International Cultic Studies Association

Cultic Studies Review An Internet Journal of Research, News & Opinion Volume 7, Number 3 2008

CONTENTS Articles An Investigation into Cult Pseudo-Personality: What Is It and How Does It Form? Gillie Jenkinson, M.A.

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Narcissistic Fraud in the Ancient World: Lucian‘s Account Of Alexander of Abonuteichos and the Cult of Glycon Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D.

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Conflict Between Aum Critics and Human Rights Activists In Japan Yoshihide Sakurai, Ph.D.

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Book Reviews Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge Reviewer: Miriam Williams Boeri, Ph.D.

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When the Body is the Target: Self-Harm, Pain, and Traumatic Attachments Reviewer: Lorna Goldberg, M.S.W., L.C.S.W.

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Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist‘s Wife Escape Stolen Innocence Reviewer: Livia Bardin, M.S.W.

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What Orwell Didn‘t Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics Reviewer: Joseph P. Szimhart

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News Summaries

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*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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An Investigation into Cult Pseudo-Personality: What Is It and How Does It Form? Gillie Jenkinson, M.A. Hope Valley Counselling Hope Valley, United Kingdom1 Abstract In this paper, I investigate some possible explanations for the development of the cult pseudo-personality and how it forms. I investigate whether the cult pseudo-personality is doubling (Lifton, 2000), false self (Winnicott, 1965), simply adaptation, or dissociation. I argue that it is none of these and propose that the concept of introjection is the most satisfying explanation. The paper also briefly addresses some recovery issues in light of the proposed view of pseudo-personality. Definition of a Cult As has been discussed within ICSA for many years, giving a helpful definition for groups that cause harm is difficult. For the sake of simplicity, I shall use the term cult to describe these groups, following Langone‘s (1993, p. 5) succinct definition: A cult is a group or movement that, to a significant degree, (a) Exhibits great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing, (b) Uses a thought-reform program to persuade, control, and socialize members (i.e., to integrate them into the group‘s unique pattern of relationships, beliefs, values, and practices), (c) Systematically induces states of psychological dependency in members, (d) Exploits members to advance the leadership‘s goals, and (e) Causes community.

psychological

harm

to

members,

their

families,

and

the

Introduction to My Case Study—Jenny To illustrate what I am saying, I shall introduce you to Jenny, a composite case study of an ex-member. Whilst I have set her story in a Bible-based cult, these issues are applicable to most other ―types‖ of cults. Jenny is in her 40s. She came from a relatively prosperous family, was intelligent, did well at school and as a young woman enjoyed both studying and having fun. She had had a few boyfriends and had slept with one, but since then felt she wanted to wait until she was in a long-term, stable relationship before she slept with anyone again. In her 20s she became a teacher, and by the age of 25 she became disillusioned with the system and started to look for more meaning in her life. She had attended her local church as a child but was disenchanted by the sameness of it all. She heard about a new Christian community that had started up a few miles away; and although she heard it was a bit wacky and

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knew little about it, she was interested in the group‘s take on environmental issues and felt there would be no harm in going along and seeing what happened in the community. She was struck by members‘ passion, their genuineness, their caring, and their apparent desire to see her join. This touched her deeply because she had never come across such people before, and they were certainly different from those in her local church. She very quickly became involved with the community and found that they had a leader who was attractive, charismatic, and seemed to think she was rather special. Because Jenny had been struggling with her self-image and with believing she could be attractive to anyone (she had not found a stable, ongoing relationship, and she put this down to some lack in herself), she was excited and enthralled by him. Jenny visited increasingly often, not seeing anything to put her off. She decided to leave her flat and her job, and to give her life full time to the community. Her friends and family questioned her sense in becoming more involved. However, the community members were teaching her the Bible verses: ―Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command‖ (John 15:13), and ―The man replied, ‗Lord, first let me go and bury my father.‘ Jesus said to him, ‗Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God‘‖ (Luke 9: 60). She was told that this meant she should leave her family and old friends and make new friends. She was less and less interested in hearing what her family had to say. Her new friends were pushing her to ―lay down her life,‖ to surrender herself for the work of the community (they said she was laying down her life for Christ). Jenny was thrilled, and excited, at being accepted into this special group of people—it felt like a new beginning. They suggested she change her name to Magdalene to show her commitment to God and the community. She felt honoured to do this and felt more connected to them than ever. One day she was asked by a fellow member to do the evening meal. She said she could not because she was busy doing something else. Her fellow‘s whole demeanour changed, becoming cold and hard; and she said in a chilling voice that Magdalene had no right to question such a request, that she should stop what she was doing and go this minute to the kitchen and do as she was told. Jenny/Magdalene was shocked by this sudden change. She put it down to this woman being moody and went to the kitchen. She argued to herself that she had committed her life to the community, so she should be helping out. She felt angry with herself and ashamed for questioning in the first place. She soon learned that, if she complied, she would feel accepted and a part of things, and, if she did not, she would receive similar rebukes and, often, silences. Sometime later the leader told her to make his breakfast. She let him know by a small huff that she did not want to. He insisted, and so she complied. The community met for their worship meeting later, and Jenny/Magdalene started to share how she felt so full of life and joy at the beautiful day. She was received with a chillingly cold atmosphere, was told God was angry with her for her ―bad attitude,‖ and that they wanted to talk to her afterward. She sensed their rage and was filled with dread. Later, they told her God would reject her (she would go to Hell) if she did not change her attitude and become more surrendered to God and the community. They explained that, in Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 4

order for her to ―stay right with God,‖ they would need to punish her by beating her 40 times with a cane. Jenny/Magdalene was deeply shocked by this and was left shaking and frightened. Following the rebukes and beating, Jenny became Magdalene in actuality—she became quiet, serious, and religious, complying fully with the beliefs and practices of her new group of people, her new ―family.‖ She dressed differently, wore her hair differently: She looked and behaved like a different person. Not long after, she was told that God wanted new members to join the community. And although at one time Jenny would have questioned this whole ―going out and dragging people in‖ thing, and would have absolutely refused, on some level, Magdalene remembered their anger and her shock at being rebuked and beaten, which had happened unpredictably many more times, and so did as she was told. She was unresponsive when she was told that any tactics at all would be okay to bring people in—she was assigned to bring men into the group. She understood the implications, and Jenny was buried deep within. Magdalene identified with her new community of people, truly believing that sleeping with men in order to bring them in and obeying without question were the work of God. Following investigation by local church leaders, the community was disbanded. Unfortunately, the leaders did not know the full extent of the abuse in the community or understand the impact the experience had had on Jenny/Magdalene. She therefore continued her church involvement, not realising how traumatised and abused she had been, or how compliant she still was. Over time, she learned to question more, although doing this was challenging for her because she was still fearful of punishment. Nevertheless, Jenny began to re-emerge; and at that point, she began to experience real depression and post-traumatic stress. She felt trapped: She HAD to be part of a church; otherwise, God would kill her (so she had been told). But she could not stay part of a church and survive psychologically. Looking back at this time in her life, she saw that Jenny, her ―old self‖ or pre-cult personality, was re-emerging over a long period of time; and as this happened, life was much more painful than when she was complying with her cult pseudo-personality, Magdalene. As she became more aware, she did not know which side she should be on. Others had noticed this split, and she confused those who thought she was one sort of person and then discovered she actually thought quite differently. For example, other ex-members of the community thought she was serious and judgmental, whereas she was actually quite playful and compassionate. After she left the group, Jenny said, Magdalene, was ―born‖ so I could become the person they expected me to be, hating my parents, rejecting all outside the community, and doing things I would never have done before—I was a stranger to myself. Magdalene is still present in me, and her voice is different from mine. I fight her a lot of the time because they told us our parents deserved to die. I am exhausted and mixed up. Jenny‘s very self, and her personality, were sharply changed and deeply and utterly affected by the experience of being with this group of people. To discuss what happened to Jenny/Magdalene, I will briefly explore what is self and what is personality. I will then look at some attempts to define the cult pseudo-personality. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 5

Self, Personality, and Pseudo-Personality I conceptualise the self as changing moment by moment in response to contact with self, others, and the environment. In thinking about what happened to Jenny/Magdalene, I have found Gestalt psychotherapy theory helpful in its conceptualisation of the self as the being and doing aspects of an individual. Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman (1951) state: Let us call ―self‖ the system of contacts at any moment. As such, the self is flexibly various, for it varies with the dominant organic needs and the pressing environmental stimuli; it is the system of responses; it diminishes in sleep when there is less need to respond. The self is the contact-boundary at work… (p. 235) The self is, therefore, an ever-changing process (Taylor, 2004) in contact with our selves, others, and the environment. This moment-by-moment response to the environment means we are all vulnerable to the impact of environmental stimuli and influence (Cialdini, 2001; Zimbardo, 2007), particularly when the environment is radicalised (as Jenny was responding, the pseudo-personality, Magdalene, was developing). Change and development occur within the organism or individual throughout the life cycle in many circumstances (Wilkinson, 2006; Gerhardt, 2004). Personality can be conceptualised as the more enduring aspects of the organism or individual. Philippson (2001), a Gestalt writer, states that the personality function of self is ―the knowable, relatively predictable, verbalizable aspect of the self that can be called up in answer to the questions ‗who are you?‘ or ‗what are you like?‘ or ‗how do you do things?‘…‖ (p. 38). Whilst Jenny‘s self was responding moment by moment, becoming a fully fledged member of the community, her personality (her preferences, her answer to the question ―What are you like?‖) was also changing; and Magdalene, the cult pseudo-personality, formed. New preferences, a new sense of self and how she did things, was created by involvement in and interaction with the community. There is much evidence that many individuals who have been in a cult exhibit a change in their personality (Langone, 1993; Singer 2003; Hassan, 2000; Lalich & Tobias, 2006). The change in Jenny/Magdalene illustrates Singer‘s view: As part of the intense influence and change process in many cults, people take on a new social identity, which may or may not be obvious to an outsider. When groups refer to this new identity, they speak of members who are transformed, reborn, enlightened, empowered, re-birthed, or cleared [my addition: saved, surrendered]. The group-approved behavior is reinforced and reinterpreted as demonstrating the emergence of ―the new person.‖ Members are expected to display this new social identity. (2003, p.77–78) I suggest that this new social identity is the cult pseudo-personality or pseudo-identity. West & Martin (1993) note: ―Cases of pseudo-identity observed among cult victims are often very clear-cut, classic examples of transformation through deliberately contrived situational forces of a normal individual‘s personality into that of a ‗different person‘‖ (p.274). This change in Jenny/Magdalene was a gradual process over time, and eventually she barely knew herself. Hassan (2000) states: ―Creation and imposition of a new ‗identity‘ is done step by step‖ (p.58). You might ask how this change takes place. Martin (1993) suggests that the common goal enables the cult to overrule difference: ―Cults typically attack an individual‘s personality.

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People differ in their temperaments, interests, talents, and abilities. However, cult groups ignore these differences. Instead, they are focused on a goal or vision to which members must conform…‖ (p. 122). Once Jenny had contact with the community, she was groomed and seduced [sometimes called love bombed (Langone, 1993)] into what appeared to be a truly spiritual, loving, exciting, forward-thinking, caring, and trustworthy group of people. But later she came to realise that the community was hiding its true nature. Initially, because she did not have all the information, she idealised them. As Langone (1993, p. 7) states: Contemporary cults, which operate in open society ... cannot forcibly restrain prospects and run them through a debilitating regimen. Instead they must fool them. They must persuade prospects that the group is beneficial in some way that appeals to the targeted individual. Jenny brought her natural vulnerabilities—for example, her sense of not being attractive enough, and her spiritual hunger—but her personality was destabilised by the shock of the sudden and prolonged change in behaviour when the members of the community ended up shouting at, beating, and punishing her. She had to adjust to this in order to remain a part of the community, and over time her personality changed almost beyond recognition, developing as a cult pseudo-personality, created in the interaction between Jenny, the new recruit, and the cult environment. Diagram 1: The cult encroaching on Jenny/Jenny introjecting the cult

The cult

Jenny

Lifton‘s eight components of thought reform (Lifton, 1989) are helpful in explaining why the processes that occur in cult members ensure this change in behaviour. For example, the ―demand for purity‖ mixed with the ―cult of confession‖ ensures that cult members believe their former self, which may be understood as their pre-cult personality, is not good enough, whilst the cult of confession maintains the cult personality as the members confess their ―sins‖ or independent thought, ensuring that they continue to be compliant and submissive. The experience of ex-cult members endorses this view (quotations with permission): The cult personality is superficial. What I mean is that it does go deep because it has been there a long time (23 years) and it has affected my core, my deep personality. But it is not me; it overlays me. I was forced to be who they wanted me to be. And ―The cult self overlays me; I need to break out.‖ This leads me to ask the question: What, in psychological terms, is the cult pseudopersonality, and how does it form? To explore this question further, I will look briefly at Lalich‘s (2004) proposal of ―bounded choice.‖

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Bounded Choice Lalich (2004) suggests that the choices made by cult members make perfect sense within the cult setting and belief system (p. 2). She explains how cult members reach this state of mind, and the process of conversion or worldview shift (p. 15), which she suggests might be responsible for the change of personality. She notes that: 

Belief and coercion are at the heart of the change.



Conversion requires ―charismatic commitment.‖



This shift takes root quickly ―so that people become easily enmeshed and in some cases trapped, at least psychologically.‖

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The transformation is deeply felt.

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The transformation is intensely troubling because of the resultant changes in personality, attitudes, and behaviors.

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There is a loss of sense of self.

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The outcome of conversion is a firm believer, a new person.

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Identification and internalization complete the loss of pre-group identity (p. 270) because they have in a sense become the organization (pp. 15–17).

Lalich states: This process … of transformation involves a reorganization of the person‘s inner identity or sense of self. Typically it occurs through a mixture of emotional appeals, rituals, instruction, self-examination, confession, and rejection, all in a context that deftly combines stress and harmony. Most often guilt, shame, and anxiety are integral to this process. Responding to the demands can be exhausting and stressful, for it requires repeated acts of selfrenunciation; at the same time, the person experiences relief at having ―found the answer,‖ which is associated with a kind of personal freedom. (p. 16) This change in personality, attitude, and behaviour is illustrated by Jenny/Magdalene‘s experience; Magdalene had been willing to do anything they asked her, and she had lost Jenny‘s pre-cult individuality. At least four possible explanations of the cult pseudopersonality have been put forward: doubling, false self, adaptation, or dissociation. Doubling Lifton (2000), in his research into the mentality of the Nazi doctors working in concentration camps, interviewed some of the surviving Nazi doctors who had had the power of life and death over prisoners and also continued to live a ―normal‖ life outside of the camps. He suggests that doubling is the psychological vehicle used to describe this phenomenon, which explains how they could live with themselves and commit such atrocities. Lifton notes that, unlike in dissociation and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (in which parts split off from each other— see below), in doubling there is both autonomy and connection between the Auschwitz (concentration camp) self and the prior self. He states that there is a dialogue between the two selves. The Nazi doctor needed his Auschwitz self to function psychologically in an environment so antithetical to his previous ethical standards, and he needed his prior self in order to continue to see himself as a humane physician, husband, and father. The Auschwitz self, therefore, had to be both autonomous and connected to the Prior self that gave rise to it. I visualise the split in doubling as a vertical split with a connection:

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Diagram 2: Illustration of Nazi doctor’s Auschwitz self and prior self

Auschwitz self

Prior self self

I do not think the cult-pseudo personality is doubling, nor is it what we are seeing with Jenny/Magdalene. Although it is commonly held that the Nazis were a cult, I believe this dialogue between the Auschwitz self and the prior self allowed the prior self to be more or less untouched and allowed the Nazi doctor to continue normally. The cult-pseudo personality is different because if the cult member internally challenges the pseudopersonality, or leaves the cult, the control begins to break down, and the pre-cult personality may begin to break through the layer of cult pseudo-personality (see my thoughts later in ―The Machine‖ subsection about the tarmac or asphalt). The cult member will feel okay so long as he or she is compliant and there is no dialogue between, for example, Jenny and Magdalene. But, to reiterate, once a dialogue is set up between the two parts (Jenny and Magdalene), then guilt and confusion might well ensue, even to the point of mental illness because the cult control will be challenged internally. Singer (2003) notes that it is the cult environment itself that produces and keeps the cult-pseudo personality in place. False Self The ―false self‖ is a term coined by Donald Winnicott (1965) and refers to that structure formed in response to frustration of the ―real self.‖ The false self presents itself to the world in order to get needs met but withholds its natural spontaneous self (Johnson, 1985). I believe Magdalene is more than a false self. I suggest that Jenny adapted to the onslaught of the cult machine that enforced Magdalene, the pseudo-personality, from the outside, and that she took it in. Magdalene is not a structure formed within her to present to a world that was not meeting her natural spontaneous self, so it is more than a false self in this sense. I visualise the false self as a vertical split. Diagram 3: Illustration of false self and real self

False self Real self hidden behind it

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Adaptation Adaptation is, in social psychology and sociology, ―a shift in sociological or cultural disposition. Thus, one is said to ‗adapt‘ to a new environment‖ (Reber & Reber, 2001, p. 11). It could be said that joining a cult is simply an adaptation: Individuals are choosing to be the way the cult wants them to be, and they want to change. This suggests that the individual has a choice, and free will. Even though there probably is an adaptation occurring in the individual when he or she first joins the group, there is, in many cases, a more fundamental, enforced change (my conceptualisation of the machine in the next section), which I suggest is therefore not just adaptation. The pseudo-personality is much more than adaptation. An adapting personality is not split into a Jenny and a Magdalene, for example; it maintains inner coherence while exhibiting external change. The pseudopersonality of cult joiners, on the other hand, is changed centrally, rather than peripherally (Ofshe & Singer, 1986), as in adaptation. Dissociation The idea that parts of a single personality can be divided, or dissociated, is not a new one. Van der Hart, Nijenhuis, and Steele (2006) state, in relation to patients with PTSD and other trauma-related disorders (p.28-29), that ―...dissociation is a division among ‗systems of ideas and functions that constitute the personality,‘‖ that these parts are self-conscious, and that each part involves its own separate sense of self. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV) states that ―The essential feature of the Dissociative Disorders is a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception. The disturbance may be sudden or gradual, transient or chronic.‖ The Dictionary of Psychology states that the term dissociation is Used generally to characterize the process (or its result) whereby a coordinated set of activities, thoughts, attitudes, or emotions becomes separated from the rest of the person‘s personality and functions independently. Mild forms are seen in compartmentalization ... more extreme forms are observed in the dissociative disorders. (Reber & Reber, 2001) Dissociation therefore occurs on a continuum, and we all dissociate to some degree (West & Martin, 1994). At one end of the continuum, we may experience the sensation, for example, of driving a familiar route and not recalling the journey. At the other end is complete memory loss, and there is much in between. At the more serious end of the continuum, Van der Hart et al. (2006) propose the following conceptualisation of dissociative disorders. The simplest division of the personality in traumatised individuals is primary structural dissociation, wherein there is a single split—one apparently normal part (ANP) and one emotional part (EP) of the personality [see diagram 4 following], also sometimes referred to as alter personalities (Putnam, 1989). Secondary structural dissociation, as a result of prolonged and repeated traumatisation, has a wide range of complexity and involves one ANP and a number of EPs. Tertiary structural dissociation is characteristic of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), previously known as Multiple-Personality Disorder (MPD), in which there are multiple ANP and EP parts of the personality. Jenny/Magdalene‘s experience supports Langone‘s assertion that many members end up ―proclaim[ing] great happiness yet hide great suffering.‖ He states that this is a ―state of dissociation in which members are ‗split‘ but not ‗multiple.‘‖ (1993, p. 9). They do not exhibit an alter, as in structural dissociation.

