revealing too much in case any of my readers wants only to enjoy this pulp-fiction thriller—a good joke works only when one does not know the punch line. So, if this is mere fiction, why all the fuss? The book inspired a one-hour, ABC TV news special and rounds of debates, as well as reviews that range from praise to vitriol. I think all the response is because Brown appears to take his thesis seriously: History would be very different had Constantine in 325 CE and the subsequent Roman Church not excluded certain sex rites, equality for females, and Gnostic texts from the Christian canon. Brown‘s novel simplistically claims that, under Constantine and the Council of Nicea, at a single stroke Jesus was made divine, and Arius, who argued for Jesus as a human prophet, anathematized. The reality is that the divinity of Christ was never in question among earliest Christians, despite the fringe sects that derived new meanings and wrote contrary texts. Brown takes the premise seriously enough to have done considerable research to bolster the facts that make it appear that the Church really did destroy almost all evidence of the truth about Jesus. Brown‘s primary characters explain to Sophie how the Churchmen executed more than 5 million witches (pagans) and suppressed the sacred feminine principle purportedly valued by Leonardo and other initiates of a goddess-based or sunworshipping pagan cult. Brown does claim at the beginning of the book that ―All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.‖ Derivative would have been more accurate than accurate. We do not have to search far to find some of Brown‘s sources as he mentions them within the didactic or preachy segments in the plot. I‘ll mention a few that stand out: The highly speculative Holy Blood and Holy Grail, by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln; The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ, by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince; and The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail, by Margaret Starbird, who publishes under Bear & Co. That Brown would mention Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 129

these sources tells me he expects to be preaching to choirs that sing either in the superficial feminist wing of the New Age movement or to a secular audience that might believe anything about a Church plagued by controversy anyway. Scholars have found insurmountable flaws in all the books mentioned above. A book not mentioned, Daughter of God, by Lewis Perdue (2000), is close enough in plot and content that there has been some accusation of plagiarism against Brown by Perdue: See http://www.daughter-ofgod.com/daughter-davinci.html. The Perdue book presents a religious professor as the hero; he has a plot that involves arts in Europe and a mysterious, ancient document and shroud that prove there was a female messiah, Sophia, who was murdered around 310 CE by supporters of the Church and King Constantine. Again, if the truth leaks, the Goddess religion will be restored, and the patriarchal Catholic Church and Western civilization as we know it would fall. Perdue documents nearly 30 elements in The Da Vinci Code, including whole speeches that appear to be clearly ripped off from his Daughter of God. Sandra Miesel, a medievalist, is one of the Catholic critics who, in her article ―Dismantling The Da Vinci Code‖ for Crisis Magazine, September 1, 2003, ―dismantles‖ Brown and his hero Langdon as a scholar. Miesel states, ―So error laden is The Da Vinci Code that the educated reader actually applauds those rare occasions where Brown stumbles (despite himself) into the truth.‖ I will not list the errors she and others have found because you can go search the Worldwide Web anytime. I‘ll merely concentrate on a few aspects, including one that intrigued me as an artist who is familiar with Leonardo Da Vinci. Because the title features this renowned genius, let us see just what Brown claims Leonardo included, albeit secretly, in his paintings and drawings. In Brown‘s book, the Mona Lisa is far more esoteric than merely the fine, idealized portrait of the lady La Giaconda. Brown‘s character loads androgynous symbolism derived from an interpretation of seeming inconsistencies in the landscape behind the figure. In effect, Brown creates a mockery of Leonardo‘s intent as an experimental artist. A pentagram (or star) that appears on the dead curator (drawn in his own blood) indicates to Langdon, the symbolist, that Sophie‘s grandfather knew a code Leonardo had used to indicate the sacred feminine eschewed by the Roman Church. Leonardo allegedly inserted, as a kind of subtext, subliminal signals about the ―goddess‖ and the female principle, about sun worship and pagan truths. In my view, Leonardo‘s aesthetic use of geometry transcended any mere reference to goddess worship—his was a scientific as well as an aesthetic approach to beauty, not a devious one. Leonardo may not have been the ideal Catholic (Brown‘s book relates that he was homosexual), but he certainly was not the conniving occultist described by Brown. According to biographers Antonina Vallentin and Vasari, at the end of his life Leonardo was reconciled with the Catholic Church, took communion, and lamented that ―he had offended against God and men by failing to practice his art as he should have done.‖ In any case, the novel pivots on the pentagram as a feminist marker, and our heroes are off on a whirlwind detective excursion while running for their lives. The French police initially target Langdon as the prime suspect. During their flight from Fache and the police, Langdon and Sophie meet with Leigh Teabing, apparently an ally, at his sumptuous villa, where he shows them a large reproduction of Leonardo‘s famous mural, The Last Supper. Wrongly, the novel wants us to believe that the mural represents the moment that Jesus instituted the Eucharist rite, but Leonardo‘s work illustrates John 13:21 when Jesus warns, ―One of you will betray me.‖ Teabing, the Grail expert, points to the lack of a central chalice in the design as proof that the Grail is not a material cup. He goes on, with Langdon‘s acquiescence, to point to a ―V‖ shape between an Apostle to Jesus‘ right, and Jesus as a symbol of the female. He identifies that apostle as Mary Magdalene, not the Apostle John, who art historians see. Indeed, Leonardo painted John as young and effeminate, but this was a convention that developed before and during the Renaissance. And one has to ask, if that is Mary, where is John? Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 130