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Hassan (2000) says, ―Cult mind control dissociates a person from his authentic identity, and makes his new cult identity dependent on the group. From a mental-health perspective, cult mind control splits elements of an individual‘s psyche into another distinct personality‖ (p. 55). This raises the question: Is the cult-pseudo personality a dissociative phenomenon or even DID? I agree with Langone that it is not DID (―multiple personality‖), and this view is backed by West & Martin (1993, pp. 273-4). They note the following differences between DID and the pseudo-personality: DID is more likely to be related to early childhood trauma (also Van der Hart et al., 2006); DID patients may have more than one ―alter‖ or part; and DID is notoriously hard to treat. West and Martin (1994, p. 274) also assert that the aims of therapy differ between DID and pseudo-personality, further highlighting the differences. With DID, ―reconciliation and integration of alters‖ is the aim, while with pseudo-personality, the aim is ―restoration of the original identity.‖ They note that residual PTSD will usually need to be treated. It is generally held that the split in primary, secondary, and tertiary structural dissociation is a vertical split: Diagram 4: Illustration of primary structural dissociation

Apparently normal part

Emotional part (EP)

(ANP)

Given the terrible childhood abuse and trauma suffered by those born and raised in a cult (Jones, Jones and Buhring, 2007), it is possible that DID and dissociative disorders resulting from their cult upbringing may be present in this population. Because many members recruited as adults suffer deep trauma within cults, there might also be dissociation that forms as a result of the cult trauma. This trauma can include beatings; sexual abuse; abusive and harsh encounter groups, and shouting and loud commands to change, to hate one‘s parents, and to hate one‘s ―old self‖ or ―worldly self.‖ There might also be structural dissociation present in individuals before they joined the cult. The cult will nevertheless cause wounds in their life. I envisage this split both horizontally and vertically:

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Diagram 5: Pseudo-personality overlaying dissociated pre-cult personality Cult pseudo-personality

I suggest that the individual cult member might dissociate to cope with the trauma, but I believe the formation of the cult pseudo-personality is a different process and is not a dissociated part, alter, or ANP/EP. What Is the Pseudo-Personality? I will now discuss how I believe the pseudo-personality forms. I will do this by looking at ―the machine‖ and discussing the concept of introjection. The Machine ―I feel as if my real self was like a little dot, like a seed that was buried in deep soil, and then a layer of tarmac (asphalt) laid over me‖ (ex-cult member quotation). I suggest that the cult was, for Jenny/Magdalene, like a relentless machine, like a steam roller on hot tarmac with hooked spikes in it, pressing and pushing its ideology, beliefs, and culture on to her, the unsuspecting individual, hooking into Jenny using her vulnerability and parts of the pre-cult identity to establish itself (Hassan, 2000). She eventually became buried under the tarmac. Jenny/Magdalene was recruited and ―love bombed‖ through deceitful recruitment techniques (Martin, 1993), and what she got was not what she expected. This process reflects an exchange: The machine relentlessly overlays the individual as the individual welcomes the machine, not realising what she is getting into or what is behind what seems like love. Jenny/Magdalene thought she was ―laying down her life‖ for God; others believe they will become enlightened, see the world become a better place through a worthy political cause, and so on. And they become buried under the tarmac. As Hassan (2000) notes, the cult anchors itself to parts of the cult members‘ past experiences. For Jenny/Magdalene, the cult of confession ensures that the community knows more about Jenny than she realises and gives them ammunition to control and manipulate her by playing on her ―confessed‖ personal vulnerabilities.

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I envision the pseudo-personality overlaying the pre-cult personality like tarmac on a road, a horizontal split: Diagram 6: The cult pseudo-personality overlaying the pre-cult personality Cult pseudo-personality Pre-cult personality

The tarmac ―takes‖ to one degree or another. For some it sits comfortably, but for others it is uncomfortable from the start; and when the individual leaves the cult, it will begin to break up (Singer, 2003). I suggest the pseudo-personality mimics dissociation—the machine relentlessly moves forward, overlaying the personality of the new cult members, causing them to adjust to this new world view—it is not them and it is them. I suggest the greater part of the process of forming the pseudo-personality is not doubling, false self, or simply adaptation, not dissociation nor DID, but introjection. In Gestalt theory, introjection may be thought of as ...material—a way of acting, feeling, evaluating—which you have taken into your system of behavior but which you have not assimilated in such fashion as to make it a genuine part of your organism—your self. (Perls et al., 1951, p. 189) When the individual takes in from the environment without chewing over what is taken in (as happens in a cult), it is difficult to digest and gain nourishment from it. Perls et al. (1951) state that in introjection the organism ―takes in the ‗material‘ on the basis of forced acceptance, a forced (and therefore pseudo) identification,‖ and that it is a foreign body, but the organism resists it being dislodged. In the case of a cult, there is often little opportunity for the individual to dislodge or digest it without leaving, getting into a great deal of trouble, or becoming psychologically de-stabilised. I suggest that Jenny, the unsuspecting new recruit, idealised her new ―friends‖ (and they let her) and their attractive beliefs, and she took them and their cult culture and ideology in— she introjected them—whole. She had little opportunity for critical thinking, or chewing over: Magdalene therefore developed and overlaid Jenny, who became buried. A number of authors acknowledge the need for ex-cult members to reconnect with their pre-cult personality, and that doing this is a crucial part of the recovery process (West & Martin, 1994; Martin, 1993; Langone, 1993; Singer, 2000; Hassan, 2000). Hassan (2000) states the split-off pseudo-personality needs to be integrated.

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I shall discuss how this reconnection with the pre-cult personality occurs, and also look at whether integration, or chewing over and digestion, are required for one to recover. Recovery: Integration or Chewing Over and Digestion Reber & Reber (2001) say that integration brings the person ―into a harmonious or coordinated whole by rearranging, organizing, and occasionally adding or deleting elements or parts‖ (p. 360). Van der Hart et al. (2006) note that integration is a bringing together of a split whole. One of the themes that came out of my unpublished M.A. research, What Helps Ex-cult Members Recover from an Abusive Cult Experience?, was ―getting rid of the cult pseudopersonality.‖ When I went back to my research, I was taken aback at how I had worded this. I questioned the ‗‖getting rid of‖ bit; I asked myself whether integration of that part, as one would integrate a dissociated part, was, in fact, more appropriate. However, on reflection, I do not think so. I think ―getting rid of‖ in a nonviolent way is actually what is needed—chewing and digesting the introjected cult pseudo-personality rather than integrating it. So, whilst the above definition would seem to fit the process of reconnecting to the pre-cult personality, I suggest that it is not enough because the cult pseudopersonality is not a dissociated part, and integrating it would entail keeping parts of the cult experience that need to be eliminated. I will now discuss how to ―get rid of‖ the pseudopersonality. Gestalt writers Perls et al. (1951) use the analogy between the teeth and developmental stages. The toothless baby takes in predigested food; the toddler‘s milk teeth develop, and he or she eats soft food; the adult teeth develop, and the young child starts asking why, what is that for, and so on. Children want to chew over what is coming in and decide for themselves (they do not want to simply introject what is given to them). In a healthy environment, this behaviour occurs increasingly with age. Perls et al. (1951, p. 189) state: Physical food properly digested and assimilated, becomes part of the organism; but food which ―rests heavy on the stomach‖ is an introject [emphasis added]. You are aware of it and want to throw it up. If you do so you get it ―out of the system.‖ Suppose, instead, you suppress your discomfort, nausea, and tendency to spew it forth. Then you ―keep it down‖ and either succeed, finally, in painfully digesting it or else it poisons you. I suggest that, with the cult-pseudo personality (Magdalene), the individual is unaware of the poison and discomfort. The discomfort is suppressed within the pre-cult personality (Jenny). Perls et al. (1951, p. 189) go on to suggest that to eliminate introjects from your personality the problem is not to accept and integrate dissociated parts of yourself. Rather, it is to become aware of what is not truly yours, to acquire a selective and critical attitude toward what is offered you, and, above all, to develop the ability to ―bite off‖ and ―chew‖ experience so as to extract its healthy nourishment. [bold added] And, I would add, to eliminate from the system that which is not nourishing. To return to the analogy of the tarmac or asphalt, when the road is finally disintegrated, it is possible to dig the tarmac back into the soil and perhaps obtain some benefit from it. Hassan (2000) states that it is important not to discard the entire cult identity, but to create a new post-cult identity that incorporates the most valuable and healthy parts of the pre-

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cult, cult, and ―authentic‖ identities (p. 184). My proposal of chewing over and digesting or eliminating introjects supports this view. To summarise this section, I suggest that the pseudo-personality is not a dissociated part that needs integrating; nor is it doubling, false self, or simply adaptation. Instead, it is an introjected part that needs chewing over and digesting, allowing what is nourishing to remain and eliminating the rest. Treatment Implications How both ex-cult members and their helpers or therapists conceptualise the problem of recovery is vitally important. I suggest that the concepts of introjection, chewing over, and digestion might be more helpful than dissociation and integration. I now will give four case examples of what I mean by chewing over, digesting, and eliminating the cult pseudo-personality, and one example of integrating dissociation and then chewing over, digesting, and eliminating the cult-pseudo personality: 1.

Jenny became judgmental, religious, serious, and compliant as she introjected the cult personality, Magdalene. As Jenny/Magdalene moved away from the cult, and chewed over the beliefs of the cult and what she had become, she returned to her pre-cult personality, exhibiting humour, playfulness, assertiveness, and compassion. She decided that this way of being was more consistent with her own view of Christianity as opposed to the cult‘s view. And so she chose to take a nonjudgmental stance rather than the judgmental stance she had learned in the cult.

2.

Magdalene had to sleep with men—i.e., prostitute herself—for the sake of fulfilling the aims of the cult. Jenny did not need to integrate the part of Magdalene that did these things, but she needed to be compassionate with herself, to see these actions as part of the ―bounded choice‖ (Lalich, 2004) that made sense within the cult, and to make her own decision about her actions in the future regarding sleeping with men (chewing over and digestion). She also needed a good deal of support in order to recover from the trauma of it all, including the resulting post-traumatic stress and her negative self-image.

3.

A male heterosexual client in his 30s joined a Buddhist cult and discovered the leader was homosexual and expected all the men to be the same. The client complied with this because, as it was explained to him, doing so was more spiritual—his ―bounded choice‖ (Lalich 2004). When he left the cult, he thought through carefully (chewed over), with my support, whether he was actually homosexual, and he realised that he had known since he was a teenager that he was not. Hence, he reverted to being heterosexual. He did not integrate this homosexual part but rather chewed over and challenged the cult‘s view. In digesting his experience and deciding what he wanted to be in the future, he ―eliminated‖ the cult‘s view and reverted to his pre-cult stance on his sexuality.

4.

A woman in her 40s had been told by the cult that her father had sexually abused her, and this affected her deeply, causing her terrible trauma and resulting in a severe split within the family. When she came to me for therapy, we explored this possibility. As she chewed the issue over, she realised she had no memories at all of being abused by her father. She checked the claim out with him and her mother, and they confirmed that he had not abused her. She did not need to integrate this belief; she needed to chew it over, digest it, eliminate it, and return to her pre-cult view of her parents and reconnect with them.

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5.

When Jenny/Magdalene was beaten for ―sin,‖ she believed she deserved it because the cult leader told her she was ―sinful‖ and bad. As she was beaten, she dissociated and felt as if she was sitting outside the room looking in at them beating her. As a result of doing this, Jenny could feel nothing in respect to the beatings. As she allowed herself to integrate this dissociated part, and her feelings began to be ―in her body‖ instead of outside of the room, she became deeply upset. But she had more of herself available to continue the healing journey as she chewed over and digested the introjected belief that ―God‖ required her to be beaten because she had been so ―sinful.‖ She came to see that the beating was another way of the cult exerting control over her and had nothing to do with sin or her actually being bad. Conclusion

I have investigated the question: ―What is the cult pseudo-personality, and how does it form?‖ I have concluded that the cult pseudo-personality is not doubling, a false self, simply adaptation, or dissociation. While mimicking a dissociated part, it is actually an introjected foreign part that needs chewing over in order to discern which bits are nourishing and should be kept and which bits need digesting and eliminating. The cult pseudo-personality develops as the whole person introjects the cult‘s culture, beliefs, and behaviours. I acknowledge that dissociation may also occur in the cult, but I believe that the dissociated part is not the cult pseudo-personality; it is a response to trauma. I propose that it is important to be clear about how the cult pseudo-personality is conceptualised because this conceptualisation will affect how ex-cult members are approached in terms of their recovery process. If the cult pseudo-personality is seen as dissociation, individuals will be encouraged to integrate their cult pseudo-personality. I propose, instead, that their cult pseudo-personality needs chewing over. Then a decision regarding what needs digesting and eliminating and what needs to be kept can be made. Through this process, the ex-members can then ―get rid of‖ the cult pseudo-personality, and return to their pre-cult personality, while taking what is positive with them as they move on in life. Note 1

Because of the international nature of this journal, we accommodate the spelling conventions of the author‘s country.

References Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment. Karnac: London. Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Influence: Science and Practice. Allyn and Bacon: London. DSM-IV-TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2000, 4th Edition). American Psychiatric Association: Washington, DC. Gerhardt, S. (2004). Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby‟s Brain. Routledge: London & New York. Goldberg, Lorna. (1993), Guidelines for Therapists, in Recovery from Cults, Langone, M. L. (Ed.). W.W. Norton & Company: London Hassan, S. (2000). Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves. Freedom of Mind Press: Sommerville, MA. Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and Recovery: From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Pandora: London. Holmes, J. (1996). Attachment, Intimacy, Autonomy: Using Attachment Theory in Adult Psychotherapy. Aronson: Northvale, NJ. Johnson, S. M. (1985). Characterological Transformation: The Hard Work Miracle. W. W. Norton & Company. London. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 16

Jones, K.; Jones, C.; & Buhring, J. (2007). Not Without my Sister. Harper Collins: London. Lalich, J. (2004) . Bounded Choice. University of California Press. Lalich, J. & Tobias, M. (2006). Take Back Your Life—Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships. Bay Tree: Berkeley, CA. Lifton, R. J. (1989). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Lifton, R. J. (2nd Edition, 2000). The Nazi Doctors, Basic Books. Langone, M. (Editor). (1993) . Recovery from Cults. W. W. Norton & Company: London. Mackewn, J. (2000). Developing Gestalt Counselling. Sage Developing Counselling Series: London. Maron, N. & Braverman J. (1988) . Family Environment As a Factor in Vulnerability to Cult Involvement. Cultic Studies Journal: Vol.5:No.1. Martin, P. (1993). Cult Proofing Your Kids. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Michigan. Martin, P. (2008). Personal communication. Ofshe, R., & Singer, M. (1986). Attacks on peripheral versus central elements of self and the impact of thought reforming techniques. Cultic Studies Journal, 3(1), 3-24. Ogden, P.; Minton, K.; and Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy. W. W. Norton & Company: London. Perls, Frederick S.; Hefferline, Ralph,, & Goodman, Paul. (1951). Gestalt Therapy-Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, p. 189. Souvenir Press: London. Philippson, P. (2001) . Self in Relation. The Gestalt Journal Press: Highland, NY. Putnam, F. W. (1989). Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. The Guilford Press: London. Reber, A. S. & Reber, E. (2001). The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology (Third Edition). Penguin Books: London. Singer, M. T. (2003). Cults in our Midst. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, CA. Sirkin, Mark I. (1990). Cult Involvement: A Systems Approach to Assessment and Treatment. Psychotherapy, Vol.27, Spring. Taylor, K. (2004). Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control. Oxford University press: Oxford. Van der Hart, O.; Nijenhuis, E. R. S.; & Steele, K. (2006). The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of chronic Traumatisation. W. W. Norton & Company. London. West, L.J. & Martin, P.R. (1994). Pseudo-Identity and the Treatment of Personality Change in Victims of Captivity and Cults, in Dissociation: Clinical and Theoretical Perspectives, chapter 13, S. J. Lynn & J. W. Rhue. (Editors). Guilford Publications Inc. New York. Wilkinson, M. A. (2006). Coming into Mind. Routledge: London & New York. Winnicott, D. (1965). Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. International Universities Press: New York. Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil. Rider: London & New York.

Gillie Jenkinson is a Director of Hope Valley Counselling Limited and specializes in offering counselling and psychotherapy to those who have left cults or coercive relationships/groups and those who have been abused. Ms. Jenkinson is a trained Counsellor with an Advanced Diploma in Pastoral Counselling and an MA in Gestalt Psychotherapy. She is accredited and registered with United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and a member of British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP). In 1999 she did a month long internship at Wellspring, Ohio and returned there in 2008. Ms. Jenkinson was a member of The Love of God Community, a Bible-based cult, in the 1970s. She has 16 years experience working with survivors of rape, sexual abuse, and cults, as well as with clients with other issues. She is currently training as a Supervisor and supervises a number of individuals who work in these areas. She is listed as a supervisor with Safe Passage Foundation. Ms. Jenkinson facilitates an ex-member support and education group in London. She has presented her research, ―What helps Ex-cult members recover from an abusive cult experience," at ICSA Conferences in Madrid (2005) and Denver (2006) and papers on cult pseudo-personality and neuroscience in Brussels (2007) and Philadelphia (2008). Ms. Jenkinson has co-authored a chapter entitled ‗Pathological Spirituality‘ with Dr. Nicola Crowley for a medical text book entitled, Spirituality and Psychiatry, to be published by

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Gaskell in the United Kingdom in 2009. Her website is www.hopevalleycounselling.com. She can be contacted at [email protected] or + (44) 1433 639032.

This article is an electronic version of an article originally published in Cultic Studies Review 2008, Volume 7, Number 3, pages 199-224. 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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Narcissistic Fraud in the Ancient World: Lucian’s Account of Alexander of Abonuteichos and the Cult of Glycon1 Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D. University of Alberta Abstract Based upon Lucian of Samosata‘s account of Alexander of Abonuteichos, who is the founder of the Glycon cult in second century Asia Minor, I argue that Alexander likely is a malignant narcissist. I construct this argument by summarizing Alexander‘s behaviors, and then showing how those behaviors seemingly relate to modern psychiatric descriptions of narcissists. As such, Alexander‘s behaviors have parallels with several modern cult leaders. Moreover, Alexander‘s attempts to kill his critics suggests that he is a particular type of narcissist—a malignant narcissist—making him a dangerous and vengeful personality. A single, but rather detailed, account of a newly formed cult and its leader survives from the ancient world, written by a rhetorician named Lucian of Samosata (now Samsat, Turkey). He is born around the year 120 A.D., lives for periods of time in Athens and Egypt, and dies during or probably soon after 180 (see Costa 2005, vii; Edwards 1949; Jones 1986, 8, 17). 2 To a friend, he writes a scathing exposé of Alexander of Abonuteichos, 3 and this account surely ranks as among the earliest reports of sectarian malfeasance in Western civilization. In and of itself, the account is of interest to persons who concern themselves with religious wrongdoing in the contemporary world, since Alexander‘s deceits have broad parallels with those of some more recent sectarian founders. Of some importance, however, is our ability to apply contemporary psychiatric research to gain insight into the mind and motivations of this manipulative, deceitful leader. In essence, I suggest that a mental disorder quite recognizable among psychiatrists and clinicians likely is behind the actions of this cult figure who lives some eighteen centuries ago. Since we have mounting evidence of the role that mental disorders play in sectarian formation in modern times (Kent 2006; Lys 2005; Raine 2005), we can begin to explore the possibility that these disorders have played generative roles in the creation of abusive religions for centuries if not millennia. I contribute to this explorative possibility by first summarizing the account that Lucian provides of Alexander, followed by an interpretation of Alexander‘s behaviors and attitudes according to contemporary research on narcissistic personality disorder. More specifically, I argue that Lucian‘s account strongly suggests that Alexander is a particularly dangerous type of narcissist called a malignant narcissist, because of the way that he responds to persons who appear to threaten either his public image or his fraudulent operation. By making this argument, I place Alexander in the company of some modern sectarian leaders who share similar traits. Lucian’s Account Calling Alexander a great ―villain‖ and a ―quack‖ (the latter because of his medical claims [Alex., 1, see 5]),4 Lucian writes a multi-page account of both his ―daring schemes and his chicaneries‖ (Alex.,, 1). Scholars generally agree that this account is based upon an actual figure, ―and its factual basis [is] firmly established‖ by various archeological finds (Branham 1989, 182; see Anderson 1976, 72; Jones 1986, 133–148). Even with these finds as