There are only thirteen figures. Teabing also claims that there is a disembodied hand with a knife (next to Judas) while St. Peter is posed with his left hand in a cutting gesture at the purported Mary‘s throat. He says that Leonardo wanted to indicate that the Church had cut off Mary Magdalene as the chosen leader of Christ‘s church. A transfixed Sophie can only think, ―This is the woman who singlehandedly could crumble the Church?‖ Mary with her bloodline is the Holy Grail, the womb that held the seed of Jesus. What I see is that Judas obscures Peter in Leonardo‘s composition, so that Peter‘s right hand appears awkwardly with the knife, but his left is merely resting as a caution on St. John‘s shoulder as John leans an ear toward Peter. The composition rests on two ―W‖ shapes that contain four sets of Apostles, with Jesus in a pivotal, central pose. If you want to find feminine V shapes, you can find many, but you can find nary a Mary. Unfortunately, this may be the novel‘s weakest lecture, yet it contains the key to the Magdalene/Jesus union around which the entire quest revolves. Brown interprets the evidence in The Last Supper much like an astrologer interprets a horoscope for a client. I once studied astrology and could cast a horoscope in any of several systems. Astrology as a science is to a fault completely baseless and unreliable for character analysis, but astrologers, like good salesmen, can be very convincing, especially if you show interest in their product. Invariably, most folks who want a reading are easily impressed because the astrologer‘s product is the client‘s character and fate. We are all interested in ourselves, and most of us will find many ―hits‖ or accurate statements in almost any reading (unless you happen to be an informed skeptic like me). Sophie is very impressed with her experts, Langdon and Teabing, she is in unfamiliar territory, and she has an emotional need to support her dead grandfather. Naturally, she comes up with an affirmative response. Brown‘s novel wants us to believe that Leonardo played occult tricks such as this on the Church through his many, many lucrative Church commissions, when he had only one, which was not even completed. The novel claims that Leonardo Da Vinci was a Grand Master of the secretive Priory of Sion, as were Victor Hugo and the twentieth-century French artist Jean Cocteau. There is no evidence that they or Leonardo were members. The Priory of Sion is essentially a new religious movement that appeared after World War II, having announced its existence in 1962 after formally establishing itself in 1956. This new Priory has no connection to the Order or Abbey of Sion of the Middle Ages, as the book claims as ―Fact‖ on the opening page. The Abbey group was dissolved by King Louis XIII of France by 1619, with the premises turned over to the Jesuits. According to a TimeWatch BBC (1996) program, ―The History of a Mystery,‖ the Order of Sion disappeared from history. Brown states that the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris ―discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo…‖ as one of his ―Facts.‖ A fact Brown does not mention is that the new Priory sect leader (Plantard), along with an accomplice, deposited the Dossiers Secrets into the Bibliotheque. As exposed on the same BBC program mentioned above, the parchments were fakes all along. As for Jean Cocteau, I have a translation of an interesting autobiographical book by him called Opium, the Diary of a Cure. Cocteau wrote the journal account, liberally illustrated in his surrealistic style, in 1929 while in treatment for ―opium poisoning‖ at an asylum in France. In the text, page 125, Cocteau, at the end of his ―cure‖ at the clinic, says, ―And I was wondering, shall I take opium or not? It is useless to put on a carefree air, dear poet. I will take it if my work wants me to … And if Opium wants me to.‖ He was a brilliant if radical writer and filmmaker who had a creative and highly productive life (1889 to 1963). He rubbed shoulders with the likes of Picasso and Diaghilev. I recall seeing two of his most famous films, Beauty and the Beast and Orpheé. There is no evidence that I could find that he was a grandmaster of any group, but, if he were one, one can only wonder what kind of cult this opium-addicted surrealist might have created. In any case, The Da Vinci Code Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 131

states on page 327 that Jean Cocteau was Grand Master of the Priory of Sion from 1918 to 1963. The Brown book also claims that Victor Hugo was Grand Master from 1844 to 1885. Cocteau in Opium says, ―Victor Hugo was a madman who believed himself to be Victor Hugo.‖ Awkward for Dan Brown, is all I can say. A few final words about mistakes: Opus Dei has no official monks who wear monk‘s robes. Brown‘s albino, Silas, apparently sees very well without lenses—highly unusual for someone with albinism. Brown‘s hero, Langdon, states, ―Originally, Tarot had been devised as a secret means to pass along ideologies banned by the Church‖ (p. 92). Tarot playing cards (and they were playing cards, not magical texts used by initiates) arrived in Europe from the Middle East in the fifteenth century. Many varieties developed, but the occult Tarot, the progenitor of the Tarot decks found in today‘s New Age/occult sections of bookstores, appeared and developed singularly in France during the hundred years between 1780 and 1880. There is nothing ancient about the occult Tarot, and they hid nothing from the churchmen who understood very well what they were about (see A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot, by R. Decker, T. DePaulis, and M. Dummett, 1996). The number of poor souls condemned and executed by the Catholic Inquisitors is not 5 million, as Brown‘s book claims. Scholars today set the number between 30 thousand and 90 thousand, with most splitting the difference. And to drive one last stake into Brown‘s grail myth, the Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln claim that ―holy blood‖ means ―holy grail‖ originates with Sir Thomas Mallory‘s misspelling in his fifteenth-century Le Morte D’Athur. Holy Grail should have been le saint graal and not Sang real. Unfortunately, Brown has his ―Teacher‖ proclaim on page 250, ―The word Sangreal derives from San Greal—or Holy Grail.‖ And ―Sang Real literally meant Royal Blood.‖ The Da Vinci Code is a decent thriller if the reader is either unaware of or manages to suspend the reality that undermines the story. In the spiritual-thriller genre, Brown‘s book mimics its earlier Catholic-bashing, New Age cousin, The Celestine Prophecy, but it has similar flaws in fact and character development. In that regard, Brown does not come close to Umberto Eco‘s The Name of the Rose. Speaking of Eco, his raucous ride through the occult in the 500-plus pages Foucault’s Pendulum (1988) takes the wind out of most other books with occult themes as he covers just about everything imaginable in that murky, mysterious world. Almost all of Brown‘s themes, including Magdalene as Grail, conspiracies to protect hidden scriptures, and Disney cartoons that hide occult wisdom, are woven into Eco‘s book already in 1988. And like Eco's book, Brown‘s novel also has this quest theme, but, just as with Redfield‘s The Celestine Prophecy, the implication is that there is some literal thing (a manuscript, a lineage, a casket of bones) that reveals the secret. Brown, like Redfield, titillates the reader with purported facts about the Church, government, established science—whatever is in power—that prove that some conspiracy abounds to keep the masses in ignorance and under control. This belies a quality of paranoia in the authors, and they also butcher history and fact to arrive at a conclusion. As a result, even though The Da Vinci Code is fiction, it fails. Brown‘s Langdon criticizes those poor, brainwashed Catholics and Christians who would take things ―literally‖ (the virgin birth, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus). Yet, in the end, we find Langdon kneeling in awe at the Louvre at the entry pyramid. He finally ―knows‖ where the bones of Mary Magdalene are buried—and, perhaps, with the cache of secret manuscripts that would crumble the Christian Church. Talk about literal. Langdon lectures Sophie (and the reader) that ―Every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith—acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration…. Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors.‖ Langdon argues Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 132

that he would not ―wave the flag‖ of evidence in the faces of the millions of deluded souls who believe that Buddha was born of a lotus blossom, or Jesus of a literal virgin. ―Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.‖ He would not expose the truth because ―Religious allegory has become a part of the fabric of reality. And living in that reality helps millions of people cope and be better people.‖ There‘s more to his argument, but the gist of it is that we should let sleeping dogs lie—and I mean that as a pun, too—and not throw them any Magdalene bones. So here we have a noble man who would spare the common believer the angst of revelation. As condescending as that might sound to the common believer, Brown also attempts to not offend Opus Dei, despite his exposure of some of its more radical practices. ―Many call Opus Dei a brainwashing cult,‖ reporters often challenged. ―Others call you an ultraconservative Christian secret society. Which are you?‖ ―Opus Dei is neither,‖ the bishop (Aringarosa in the novel) would patiently reply. ―We are a Catholic Church. We are a congregation of Catholics who have chosen as our priority to follow Catholic doctrine as rigorously as we can in our own daily lives.‖ ―Does God‘s Work (Opus Dei, translated) necessarily include vows of chastity, tithing, and atonement for sins through self-flagellation and the cilice?‖ ―You are describing only a small portion of the Opus Dei population,‖ Aringarosa said. ―These choices are personal, but everyone in Opus Dei shares the goal of bettering the world by doing the Work of God.‖ The book does mention ODAN [Opus Dei Awareness Network] and its popular website—www.odan.org—in keeping with Brown‘s effort to make the story as real as possible. I doubt that Opus Dei or its critics are happy about Brown‘s book because he sensationalizes the cult aspect while minimizing any real activity the group promotes. What he did get right is that Opus Dei remains controversial, but that is another story that will continue to have repercussions within the Holy See, especially if a more ―liberal‖ regime enters the Papacy. I‘ll end with a quote that Eco used in Foucault’s Pendulum as a comment on the occult quest, no matter what technique, magic, doctrine, theosophy or bones you might have: ―Our cause is a secret within a secret, a secret that only another secret can explain; it is a secret about a secret that is veiled by a secret.‖ Ja ‗far as-Sadiq, sixth Imam. Joseph P. Szimhart

Devotee Farm George Vaisnava Upfront Publishing Ltd.: 5th Floor, St Georges House, 6 St Georges Way, Leicester, LE1 1SH, United Kingdom; 2003; 128 pages (paperback). 7.99£. ISBN 1-84426103-4. http://www.upfrontpublishing.com/contacts.htm. Anyone not very familiar with the Hare Krishna movement founded by A.C. Baktivedanta Swami in 1965 will find Devotee Farm ponderous and confusing. According to the publisher, ―the book Devotee Farm is based on the author's experience as a religious worker within the Hare Krishna movement for 15 years.‖ George Vaisnava may or may not be the author‘s real name because the book carefully, if thinly, disguises nearly every personality and name associated with the group. A.C. Baktivedanta Swami, a.k.a. Prabhupada, becomes ―Sadhupada‖; ISKCON, or International Society for Krishna Consciousness, becomes ―WOAK‖ or ―Worldwide Organization for Awareness of Krishna Consciousness‖; GBC, or Governing Body Commission, is ―CGB‖ or ―Central Governing Board‖; New Vrindaban [the most successful ―devotee farm‖ in West Virginia] is ―New Utopia.‖ Keith Hamm, a.k.a.