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support, however, the possibility always exists that Lucian spins some of his information through his favorite literary motifs (see Anderson 1976, 16–19; Jones 1986, 146). In any case, Alexander is born sometime ―between about 105 and 115 in Abonuteichos, a small port-city on the coast of the Black Sea…‖ (Jones 1986, 134). In his prime, this cult leader: ...was tall and good-looking, really god-like, with a fair complexion, a beard which was not very thick, hair partly natural and partly false, but so well matched that most people couldn‘t tell the difference. His eyes flashed like one possessed, while his voice was very clear and pleasant.... [I]n intelligence, sagacity, and shrewdness he was far ahead of everyone; and as for an enquiring mind, a readiness to learn, memory, and a natural capacity for knowledge—every single one of these qualities he had in excess for every occasion. But he used them for the worst purposes, and, equipped with noble instruments, he lost no time in becoming the most accomplished of those who have been notorious for wickedness. (Alex., 3–4) His immodesty is sufficiently great that he ―claimed to resemble Pythagoras‖ (Alex., 4)—a comparison that Lucian scorns.5 While not considering Alexander to be anywhere near the man that Pythagoras was, Lucian nevertheless realizes that Alexander has skills—all of which he uses for evil purposes: I ask you to imagine and carefully picture the most complex psychological temperament, consisting of lying, perjury, and malice, a temperament which is unscrupulous, daring, reckless, energetic in forwarding its own schemes, persuasive, plausible, making a pretense of virtue, and with an appearance totally opposite to its real purpose. Indeed, no one who met him for the first time failed to go away with the impression that he was the worthiest and most honest of men, and the most artless and unaffected as well. In addition to all this he had the character of a high achiever and of one who designed nothing petty, but always had his mind set on the highest things. (Alex., 4) As we shall see, all of the ―highest things‖ onto which he fixes his mind actually are (as Lucian portrays them) very evil, exploitative, and self-serving. In his youth, Alexander is (according to Lucian) a male prostitute, who ―sold his favors freely and went with anyone who would pay for his company‖ (Alex., 5).6 Among his lovers, Alexander has a man whom Lucian described as: ...a quack, the type who offer magic spells and marvellous incantations, charms for love affairs, afflictions for your enemies, discoveries of buried treasure, and inheritances to estates. This man saw that he was a talented lad and very well suited to assist him in his dealings, and was just as enamoured of his own villainy as he himself was of the boy‘s beauty. So he trained him well, and made continual use of him as his assistant, servant, and attendant. (Alex., 5) After his teacher dies, Alexander joins forces with ―a much more disgusting character‖ than even his mentor had been (Alex., 6). Working with this accomplice, the two ―travelled around, practising witchcraft and quakery, and fleecing the thick-headed, as charlatans usually refer to the public‖ (Alex., 6). As Lucian observes: ...they easily perceived that human life is at the mercy of the two great tyrannies of hope and fear, and that anyone who could exploit both of them would very quickly get rich. For they saw that both he who fears and he who

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hopes regard foreknowledge as extremely necessary as well as extremely desirable…. (Alex., 8) Applying this insight in their quest for wealth, one of their early victims is ―a rich Macedonian woman.‖ As Lucian rather delicately puts it, she is ―past her prime but still wanting to be attractive, and they furnished their needs at her expense…‖ (Alex., 6). Alexander and his accomplice travel with her from Bithynia to Macedonia, where they purchase a large but tame serpent that they will use in their subsequent frauds (Alex., 7). With her money in hand and after some debate amongst themselves, the two plotters initiate a scheme to establish themselves as oracles who can see the future and heal. First, they secretly bury some tablets at Apollo‘s temple in Chalcedon, and then arrange for their discovery (Alex., 10).7 On them are statements that the god of healing (Asclepius) and his father Apollo (a Greek god of medicine, music, flocks, etc.) are about to move to the city of Abonuteichos (where Alexander had been born). Immediately thereafter, and because of the message on the tablets, citizens of that city begin building a temple for their soon-to-arrive gods. While his accomplice remains in Chalcedon until his death, composing oracles (presumably about Asclepius and Apollo), Alexander heads to Abonuteichos. He enters the city, now claiming to be a descendant of the Macedeon king, Perseus (r. 179–168 B.C.), revered for his (unsuccessful) resistance to the Romans (Alex., 11; McDonald 1949). Back amongst the public: Alexander became the centre of attention and admiration, as he pretended to have periodical fits of madness together with foaming of the mouth. He easily contrived this by chewing the root of soapwort, the herb used by dyers; but the sight of the foam filled the people with superstitious awe. They had also long before procured and fitted out a snake‘s head made of linen; it had a slightly human look to it, and was painted to look completely lifelike. Its mouth opened and closed by means of horse hairs, and the tongue, black and forked like a snake‘s, would shoot out, also controlled by hairs. (Alex., 12) Remarkably, a statue depicting such a mask was found at a site on the Black Sea, which apparently confirms Lucian‘s description (Jones 1986, 137).8 With the mask in readiness, Alexander initiates his grand plot. Going to the temple that is under construction, he finds an area of standing water and puts in its mud a goose egg that secretly he has emptied of fluid and replaced with a small reptile. The next day he appears in the town as a mad visionary, speaking unintelligibly except for the names of Apollo and Asclepius. After attracting considerable attention, he runs off to the temple and, with great show ‗discovers‘ the egg that he has secretly buried. Claiming that he is holding Asclepius, he breaks open the egg to reveal the small reptile. The astonished crowd ―immediately shouted aloud, welcomed the god, congratulated their city, and proceeded each one to indulge in a surfeit of prayers, begging him for treasures, wealth, health, and all the other blessings‖ (Alex., 14). Now Alexander returns to his home, waiting for the crowds of worshippers to come. ―[H]e sat himself on a couch in a small chamber, dressed in truly godlike apparel…‖ (Alex., 15). He also wraps around himself the harmless snake that he has purchased, but which he leads people to believe is the god who has hatched from the egg. He keeps its head inside his armpit, and holds the linen snake-head beside his own (giving the impression that it is the head of the serpent/god that is wrapped around his neck). ―Paintings then followed, and images and statues, some of bronze and some of silver, and of course a name was given to the god‖—Glycon (Alex., 18).

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The snake appears to answer people‘s questions, but actually an accomplice in an adjoining chamber is speaking through ―cranes‘ windpipes‖ that Alexander has fastened together (Alex., 26).9 His performance quickly expands to supposedly channeling answers from the god, with people‘s questions remaining in unopened, sealed packets, but ones that he secretly has opened, read, and resealed (Alex., 21). He shows no empathy for the ill or dying, seeing them merely as opportunities to exploit. This was one of his bright ideas—retrospective oracles to correct those in which he had predicted falsely and missed the mark. Often he promised a full recovery to sick people before their death, and when they died he had another oracle ready in recantation: ―No longer look for assistance in your bitter disease: Death stands before you and now there‘s no way to escape.‖ (Alex., 28) Of course, by the time that they die, they already have paid handsomely for the hope-filled initial oracles.10 Soon he is pulling in a substantial amount of money, but also having to pay a sizeable staff that has grown around him to support his endeavors (Alex., 23).11 His envoys spread his fame throughout much of the Roman world, even attracting the attention of an important Roman official, Rutilianus, who soon becomes a devout supporter who marries Alexander‘s daughter (Alex., 30). He does so after Alexander convinces him that he has conceived her with the moon-god, Selene, which means that through marriage Rutilianus is ―imagining that he himself had joined the dwellers of heaven‖ (Alex., 35). As increasing numbers of prominent persons asked the snake-oracle questions that reveal compromising information about themselves, Alexander sets those questions aside and soon is pulling in additional revenue through blackmail (Alex,. 32). Moreover: Alexander set up a great many of his confederates as spies in Rome itself, who reported back to him everyone‘s opinions, and gave him forewarning of the questions and the particular wishes of the questioners, so that the messengers would find him ready with his answers even before they arrived. (Alex., 37) As this intelligence operation in Rome indicates, Alexander truly is running an international scam. At some point, however, followers of a particular philosophical school, Epicureanism, ―gradually see through the trickery and contrivances‖ (Alex., 25).12 In response, when Alexander directs, and stars in, elaborate, multi-day performances supposedly reenacting divine events (such as the births of Asclepius and Glycon), his followers ban Christians along with members of the critical philosophical school. The series of plays culminates in a ritual reenactment of Alexander‘s reputed impregnation of Selene (the moon-goddess) and the birth of their child, who grows up to be Rutilianus‘ wife. Playing himself, Alexander has ―a very attractive girl named Rutilia c[o]me down to him from the ceiling, like Selene from heaven.‖ Of course, the scene involves much hugging and kissing, as if they are divine lovers. In fact, they are lovers in real life, even though she is married to a local Roman official (Alex., 39). Immediately after the play is over, Alexander ―came back wearing his priestly robes and amid total silence, and then intoned in a loud voice, ‗Hail Glycon!,‘ while his retinue… gave the response, ‗Hail Alexander!‘‖ (Alex., 39). In the torch ceremony that follows, amidst the flickering lights ―his thigh was exposed deliberately and seen to be golden, probably because he was wearing gilded leather which reflected the light of the torches‖ (Alex., 40). All the while, the critics refuse to be silent. In one instance, Alexander orders his followers to kill an Epicurean critic who tries to expose him in a public meeting. Only the intervention Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 22

of an outside party saves the critic‘s life from an angry mob of devotees (Alex., 44–45). In another instance, Lucian himself meets with Alexander and insists upon calling the religious figure by name instead of the title, ‗Prophet.‘ Moreover, when Alexander offers his hand for Lucian to kiss, Lucian bites it instead. Alexander‘s attendants are outraged and begin ―strangling me and beating me,‖ but Alexander gets them to desist and then dismisses them from the room. One-on-one, Alexander focuses his energies on trying to convert Lucian, his opponent. Rather soon, Lucian becomes worried because he is in the presence of Alexander alone, so he departs as quickly as he can, pretending that Alexander has won his friendship (Alex., 55). Not long afterward, however, Lucian learns how vengeful Alexander is. Lucian has to complete a move across a body of water. Alexander has arranged a ship and crew for the journey, and he also sends Lucian many parting gifts. Lucian thinks that Alexander simply is being ―decent and kindly‖ toward him. Only when Lucian is in open water does he learn that Alexander has contracted with the crew to throw him overboard, which would have happened if not for the pleadings of the captain, who is proud of his blameless life and does not then want to blemish it with murder (Alex., 56–57). Lucian reflects upon the impact of his brush with death: After that I began to arm myself against him, and to use every effort in my desire to get my own back [i.e., revenge]. Even before his plot against me I loathed him and regarded him as a bitter enemy because of his foul character. So I set out to prosecute him, in which I was joined by many others…. (Alex., 57) Eventually Lucian curbs his efforts, however, after the governor has said that, because of Alexander‘s connections with Rutilianus, ―he could not punish Alexander, however clearly his guilt was proved‖ (Alex., 57). Through his daughter‘s marriage to the important Roman official, and because of the interest that several prominent politicians pay to the Glycon cult, Alexander is simply too well connected to be prosecuted. All the while, Alexander‘s self-promotion continues. He even attempts to get the state to mint a coin with his image on it (Alex., 58).13 At least Lucian lives to see his enemy die a painful and undignified death (which occurred no later than 175 but probably earlier [Jones 1986, 134 n. 6]), with his leg fatally putrefying and doctors having to remove his wig in order to attempt their unsuccessful treatment (Alex., 59). After his death, however, Alexander‘s accomplices fight over who will continue their late master‘s practices and possess the oracle (Alex., 60). Alexander the Narcissist At the conclusion of his chapter on Lucian‘s description of Alexander, C. P. Jones seemingly throws up his hands and relates, ‖The question whether Alexander was ‗really‘ fraudulent or sincere is unanswerable, and perhaps beside the point‖ (Jones 1986, 148). 14 Then again, perhaps it is not. The introduction of psychological and psychiatric research into the historical record allows us to suggest that he most likely believed his own embellishments and self-glorifications because he was afflicted with a particular form of narcissism. Research on narcissists in general and some specific sectarian narcissists in particular (Anderson 1999; Clark 1988) indicate that they most likely believe in their own grandiosity, so it is entirely probable that Alexander does, too. Bold (and admittedly unverifiable) as this claim may be, its logic will become clear as we examine Alexander through the lens of contemporary research on narcissistic personality disorder. Three features sum up Alexander, as Lucian portrays him: ―a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy…‖ (American Psychiatric Association 2000), which also happen to be the features that characterize people with narcissistic Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 23

personality disorder. Indeed, Alexander appears to be a textbook case of a narcissistic cult leader, meeting most of the criteria set out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and many of the criteria identified in the definitive analysis and synthesis of existing research findings about the disorder as presented by Elsa F. Ronningstam (2005). Ronningstam offers a categorization of pathological narcissistic traits that incorporates the items listed in the DSM, and this categorization provides a useful framework through which to evaluate Alexander. A. Self-Esteem (Dys)Regulation As Ronningstam observes, ―defects in self-esteem regulation, usually described in terms of inflated or vulnerable self-esteem, is one of the core disturbances in narcissistic disorder‖ (2005:76). Within this category fall four of the eight diagnostic criteria that the DSM offers. They include: ―a grandiose sense of self-importance;‖ a preoccupation ―with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love;‖ a belief that ―he or she is ‗special‘ and unique…;‖ and a requirement of ―excessive admiration‖ (American Psychiatric Association 2000). Ronningstam‘s list of narcissistic dysregulation includes a few other traits, such as a narcissist exhibiting a ―boastful and pretentious attitude;― holding ―grandiose fantasies;‖ and feeling ―strong reactions to criticism and defeat‖ (Ronningstam 2005:83). As I outline below, Alexander embodies most of these traits. Alexander‘s sense of self-importance seems boundless. He creates a god, Glycon, and establishes himself as its prophet. His personality seems to have become inseparable from his own prophetic role, since he designs a series of plays that culminate with his impregnation of a goddess. He then places himself before a worshipful audience whose members hail him as a sacred figure exactly as he hails the god, after which he flashes his golden (that is, gold-covered) thigh in a manner to heighten the perception that he is no mere mortal. He sees himself the equal of the venerated Greek figure, Pythagoras, and in the blood-line with a cherished king. Neither delusion has basis in reality. Nor do his performances at prophecy. Despite his participation in elaborate ruses and obvious inaccuracies, he thinks so highly of himself that he sends emissaries throughout much of the Roman world. Certainly his ―grandiose sense of self-importance‖ is fuelled by his reach into the realm of Roman officialdom, and among them he has ―a great many influential friends‖ (Alex., 31). But he has the hubris to send envoys carrying prophecies to cities across the region, promising their leaders and citizenry that he can protect them from ―plagues and conflagrations and earthquakes‖ (Alex., 36).15 His grandiosity even goes so far as to give a prominent Roman consular, Marcus Sedatius Severianus, advice through the ―speaking‖ oracle that encourages him to invade Armenia, which he then does in 161 A.D.. only to have his army massacred by the Parthians (Alex., 27; see Jones 1986, 141; Sutherland 1949, 125). Undeterred by his prophetic failure, Alexander subsequently sends the Roman emperor and commander, Marcus Aurelius, directions on performing a sacrifice before a major battle. He follows Alexander‘s oracular directive, then loses (according to Lucian) ―something like twenty thousand‖ soldiers in battle (Alex., 48).16 Unabashed by his apparently deadly prophetic disconfirmation, the waffling Alexander then adjusts his previous prophecy to mean that ―the god had predicted victory, but without indicating whether it was the Romans or their enemies‖ (Alex., 48). Another indicator of Alexander‘s likely narcissism is his ―need for admiring attention‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 83). We get a glimpse of this need when Lucian meets him, at which time Alexander ―offered me his right hand to kiss, as he did to most people…‖ (Alex., 55). Even more telling are Alexander‘s ―strong reactions to criticism and defeat‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 83), which are important for my argument about Alexander‘s malignant form of narcissism and to which I return shortly. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 24

B. Affect (Dys)Regulation Research on narcissists demonstrates that they ―are challenged both by the presence of strong affects [i.e., emotions], especially rage, shame, and envy, and by the low tolerance of the nature and intensity of such feelings‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 83; see American Psychological Association 2000). While Lucian‘s account gives no indication that Alexander feels any shame or envy, he does demonstrate ―intense aggressive reactions to threats to self-esteem‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 92). In essence, after being both assailed and insulted by Lucian‘s quite serious hand-bite upon their meeting, Alexander launches a plot to kill him. I will return to this plot in a moment. C. Interpersonal Relationships Narcissism hinders and often prevents those who are afflicted with it from establishing lasting and meaningful social relationships. These people ―are usually identified by their specific interpersonal pattern with a more or less overtly arrogant and haughty attitude, and entitled and controlling behavior‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 99; see American Psychiatric Association 2000). They have a sense of entitlement, either an impaired ability to feel empathy or no ability to feel it at all. They also demonstrate ―interpersonal control and hostility‖ or are ―interpersonally exploitative‖ (Ronninstam 2005, 99–100; American Psychiatric Association 2000). Again, glimpses into Alexander‘s life indicate that he has dramatic issues regarding his interpersonal relationships. One pronouncement from the oracle sums up Alexander‘s sense of entitlement. In a message for the crowds that are swarming to Glycon and its ‗prophet‘, the snake-god reputedly tells them: ―I care not so much for possessions, but I care for my prophet‖ (Alex., 24). To be clear on the point, Alexander uses the scam of the talking god-snake to instruct worshippers to give him gifts and money. This drive for gifts regardless of worshippers‘ financial situation suggests lack of empathy, but his blatant exploitation of the sick confirms it (Alex., 28). So, too, does his exploitation of the rich Macedonian woman, whom he and his initial co-conspirator drain financially by playing to her vanity (Alex., 6). Not surprisingly, he thinks of the ordinary (and not so ordinary) people whom he bamboozles as ―the thick-headed and simple minded‖—a phrase that appears in one translation simply as the ―fat-heads and simpletons‖ (Alex., 9; see Fowler and Fowler [trans.] 1905). The sixth characteristic of narcissistic personality disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual states that a person with it ―is interpersonally exploitative‖ (American Psychiatric Association 2000). From Lucian‘s account, it is clear that Alexander bases his entire career upon exploiting people, through fake tablets, a fabricated god-birth, and elaborately deceptive oracular processes. For scholarly reasons, however, it is worth focusing for a moment on the act of burying tablets that contained a message about the gods, Apollo and Aslepius, moving to Abonuteichos (Alex., 10). C. P. Jones was rather easy on Alexander (and, by extension, Alexander‘s accomplice) regarding this act, offering: ―The device of buried tablets is a well-known one, though it is not necessary to suppose with Lucian that it was a cold-blooded forgery. It may rather have been self-delusion, or a fabrication designed to serve higher ends‖ (Jones 1986, 136). He then cites another scholar who adduces ―the parallel of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon‖ (Jones 1986, 134 n. 15). It turns out, however, that Smith himself probably suffered from the same disorder as does Alexander— malignant narcissism. D. Malignant Narcissism The psychiatrist, Robert D. Anderson, who identifies this disorder in Smith, draws conclusions about Mormonism‘s founder that bear strong resemblance to traits in the account about Alexander. Indicating that ―lesser forms of malignant narcissism may be characterized by sexual promiscuity and/or financial exploitation of followers‖ (Anderson Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 25

1999, 230), Anderson then focuses his comments directly on the American ‗prophet‘ himself: In the case of Joseph Smith, the theme of deceiving self and others is not a thread, but a steel cable. It began with money-digging and seer stone peeping…; after the Book of Mormon was published, it continued with his sexual conquests under the guise of religious practice (Anderson 1999, 230– 231). Money digging was a fraud in which a person claimed to use magic in order to uncover buried treasure (Anderson 1999, 21; see 62 n. 87), and seer stone peeping was a related fraud in which a person claimed to have special rocks through which one looked in order to find ―desired objects‖ (Anderson 1999, 21‘ see 79). He supposedly used a seer stone to find the gold plates on which was written the Book of Mormon (Anderson 1999, 70, 81). (Worth mentioning is that Alexander, like Smith, claims that he can help people find buried treasure [Alex., 24]). Consequently, the pattern of interpersonal exploitation exists with each of the two religious leaders, but the forms that the exploitation takes are culturally and historically specific. On sexual matters, both religious founders seem to have used their status as religious figures to gain access to members of the opposite sex. Indeed, both seem to have practiced polygamy. Smith‘s practice was, of course, well known, having at least thirty-three wives and possibly as many as forty-one. Even when he was in his late thirties, one of his polygamous wives was fourteen years old, another was either fourteen or fifteen, and two were sixteen (Compton 1997, 4–8, 486–534). Neither the numbers of Alexander‘s partners nor their ages are known, since Lucian says only that the ―prophet‖ was ―ruining women promiscuously…. Many women even boasted that they had borne children by Alexander, and their husbands confirmed the truth of their claims‖ (Alex., 42).17 Alexander also has a sexual habit, however, that Smith did not: pederasty. Once again, such a habit is in line with existing research on malignant narcissists. Summarizing issues of sexuality among these types of narcissists, Ronningstam reports that: ...manifestations of malignant narcissism can involve sexual perversions where aggression and interpersonal sadism infuse with sexual desire and excitement. Such perverse behaviors are also characterized by nondifferentiation or mixture of sexual aims, zones, organs, and gender. (Ronningstam 2005, 107) This summary of sexuality among many malignant narcissists provides a context for Lucian‘s description of Alexander‘s activities with boys: Though he warned everyone to abstain from having sex with boys as being an unholy practice, this prince of virtue had an artful scheme for his own advantage. He used to order the cities of Pontus and Paphlagonia to send him choirboys for a three-year period, to serve him by singing hymns to the god. They had to examine, choose, and send the noblest born, the most youthful and the handsomest. He then kept them locked up and treated them like bought slaves, sleeping with them and using them offensively in every way. It was his habit never to welcome and embrace anyone over 18 with a kiss on the lips; he gave his hand to others to be kissed, and kissed only those in the bloom of youth, who were said to be ―within the kiss.‖ (Alex., 41) Thus, according to Lucian‘s account, Alexander establishes a regional homosexual child and teenage procurement ring around towns near the Black Sea, using religion as his guise. 18