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Kirtananda Swami Baktipada, is ―Chandragupta,‖ the head guru of New Utopia; and the magazine Back to Godhead becomes ―Returning to the Divine.‖ There are dozens of other disguises, many that I recognize only because I have been familiar with ISKCON for more than 20 years. The casual reader, however, would not have a clue. The author‘s style is odd in that he creates a cautionary fable out of his personal experience with a religious path—a fundamentalist, idiosyncratic ―Vaisnavism,‖ or Rama/Krishna devotion—that he clearly supports in his final analysis. (Vaisnavism, based on a devotional approach [bhakti] to the high god Vishnu and his incarnations, is approximately 2,000 years old. Its sects are pervasive throughout India. The author of Devotee Farm most likely supports a revivalist sect initiated by Caitanya [1486-1533] in east India that primarily worships the avatar Krishna. The central text of that sect is the Bhagavad Gita, which is in book six of the great Hindu epic, Mahabharata. The epic was compiled into a written text between 400 BCE and 400 CE, with origins in much earlier oral traditions.) Author Vaisnava somewhat arbitrarily divides his narrative into three parts. He writes in a casual, conversational style with little regard to dates and little emphasis on history. The following quote from the character Chandragupta is representative of how the author frames the cynical corruption in a WOAK farm community: The difference is that we have a religious cover for everything we do. And that‘s really all the difference. Whenever we are questioned, we can easily say that we are following the Vedic culture, and that advantage is so vast that you can really get support for anything with it. And we‘ve got some useful idiots in the academic community who come and visit for a few days. Of course, we just show then what we want them to see, and so they go back to their universities and tell their students that we are a very good movement, and when the stupid journalists write something about us, they consider those foolish professors to know more about our movement than the exdevotees who left us more than ten years ago. (pp. 41-42) If I were to review the book in Vaisnava‘s style, my comments would go something like this: A man named Neville Puredevotee wanted very much to serve the high god Krishna through a movement that began in 1965. After 15 years of serving in primary and splinter groups in the movement, he discovered that the leaders were corrupted by power and no longer followed the path set down by the founder. Neville felt badly about this. He did not like any of the critical books written about the movement. So Neville wrote everything he knew about the group in a brief overview, with little elaboration, no documentation, and only a hint of historical context. He chose a crudely painted image for the cover that displays on the left the high god Krishna rising over a mountain range and on the right a host of devotees in front of a fire, worshipping the false gurus, who look like demons. I do not understand why Neville disguised every name he knew—maybe he is afraid of lawsuits, or maybe he wanted only true devotees who knew the movement well to understand his message. Anyhow, Neville certainly did make it hard for me to follow his story, but I read it anyway because I promised to review the book. At the end of his fable, Neville describes a young couple who met in the cult. This couple, Paramahansa and Muktipriya, fall in love and get married outside the Universal Krishna Worship Organization (UKWO), but they still sustain pure devotion to Krishna according to the founder‘s guidelines.1 Neville wants us to believe that he knows the true story behind the UKWO. He claims that other critical books were written, either by scholars duped by the UKWO, or by Christian fanatics or atheists who do not understand his faith. Neville writes,

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The reason for writing this book was to show how good intentions to serve God and mankind can be twisted and exploited by cult leaders. Also, I thought it was important to write from the perspective of a person who doesn't reject the religion altogether, but practices some of it apart from any institution or organization.‖2 Neville shows us through Paramahansa that a pure devotee must reject the UKWO to have a personal relationship with Krishna through the founder‘s teachings. That is the end of my parody. Unfortunately, the author never describes what the ―some of it‖ is that he practices, or whether it has any connection to the Vaisnava tradition in India. George Vaisnava expresses disgust with Monkey on a Stick, by John Hubner and Lindsay Gruson (1988), renaming it ―Ape on a Pole.‖ Had you not read Monkey on a Stick, you would have little idea what Vaisnava was talking about. His euphemism for the now-defunct Cult Awareness Network and for the American Family Foundation is ―Network Against Cults‖ (NAC). He stereotypes an anti-cult group as responsible for a kidnapping: It turned out that [Premalila] had been deprogrammed, that means, she had been kidnapped by some anti-cult cult which had been paid a large amount of money by the woman‘s parents, who had been indoctrinated into thinking that they had helped their daughter in this way. The reader has no way of knowing the specifics of the case. All we learn is that the WOAK devotees hardly react to her disappearance because they are so dependent on what the gurus tell them. All else is illusion to them, according to Vaisnava. I cannot imagine that Devotee Farm would have much value to anyone but disenchanted Hare Krishna devotees who still yearn to follow some form of fundamentalist Vaisnavism. For more useful books on the topic, I recommend the above-named Monkey on a Stick, as well as Hare Krishna in America, by E. Burke Rochford (1985); The Hare Krishnas in India, by Charles R. Brooks (1989); Betrayal of the Spirit, by Nori Muster (1997); and Moon Sisters, Krishna Mothers and Rajneesh Lovers, by Susan Palmer (1994). There is also The Dark Lord, by Larry Shinn (1987), which is primarily a reactionary opinion by the author, who criticizes the anti-cult network‘s view of the Hare Krishna.Dark Lord, by Larry Shinn (1987), which is primarily a reactionary opinion by the author, who criticizes the anti-cult network‘s view of the Hare Krishna. End Notes 1 2

Pracodayat and Isvarapriya in Devotee Farm. Actual quote from ―George Vaisnava‖ comes from www.upfrontpublishing.com. Joseph P. Szimhart

The Protest Dianne Kozdrey Bunnell WordSmith Publishing, Inc., March 2003, 336 pages. $24.00 U.S., $28.95 Canada. ISBN: 097234988X. There are now many books about cults and abusive religion, but few fiction writers have explored the dynamics of mind control and its devastating emotional consequences. Dianne Kozdrey Bunnell has crafted an interesting and moving first novel based on her own experience of losing two daughters to an abusive mind manipulator. (Although she has Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 135

resumed contact with one of the daughters, she hasn‘t seen or talked to the other for more than 10 years.) In Bunnell‘s novel, the protagonist Jane, her family, and her husband are part of a highcontrol Christian fellowship in Washington State led by charismatic Reverend Logan Churlick. Trapped at age 21 in a loveless marriage, Jane turns to Churlick for counseling. During a session, Churlick seduces Jane; she becomes pregnant with twins. Taught all her life that abortion is a sin, Jane opts to give birth to the babies, and they become the focus of her life. Jane realizes that she was manipulated into the sexual liaison through the married Churlick‘s skillful mind manipulation. As she explains at a child-custody hearing, ―He said God had appointed him to teach me ‗yieldingness.‘ The problem with my husband … oh, God, I can‘t even believe I used to be this way. But, I believed him. Honest, Your Honor. And here‘s why it could happen…. It‘s drummed into you that you‘re not to question God, not to assert yourself, but let His will be done. His will, as related by Reverend Logan Churlick. Any need to question why, and you‘re not a believer. You don‘t have faith. Question God? Not if you want to belong… and more than anything in the world, you want to belong to this church, belong to God. Question God‘s man, Reverend Churlick? It just wasn‘t done. By anyone. He said God told him he was to minister to me to teach me yieldingness to my husband.‖ Jane manages to extricate herself from the group and from Churlick‘s influence, alienating her strict parents and cutting herself off from nearly her entire social circle. But she is drawn back into the abusive pastor‘s orbit when he presses successfully for custody rights. During the time the girls spend with their father, Jane notices a gradual and finally a sudden change in the girls‘ personalities as Churlick turns them against her by mind manipulation. The pastor and his submissive wife constantly tell the girls that their mother is a sinner who can never reach God. Ms. Bunnell also explains the alienation of her daughters by a phenomenon known as parental alienation syndrome (or what we used to call simply one parent bad-mouthing the other). Thwarted by the legal system, Jane opts to turn her 12-year-old daughters over to Churlick and his wife completely rather than to continue to let them be torn apart. This act of selfsacrifice brings redemption to Jane in spite of Churlick‘s insistence that his way is the only path to God. After a confusing beginning, Bunnell stirs the reader‘s interest. The story is a very sad one, but she enriches it with vivid details and, ironically, often with humor. Ms. Bunnell intends the novel to be a helpful teaching tool to others caught in similar family situations. However, her discussion of mind manipulation, other than Jane‘s explanation in the above quote, is not detailed enough to inform someone not already well acquainted with the phenomenon. She could have made more use of Steve Hassan‘s expertise (Jane accidentally comes across a copy of his book while browsing through a book store) or of other cult experts whose books she lists in the appendix. Also, she relies on only one person, Dr. Richard Gardner, author of The Parental Alienation Syndrome, to put forward this mysterious new syndrome as an additional explanation of what happened to her daughters. In fact, at one point in the story, Jane says the two are just different names for the same thing. I disagree: Although one parent often does try to convince a child involved in legal custody issues that the other parent has shortcomings, this is not the same thing as systematic and sophisticated mind manipulation. Bunnell‘s list of reading and resource organizations for others caught up in abusive religious situations is inadequate. A better list would improve the usefulness of the book.

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Marcia R. Rudin

News Summaries All Stars Project/New Alliance Party Play Blames Jews for Race Riot ―Crown Heights,‖ a play at the Castillio Theater in Times Square, New York City, casts the Hasidic Jewish community as the instigators, not the victims, of the 1991 race riot in Brooklyn‘s Crowne Heights neighborhood. The play is produced by the All-Stars Project, created by political extremist Lenora Fulani. Her mentor, cultist Fred Newman [former head of the New Alliance Party and exponent of ―social therapy‖] co-wrote the play. New York governor Pataki reportedly ―expressed an interest‖ in the $8.5 million tax-exempt city bond that financed the new theater; his support for it allegedly cleared the way for approval of the project. Both Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ran for office with the support of the Independence Party, controlled by Fulani and her followers. The Post obtained a document two years ago saying the purpose of the All-Stars Project is ―first and foremost revolutionary, not aesthetic,‖ adding: ―If theater is your primary concern, this isn‘t the best place to be.‖ (New York Post, editorial, Internet, 2/8/04)

Aum Shinrikyo Docudrama A film crew working in Kamikuishiki on a docudrama about Aum Shinrikyo constructed paper maché sets to recreate the facility where members manufactured the sarin poison gas used in the 1995 Toyko subway attacks. The program, depicting the rise and fall of Aum, was to have aired February 26 on the Nippon Television Network. (Asahi Shimbun, Internet, 2/14/04) Preemptive Raid Authorities raided important Aum Shinrikyo facilities looking for evidence of a planned terrorist attack on the eve of the verdict in Shoko Asahara’s trial, expected in late February. The group has seems even more devoted to him now. (Mari Yamaguchi, AP, Internet, 2/16/04)