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The relationship between malignant narcissism and pedophilia demands further research, especially since it may be that some narcissists have sex with young people for a number of reasons. First, these youth are not likely to present personal challenges to the frail selfconcepts that narcissists have, being younger, less experienced, and neither emotionally, physically, or (in the case of the ancient Greco-Romans) socially threatening. Second, the unbounded grandiosity of some narcissists may lead them to believe that anyone, if not everyone, would value and benefit from having sex with them. Third, the devious nature of narcissists to get what they want would manifest in them using or creating structures within their organizations to procure sexual partners. Narcissism as a contributor to religiously based pedophilia has not been the subject of a major study, and it should be. The condition has appeared as a significant factor in abuses that a number of priests have committed against children and teens (Sipe 1990, 135; 1995, 19; 2003, 166, 221, 254) and that one male Pentecostal minister (Mario lvan ‗Tony‘ Leyva) perpetrated against hundreds of young boys (Echols 1996, 268). Likewise, the Canadian leader (lvon Shearing) of a numerological sect called the Kabalarians was convicted of twelve counts of sexually related crimes against females as young as twelve years old (Gazette 1997), and the psychologist who interviewed him for possible parole concluded that his ―presentation [w]as remarkably selfish, egocentric, and narcissistic‖ (National Parole Board 2003, 3; Court of Appeal for British Columbia 2000, 19). Alexander is by no means the clearest example on which to build theory about the relationship between religion, sexuality, and child sexual abuse, since fundamental differences on these topics exist between the Greco-Roman world and ours. His actions, however, suggest that (homosexual) pedophilia within cults possibly has a history of almost two millennia in the West (see also Doyle, Sipe, and Wall 2006). While Alexander‘s sexual behavior toward boys is exploitative and probably violent, degrading, or both [―sleeping with them and using them offensively in every way‖ (Alex., 41)], the clearest indicators of his malignant narcissism are his violent reactions toward people and groups who oppose him. On various occasions, Alexander tries to kill people whom he sees as opponents, one of whom was Lucian himself. Previously I had postponed discussing ―strong reactions to criticism and defeat‖ and ―intense aggressive reactions to threats to self esteem‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 83, 92) as narcissistic traits that Alexander shares. Now I place them within the context of Alexander‘s narcissistic rage. ―Murder as an act of malignant narcissism‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 107) is among the most serious manifestations of the disorder. Research indicates that some malignant narcissists ―associated murderous feelings with the pain of being chronically humiliated or feeling like a nobody, or with the experience of being rejected and abruptly losing status‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 107). For them, ―narcissistic killing [is] a righteous act of retaliation, a desperate effort to gain control, and to protect and raise self-esteem‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 107). Lucian provides three examples of Alexander attempting to seriously hurt or kill opponents, which included Alexander‘s failed plot to drown him. When ―a number of sensible people‖ began seeing through Alexander‘s ―imposture with all its theatrical accessories‖ (Alex., 25), Alexander retaliates with a proclamation that the Roman province of ―Pontus was overrun with atheists and Christians, who presumed to spread the most scandalous reports concerning him.‖ If the citizens of Pontus ―value the God‘s favour,‖ then they will ―stone these men‖ (Alex., 25). The record does not say whether the citizens of Pontus act upon the proclamation, but in another instance a crowd begins to act on Alexander‘s order to stone a critic. In this instance, an Epicurean attempts to expose Alexander at a ―great gathering‖ over which the ‗prophet‘ presided.

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―[I]n a loud voice,‖ the Epicurean recounts an incident where Alexander had directed a father to take his slaves before the governor because the man‘s son had gone missing while returning from Alexandria. Alexander had told the man that the slaves had killed the boy. Subsequently, the governor had the slaves ―cast to the beasts,‖ only to have the boy return home, late but unharmed (having made an unexpected, but lengthy, unplanned journey). In essence, Alexander‘s oracular interpretation of events cost the slaves their lives, and it was completely, factually, wrong (Alex., 44). Alexander responds as one might expect a malignant narcissist would, and even Lucian picks up on the reason: ―Alexander was much annoyed by the exposure, and could not stomach so well deserved an affront‖ (Alex., 45). In what now we might call narcissistic rage, Alexander ―ordered the bystanders to stone him, or they themselves would be put under a curse and be called Epicureans‖ (Alex., 45). The crowd turns on the man and would kill him if it were not for the brave actions of a distinguished citizen who places his body between the crowd and its target. Scorning the reaction of the infatuated crowd with Alexander, Lucian adds, ―he was very nearly stoned to death, and quite right too! What need had he to be the only sane man among such lunatics, and be on the receiving end of Paphlagonian stupidity?‖ (Alex., 45). Malignant narcissists sometimes kill in order to either ―protect and raise their self esteem‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 107) or ―restore their sense of undiminished power‖ (Malmquist 2005, 165), and Alexander appears to be been no different. From various sections of Lucian‘s rendition, it is very clear that Alexander feeds off the adulation and attention of crowds (Alex., 12, 14–15, 39). Certainly for him to see a crowd turn against a critic is exhilarating, and gives him a sense of regaining control over the public image that he presented. The third attempted murder is very personal. Alexander knows of Lucian‘s opposition to him. When, for example, Alexander‘s supporter and (soon to be) elderly son-in-law, Rutilianus, asks Alexander about Lucian, the ‗prophet‘ responds with an oracle implying that he is a sexual degenerate (Alex., 54). Then, when Lucian has a personal visit with Alexander, Lucian refuses to call him by the title, ‗Prophet,‘ and insists upon using his name. More dramatically, in the presence of the prophet‘s followers, Lucian bites Alexander‘s hand rather than kiss it when Alexander offers it to him. Indeed, Lucian indicates that he gives ―him a hearty bite..., which very nearly crippled his hand‖ (Alex., 55). Whatever physical pain Lucian caused Alexander, it likely is nothing compared to the affront to Alexander‘s pride. At the time, however, Alexander‘s response to the affront is very measured, calling off his assaulting entourage and then ostensibly trying to win over his opponent. This initially measured reaction, however, subsequently festers into a murder plot in a manner consistent with narcissistic rage. Current research on homicidal narcissists indicates that ―narcissistic individuals may develop an indifferent or cool exterior as an initial response to threats to their self esteem. However, when their composure gives way, it is striking to see the intensity of their anger and need for revenge‖ (Malmquist 2005, 168). While it is true that Lucian feigns friendship with Alexander in order to escape his presence, his act likely has not fooled the ‗prophet,‘ since even ―the onlookers were quite astonished at how easily my feelings had changed‖ [or at least appeared to (Alex., 55)]. Lucian is caught completely off guard by Alexander‘s murderous retaliation. After accepting from Alexander a ship for his travels, Lucian is at sea when I noticed the skipper in tears and arguing with the sailors, and I thought my future prospects were not hopeful. They had had instructions from Alexander to seize and fling us [i.e., Lucian and his traveling companion] into the sea, which would have ended his war with me then and there. (Alex., 56) Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 28

Only the captain‘s pleadings with the crew save his life. It is speculative, but certainly in accordance with events, to say that Alexander would have seen Lucian‘s ―killing as a righteous act of retaliation‖ (Ronningstam 2005, 107). Conclusion: Narcissism and Sectarian Religious Formation In records from the ancient world, Alexander is unique. There is no known instance in the pagan world in which a single ―religious genius‖ achieved success equal to that of Alexander. He appeared from nowhere and convinced people throughout much of the Mediterranean basin that he was, in some sense, intimate with the divine. (Branham 1989, 186) And so we are left wondering if others in his era express narcissism through non-religious channels, or if the condition was even rarer then than it is now [currently at less than one percent of the population (American Psychiatric Association 2000)]. To these questions, we will never have answers. Certainly the ancient world—Jewish, Christian, and pagan— witnessed some remarkable sectarian expressions (see, for example, Horsley and Hanson 1985; Hultgren and Haggmark [eds.] 1996; Kraemer 2004; MacDermot 1971); but we simply lack the biographical detail about their founders that exists about Alexander. What we can answer, however, are questions about whether narcissism often plays a role in the origins of religion or in the motivation for religious leaders within existing traditions. To both of these questions, we can answer affirmatively. In the context of religious origins, we have two well-documented faiths whose creators were narcissists—Joseph Smith of Mormonism and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh of the Rajneeshees. 19 As I pointed out, Smith likely was a malignant narcissist himself, and it is also worth noting that his rage at an institution that had criticized him ultimately led to his death. A mob dragged him out of a jail and murdered him in 1844, ―after he destroyed a printing press that had published the Nauvoo Expositor, which spoke negatively about him, polygamy, and a theocratic monarchy‖ (Anderson 1999, 242). The religion that he founded, however, has flourished, and it has ―become the only truly successful American religion, now international in scope and capable of wielding social and political power‖ (Anderson 1999, 242). In its day, the Glycon cult also was successful, reaching into the upper ranks of Roman society and apparently surviving well into the century following the death of its founder (Jones 1986, 138). Rajneesh‘s religion has not fared nearly as well as Mormonism, with its main community in America dissolving after the guru‘s conviction (and resultant deportation in 1985) for making false statements to a government official, followed by his deportation (Carter 1990, 236–237). When flourishing in 1983, the commune in Oregon attracted some 15,000 people to a particular celebration (Carter 1990, 166, 183), and some 1,500 to 2,500 lived in the facility in 1984 (Carter 1990, 207). Despite Rajneesh‘s death in 1990, however, hundreds of centers still operate in countries around the world. Although the religious and psychotherapeutic message of Rajneesh is very different from the prophetic oracular directives and reputed healings that Alexander produces, the personalities of the two men are very similar. Like Alexander, ―Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh‘s sense of self-importance and uniqueness seem[ed] to possess no limits‖ (Clark 1988, 33). He ―clearly consider[ed] himself to be a man of world-historical significance‖ (Clark 1988, 34), although he never developed the political contacts that Alexander does. Reminiscent of Alexander‘s willingness to reinterpret failed prophecies, Rajneesh, too, had a ―narcissistic penchant for transforming failures into successes‖ (Clark 1988, 35). Just as Alexander feeds off the energy and support of crowds, ―Rajneesh thoroughly delight[ed] in being the sole focus of attention of his thousands of adoring fans‖ (Clark 1988, 38). Moreover, both religious figures were ―‗master[s]‘ at manipulating and exploiting other people‖ (Clark 1988, Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 29

40). Surely, however, the most remarkable, and disturbing, parallel between the two narcissists was the large organizations that operated fraudulently if not criminally to further the leaders‘ respective deceptions. In his prime, Rajneesh, along with a trusted assistant, oversaw an international corporate structure with major financial concerns in the United States, India, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (see Carter 1990, 86; see 83–96), with small centers throughout most of the industrialized world. In fact, an academic who studied the group concluded that one could view it ―as a multilevel marketing device with central control in a charismatic core‖ (Carter 1990, 97). Broadly speaking, Alexander‘s operation has parallels. His bureaucracy of ―helpers, servants, questioners, oracle-writers, oracle-keepers, secretaries, sealers, interpreters...‖ (Alex., 23) includes missionaries who travel ―abroad to spread reports of the oracle among other nations, and to announce that he gave prophecies, found runaway slaves, detected thieves and robbers, showed the way to buried treasure, healed the sick, and sometimes even raised the dead‖ (Alex., 24; see 30). He even establishes what one set of translators called ―an intelligence bureau‖ in Rome (see Alex., 37 in Fowler and Fowler [trans.] 1905), whose ―spies‖ act as both monitors of public (and presumably political) opinion, providing ―forewarning of the questions and the particular wishes of the questioners...‖ coming from that important city (Alex., 37). In varying degrees, however, both Rajneesh‘s and Alexander‘s operations used fraud, deception, and attempted murder as standard procedures. With the collapse of Rajneesh‘s Oregon community, at least sixty-three individuals were charged with criminal offences, and an unspecified number of followers (including the leader himself) were convicted and sentenced. The offences included lying to federal officials, criminal conspiracy, racketeering, first- and second-degree assault, and attempted murder (Carter 1990, 236). Looking at these offences within a comparative perspective, what is so striking is how many of them resemble activities that Alexander and his bureaucracy also perpetrate almost two thousand years earlier. He uses trickery and deception to establish a new religion that offers the public fraudulent prophecies, ineffectual protection from a serious public heath crisis [i.e., the plague (Alex., 36)], and questionable medical cures (Alex., 25; cf. 22). It also interferes in the justice system of the era by claiming to detect ―thieves and robbers‖ and even identifies murderers who turned out to be innocent (Alex., 44). It runs an extortion ring against influential citizens (Alex., 32), and—much like the Ranjeesh organization—tries to assassinate its critics. Among others, attorneys working against the Rajneeshees were targets of the Rajneesh organization, which used poisoning and a planned (but never enacted) ambush (Carter 1990, 222). In two instances, Alexander‘s techniques are cruder, simply using (or trying to incite) mobs to kill critical Epicureans; but the murder plot against Lucian involves a conspiracy between the leader and hired thugs that fails only because of the conscience of a sea captain. What these similarities suggest, however, is that narcissists creating and running religious organizations can be dangerous, and the plans that they initiate can be deadly. These insights transcend time, location, and culture, since persons with mental disorders often find ways to create mischief, if not outright harm, in whichever societies or eras they live. 20 End Notes 1

Reprinted with permission from Ancient Narrative 6 (2007): 77-99, 161. The Author grants permission for the free use of this article in classrooms. 2

Lucian refers to ―the late emperor Marcus‖ (Alexz., 48), and we know that Marcus Aurelius died in 180 (Sutherland 1949). I follow the standard method of citing Lucian‘s account of Alexander, referring to Alexander or the False Prophet with the abbreviation, Alex., followed by a paragraph number. All quotes come from the translation by Desmond Costa (2005, 129-151). Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 30

3

I also have seen this location spelled as Abonutichus, but I follow the spelling given by Jones (1986, 133ff). A request by Alexander may have been the reason why the city changes its name to Ionopolis (i.e., ―city of the Ionians,‖ who are Eastern Greens who settle Asia Minor) some time after 169 (see Alex., 58), but now it goes by the name Ineboli. It is a Turkish port town on the Black Sea. A rather bleak description of the citty around the time of Alexander and Lucian appears in Fox (1986, 241242). 4

Readers who wish to check other translations of Lucian‘s account should realize that the 1905 version by Fowler and Fowler omits two crucial paragraphs (41 and 42), presumably because they wish to spare readers from the unsavory sexual content in them. 5

Pythagoras (ca. 580-500 B.C.) is a famous Greek philosopher and mathematician. He founds a religious society in Croton (Crotone or Crotona in southern Italy), and his followers devote themselves to arithmetic (Coxon 1949, 751). 6

While I am unable to pin down the attitude of men in Asia Minor who had been prostitutes in their youth, perhaps an earlier Greek attitude is instructive. Indeed, introduction of Greek ideas about male prostitution into a discussion of Lucian‘s world is appropriate because ―the area which we now call Asia Minor and the Middle East had been, since the conquests of Alexander the Great and under his successors, a Greek-speaking society, at least in its upper classes, and dominated by Greek cultural ideals and traditions‖ (Costa 2005, vii). One scholar who writes on attitudes in Athens indicates that ―a citizen who could be proven to have acted as a male whore in his youth – who could, that is, be proven to have accepted money for his sexual favors and even to have enjoyed being penetrated – was forever barred from public service and from speaking in the Assembly‖ (Hooper 1999, 9; see Bloch, 2001, 187). Surely, Lucian does not include this information as a compliment about the man or his character. If this prostitution allegation were to have been true, then one only can wonder if his early sexual activity has any influence on his adult sexual relations with teenage boys, most particularly his ―using them offensively in every way‖ (Alex., 41, 42; see Bloch 2001, 193). 7

On ―tablets, or (later) books, written in heaven,‖ which ―were said to contain either the predestined fate of mankind, or the record of the earthly actions of men,‖ see MacDermot (1971, 146-147, 187). 8

Because of the prominent place that serpents played in various religions in the ancient world around Asia Minor, a classical scholar concludes, ―when, therefore, Alexander [of Abonuteichos] produced his new god in serpent form…, he was following a time-honoured tradition‖ (Rose 1949). Specifically, the identification of Apollo and his son, Asciepius, as healing gods has an ancient history in Greece, as do serpents as their symbols. For an old but still interesting discussion of these points, see Jayne (1925, 240-303). 9

Apparently, other ‗magicians‘ during this period use cranes‘ windpipes for similar purposes (Jones 1986, 137). 10

According to Lucian, another oracle of the period charges ―two obols for each prediction‖ while Alexander charges ―a drachma and two obols‖ (Alex., 19, 23). Calculating that there are six obols to a drachma (see Harmon [trans.] 1925, 243 n.3), Alexander is charging eight ibols per oracle—four times higher than the other seer. Since a day-laborer receives about four obols a day (Harmon [trans.] 1925, 206-207 n.1), he is charging twice the daily wage for his ‗services.‘ Also keep in mind that Alexander ―collected up to seventy or eighty thousand [drachmas] a year, as people were so avid they handed in ten or fifteen questions each at a time‖ (Alex., 23). 11

Jones (1986, 140) estimates that Alexander‘s annual income likely is ―ample to maintain a hundred or so persons in comfort.‖ 12

As Pamela Gordon indicates, second century Epicureans ―did not need to quote any particular Epicurean text to protest against the revival [of oracles]; Epicurus‘ teachings about the nature of divinity and the Epicurean belief that all phenomena can be explained rationally were enough‖ (Gordon 1996, 115). In essence, the gods exist, but in their divine realm they are ―‘sundered and separated from our world of care. Free from all grief, free from danger, lacking naught that we could give, it is neither won by our well-doing nor angered when we do ill‘‖ [Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (II, 646 ff.), quoted in Farrington 1967, 177]. Also indicative of Epicureans‘ attitude toward worship of gods in this era is the message chiseled in a huge stone text as a gift by Diogenes to the citizens of Oenoanda in southwestern Asia Minor. A recovered portion of it warns that citizens must ―‘realize what

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disasters have befallen others through the ambiguity and intricacy of oracles‘ replies‘‖ (quoted in Fox 1986, 169). 13

While we do not know if any such coin ever is minted, coins survive containing the head of Glycon. Most extraordinary is that a surviving inscription ―seems to be a dedication to the snake, its otherwise unknown mate, and Alexander himself‖ (Jones 1986, 138.) 14

A somewhat similar sentiment appears earlier in the article on Alexander in The Oxford Classical Dictionary: ―to what extent, if any, he believed his own doctrine can hardly be determined in the absence of any description of him other than Lucian‘s, which represents him as a thorough impostor‖ (Ross 1949). In his now-classic study on conversion in the ancient world, A. D. Nock expresses similar uncertainty about Alexander‘s sincerity: ―If we cannot estimate the exact measure of honesty in the leaders of certain movements in our own times, how can we judge precisely how far Alexander of [Abonuteichos] was charlatan and how far by his own lights prophet?‖ (Nock 1933, 240; see Jones 1986, 148 n.61). 15

Soldiers returning from the east in 165 A.D. and 166 A.D. bring back plague with them, and son afterward the Empire is threatened by Marcomannic (i.e., German) invaders against whom Marcus Aurelius battles. The Marcomannic Wars take place between 166 A.D. and 172 A.D., and 177 A.D. to 180 A.D. [Schehl 1949, 538; although see Costa 2005, 262 n. 139 for a slightly different date (i.e., 168-174)]. Alexander takes advantage of these social traumas to expand the reach of his prophecies (Junes 1986, 142). 16

Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.) is a Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor (r. 161-180 A.D.) ―The oracle advised that two lions should be thrown alive in the Danube, with a lot of spies and splendid offerings‖ (Alex., 48) As far as I can tell, Lucian is the sole contemporary written source for the failed sacrifice (see Birley 1987, 250), so I was unable to verify his claim independently. On, however, ―the column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, one of the scenes depicts two animals swimming across a river, near a boat. These have been thought to be the lions of the oracle….‖ (Harmon [trans] 1925, 236-237 n.1), although disagreement exists over this interpretation. While I possess no expertise in the subject of ancient warfare, the figure of twenty thousand dead seems unlikely. 17

Remarkably, an archeological finding seems to substantiate Lucian‘s account. The supporting item is ―an inscription from Caesarea Troketta in northwestern Lydia… It records an oracle of Apollo of Claros and a statue of Apollo the Savior paid for by his priest, a Paphlagonian names Miletos son of Glycon. The conjunction of Glycon, Paphiagonia, and Apollo of Claros, whom Alexander assiduously cultivated, suggests that the man‘s alleged father was not a human one, but the snake-god ofAbonuteichos‖ (Jones 1986, 143). 18

While pederasty does not have the wide acceptance in the Roman Empire that it does in ancient Greece, ―[b]oys at Tome were still objects of sexual aggression‖ (Hooper 1999, 14). Indeed, ―[a] real man (vir) in Rome was a full citizen who was free to penetrate anyone of lower social status than himself, whether woman, a boy, or a slave or either sex‖ (Hooper 1999, 14-15) Still, pederasty is far from universally accepted, with the Romans passing a little-enforced law some time before 50 B.C. that ―outlawed…the sexual violation of freeborn boys‖ (Hooper 1999, 14). In the case of Alexander, Lucian certainly is scornful of his opponent‘s hypocrisy, but he also implied that the sex Alexander was having with boys was more appropriate for a man‘s relationship with slaves. As Bloch reported about the Greeks, ―Slave boys, of course, enjoyed no protection at all from their masters, who could use them or female slaves at wil‖ (Bloch 2001, 186) We simply cannot know whether Alexander stops his sexual actions with the young men when they reach eighteen because he is an ep0hebophile, or because the males had reached an age where they were men and no longer social inferiors to him (see Bloch 2001, 185). For many Greek pederasts, for example, ―The boy himself was thought to be at the peak of his attractiveness between the ages of 12 and 16, though he might have been used by the man when he was even younger. The boy remained beautiful as long as his body seemed sexually immature. Once he passed through puberty and began to grow bodily hair, the man usually would replace him with a younger child‖ (Bloch 2001, 186). 19

I first became aware of Lucian‘s account about Alexander when reading an article that discusses the child sexual ause that occurred in another contemporary sect, the Children of God (Freckleton 1998, 3). While the founder of that group, David Berg (d. 1994), certainly demonstrated narcissistic characteristics, the obvious disorder that like afflicted him was nonexclusive pedophilia complicated by alcohol abuse (Kent 2006, 347; see Kent 1994). Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 32

20

I presented an early version of this article as the keynote address at the 2006 Family Action, Information, and Resource (F.A.I.R.) Conference (London, England), entitled, ―Mechanisms of Control: How Cults Exploit Human Weakness.‖ Thanks go to Paul Joosse for his editorial comments.