Baruch Ha Shem Students Claim Ritualistic Torture by “Evil” Cult Leader The families of three Massachusetts students may sue Illinois‘ Wheaton College for failing to protect their children from Feroze Golwalla, who allegedly lured the students into his Baruch Ha Shem cult, subjected them to ritual torture, and controlled their lives. Parents of two students who fled the high-control group complained to the college, but the school took no action and let Golwalla continue as a graduate student and supported his Parsee Missionary Team, a program that supposedly helps the Parsee people of Iran. Golwalla, who could not be located for comment on this story, was seen recently preaching at a Christian women‘s conference in Bemidji, MN. Benjamin Wolf, a Harvard graduate, group‘s return to Baltimore from a ―psychological manipulation‖ before situation,‖ says Wolf. ―He would beat

says that Golwalla beat him and his brother upon the Wheaton-sanctioned trip to Pakistan and then used allegedly abusing them sexually. ―It was a terrible us and then do this ‗come to papa‘ routine.‖

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Carrie Andreson, who escaped in 2002, says she was forced to stay awake for days, stand just in a T-shirt for hours, and made to flog other members. She says she too was beaten, that her phone calls and e-mail were monitored, and that and she wasn‘t allowed to call her family. Her punishment for questioning Golwalla, she said, was to lick a filthy bathroom floor. ―It was definitely evil. It was so isolated. That basement was my whole life and Feroze was my God.‖ Andreson successfully managed to break with Golwalla — after three failed attempts — when, following an agonizing van ride in which she was forced to squat in what Golwalla termed the rooster position, ―I looked out the window and for the first time I recognized that there was a whole world out there.‖ She then spent eight months at a Lakeville, MA, rehabilitation center for former cult members. (Boston Herald, Internet, 3/21/04)

The Body/Attleboro Cult/Karen Robidoux Woman Who Had Vision Pleads Guilty Michelle Mingo, whose vision of God‘s will instigated the starvation death of a child in the Attleboro, MA-based The Body, has pleaded guilty to being an accessory to assault and battery on a child. Although she could have been sentenced to five years in prison, Robidoux was released by the court, having spent over three years in custody. The child‘s father, group leader Jacques Robidoux is serving a life sentence for the crime, while the mother, Karen Robidoux, was recently released, also for time served in custody. (Jeff Sullivan, Pawtucket [RI] Times, Internet, 2/11/04) Prosecutor's Lack of Imagination Prosecutor Walter Shea said he saw no difference between the actions of Jacques Robidoux, now serving a life sentence in the starvation death of his son, and the child‘s mother, Karen Robidoux, who was convicted of second-degree murder and set free for time served while awaiting trial. Karen Robidoux‘s defense argued that she was a psychologically battered woman, raised to be a ―baby machine‖ in an extremely controlling group. Yet Shea ―seems unable to imagine a life of such abjectness that consists of obedience even to the worst cruelty. But sect members who left the group testified that they could imagine it: They beat and starved their own children, they said, in ways that today they would never consider. Luckily for Karen Robidoux, the jury could imagine such a tortured life as well. But our sympathies for her are not unrestrained. An innocent child had died.‖ (Providence Journal, Opinion, 2/14/04) Police Watching Out for Children Police are keeping an eye on children in The Body, the small ―brainwashing sect‖ in Attleboro, MA, whose leader, Jacques Robidoux, is serving a life term for the starvation death of his infant son in 1999. The child died when, following the instructions of a follower‘s vision from God, members of the tiny faith-healing sect pressured mother Karen Robidoux to withhold solid food from her infant. Recently released after being found guilty of assault in the case, Karen Robidoux says she fears other children in the group are at risk. (Dave Wedge, Boston Herald, 3/5/04) Ms. Robidoux, now living in a rehabilitation facility for former cult members and working part-time in a local bed and breakfast, says more children in the group could die. ―There‘s been no repentance, and they‘re just going to continue . . . in their cycle.‖ (Dave Wedge, Boston Herald, Internet, 3/4/04)

Brainwashing

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Slavery Trial Prosecutor Peter Farris says a man on trial in Ballarat, Australia, made a woman a slave by using techniques similar to brainwashing in concentration camps to stop her from leaving their relationship. The charges against him include rape and blackmail. (ABC [Australia], Internet, 2/18/04)

Branch Davidians Waco Anniversary April 19 was the anniversary of the raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX, which ended a 51-day siege and saw the death of dozens of followers of David Koresh and four federal agents. Exactly two years later 168 died and hundreds were wounded in the Oklahoma City bombing. (AP on WRIC, Internet, 4/19/04)

Child Abuse/Brainwashing/False Memory Convict Freed After 18 Years Gerald Amirault, imprisoned for 18 years following his conviction for molesting children in a day care center run by his family, has been paroled, vowing ―to do everything I can do to get the case overturned and expose what happened.‖ He has always contended that the testimony of the children whom he allegedly abused was influenced by the authorities who questioned them at the time. At a news conference, Amirault‘s attorney read a judge‘s decision portraying Jennifer Bennett, now 25 and the mother of two, as the victim of brainwashing. The alleged mishandling of child witnesses by social workers and other authorities in such cases was debated nationally in the 1990s. Amirault‘s mother and sister were also found guilty in the case, but the latter‘s conviction was overturned in 1998 by a judge citing research indicating children‘s memories could be improperly tainted by investigators. (J. M. Lawrence, Boston Herald, Internet, 1/5/04)