Bibliography American Psychiatric Association. 2000. ―301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder,‖ Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association; online download. Anderson, G. 1976. Lucian. Theme and Variation in the Second Sophistic, Leiden: E. J. Brill. Anderson, R. D. 1999. Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith. Psychobiography and the Book of Mormon. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. Birley, A. 1987. Marcus Aurelius. Biography, 1966 Revised. New York: Routledge. Bloch, E. 2001. ―Sex between Men and Boys in Classical Greece: Was It Education for Citizenship or Child Abuse?‖ Journal of Men‟s Studies 9(2) (Winter), 183–204. Branham, R. B. 1989. Unruly Eloquence. Lucian and the Comedy of Traditions. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Carter, L. F. 1990. Charisma and Control in Rajneeshpuram. The Role of Shared Values in the Creation of a Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cary; M.; J. D. Denniston; J. W. Duff; A. D. Nock; W. D. Ross; and H. H. Scullard. 1949. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1961 Reprint. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Clark, R. O. 1988. ―The Narcissistic Guru: A Profile of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh,‖ Free Inquiry (Spring), 33–45. Compton, T. 1997. In Sacred Loneliness. The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. Costa, D. 2005. Lucian. Selected Dialogues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Court of Appeal for British Columbia. 2000. ―Regina and Ivon Shearing,‖ R. v. Shearing 2000 BCCA 83, (February 4), 19pp. Coxon, A. H. 1949. ―Pythagoras,‖ in Cary et. al., 1949, 751. Doyle, T. P.; A. W. R. Sipe; and P. J. Wall. 2006. Sex, Priests, and Codes. The Catholic Church‟s 2,000 Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse. Los Angeles: Volt Press. Echols, M. 1996. Brother Tony‟s Boys. The Largest Case of Child Prostitution in U.S. History—the True Story. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. Edwards, W. M. 1949. ―Lucian,‖ in Cary et. al., 1949, 515. Farrington, B. 1967. The Faith of Epicurus, 1969 Edition. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Fowler, H. W.; and Fowler, F. G. (trans). 1905. The Works of Lucian of Samosata, Volume II, 1949 Reprint. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fox, R. L. 1986. Pagans and Christians. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Freckelton, I. 1998. ―‘Cults‘, Calamities and Psychological Consequences,‖ Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 5(1) (April), 1–46. Gazette [Montreal, Quebec, Canada]. 1997. ―Jailed for Sex with Teens‖ (December 20). Gordon, P. 1996. Epicurus in Lycia. The Second-Century World of Diogenes of Oenoanda, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Harmon, A. M. (trans). 1925. Lucian, Volume IV. London: William Heinemann. Hooper, R. W. 1999. The Priapus Poems. Erotic Epigrams From Ancient Rome. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Horsley, R. A.; and J. S. Hanson. 1985. Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs. Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus. Minneapolis: Winston Press. Hultgren, A. J.; and S. A. Haggmark. 1996. The Earliest Christian Heretics. Readings from Their Opponents. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Jayne, W. A. 1925. The Healing Gods of Ancient Civilizations, 1962 Reprint. New Hyde Park, New York: University Books. Jones, C. P. 1986. Culture and Society in Lucian. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Kent, S. A. 1994. ―Lustful Prophet. A Psychosexual Historical Study of the Children of God‘s Leader, David Berg,‖ Cultic Studies Journal 11(2), 135–188. — 2006. ―Scientific Evaluation of the Dangers Posed by Religious Groups: A Partial Model,‖ in P. Côté and T. J. Gunn (eds.), The New Religious Question. State Regulation or State Interference? Brussels: Peter Lang: 343–370; Revised reprint from Cultic Studies Review 3(2/3), 2004, 101– 134.

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Kraemer, R. S. (ed.). 2004. Women‟s Religions in the Greco-Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lys, C. 2005. ―The Violence of Jim Jones: A Biopsychosocial Explanation,‖ Cultic Studies Journal, 4(3), 267–294. MacDermot, V. 1971. The Cult of the Seer in the Ancient Middle East. A Contribution to Current Research on Hallucinations Drawn from Coptic and Other Texts. Berkeley: University of California Press. Malmquist, C. P. 2005. Homicide: A Psychiatric Perspective. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press. McDonald, A. H. 1949. “Perseus,” in Cary et. al., 1949, 667. National Parole Board. 2003. ―NPB Pre-Release Decision Sheet,‖ (April 15): 5pp. Nock, A. D. 1933. Conversion. The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo, 1973 Reprint. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Raine, S. 2005. ―Reconceptualizing the Human Body: Heaven‘s Gate and the Quest for Divine Transformation,‖ Religion 35, 98–117. Ronningstam, E. F. 2005. Identifying and Understanding the Narcissistic Personality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rose, H. J. 1949. ―Serpents, Sacred,‖ in Cary, et. al.; 1949, 830. Ross, W. D. 1949. ―Alexander of Abonuteichos,‖ in Cary et. al.; 1949, 35. Schehl, F. A. W. 1949. ―Marcoman(n)i,‖ in Cary et. al., 1949, 537–538. Sipe, A. W. R. 1990. A Secret World. Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy. New York: Brunner/Mazel Publishers. — 1995. Sex, Priests, and Power. Anatomy of a Crisis. New York: Brunner/Mazel Publishers. — 2003. Celibacy in Crisis. A Secret World Revisited. New York: Brunner-Routledge. Sutherland, C. H. V. 1949. ―Aurelius, Marcus,‖ in Cary et. al., 1949, 124–125.

Keywords Lucian of Samosata, Alexander of Abonuteichos, Glycon, narcissism, malignant narcissism, cults, ancient religion, psychology of religion, new religious movements, sects Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology and Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies, University of Alberta (Canada), specializing in the study of ‗cults‘ and alternative religions. He has published articles in numerous sociology and religious studies journals on a variety of topics, including Valentinian Gnosticism, ancient Hindu philosophy, Mahayana Buddhism, Puritanism, Quakerism, fundamentalist Mormon polygamy, and new religions. This article is an electronic version of an article originally published in Cultic Studies Review 2008, Volume 7, Number 3, pages 25-253. 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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Conflict Between Aum Critics and Human-Rights Advocates in Japan Yoshihide Sakurai, Ph.D. Hokkaido University Abstract Japanese society has experienced two phases of cult controversy over the past decade. The public reacted to the Aum incidents in the 1990s with avoidance, declining belief in religion, and moral revulsion. As a result, criticism of cults in the mass media by academics and laypersons grew markedly. However, excessive criticism of cult members who had not faced criminal charges provoked a human-rights backlash in Japan. Human-rights advocates and intellectuals who were protective of Aum (which had changed its name to Aleph) declared cults to be ―religious minorities‖ and ―ordinary people‖; hence, they should not be subjected to discrimination. The refusal by some municipalities to permit residence to Aum members or entrance of their children into school was judged unconstitutional by courts. Although security police have kept Aleph under surveillance and have sought to prevent them from recruiting new members and engaging in illegal fundraising, the Japanese people remain unconvinced that the approximately 1,500 members of Aleph do not still pose a threat. This study examines the disparity between Japanese intellectuals‘ arguments in support of Aleph and the common-sense views of ordinary people concerning recent cult controversies by examining chronological data of the Aum/Aleph movement and social responses to it. The decade following the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system witnessed a shift in the way the cult issue was handled as a social problem in Japan. In the period between 1995 and 2000, the Japanese public reacted defensively toward any religious group with which it had come into conflict, most notably against the Aum Supreme Truth Cult (Lifton, 1999; Reader, 2002; Watanabe, 1998). Irrespective of how social conformity and civil order are maintained in Japanese society, situations provoking panicked reactions against outsiders or groups that may disrupt the social order certainly emerged in this period. The media also fueled negative impressions, as in the phrases ―‗cults‘ are scary‖ and ―mind control can manipulate you like a slave‖ (Kimiaki, 1995). Fear-mongers exploited and stoked uneasy feelings. Specific measures were taken against religious groups deemed ―cults,‖ such as the Unification Church (known for the fraudulent sales of spiritual goods), Three Practices of Dharmic Flower (known for fortunetelling by the soles of the feet), and the Life Space Group (known for the case of mummified bodies). As with the Aum cult, religiously motivated donations and monetary offerings, the sales of spiritual goods, and the abuse of fellow members and followers were punished as illegal activities. Three Practices of Dharmic Flower and Life Space Group leaders declared bankruptcy and their followers dispersed; yet other groups, such as the Unification Church, still flourish as religious corporations. The Aum leader was convicted and jailed, the organization‘s license was revoked, the group declared bankruptcy, and the authorities disposed of its assets, using the proceeds to compensate its victims. Yet, the group, now renamed ―Aleph,‖ still continues its activities as a religious organization. The court was able to punish the members who had been directly involved in illegal activities of the group, but it could not punish the religious entity that had spawned those illegal activities. As a result, the problem

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of how society should deal with the existing group and its former members, who were not criminally charged, remains unresolved. From 2001 through 2005, the local communities and educational institutions that had to face this problem dealt with it by campaigning against the residency of former members or by rejecting their enrollment in local schools—as if to say these communities and institutions could not coexist with ―cults.‖ Local authorities initially refused to accept the former members‘ registration of residence under the pretext of safeguarding the area‘s ―public welfare.‖ That such measures were taken is not surprising, given the anxiety of local residents and the public‘s anti-cult sentiment in the late 1990s. Indeed, new laws had been enacted to monitor the Aum cult. However, at the insistence of Aleph members and their supporters, the courts demanded that local communities and schools comply with the law. In other words, the courts reaffirmed the right of any Japanese citizen to enjoy freedom of residence and the right to education, even if he or she was a ―cult‖ member. At that time, human-rights groups strongly supported those related to Aleph; critics and media pundits admonished the ―morally panicked‖ Japanese and went on to criticize the logic of banishing ―cults‖ as an emotional reaction that was not in line with ―the public good‖ (Shimizu, 2004). Journalists, writers, and the general public, who, since the late 1990s, have grown tired of the endless ―Aum bashing,‖ now tend to share the view that ―cult‖ followers are ordinary people. At this point, those who have campaigned against the residency or college enrollment of Aleph-related persons and members in the local community are considered obstinate, even socially isolated. In this paper, the author explores the conflict between Aum and local communities—in particular, cases that occurred between 1999 and 2001. Aleph members, the children of the Aum leader and related persons, and a number of other members moved into the local communities of Fujioka City, Gunma Prefecture, Ryugasaki City, Ibaraki Prefecture, and Karasuyama, Setagaya Ward, Tokyo. In these areas, authorities refused to allow these individuals to register as residents and to permit their children to enroll in school, and local residents conducted a campaign urging Aleph members to leave the community. Before discussing these cases, however, let me comment on the conflict between the anti―cult‖ movement and the logic of supporting human rights. The Anti-“Cult” Movement and the Human-Rights Movement The phrase ―anti-cult movement‖ refers to a variety of social activities promoted by those who are critical of certain groups deemed ―cults,‖ as well as to experts working to educate the public about the ―cult‖ issue (Shupe and Bromley, 1994). The term ―anti-cult movement‖ was coined by sociologists of religion who took issue with the concept of ―cult‖ and preferred the term ―new religious movement.‖ However, to understand how the term ―cult‖ became so widespread in public discourse, it is necessary to explain who created the concept and who has used the term to promote their own interests with the public (Barker, 2002). The Japan De-Cult Council (later The Japan Society for Cult Prevention and Recovery) was founded in 1995 and consists of Aum victims and their families, former members who support defectors from cults, lawyers and counselors, and clinical psychologists. The council has devoted its time to educating the public on the issue. The author, as a board member of this organization, has been involved in working to resolve the cult issue in a practical and realistic manner. Thus, the cult issue was initially formulated as a social problem by the anti-cult movement. In recent years, criticism of the anti-cult movement has begun to dominate scholarly, if not public, discourse. This trend has been particularly conspicuous in local anti-Aleph movements, the leaders of which are local municipalities, councilpersons, city officials, and local residents, all nonprofessionals who confronted the Aum cult with great determination despite the ominous ―cult‖ images purveyed by the media. Those leaders were emotionally Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 36

distressed, not only by the ―aliens‖ who appeared suddenly in their midst, but also by the media who besieged their homes, city offices, and schools in search of live coverage. In spite of that, Fujioka City and Ryugasaki City campaigned against Aum only for a limited period of time. Chitose-Karasuyama in Setagaya Ward, conversely, has kept up its anti-Aum activities for the past five years. Although they organized their movement by founding a prevention council and continue to publish newsletters on a regular basis, they have not proven adept at promoting themselves to the general public and utilizing the media effectively. Therefore, with the exception of those directly involved and local residents, people in general know the realities of the anti-cult movement only from books written by supporters of human rights (Tezuka, Aiichiro; Matsui, Takeshi; Yamagiwa, Eizo; and Fukami, Fumi. 2001). Since 2002 I have regularly interviewed the condominium residents and municipality officials in Karasuyama who oppose the residency of Aleph members. I also visited Fujioka and Ryugasaki in 2004. Based on government data and survey findings, I have striven to identify the realities of the anti-cult movement and how it differed by region. Apart from the regional differences in each movement, the typical image of anti-cult movements has been characterized by outside sources in a monolithic, stereotypical manner as residents who stubbornly oppose religious cults such as Aleph. A typical example is the argument of Iwamoto (2001) and Mori (2002), who criticized the Japanese attitude of moral alarmism toward Aum/Aleph, pointing out that Aleph members and local residents, supposedly locked in conflict, have actually been reconciling. Miyadai and Ohsawa, both well-known sociologists and social critics, have suggested the future possibility of harmonious coexistence between residents and Aleph members in Japan (Miyadai, 2002:259; Ohsawa, 2005:213). However, it is fallacious to generalize the one example reported by Iwamoto and Mori to other cases. In point of fact, their contention rested solely upon the exchange of farewell greetings by several residents and two Aleph members in the last phase of a four-month conflict in Fujioka City, as will be described later. At that time, residents did not worry about Aleph, since the Maebashi District Court had ordered Aleph members to vacate the property they were renting, whose owner was bankrupt and whose residence was sealed. Another common argument was that of Asano (1999) and Tezuka (1999), who asserted that the resident movement was a government-sponsored movement that the Public Security Investigation Agency and police set up so that new anti-Aum laws could be passed. The mainstream media have not officially picked up this contention of a human-rights activist. Let us examine the theory of the resident movement as a government-sponsored movement. Asano and Tezuka belong to the Liaison Committee on Human Rights and Mass Media Conduct (JIMPOREN). They did not join forces simply to protect the rights of Aleph-related persons and members, for they have long handled human-rights cases in which they believe the constitution, democracy, and freedom were threatened. They perceive the spread of the anti-cult movement as a sign that conservative political forces, while calling for the restoration of social risk management and social order, took advantage of the Aum problem in an attempt to assert control over civil society. Thus, they criticize the Public Security Investigation Agency‘s excessive interference with the Aum cult and the media‘s biased ―Aum-bashing‖ reporting. Looking at the anti-Aum movements by local residents from the establishment viewpoint, Asano and Tezuka claim that it is not a coincidence that those movements simultaneously emerged in 1999 in several locations, including areas where Aum members had already resided. Tezuka cites the following locations as suspect areas:

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Kita-Mimaki Town, Nagano (Aum members began to reside in Nov. ‗98; anti-Aum movement began in Jan. ‗99); Takane Town, Yamanashi (Sep. ‗98 → Jan. ‗99); Miwa Town, Ibaraki (Apr. ‗98 → Apr. ‗99); Asahi Village, Ibaraki (Nov. ‗96 → Apr. ‗99); Tokigawa Village, Saitama (Mar. ‗97 → May ‗99); Kosei Town, Shiga (May ‗97 → May ‗99); Fukiage Town, Saitama (Dec. ‗97 → May, ‗99); and Otawara Town, Tochigi (simultaneously in June ‗99) (Tezuka, 1999:6-10). Why 1999? In December of 1995, the Public Security Investigation Agency made a proposal to collectively apply the Subversive Activities Prevention Law to Aum. The request was dismissed by the Public Security Examination Commission (PSEC) in January, 1997. According to Asano, the Public Security Investigation Agency, reborn in the wake of the Aum incidents after overcoming potentially fatal restructuring, was determined once again to have new anti-Aum legislation passed. Accordingly, the agency intentionally leaked information to local municipalities and fueled fears of a possible Aum revival, thereby increasing its workload and preserving itself (Asano, 2000:34-37). While this insight is both penetrating and interesting, it overlooks the shock and fear of ordinary Japanese. At that time, Japanese society had no effective control over Aum, which still had approximately 1,500 members. Although the founder Asahara and his top disciples were on trial, and 187 members have been convicted since 1995, the Aum Board of Directors did not officially admit criminal activities by the founder and top disciples until 1999, and consequently no apology was given to victims. Instead, they believed Asahara‘s prediction that Armageddon would come in 1997 or 1999, as a result of which some members searched for land and houses for collective residence. Moreover, at the end of 1999, influential leader Fumihiro Jouyu was released from prison (Jouyu, 2007). Security police monitored Aum‘s movements and kept local municipalities informed of them. Locals who encountered Aum directly or were informed by local municipalities could not understand Aum‘s beliefs and attitudes. Because of court decisions, they had no way of opposing Aum‘s entry into their communities and their collective living arrangements. In addition to the Public Security Investigation Agency, politicians also struggled to legislate alternative security regulations against Aum. In November 1999, new anti-Aum laws (the Organization Restriction Act and the Victim Relief Act) were passed in an extraordinary Diet session (Japan‘s legislature). Based on the Organization Restriction Act, the Public Security Investigation Agency asked to place Aum ―Under Surveillance,‖ and the agency set the Aum facilities off limits in February 2000. This law has been criticized as establishing a contingency framework and as being a steppingstone to fascism. Members of the Organization Restriction Act Claimee Group Defense Counsel remarked that the way the Public Security Investigation Agency had gathered evidence regarding the danger of Aum as a religious cult was extremely sloppy, thus rendering the application procedure problematic. This notion was supported by Mizuho Fukushima (Fukushima, 2000:22-25), a House of Councilors member and president of the Social Democratic Party. This argument might be attractive to those who are sensitive to human-rights issues. Although I respect human rights, I reject their conspiracy argument. First of all, the antiAum residents felt weak and would naturally feel emboldened by events that supported their position. The discussions that surely preceded the passage of the new anti-Aum laws in November 1999 certainly would have energized anti-Aum residents and increased the likelihood of their communicating and cooperating with each other. Secondly, the human-rights activists who simply asserted that anti-Aum residents, or ―mobs‖ (Kitsuki, 2000:47), were manipulated by the Japanese government ignored the fact that the activists‘ support of Aum activities, including their opposition to the new anti-Aum Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 38

laws of 1999, would tend to inflame and amplify the resistance of the anti-Aum movements. Let us examine how the activities of human-rights activists inflamed and ultimately defeated the anti-Aum movements. Eizo Yamagiwa, who alleged that the entire Aum incident, including the trials, was a conspiracy (Yamagiwa, 1999:32), set up a computer-related company for Aum members who had lost their jobs after the name of an Aum-owned shop and its activities were disclosed by newspapers. He also took care of Asahara‘s second daughter and younger son, and some Aum-related persons who had been forced to leave Ohtawara Town in Tochigi in 1999. He located a piece of property in Ryugasaki, Ibaraki, which his company lent to Aum and which Aum then developed. Since the Ryugasaki municipality and residents knew that Asahara‘s son was the temporal successor to Asahara, and had been carefully groomed by Aum, they strongly opposed Aum‘s entry and refused their moving-in notification and their children‘s entry into elementary school. Since just one municipality could not deal with this issue, the municipal assembly requested that the mayor liaise with other municipalities and call for strong support from the prefectural and central governments. Even an assembly member of the Japan Communist Party expressed concern that Ryugasaki would become Aum‘s headquarters (Ryugasaki Assembly, 2001), and an anti-Aum residential group collected signatures from 12,570 citizens against the school enrollment of Asahara‘s children. However, human-rights activists continued to support the children and their caregivers, and Takeshi Matsui, an attorney and supporter, filed a lawsuit against Ryugasaki municipality to accept Aum‘s moving-in notification and school enrollment. In 2000, Ryugasaki municipality finally settled with Matsui and conducted all the necessary procedures. As a result, the antiAum movement there lost its most influential tool—namely, administrative support, and was forced to dissolve since it could not win the legal and human-rights battle. The above-mentioned Jinporen sometimes organized tours for human-rights activists to the sites of anti-Aum movements in order to confront them. They visited Fujioka City and criticized the split among anti-Aum residential groups. One of the anti-Aum residents asked if they would accept Aum members living next door, to which they replied, ―Yes.‖ The residents then said, ‗Well, could you bring Aum members home with you? You say Aum members have human rights. We also have human rights.‖ At that time, Jinporen tourgroup members threw off their inhibitions and brought two Aum members to live with them (Iwamoto, 2001:154-158). In addition to that, Jinporen also assisted James Lewis to visit several anti-Aum movement sites and contributed to a special issue (SYZYGY 8:Nos 1-2) of his journal of new religions, titled Aum Sinrikyo and Human Rights (Japanese version issued by SYZYGY publishing committee, 2000). James Lewis and Gordon Melton are well-known scholars of new religions, as well as controversial researchers who received grants from Aum for a trip to proclaim Aum‘s innocence following the sarin gas incident of March 20, 1995 (Reid, 1995; Beit-Hallahmi, 2001:35-37; Watanabe, 2005:50-51). Lewis came back to Japan to support Aum members‘ human rights in 1999 and to work together with Japanese human-rights activists. In these cases, the human-rights activists, who played an active role in criticizing anti-Aum movements, actually contributed to the creation and maintenance of these movements. Security police and local police simply informed the municipalities of Aum‘s entry, and then they administratively dealt with Aum members‘ moving-in notification and/or financially supported local residents‘ anti-Aum movement. On this point, anti-Aum movements might be considered partially administratively created, and they did continue to receive support until Aum/Aleph members left their communities in Ryugasaki city and the ChitoseKarasuyama area mentioned in the following section. The relationship between Aum and the Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 39

anti-Aum movement, both of which were supported by human-rights activists, government, and police, was very complicated. A conspiracy theory is not necessary to explain the facts, especially since there is no direct evidence of government manipulation of anti-Aum residents. Regional Case Chitose-Karasuyama Chitose-Karasuyama, a quiet residential area in Setagaya Ward in Tokyo, is a 15-minute ride from Shinjuku Station. If you pass the Setagaya Karasuyama Community Center in front of the station, cross the old Koshu Highway, and follow a side street for about 20 meters, you will find more than 100 Aleph members residing together under Fumihiro Joyu in the five-story Chitose-Karasuyama GS Heim condominium and the two 2-story apartments across from it. Located in front of the Heim condo is a police box where the police officers maintain order by monitoring Aleph‘s movements till late at night. During the day, two people from the Council for Countermeasures stand guard. Ever since the Aleph members moved into Karasuyama, an anti-Aleph movement consisting of local residents has been active. This period, between late 2000 and 2005, can be divided into three shorter periods. Period One was when Setagaya Ward was campaigning as a municipality against the residence registration of Aleph members in 2001 and 2002 (Note 1). In Period Two, Setagaya Ward exchanged information with municipalities engaged in similar disputes with Aum and switched its strategy to urging relevant agencies and the federal government to carry out anti-Aum countermeasures. At the same time, the Council for Countermeasures explored various options by regularly holding study group meetings on the cult issue. Period Three was the era of the ―fight against the fading of the movement,‖ according to the Council for Countermeasures. Although a very small number of ward councilmen and officials still maintain a strong interest in their local residents, local administrators can do little but conduct surveillance. The morale of the condominium residents is still high, yet there is a slight inconsistency in their principles; one is willing to accept a ―soft-landing‖ approach, while the other insists that all Aleph members in the area must leave. In November 2003, the condominium residents launched the ―Citizens‘ Group to Protect Setagaya Ward from Aum,‖ apart from the existing Council for Countermeasures. While the Council‘s goal is to bring about comprehensive anti-Aleph legislation, the condominium residents want to see more direct, short-term anti-Aleph movements and measures. Period One On December 19, 2000, thirteen followers of Aleph separately presented their moving-in notification to twelve branch offices of Setagaya Ward simultaneously, apparently to conceal that it was a group relocation. The ward office became aware that they were Aleph followers on the 21st, proceeded to cancel their newly created resident cards, and deleted them from the resident register. Nonetheless, followers were able to move into the first and second floor of GS Heim on the 20th, because the owner of those floors made a direct lease to Aleph without notifying his condominium neighbors. Anxious condominium residents gave followers a written request to leave the building. Aleph members, however, claimed their presence to be lawful and conducted reconstruction work on the 1st floor for a seminary hall and on the 2nd floor for Fumihiro Joyu, a new leader of Aleph. On January 4th, 2001, a right-wing organization member who hated Aleph, fired four bullets at the first floor and was subsequently arrested. While condo residents anxiously consulted with the ward office and police, Aleph members moved into two apartments on the opposite side of GS Heim owned by the same person. As of 2006, there are more than one hundred members of Aleph in the condominium and two apartments. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 40

The Karasuyama area Aum Shinrikyo Measures resident council was formed on January 9, 2001 and consisted of the condominium residents, neighborhood and storekeepers‘ association, PTA members, and volunteers who were concerned about Aleph‘s activities. This group conducted protest rallies and monitored and filed a petition against Aleph members with the Setagaya Ward office. Its risk-management office offered consultation for residents and study meetings, and advised school route changes for children. The reason the ward directly opposed Aleph was that Aleph demanded that the deletion of their resident cards be suspended via the Tokyo District Court on December 25, 2000, claiming that the deletions violated a basic resident registry law and infringed their freedom of movement and right to vote, which was guaranteed by the Constitution. The court ruled in favor of Aleph, although the ward immediately filed an appeal. In April, the Tokyo High Court overruled the District Court decision and rejected Aleph‘s petition, on the grounds that the ward had the authority to investigate concerning the acceptance of resident cards and Aleph had interfered with its investigation by applying for the movement of resident cards separately. Aleph then made a special appeal. In June, the Supreme Court overruled the High Court decision on the grounds that the ward did not have the authority to investigate concerning the acceptance of resident-card movement and that the deletion had caused serious damage to Aleph members. By this decision, the ward was compelled to recover the resident cards. Furthermore, at the trial in which Aleph claimed damages from the ward office, the Tokyo District Court ruled in favor of Aleph and ordered the ward to pay compensation. The ward office appealed, however, but this was rejected by the Tokyo High Court in May 2002, and the ward office finally renounced an appellate procedure to the Supreme Court. As a result, the ward had to pay a fifteen million yen settlement to Aleph. The Tokyo District Court also admitted other claims of Aleph concerning the case of the moving-in notification, which had been rejected in March and April 2002. Period Two In the activity of the second period, while the residential council also held another study meeting on the ―cult‖ problem and sought countermeasures, the ward communicated mutually with local governments that had the same problem and formulated a strategy in conjunction with concerned government agencies in quest of measures against Aleph. The ward had to change the policy of direct opposition to Aleph, which had resulted in the verdict of unlawful rejection of resident card moving. The ward set up a task force on the Aleph problem in Congress and hosted town and village liaison meetings for Aum Shinrikyo countermeasures in May, 2003 and requested action of the Prime Minister, Minister of Public Management, Home Affairs, Minister of Justice, Director-General of Public Security Investigation, and Director-General of the National Police Agency. The ward also enforced ―the Setagaya Ward safe and sound community building‖ regulation from June 2003. Although the activity of the ward and the residential council was well-known in the Karasuyama area, as seen in the example of the banner ―opposition to Aum‖ on the ward office building, not all residents of Setagaya Ward shared the same sense of crisis. This holds true for residents in the Karasuyama area. The anxiety of the condominium residents who lived by the headquarters of Aleph was different from that of local residents in general, which caused the differences in their struggles for opposition measures. The menace of Aleph for Setagaya Ward and its residents was so abstract that they just wanted to protect their ideal community. In contrast, for residents compelled to share a condominium with Aleph members, their living environment changed completely, since daily they had to face Aleph members and were beset with troubles. From my in-depth interviews with condominium residents, the following grievances came to the fore: 1) chanting and voices leaking out from the ceremony hall on the first floor, and Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 41

sounds of more than one hundred followers, who practiced there night and day and went in and out from their part-time jobs, which they were obliged to do for fundraising; 2) the stench of the special Aum diet rises from the kitchen because of a lack of proper ventilation to the loft; 3) the noise of special instruments and vibrations from downstairs, and so on. Dealing with such matters, the residents used to make written complaints demanding action by a specified time, because Aleph did not immediately respond and improve the situation. The residents argued with Aleph many times over whether such complaints had even been made in these matters. This ongoing process wasted time and exhausted the residents. Consequently, a number of families left this condominium because they felt they could not live in peace due to the comings and goings of Aleph members, the media, and police. Naturally, they wish to sell their condominiums at a reasonable price; yet real estate agents say that people will not buy condominiums with Aleph neighbors, although the units are quiet and convenient. As a result, these residents bear the heavy financial burden of continuing to own their condominium and rent a new one for their family. The residents‘ most urgent request is that Aleph leave the condominium, and their second choice would be to have the government provide the concerned residents with new living arrangements. Period Three The opposition movement of the third period was engaged in ―the struggle against the flagging of the movement,‖ in the words of the council members. The small number of ward assembly members and ward staff has not lost interest in the residential opposition movement, yet they can do little more than watch Aleph. A sign of this current status appeared at the 3rd regular meeting on September 2 nd, 2001. One member, Mr. Kawakami, stated, ―Since Aum Shinrikyo, presently Aleph, moved into Setagaya Ward late last year, I took up this problem at the regular meeting of the budget special committee. In former times, there were many members of Parliament who did so, but now it is just me‖ (Setagaya Ward, 2001). Kawakami also asked whether the ward could take budgetary steps for the residential council. The Karasuyama general branch office head replied, Including our ward, many municipalities were sued by Aleph and/or subjected to an audit by citizens who supported the minority and formulated countermeasures. The residential council recognized this situation and, subsequently, they neither relied on the ward‘s budget nor directly requested it (Setagaya Ward, 2001). The ward committee concerned with this problem was called the ―special committee of the Aum problem and leaving bicycle measure and so on.‖ Compared to other municipalities that faced an influx of Aleph members, the ward Congress did not address this issue so often, despite the size of the collective residence and its influence on local residents. Although a few Congress members and staff in the risk-management office of Setagaya Ward have been engaged in watching Aleph, they are not appreciated by the local people. There was a difference of opinion between the residential council that sought the complete removal of Aleph from the Karasuyama area and condo residents. On January 2 nd, 2003, they set up a new meeting, separate from the residential council, called ―the Meeting Defending Setagaya Ward against Aum,‖ because they were discouraged by the deadlocked situation and hoped for even a conditional compromise. Although the council continued to request action aimed at comprehensive legislation against Aleph, they demanded a shortterm and direct opposition movement, and actions such as complete public disclosure of Aleph‘s religious practice and study meetings held in the downstairs ceremony hall. They insisted that they felt anxiety because they were not informed of what went on there. If Aleph guaranteed to show their activities to anyone concerned, that would help reassure residents. Incidentally, I was nominated by the residents to be one of the visitors. However,

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Aleph insisted that visitors be selected cautiously, according to their understanding of religion. Aleph favored advocates of human rights and religious tolerance. On April 24th, 2002, a meeting entitled ―Dialog with Aleph and viewing of the second documentary film of Aum „A2‟” was scheduled to be held at the court of GS Heim and to include the film producer, social critics, and the owner of the Aum residence. But residents strongly opposed it because they were offended by a phrase in the organizers‘ commercial leaflet that contained part of the ruling by the Tokyo District Court in the resident card suit, which stated, ―The dialog between Aleph and residents should aim at securing public safety and promoting mutual understanding—simply regarding Aleph with hostility not only robs everybody of an opportunity for mutual understanding, but makes the solution of the problem more difficult.‖ This pronouncement of the Tokyo District Court to Setagaya Ward referring to the municipality‘s duty was intentionally distorted by the meeting organizers who pointed out that local residents should do the same. Surely, dialogue is necessary, and the intention of the organizers to create such an opportunity is laudable. However, to what extent did they conduct this meeting to sway public opinion, rather than to address the concerns of the condo residents? And what sort of dialog did they intend to undertake with Aleph rather than the residents? They seemed to overlook the fact that after two years of arguing over residential problems with Aleph, condo residents had given up on building mutual trust. Familiarity toward individual Aleph followers and anger toward a religious body that had responded to the residents in an inconsistent and remote manner must be distinguished. Frank conversations between Aleph followers and local opponents are frequently observed, as, for example, ―You should go back to your parents‘ home. If you defected from Aum, we would take care of you.‖ Yet, we should also not overlook the fact that the condo residential area is watched by security police at all hours. The difficulties faced by the opposition movements of condo residents and locals mirror the limitations of legal redress and public authority. They have no choice but to follow the dictates of social ethics and learn to deal with the drawbacks of the situation, what is called consideration of the rights of a religious minority. Although the construction of a condominium might be stopped by local residents‘ right to sunlight, the infringement on quality of life by a specific organization is not regarded as a human-rights violation. Condominium residents reported that they were closely united by the opposition movement and sometimes enjoyed small parties and excursions together for a change of pace. The council members, who included the old chairman, shop owners, housewives, and ward staff, also valued their relationship. Without the Aleph incidents, they would not have communicated deeply. Yet, in fairness, despite the deadlock with Aleph, they have reaped some advantage from the disaster, and they encourage each other so as not to be isolated individually and see their opposition movement forgotten by the general public. Recent Aleph According to several newspapers issued on May 5th, 2006, conflict within Aleph‘s inner factions was in full swing and would result in its split. This fact was not uncovered by reporters, but preemptively disclosed by the security police agency, which was concerned about Aum/Aleph‘s fake dissolution and revival as a new religious group. Responding to this analysis, the Aum bankruptcy administrator pronounced that even new groups would assume liability indemnity to the sarin case injured parties. In recent years, since a leader of Aleph, Fumihiro Joyu, was released, he has vied for power with higher-ranking disciples of Asahara who were not arrested in the sarin gas attack and other criminal incidents. He has been seeking to reestablish a new religious group that breaks with the spiritual tradition of the founder of Aum because the notoriety of Aum and Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 43

Asahara would be an obstacle to group survival in Japan, even if Aleph members made a monumental effort. Meanwhile, old members who truly believed in Asahara and his mystical power regarded this idea as disloyal to Aum conventions and formed an anti-Joyu faction. This is known as the A (Asahara) faction, in contrast to the Joyu faction, the M (Maitreya, Joyu‘s holy name) faction. Between them there are some believers who have not committed to either side. On May 18th, the security police agency disclosed that the M and A factions had each held spring seminars, and that as a result the M faction had collected approximately $70,000 in donations from 80 participants, while the A faction had collected $400,000 from 220 participants. Joyu declared, ―We should think about the direction of the Aleph after the execution of Asahara,‖ which could be scheduled within the next few years because of the dismissal of Asahara‘s appeal in the Tokyo High Court. Asahara‘s capital punishment was fixed in September 15, 2006. Some members believe Asahara will not die, even by hanging; however, such a thought is a by-product of shut-in persons who do not accept the real world. It will be too late to start a new version of Aleph after the death of its founder. M and A factions were expected to divide their assets and accounts respectively by July 2006. In May 2007, Joyu separated his faction from Aleph and made a new religion, ―Hikari no wa‖ (Ring of Light), with approximately 200 members (Asahi News, 2007). Discussions Resource Mobilization and Cultural Framing In this section, we discuss the resident movement from the perspective of social movement theory, which focuses on the mobilization of resources, cultural framing, and political opportunity (Tarrow, 1998). The mobilization of resources means how funds and human resources are procured and utilized in order to have successful social movements. The municipalities took urgent budgetary steps by allocating approximately $100,000 for residents‘ anti-Aleph movements in 1999 and 2000, because the Japanese public had already become aware of the treatment of Aleph members as a social issue after a series of Aum-related incidents. But because this budget was spent on lawsuits, the residents in Karasuyama were forced to raise funds for their own activities. Cultural framing is composed of a social appeal made by a movement, which convinces the general public of, and enlists them in, the movement‘s cause. What values and interests did anti-Aleph residents attempt to protect? Of course, mere dislike or fear of a ―cult‖ does not convince other people who are not directly affected. They need more convincing reasons. Sometimes that justification is presented by outside parties. Human-rights advocates provided conflicting abstract arguments, such as ―public well-being for locals,‖ and Aleph members‘ ―freedom of religion,‖ and ―the freedom and the right to have residence and education.‖ But did the local people really participate in the movement because of those ideas? This question must be addressed. Some municipalities refused to accept Aleph members‘ residence registration on the grounds of ―uneasy feelings of local residents.‖ They believed that what local residents demanded was a guarantee of local security, and thus responding to that plea would correspond to ―public welfare.‖ In response to the claims by the cult and its supporters, as well as human-rights activists, the municipality insisted, ―(the community‘s) fears are not gone.‖ Since dialogue was not working, they had no choice but to turn to the legal process. The rationale of ―public welfare‖ was merely an expression of the municipality‘s view; on the local side, ―fear‖ was the reason for the anti-Aum movement. It is easy to attribute a disdain for human rights to residents chanting ―Aum, Get Out!‖ or voicing other hostile expressions and attitudes. For this reason, human-rights advocates Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 44