Executive Success Programs (ESP)/NXIVM Missing Woman Says She Was Brainwashed Investigators now believe that Kristin Snyder drove her SUV to a campground on Resurrection Bay, near Anchorage, Alaska, paddled a kayak out into the water, and then intentionally capsized it, but not before leaving a note on shore that said: ―I attended a course called Executive Success Programs (a.k.a. Nxivm) based out of Anchorage, AK, and Albany, NY. I was brainwashed and my emotional center of the brain was killed/turned off. I still have feeling in my external skin, but my internal organs are rotting. Please contact my parents . . . if you find me or this note. I am sorry life, I didn‘t know I was already dead. May we persist into the future.‖ Both police and her family say that during the 35-year-old Snyder‘s second 16-day ―intensive‖ human potential course with Executive Success Programs (ESP), her health and enthusiasm for personal development disintegrated. According to her domestic partner, Heidi Clifford, the formerly productive environmental consultant seemed delusional, had stopped sleeping, and was threatening suicide. Authorities have now determined Snyder had no prior history of psychiatric or emotional problems before becoming involved with ESP. Clifford, who herself took one of the courses to support her partner, says that one of the instructors told her to ignore Kristin‘s suicide threats because they were simply attempts to get attention. Her parents say the last time Kristin spoke to them she claimed responsibility for the Columbia shuttle explosion. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 139

ESP, headquartered in Halfmoon, near Albany, offers classes in Colonie and Saratoga Springs, NY, Manhattan, Anchorage, and in Mexico. The course involves a practice called Rational Inquiry created by Keith Raniere, a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduate. Raniere once operated a business investigated by 23 states and two federal agencies as a pyramid scheme which brought in $33 million annually. ESP students call Raniere ―Vanguard,‖ and president Nancy Salzman ―Prefect.‖ Carlos Ruedahe chair of the department of psychiatry at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in New York City, says he‘s treated three NXIVM students for psychiatric disorders related to the courses; one, a member of a prominent Mexican family, required hospitalization. He said that ESP leaders are not trained to deal with psychological problems that arise during the courses. NXIVM says the courses are not harmful and that no civil action has ever been brought against them. The organization has sued several critics, including an ex-student and Rick Ross, whose Ross Institute tracks controversial social movements. (Dennis Yusko, Albany Times Union, Internet, 1/2/04)

Faith Healing Charismatic Chiropractor Convicted Chiropractor Jane Gallagher, whose patients treat her practice almost as if it were a religion, has been sentenced in Harrisburg, PA, to a year-and-a-half in prison in the death of Kimberly Strohecker. Gallagher allegedly told the epileptic Strohecker that she would cure her, without medicine, by waving her hands around the 31-year-old‘s head to ―balance the meninges.‖ Another patient described Gallagher‘s laying on of hands as ―a gift‖ similar to ―grace.‖ Strohecker‘s fiancé, a Jehovah‘s Witness, had advised her to see Gallagher for help in giving up her medications. When Strohecker called for assistance the night before the grand mal seizure that ended in what prosecutors called her slow and painful death, Gallagher said her suffering was caused by anti-seizure medication working its way out of her system. On the day before she died, Strohecker, who lived fairly normally on medications, arrived at Gallagher‘s office in a wheelchair, wearing adult diapers, choking on vomit, and with her tongue almost bitten through. Gallagher pleaded guilty to a single count of fraud, ending a trial that might have led to a life sentence. (Pete Shellem, Patriot-News, Internet, 3/9/04)

Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Bountiful: Division Reflected in British Columbia Residents of Bountiful, near Creston, British Columbia, who are all members of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), are now divided between supporters of Warren Jeffs, who rules the sect in Utah and Arizona, and Winston Blackmore who has led the community in northern Idaho and Canada for many years. Deeply intertwined families have been split by Jeffs‘ telephoned dismissal of Blackmore as bishop of Bountiful, just as families in the U.S. FLDS communities have been split by Jeffs‘ excommunication of followers there. A Bountiful resident who once lived in the U.S. FLDS settlement says of the difference between the two leaders: ―The way Warren taught is there is no hope and you had no choices. With Winston, as long as you‘re willing to do better, there is hope because it starts with you. Winston tells people the only man with a right to rule over your life and mine is Jesus Christ.‖

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The Creston community seems far more integrated into surrounding communities than the settlements in the U.S., and Blackmore seems to be encouraging young girls to finish high school and even college before marriage. (Brooke Adams, Salt Lake Tribune, Internet, 3/14/04) More Expulsions Warren Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [FLDS] has followed his January expulsion of 21 members by banishing five more from the polygamist enclave of Colorado City, AZ. The men were told to leave the church and their homes, often without all of their family members. Jay Bestwick, a child protection advocate in California who has helped women flee polygamous marriages, said the excommunications were prompted by Jeffs‘ ―Hitler-like routine‖ and his ―insatiable need for money.‖ Bestwick says Jeffs, who asks members for $500 or $1,000 more than their usual tithe [and who is allegedly involved in a power struggle with others in the 10,000-member community], is paranoid and planning to build a compound in Mexico [where other members of the church live]. (Zane Zhang, The Spectrum, Internet, 2/10/04)