formulated the standard framing by raising the question: ―Is it acceptable to limit individual human rights due to abstract fears based on insufficient evidence and emotional loathing?‖ That is how the logic of fairness was introduced. In fact, at that time, the point in dispute was not denying the human rights of Aleph members (discriminating against them) or weighing those rights on a scale. And it was not about respecting the human rights of local residents more than the human rights of Aleph members from the standpoint of public welfare. The local residents‘ fear was directed toward nothing other than the security threat posed by Aleph (Aum). Unless the cult group disbanded, that fear would not disappear, so the residents thought they had no incentive for meeting the cult members face-to-face. This mindset was sustained by the memories of the sarin gas attack and media reports that Aum followers are mentally controlled by the cult group. Naturally, there were individual differences in their fears and degree of loathing, not to mention differences in residential styles. Aleph‘s supporters maintained that ―fear‖ would be reduced if residents recognized that they were not really in danger. But residents‘ fears prevented them from engaging in dialogue that might lead to a reduction of their fear. The residents‘ reluctance was, ironically, strengthened by the condescending and disdainful way in which human-rights advocates treated them. Thus, the Aleph supporters were able to gain a decided advantage in framing the issue for the public by portraying the anti-Aum residents as obstinately and irrationally afraid. Even had the residents successfully communicated their ―fear‖ to society in general, the distance between their situation and that of the observing public would have made the public‘s empathy low. Hence, it was easier for society to acknowledge the more normative argument that there would be no exception in protecting human rights of minority people. In terms of framing strategy, then, human-rights advocates defeated the residents. Structure of Political Opportunity The structure of political opportunities, the background of this verbal strategy, also turned out to be a blessing for human-rights advocates. The structure of political opportunities hinges on whether or not the national government would tolerate social movements. When an anti-Aum movement was launched in Namino Village in Kumamoto, other local anti-Aum movements were tolerated. This is because the municipality cooperated fully with the local residents, and the national government also gave consideration to the Aum issue. In 1999, the municipalities submitted a request to concerned government ministries and agencies, in which they urged the government to crack down on Aum. This request gave some momentum to the enactment of new anti-Aum laws. The framing from the local communities was successful—―We cannot live in peace as long as cult activity is tolerated.‖ Because of court decisions, however, it became difficult after the year 2000 to take judicial and administrative measures that go beyond surveillance (supervision by the Security Police Agency) in regard to the residence of Aleph members. In other words, now there are no special reasons to prevent Aum members‘ freedom of residence. In that respect, the refusal of residence registration in municipalities was a countermeasure that lacked legitimacy. The municipalities were aware of this and patiently waited until the Aum-related persons finally left the municipality, and then switched the anti-Aum slogan from ―Get out!‖ to ―Break Up!‖ They proposed a fundamental resolution of the problem so that no one could accuse them of local egoism or of avoiding the problem. In spite of all this, some Japanese, especially some intellectuals and young people, began to show empathy for the A and A2 instead of the anti-Aum movement (Miyadai, 2002; Ohsawa, 2005; Gardner, 2001). Those films were produced by Tatsuya Mori, who documented Aum from within and tried to break its typical ―cult‖ image. They slowly began to accept the argument that the new religious group (Aleph, not Aum) was not dangerous Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 45

and its members were just ordinary people. In addition, the continuance of those anti-Aleph movements appeared more oppressive than before, since anti-Aum movements of local communities had all ended in reconciliation, although they were close to defeats. Thus, Japan‘s structure of political opportunities on the ―cult‖ issue has changed so much that, sometimes, even those statements accusing the Japanese public of Aum-bashing seem refreshing. Conclusions The ―cult‖ problem described in this paper was a living world that stood paralyzed before the law and the human-rights movement. The honest and unsatisfied part of residents was saying, ―Why must we deal with such intractable problems and be forced to listen to those who argue as if it were none of our business?‖ Such voices must be heard and understood, for it is not realistic to expect society to accept Aleph members, whose positions have been preserved simply by the letter of the law and arguments of fairness. Without fully understanding the fear behind these anti-Aum voices, Aleph members might face tacit ―discrimination‖ in academic enrollment (Mihashi, 2005), employment, and everyday life, even if they continue to enjoy the protection of law. To better understand the position of the anti-Aum residents and the implications of that position for Japanese society, I think it is useful to consider an analogy with the world‘s current reaction to Japanese atrocities from the Second World War. Ever since Prime Minister Nakasone made an official visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in the 1980s, Asian nations have harshly criticized Japan. Furthermore, South Korea has criticized the history textbook issue centering on the forced transfer of Koreans and comfort women (sex slaves for soldiers), as well as Japan‘s interpretation of the war. In contrast, the reparations issue has been politically settled within Japanese-North Korean and JapaneseSouth Korean relations. Can we simply dismiss the way those countries express their anger or frustration over Japanese attitudes? Can we repeatedly insist that reflection on Japan‘s actions 60 long years ago is an unreasonable interference or political strategy? Can we erase the invasion by Japanese soldiers from the memories of war victims in Asia? We perpetrated certain things in the war that deserve current criticism, and Japan cannot escape that responsibility. Legally it is possible, but on a moral level it is not. As long as we are Japanese, we all have to share the burden of Japan‘s history. If that is so, we have no choice but to listen to other countries‘ criticisms about the remnants of state Shintoism, which became a breeding ground for militarism, as manifested in history textbooks with a strong nationalistic tinge and a political climate reminiscent of the National Mobilization Law. The international community will not accept the brazen attitude of Japan demanding proof. Just as the passage of time and legal details do not morally exonerate Japan from its past actions, so too do current Aleph members bear some responsibility for the heinous crimes their group perpetrated. And just as Japan is morally bound to listen respectfully to the criticisms of those whom it once victimized, so too do current Aleph members and their supporters have an obligation to respect the fears of those for whom the memories of Aum‘s attacks are still vivid. Current Aleph members should know what their former leader and some of their fellow members did, and they should answer why and how the Aum dogma, training methods, and organizational structure at the core of their faith managed to generate such an unprecedented level of violence. They should conduct their current activities in a positive manner by reflecting on their responsibility. Unfortunately, their behavior and pronouncements seem to be irresponsible and indifferent to the expectations of the general public. Therefore, people judge them to be human beings lacking in ordinary moral sense. Human-rights activists who consider such views to be merely discrimination are locked in a

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world of legal debates and distorted views of fundamental social and ethical issues. They are blind to the moral dimension that has to do with Aleph‘s responsibility to the public. Only twelve years have passed since the Aum sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. Although the media may have forgotten the incident, the general public and victims have never allowed their memories to fade. Note In Japan, the family registration law takes account of individuals with family lineage by recording the acquisition and renunciation of nationality (jus sanguinis), birth, marriage, and death. For the Japanese, the basic residential register law controls notarization of residence and electoral register. To receive public services, Japanese must undertake both family and residential registration. Based on article 22 of the Constitution of Japan, any Japanese can move, reside, and choose their occupation in Japan. And according to the 22 nd and 24th articles of the basic residential register, people who move must file moving-out notification at their present municipality and moving-in notification at their new municipality. Municipalities, based on the 5th article, must accept the notification and record the residence. When the entries did not agree with someone's records, municipalities, based on article 34, could suspend and investigate the notification. And if someone had a complaint about the municipalities‘ action, they could request reconsideration based on article 31. Under the Constitution of Japan and the basic residential register law, municipalities can investigate whether entries such as the name and the family register (―religion‖ is not included in entries) are true. However, they cannot legally refuse to accept the moving-in notification by Aleph members, even if they concealed their religious identity. Therefore, it is certain that the judges gave a sentence that fully accepted the plaintiffs' appeal to register their moving in. References Asano, Kenichi. (1999). ―Public-made resident movements and new anti-Aum laws,‖ Musubu 346, Rosinante-sha. Asano, Kenichi. (2000). ―The media and the diet Brainwashed by the Public Security Investigation Agency,‖ Musubu 351, Rosinante-sha. Asahi News. (2007). ―Public Security Investigation Agency conducts on-the-spot inspection of ‗Hikari no wa,‘‖ May 10, 2007. Barker, Eileen. (2002). ―Watching for violence: A comparative analysis of the roles of five types of cult-watching groups,‖ in Bromley, David G. and Melton, J. Gordon, (Eds.). Cults, Religion & Violence. Cambridge University Press: UK. Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. (2001). ―O Truant Muse‖: Collaborationism and Research Integrity, in Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins (Eds.). Misunderstanding Cults. University of Toronto Press: Toronto. Fukushima, Mizuho. (2000). ―How was the Organization Restriction Law discussed in the Diet?‖ Musubu 346, Rosinante-sha. Gardner, Richard A. (2001). ―Aum and the Media: Lost in the cosmos and the need to know,‖ in Kisala, Robert J. and Mullins, Mark R. (Eds.). Religion and Social Crisis in Japan. Palgrave: New York. Iwamoto, Taro. (2001). Aum arrived at my town. Liveruta-shuppan. Jouyu, Fumihiro, (2007). ―After released in 1999.‖ Official Web site of Jouyu Fumihiro, http://www.joyus.jp/aum/01/0001.html Kimiaki, Nishida. (1995). Mind Control. Tokyo: Kinokuniya. Kitsuki, Chiaki. (2000). ―Japanese people under mind control,‖ Musubu 351, Rosinante-sha. Lifton, Robert J. (1999). Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. Metropolitan Books. Mihashi, Osamu. (2005). ―To all the students gathered at the meeting,‖ Jan. 19, 2005, So March.

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Miyadai, Shinji. (2002). The strategy for us to not to self-destruct, Mori, Tatsuya, in “A” the true face of Aum the media did not report, Kadokawa Shoten. Mori, Tatsuya. (2002). A2, Gendaishokan. Ohsawa, Masachi. (2005). Beyond reality Shunju-sha. Reader, Ian. (2002). ―Dramatic confrontations: Aum Shinrikyo against the world,‖ in Bromley, G. David and Melton, J. Gordon (Eds.). Cults, Religion & Violence. Cambridge University Press: UK. Reid, T. R. (1995). ―U.S. visitors boost cause of Japanese cult‘,‖ The Washington Post, May 9. Ryugasaki Assembly. (2001). Minutes of first extraordinary session 2001. Setagaya Ward. (2001). Congress minutes of 3rd regular meeting 2001. Shimizu, Masahiko. (2004). ―The Aum incidents and civil society— an uneasy society and safety,‖ Law Journal, Aug. 2004, Nippon-Hyoron-sha. Shupe, Anson, and Bromley, David G. (1994). ―The modern anti-cult movement 1971-1991: A twentyyear retrospective,‖ in Anson Shupe and David G. Bromley (Eds.). Anti-Cult Movements in CrossCultural Perspective, Garland Publishing Inc. Tarrow, Sidney. (1998). Power in Movement: Social Movement and Contentious Politics, second edition. Cambridge University Press. Tezuka, Aiichiro. (1999). ―Conflicts over the moving-in of Aum members,‖ Musubu 346, Rosinantesha. Tezuka, Aiichiro; Matsui, Takeshi; Yamagiwa, Eizo; and Fukami, Fumi. (2001). Devils Like You Have No Human Rights!—Children of Asahara Shoko Who Could Not Go to School, Shakai-Hryoron-sha. Watanabe, Manabu. (1998). Religion and violence in Japan today: A chronological and doctrinal analysis of Aum Sinrikyo,‖ Terrorism and Political Violence 10-4: 80-100. Watanabe, Manabu. (2005). ―Aum Sinrikyo and its use of the media,‖ Bulletin of Nanzan Institute of Religion and Culture 29. Yamagiwa, Eizo. (1999). ―Aum incident: Matsumoto and subway sarin incident cases,‖ Musubu 346.

Yoshihide Sakurai, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology, Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University, Hokkaido, Japan. He is also an executive board member of the Japan Cult Recovery Council. He has been conducting research on the cult controversy in Japan, especially the Unification Church of Japan. (www.hucc.hokudai.ac.jp/~n16260/eng/index.html) ([email protected]) This article is an electronic version of an article originally published in Cultic Studies Review 2008, Volume 7, Number 3, pages 254-278. 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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Book Reviews Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, and Juliana Buhring, HarperCollins UK. 2007. ISBN10: 0007248067; ISBN-13: 978-0007248063 (hardcover), $24.95 ($18.21 Amazon.com). 416 pages. HarperCollins UK. 2008. ISBN-10: 0007248075; ISBN13: 978-0007248070 (paperback), $13.95 ($11.86 Amazon.com). 432 pages. Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge Don Lattin, HarperOne. 2007. ISBN-10: 0061118044; ISBN-13: 978-0061118043 (hardcover), $24.95 ($18.21 Amazon.com). 256 pages. Two books published in 2007 and written by authors outside academe provide an in-depth understanding of life in The Children of God, a new religious movement started in the 1960s by evangelical preacher David Berg. This group was popularly recognized as a cult. The Children of God were later called The Family and are now known as The Family International. Both books provide evidence of the group‘s leadership encouraging and engaging in sexual activities with children. Such accounts are disputed in scholarly publications and dismissed by some scholars as exceptions or exaggerations. Both books, however, depict much academic research as inadequate, misguided, or misrepresented. Although the authors of these two books provide shocking details about growing up in The Children of God, the honest discussion of respected research is perhaps the greatest impact they will have on the academic field of cultic studies. The first book in this review, Not Without My Sisters, is a memoir. Popular media reviews of the book focus on the ―horrific detail‖ in the lives of the authors, who were ―treated by their 'guardians‘ as sexual beings.‖ Some academics who label appeals to mainstream values as ―moral panics‖ that are beneath the objective perspective of scholarly research dismiss such shock tactics by publishers and marketers. In some corners of academe, these supercilious scholars are regarded as ―experts‖ in their field, but those dark corners are becoming increasingly exposed by books such as this one. In my opinion, the major contribution of Not Without My Sister to the field of cult studies is its insights into the processes and effects of brainwashing (a.k.a. mind control or thought reform), a disputed concept in academia. There are differences of scholarly opinion regarding memoirs written by former members of such groups as The Children of God/The Family. Although these differences exist on a continuum, the extreme on one side includes the apologist scholars of cults who claim that memoirs are self-accounts distorted by personal biases, and on the other side academics who claim the apologists—those scholars who debunk anti-cult allegations—promote perspectives distorted by hidden agendas. The apologists have labeled these scholars ―anticultists‖ because they typically present data, analysis, and findings that are less than favorable to cults and often based on interviews with former members or memoirs by former members. As a memoir writer and academic, I am familiar with both sides of the debate. As a former member of a cult and researcher, I can identify the blind spots and pretense of scholars who claim to remain objective, as well as those of the individuals who, influenced by their life experiences in a cult, write with righteous indignation. I have tried to maintain neutrality, but I suspect that both sides will challenge some of my views and critiques. Not Without My Sisters is about growing up in The Children of God. The authors of this book are two biological full sisters, Kristina and Celeste, and their half sister, Juliana. They all Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 49

have the same father, known in the group as Simon Peter. I mention ―biological‖ because as a sociologist I am amazed at the strong connection between these sisters, who by their own accounts were separated at a young age and continued to be kept apart with very little physical interaction or communication throughout their lives. Also, as a former member of The Children of God, I know that this group not only espoused but also enforced its communal ideal by physically, emotionally, and psychologically dividing families, or what they called ―selfish little units.‖ The authors‘ accounts of sexual, emotional, and physical exploitation and abuse will interest all readers concerned with social justice and human rights. The book will be a compelling read for any parent, instructional material for any student of social sciences, and an informative account for anyone with family members involved in cults or other fanatic religious groups. But my primary recommendation of this book is for scholars of controversial religious and social movements, and professionals working with abuse victims, dysfunctional families, and cult survivors. I was a member of The Children of God for fifteen years. Based on my insider knowledge, as well as my informed understanding of the academic debates regarding this group, I found Not Without My Sister most effective in its exposure of the way in which sexual and physical abuse was not only encouraged but also practiced by its leaders throughout the group‘s history. I have written in my memoir that I did not see child sexual abuse everywhere, but we group members all read reports that indicated it existed in the homes of the cult‘s leaders. This book sheds more light on the degree and progression of child abuse in the Children of God, starting with the perspective an abused child. The book opens with the story of Celeste, the first-born of Simon Peter, a charismatic young disciple of the Children of God who rose to fame and favor with the leaders of the group as a result of his ―Music with Meaning‖ radio shows in Greece. Readers become aware that Simon‘s access and unfailing obedience to top leadership resulted in his children‘s subsequent exposure to some of the worst child-abuse scenarios in the history of the group. I am not denying that perhaps Celeste‘s story chronicles one of the more bizarre and atrocious abuse experiences of children in The Family, but I remain suspicious of scholars who claim that this abuse was isolated, since the extent of such activities is still unknown. Celeste describes scenes that have become legends among ex-members of this group, such as the beatings at the huge ―Combo homes‖ for teens, the rapes of young girls, and the suicides of young male members. These stories have been exposed in Internet sites and newspaper articles for years, but Celeste‘s account supports the stories and offers more detail from a true insider‘s perspective—as a young child growing up and viewing the scenes first-hand. Moreover, Celeste herself is not spared these injustices, and while the reader is aghast that her father is not protecting her, Celeste continues to excuse him and hold him on a pedestal. Any pretense that the leadership did not know of adults forcing sex on children is dispelled by Celeste‘s account of living in leadership homes where she is forced to have sex with adults. Celeste lived in the homes that most Family members only read about in The Family newsletters. More-concerned parents in the group feared that their teens would be sent to one of these ―Combo‖ homes, which were considered the juvenile detention homes of The Family. Celeste is sent there not because she is bad but because her father is needed in secret homes where she is not needed. Celeste longs for reunion with her absent mother and sister, who left the group after being separated from the rest of the family. A golden opportunity for escape and justice arises when she is asked to testify in a British court case involving child abuse in the Children of God. Because Celeste is one of the young girls dancing naked and suggestively on a video used as evidence in the case, a reputed religious expert interviews her and asks her to explain her childhood strip dance experience. Celeste repeats exactly what the leaders of Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 50

The Family prompted her to say, knowing it is not true but unable to decipher lies at that time of her life. The conversation between Celeste and the research expert in the book is a pivotal passage of evidence for the unreliability of research data collected from current cult members. It appears from this account of the interview that Celeste easily convinces the scholarly expert that she (Celeste) was not abused. The expert witness scholar of ―new religious movements‖ seemed to convince the Lord Justice Ward that abuse was not widespread in the group, which may have influenced Ward‘s ruling to allow the child to remain in The Family. Soon after this incident, Celeste, among the hundreds of teens in the group, is singled out to live in the most secret of Family homes and meet the top leaders of the cult after the death of Moses David (Berg)—namely, Maria (Karen Zerby) and her consort, Peter Amsterdam. Celeste is told that Maria received ―prophecies‖ (spiritual messages) from the deceased Berg and the Lord to call this home the ―house of the open pussy.‖ Here Celeste sees firsthand that the sexual activities that had destroyed her childhood happiness were initiated and blessed by these same top leaders. Although no turning point is without preceding doubts, it is here that Celeste has her epiphany that The Family leaders are not the God-sent messengers of love as she had been taught all her life. She leaves The Family after a short visit to her beloved father, who refuses to accept responsibility or hold his leaders accountable for his daughter‘s abuse. The second story is told by Juliana, who is born from a union of Celeste‘s father and one of the many Family sisters he ―mates‖ over the years to serve his sexual needs. Juliana suffers immense emotional pain as a result of the separation from both her parents, and she is depicted as the lost child whom nobody loves. She is subjected not only to sexual abuse but also unrestrained emotional and physical abuse that she recounts with chilling detachment. Desperately longing for adults who will love her, she secretly wishes that the strange Indian couple who knock on the door of The Family home one day looking for a child to adopt will take her. Her father, who brags he has fathered more than twenty children, appears not to know of his children‘s whereabouts, living conditions, or personal anguish. Juliana is rarely with any of her siblings as she is shuttled from home to home and suffers under various guardians who appear to care little for her safety or happiness. Despite being taught all her life that ―we are all one family,‖ when Juliana learns of a biological relative, she clings to the idea of a sibling bond. This hope is depicted in the scene in which she fondly remembers a photograph of a little girl in India who her father casually states is one of Juliana‘s sisters. In the end, while on a visit with her older siblings in London, after they had already left The Family, Juliana has her epiphany and begins the turning point in her slow journey out of the ―bizarre upside-down world that made no sense.‖ Readers might be astounded that it takes so long after her revelation for Juliana to physically leave the group, but it‘s important to bear in mind that she endured a most intense socialization and isolation from the rest of the world. In her story we see the longterm processes and effects of such extreme indoctrination. In the end, even while Juliana appears free to travel, leave, and marry according to her own desires, she is tied by strings we cannot distinguish in shorter versions of these lives, such as those presented in scholarly publications. Although some scholars hotly debate and debunk the ―brainwashing‖ process, evidence of the mind-control tactics groups such as the Children of God use is seen in Juliana‘s extended withdrawal from the group. Apologist scholars for cults often use the fact that members are free to leave when they want as proof that brainwashing or mind control does not exist. However, Juliana‘s account, and other stories about leaving cults, reveals the superficial level of such an argument. The third story is told by Kristina, the younger of the two sisters born to Simon Peter and his first wife. Kristina is separated from Celeste and her father soon after her birth in India. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 51