Harrod, Allen Molesting 'Prophet' Convicted Allen Harrod and his wife Irene Hunt were found guilty by a Sacramento, CA, jury of raping and molesting their own and others‘ children over a period of years. The now grown up children recount a childhood devoid of parental love in which misbehavior was punished by whipping and sexual behavior was rewarded with a soda. The children say they did not take meals with adults and were often locked out of their Folsom, CA, home so they would play outside. Harrod appears to have left the orthodox Mormon church many years ago to write his own scriptures, an amalgam of Mormon and Jewish ideas, ―a bastardization of those religions to justify the molestations,‖ says prosecutor Chris Ore. According to testimony, Harrod called himself a prophet and made his children and wives — there seem to have been two, in succession — call him Isaac or ―Lord,‖ even as he was sodomizing an 8-year-old daughter while pressing a pillow over her head to muffle her screams. Another child says he made her perform oral sex on him at least weekly. He required teenage girls to wear skimpy, tight dresses from Frederick‘s of Hollywood catalogues to Sabbath services. Harrod reportedly sent his sons away when they were seven or eight to live with follower Michael Labrecque, in Texas, who in turn sent his young daughters to Harrod for ―religious training.‖ Following Harrod‘s conviction, his eldest daughter said: ―This is a wonderful closure. When you have a dad who is all powerful and you think he‘s smarter than you, to be able finally to say, ‗Dad, everything you put us through was wrong,‘ is awesome. I‘m so happy, I feel like crying.‖ (Mareva Brown, Sacramento Bee, Internet, 1/23/04)

Iglesia Candelero de Oro “Spiritual Guidance” Includes Alleged Abuse Self-styled pastor Oscar Medez has been charged with sexually abusing two boys in his 20member garage-based church, Iglesia Candelero de Oro, in Garden Grove, CA, after one of the boy‘s relatives called Santa Ana, CA, police. Mendez ―befriended the family and the

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boys by offering spiritual guidance. The families trusted him enough to leave the kids alone with their pastor,‖ said Sgt. Carlos Rojas. (Mai Tran, Los Angeles Times, Internet, 3/24/04)

International Church of Christ/ Boston Church of Christ Ban Not Working The Boston Church of Christ, a branch of the International Churches of Christ, which was banned in 1987 from proselytizing on the Boston University campus because of its alleged cult-like recruitment and controls, has been holding weekly meetings at the Brookline, MA, Holiday Inn, where BU houses about 80 students due to a lack of space in University-owned residences. Resident assistants told BU officials they saw recruiting efforts and warned students to beware. BU student orientation includes advice on how to deal with cult-like groups. (Daily Free Press via U. Wire, Internet, 4/23/04)

Rhema Lifesavers Ministry Brainwashing Alleged Erica Dawson‘s family, of Eatonville, FL, says that Rhema Lifesavers Ministry brainwashed her after she started attending its services six months ago. They report that she refused to watch TV or listen to radio because, she told them, it was evil to do so. They say she also refused to associate with them or with her friends because, she said, they also were evil. In addition, she stopped taking medication for an immune condition. The church says Erica is making her own decisions, but her mother has gotten a court order for an evaluation of her mental state. (WFTV 9 News (Orlando), Internet, 2/16/04)

Satanism Investigation of Nun’s Death Reopened The Rev. Gerald Robinson, 66, has been charged in Toledo, OH, with the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, 71, a nun whose body was found in a church chapel surrounded by candles and with her arms folded across her chest. The Rev. Robinson‘s arrest followed recent allegations by another woman who claims to have been abused by Roman Catholic Priests in the area during Satanic and sadomasochistic rituals. Authorities say the murder was part of a ―ceremony‖ in the chapel, where Sister Pahl was a caretaker. The woman who has come forward says clerics performed an abortion on her, killed a 3-year-old, mutilated dogs, held Satanic ceremonies in which priests placed her in a coffin filled with cockroaches, forced her to eat a human eyeball, and penetrated her with a snake to ―consecrate these orifices to Satan.‖ (AP in New York Times, Internet, 4/25/04)

Scientology Cruise Drops Aid Allegedly Over Scientology Tom Cruise has fired publicist Pat Kingsley, according to a source, because ―he was talking more and more about Scientology. She was counseling him not to. It became an issue.‖ Kingsley, however, said the separation was friendly. ―I adore the guy,‖ she said. ―I have the greatest respect for him professionally and personally. We had a great ride.‖ The source said Cruise is ―surrounding himself with Scientology factotums now and so she [Kingsley] had to go.‖ Cruise has lately been speaking more about Scientology‘s controversial beliefs, saying, for example, that ―psychiatry should be outlawed.‖ (Joanna Molloy, New York Daily News, Internet, 3/13/04) Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004, Page 142

Terrorism Suicide Bombers May Be Brainwashed Alexei Zakharov, head of Moscow‘s Research and Applied Science Center and an expert in the psychology of ―extreme situations,‖ says female Chechen suicide bombers, usually widows of men killed in the war with Russia, might be brainwashed. ―They‘re gathered in large auditoriums and they repeat a combination of sounds whose meaning they have no idea of. At the same time, they‘re making very rhythmic body motions. That, in fact, is one of the simplest and most primitive entrancing technologies.‖ (Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times Internet, 2/4/04)

White Supremacists Rite of Passage David Nikos Pillatos, 20, of Tacoma, WA, has pleaded guilty to helping beat and stomp a homeless man to death, apparently part of a rite of passage into membership in a white supremacist group. Police think the attack by Pillatos and several others was to allow Pillatos‘ girlfriend, who took part and has also pleaded guilty, to earn her ―red shoelaces,‖ a sign that she had caused a member of a minority group to bleed. (The victim was actually white.) (AP in Seattle Times, Internet, 3/13/04)

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