She lives her childhood with a malicious stepfather who enforces strict rules on his new stepchildren and seems eager to follow Berg‘s and Zerby‘s directives on sexual activities with children. While her mother is often bedridden with difficult pregnancies, Kristina is sexually abused by her stepfather. The abuse began when she was three years old and he performed oral sex on her as she lay on her top bunk bed. As he continued with similar sexual behaviors along with increased physical abuse, other men in the group forced Kristina to engage in sexual activities she detested but endured in silence. Kristina‘s molestation is conducted mostly in private. She is forced to have sex in secret with relative strangers as she travels among small missionary homes in India and other Eastern countries. For example, her stepfather hides his sexual exploitation of Kristina from her mother. Kristina describes her mother as living in a trance while in The Family, and it appears that her mother is not cognizant of her children‘s abuse until she is finally out of the group. Kristina‘s accounts of sexual activities with adults appear to be more hidden that those of her sisters, yet one might wonder why she does not inform anyone of this behavior. Recall that Kristina has read The Family literature in which the group‘s leader and prophet endorses adult sex with children, so she has no reason to report this behavior as abuse to her mother or other group members who should have protected her. She also knows that whatever occurs in The Family is not to be revealed to those outside the group, and she learns to live a ―double life‖ when she is around ―systemites‖ (those living outside the Family). Yet the most redeeming characters in Kristina‘s story are in fact those systemites she comes in contact with throughout her travels. It is by observing the differences between the behaviors of systemites and the behaviors of adults in The Family that Kristina is encouraged to testify with her mother in a court case involving child-abuse accusations. Unfortunately, their testimony appears to garner less respect than that produced by the scholarly experts with their theoretical alleged insights. It is two other systemites, her grandparents on her stepfather‘s side, who defend her when a teenaged Kristina is trying to force an apology from her stepfather (their son) for the sexual abuse she suffered as a child. Overhearing the girl‘s plea, the elderly couple storm into the room, condemning their son for the accusations they were loathe to accept previously. In my mind, the support by Kristina‘s grandparents represents a dilemma we find in academia. This incident is symbolic of how academics seem to find it difficult to accept stories of abuse as valid until the stories hit home in a personal way. This may be why scholarly research, which is biased toward producing findings that support the reigning paradigms, ignores the anecdotal evidence in favor of dissenting theoretical views. Regrettably, the popular theories on cults (new religious movements) have too easily dismissed the stories of child abuse in cults as ―atrocity tales.‖ Only those scholars who listen to stories such as those written in this book have honestly examined the issue of cult abuse. And these scholars are typically not published in the academic journals that would allow their theories to receive attention on a broader scale. Thus, the issue of why, how, and which cults engage in this type of abuse, and how to stop it, is rarely addressed in academic circles. In Not Without My Sisters, the apologist scholars are subtly exposed as naïve or misguided. In their brave effort to provide an honest account, the sisters reveal how the experts are too easily convinced of The Family‘s innocence, the blamelessness of the leaders, and the extent of the abuse. The authors suggest veiled deceit on the part of the academic expert witnesses. In contrast, in the book Jesus Freaks, Lattin does not engage in subtleties but explicitly and intentionally exposes the apologists‘ agenda by devoting an entire chapter to their scholarly Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 52

misdeeds. Jesus Freaks, written by a renowned newspaper journalist well-versed in new religious movements and fundamentalist religious groups, provides a detailed life account of Ricky Rodriquez. Ricky, known as ―Davidito,‖ is the son of the leader of The Children of God, David Berg. Davidito is also the second-generation member whose suicide/murder in 2005 was broadcast in media around the world. The book is recommended to anyone interested in cultic studies. The book chronicles the history of The Children of God. As a former member of this cult, I found the details of the group‘s history and life inside the group accurate and revealing. There were occasional inconsistencies with the names of characters, or perhaps the author was asked to change some names and not others. However, in a group that required new members to change their names on joining, encouraged name changes of members to disguise identity, and enforced frequent name changes of the top leaders where Ricky lived, it is remarkable that Lattin was able to keep pace with identities to the extent that he did. More importantly, he unravels the intricate processes involved in constructing a worldview that is as bizarre as it is hidden from all public scrutiny. Whereas lawyers and expert witnesses have persuaded esteemed judges around the world to deny justice to its exploited and abused members, Lattin exposes not only the moral atrocities but also the criminal acts committed by its leaders. He does this through investigative research into every aspect of Ricky‘s life. Some scholars claim that it is not an academic‘s responsibility to expose or judge morality issues in his or her objective research. As noted earlier, it appears that the scholars who have dominated in academic publications largely overlook or discount abuse issues in these groups, especially in The Children of God. In a chapter devoted to these scholars, called ―Expert Witness,‖ Lattin provides specific details of how much of their research ignores or distorts the facts. Lattin writes in primarily chronological order with occasional flashbacks that might be difficult for a reader to follow. For example, when a new character is introduced, Lattin revisits earlier history of the group that allows the reader to gain a more in-depth understanding of the communal environment in which Ricky was raised. Lattin briefly recounts the histories of some of the other young adults he interviews—most have horrific stories of abuse. The author acknowledges that not all children born and raised in The Family had childhood experiences as damaging as did Ricky, who lived in the house of the leader, David Berg. For example, near the end of the book, after having recounted story after story of unimaginable abuse, Lattin informs the reader that all members and former members ―lived in the shadow of David Berg‖; but of the 13,000 new members who were born into this group between 1971 and 2001, ―when they were born and where they were raised determine the darkness of that shadow‖ (p. 207). Despite remarking that some children fared better than others, Lattin states a few pages later that he could not find one former member from the second generation who "rose above it all and found justice and redemption‖ (p. 210). Such statements offer apologists fodder for their arguments. Miriam Williams Boeri, Ph.D.

When the Body is the Target: Self-Harm, Pain, and Traumatic Attachments Sharon Klayman Farber, Jason Aronson Publisher, Inc. (an imprint of Roman & Littlefield, Inc.): Lanham, MD. 2002. ISBN-10: 0765703718; ISBN-13: 9780765703712 (paperback), $55.00 ($49.20, Amazon.com). 616 pages. Many years ago, before vacation periods, I would invariably get into an accident of some sort. I had acquired an attitude about myself as someone who was just clumsy and

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accident-prone. After I had begun therapy, I had a minor car accident before a long-awaited summer vacation. When I entered my therapy session, I offhandedly told my therapist about the accident, but proudly dismissed it, declaring, ―I‘m not going to let this ruin my vacation.‖ My therapist was not so ready to brush this off. He encouraged me to explore all the feelings that I had felt before and after the accident. This continuing process of looking at the underlying thoughts and emotions that are expressed in the self-harming action of accident-proneness has allowed me to begin to live a more accident-free and emotionally free life. Dr. Sharon Farber captures this concept and so much more in her beautifully written book, When the Body Is the Target. From a conceptual point of view, in revealing the ―mystery‖ of self-harm, she points out how self-harm is used to maintain the outward sign that something is wrong on the inside. Farber notes that some of us might self-harm in relatively minor ways, in behaviors (such as nail biting) that are low-key versions of the impulses that are more strongly expressed by severe eating disorders or self-mutilating behaviors. We are informed that self-harm is about individuals who cannot live peacefully in their own skin. When the Body is the Target focuses on those who experience their emotions not in their minds, but in and through the immediacy of their bodies. In the authoritarian world of the cult, self-reflection and ―negative‖ feelings are discouraged and demeaned through the leader‘s manipulations and doctrine, and interfered with through numerous thoughtstopping techniques. The result of these limitations might be that the body becomes a central expressive source for the discharge and regulation of feeling, particularly pain and anger the cult member experiences. According to Farber, for those individuals who severely harm themselves, the predominant mode of self-experience is sadomasochistic pain and suffering. That is, physical violence is the language of those who lack the ability to use metaphor or symbols to express emotions or unspeakable pain; they use their bodies to speak for them. These ideas, all clearly presented, are fundamental to Farber‘s understanding of self-harm and are useful for those of us who work with individuals who have learned that they must submit to the needs of others rather than allow the direct expression of their own needs. The concepts in this book, while complex and psychoanalytically based, are written with clarity and without psychoanalytic jargon. For example, Farber emphasizes that selfharming behavior can be seen as a psychological symptom that is caused by more than one factor, serving multiple and paradoxical functions in the psyche in the individual‘s attempt to feel better or gain relief. She shows the reader how this behavior, which is quite risky and potentially dangerous, allows those who are deadened by depression or dissociation to ―come alive,‖ or, by contrast, how such behavior offers relief to those who experience the anxiety of constant hypervigilance. In this way, Farber views self-harm as playing an adaptive role and self-regulatory function in the life of the trauma survivor, by terminating a painful state of dissociation or hyperarousal. In exploring self-harm‘s connection to trauma as a causative factor, Farber explains how childhood shock traumas of physical and sexual abuse, medically related traumas, or the strain trauma of neglect are experienced as direct assaults to the body. If no one was present to protect and soothe the child at a time of overwhelming pain, the child might begin to repeat this hurtful experience through self-injurious body behavior in an attempt to regulate mood or states of hyperarousal. This scenario contrasts with the background of the protected child who develops the expectation of comfort from others and eventually repeats this positive experience by soothing herself and taking care of her body.[1] Although Farber touches on many psychoanalytic theories, she emphasizes attachment research and its [1]

Because it is commonly understood that men generally tend to be the perpetrators of violence on others, while women tend to be the perpetrators of self-inflicted violence and the targets of others‘ violence, I will refer to these individuals as females. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 54

connection to trauma. She particularly cites the work of Peter Fonagy and his associates to establish the relationship between a secure early relationship and the ability to be selfreflective and to know the minds of others. The findings of Farber‘s research study, presented in this book, suggest that it is the severity of the trauma suffered in childhood and adolescence, particularly the cumulative trauma of violent sexual and physical abuse maintained in a climate without secure attachments, that is a key factor in the development and maintenance of dissociation, selfinjurious habits, and eating-disordered habits in childhood. The severity of the trauma also is significant in the development in childhood of a general sense of body alienation, which can contribute to the development of eating-disordered behavior, self-mutilating behavior, and other forms of self-harm later in adolescence and or adulthood. However, Farber indicates that self-harm might not be solely the result of trauma experienced early in life. Self-harm can result from the ordeal of being under the influence of a powerful, manipulative, sadomasochistic leader who co-opts one‘s ability to think critically and have ownership over one‘s own body. Self-harming behavior in these instances is seen as the outcome of cult programming and cult-learned practices and rituals that create dissociative behaviors to enhance the leader‘s influence and doctrine in which dietary restrictions or various forms of abuse are either encouraged or seen as acceptable. Those of us who examine the world of cults have seen how dietary restrictions or physical or sexual abuse often is redefined as necessary to increase the members‘ level of purity. The acceptance of this destructive behavior is supplemented by the contagion and peer pressure of the group. In my work with former cult members, I also find that self-harm may be the result of an attempt to play out, through the body, a cult-induced message not consciously acknowledged by the former cult member. Farber explains that, just as addictive alcoholism is a progressive disease, the behavior of chronic bulimics and self-mutilators follows a progressive course from preoccupation to ritual preparation (which helps to induce a dissociated mental state) to compulsivity (need to perform the behavior) to shame and despair. She considers that this behavior might reveal a psychological addiction to trauma, a compulsion to repeatedly and unconsciously reenact and express, through bodily self-harm, severe trauma suffered in childhood. Having been the passive victim of traumatic abuse in childhood, the individual will be compelled to repeat the trauma, sadistically inflicting violence on others or masochistically inflicting violence upon the self. Anger that is physically directed at the self is central to the life of the individual who has been abused and violated, leading to repetitive reenactments upon the body that have the potential to become dangerously out of control. Although Farber touches on this, I might more centrally suggest that these early abusive experiences (particularly, but not only, by those who suffered from sexual abuse) also have a libidinal component, and libido is interwoven with aggression in these acts. I found the section of the book on clinical implications to be as illuminating and extensive as the previous sections on theory. Not only does Farber give the reader principles for working with this population, she also highlights these principles with vignettes from her own and other therapists‘ clinical work. First and foremost, after a comprehensive understanding of the inherent power of these symptoms, Farber assures the reader that attachment to selfharm can be both emotionally and biochemically altered through the development of a secure attachment. The attachment relationship can serve as a bridge to the idea of the possibility of different relationships in the real world. These early relationships were quite destructively exciting and aggressive, and sexual feelings become mixed together in potentially destructive ways. Farber explains that the aim of therapy can be to transform harmful bodily enactments by building in patients a capacity to reflect upon their experience and make a symbolic leap from the body to the mind.

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Treatment addresses this pathological split between mind and body. In promoting this, Farber again emphasizes the necessity for the therapist to recognize the meaning of this behavior and the understanding that patients do what they do, no matter how hurtful, to feel better. To begin to change this course of action, the therapist needs to moderate each patient‘s harsh judgments about the self. For example, the patient might feel disgust at feeling turned on by the self-harming behavior. The tendency to have harsh attitudes toward these regressive episodes will need to be challenged, and it is an important step for the patient to develop empathy toward herself. If the therapist can explore all of this in a nonjudgmental fashion and begin to look at the connection to the past, the patient‘s harsh attitude might be modified. Helping the patient link present behavior with repressed or dissociated feelings can not only aid in awareness of the full meaning of the behavior, but also increase awareness of feelings and the ability to put emotions into words rather than express them through enactments. Furthermore, Farber points out that the therapist‘s attitude of strength, vitality, and humor is needed in order to tolerate the patient‘s aggression (and seductiveness), and to resist either rescuing the patient (who might demand to be rescued), or getting pulled into retaliating during dramatic enactments that might occur. If the therapist can recognize and reflect on what has occurred, enactments that generate from the patient‘s intense sadomasochistic relationship style developed in the past can be a positive and useful force that involves a corrective experience for the patient. In the process of recognizing and reflecting, the therapist must be able to contain powerful affects, listening to her own inner states and taking responsibility for her own feelings. Farber does an excellent job illustrating, with her own case material, how the therapist might handle all of these highly charged situations. She also suggests the need for taking on a body ―caring‖ role in focusing on how the patient abuses or neglects the body. This focus can become a corrective experience for the patient while it also might lessen body alienation. Farber returns to concentrating on the adaptive role of the behavior. She suggests that the therapist might question, ―What does the self-harm do for you? How does it help you?‖ Themes of victimization and narcissistic entitlement, as well as boundary violations, might be played out by the patient with the therapist in treatment sessions. I particularly feel that Farber‘s discussion on a patient‘s sense of specialness and entitlement is quite helpful for therapists. For example, she wisely suggests that patients might need to look at how getting others to do what she wants might not always be to her advantage. Farber encourages the therapist to use supervision or peer-group support, as well as to work collaboratively with other professionals, such as medical doctors, for the therapist‘s benefit as well as the patient‘s. In addition to a psychodynamic focus, it is important for the patient to be armed with a variety of coping mechanisms—i.e., cognitive-behavioral strategies for tolerating impulses to self-harm and to better manage the dysphonic affect associated with the impulse. Having these skills will lead to a patient‘s feeling more in control of her impulses. Farber has given those of us who work in the cult field a scholarly and clinically informative work about our patients who suffer and affect us in powerful ways. Many of our patients who are former cult members enter treatment and don‘t initially reveal self-harming behaviors, either because of discomfort and shame or because these behaviors are habitual and dissociated. However, in time, patients often begin to share their secrets with us. Farber‘s book not only contributes directly to our understanding of self-harm, but also indirectly increases our understanding and management of potentially harmful symptoms

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that patients might defend against through action and that might elicit strong emotions in ourselves. Lorna Goldberg, M.S.W., L.C.S.W.

Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist’s Wife Irene Spencer, Hatchett Book Groups/Center Street, New York, 2007. ISBN-13: 9781599957197 (hardcover). $24.99. 400 pages. Escape Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer, Broadway Books, New York, 2007. ISBN-10: 0767927575; ISBN-13: 978-0767927574 (paperback). $14.95 ($10.17 Amazon.com). 448 pages. Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs Elissa Wall with Lisa Pulitzer. HarperCollins (William Morrow Imprint), New York, 2008. ISBN-10: 0061628018; ISBN-13: 978-0739496343 (hardcover). $25.95 ($17.13, Amazon.com). 448 pages. Books by Elissa Wall and Carolyn Jessop, born and raised in the polygamous Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS), tell gripping though very different tales of their lives, first as children, then as unwilling wives in the isolated, tightly controlled sect, who eventually managed to leave. Irene Spencer, a generation older, describes life in the polygamous Colonia LeBaron group, a less-tightly-controlled polygamous community. Her involvement was entirely voluntary, and the pains and hardships she experienced seem almost inevitable concomitants of a polygamous relationship. Irene, author of Shattered Dreams, was born in 1937, the 4th of 6 children born to her mother and the 13th of 31 children of her father, a fireman in the Salt Lake City area. Irene was early indoctrinated into the practice of polygamy with its promise of future glory for those who hold fast to ―The Principle,‖ as it is called. She early learned that asking questions showed ―disrespect‖ and ―lack of faith,‖ and also that her family‘s adherence to The Principle was a secret. It was a secret difficult for a child to keep, as shown by her amusing tale of three 5-year-olds marching together into public kindergarten and explaining to the teacher that, although they all had the same last name, the same address, and the same father, they were not triplets and had different birthdays and different mothers. Irene‘s childhood was marked by poverty. Her father, struggling to support his large family on a fireman‘s income, developed a severe drinking problem; and when Irene was 5 years old, her mother left, taking her children with her. Years of living on welfare ensued. When Irene was 12, her mother embarked on a homesteading venture and shortly thereafter married again, an abusive monogamist whom Irene disliked. She coped with the situation in part by long visits to her Aunt Rhea, her mother‘s half-sister and her father‘s first wife. Aunt Rhea had also left her husband but remained a committed polygamist. She lived in Hurricane, Utah, a small town not far from the FLDS center, then known as Short Creek (now Hildale-Colorado City). Aunt Rhea often took the family to Short Creek, where young Irene experienced the liberating feeling of being among her own kind, no longer having to conceal her core beliefs. Among the teenaged girls in Short Creek, marriage was a hot topic. Girls were selected for marriage by men who received word from God that a particular girl was to be ―sealed‖ to him. This caused confusion about some of the more attractive girls, as several different men might get the same word from God about the same girl. This eventually led to the Prophet‘s decision that only marriages revealed by God to him were acceptable. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 57

Irene‘s mother tried to discourage her daughter from entering into polygamy. But the teenager, although powerfully attracted to a monogamous young man whom her mother supported, opted instead to marry 23-year-old Verlan LeBaron, who was already married to her half-sister Charlotte. Irene was attracted to Verlan and eager for the match. The LeBarons claimed to be ―spiritual direct descendants‖ of Joseph Smith, giving the name a certain cache, even though the family was also known for mental instability. Indeed, Verlan was a brother of the notorious Ervil LeBaron, who eventually murdered, among others, his brother Joel and Irene‘s uncle, Rulon Allred. Ervil‘s murderous career is described in Jon Krakauer‘s Under the Banner of Heaven. Not only because the marriage was polygamous, but also because Irene‘s mother would have prevented it had she known, the ceremony was secret and surreptitious, achieved with the connivance of her Uncle Rulon. Shortly thereafter, an eager, committed 16-year-old got on the bus to Mexico in 1953, where the LeBarons had started a colony, and where she would commence 28 years of hardship, bearing and raising 13 children in conditions of physical and emotional deprivation that made her earlier life seem almost comfortable. The author describes complexities of her polygamous life openly and frankly: the lack of sexual and emotional intimacy; the constant scrounging for food, clothing, and other necessities; the frequent moves within Mexico and elsewhere in search of economic sustenance; and the complex relationships—the jealousy, competition, but also friendship, and support—among her husband‘s ever-increasing collection of wives. Verlan was not physically abusive. It was the overwhelming string of broken promises, mainly about relationships with other women, combined with the exhausting task of providing for her own and, at times, other wives‘ children, that drove Irene to leave. The parting was prolonged: a 5-month stay with a sister‘s family, then an attempt at reconciliation that included a trip to Europe (and where did Verlan get the money for that?), and 3 years ―out in the world,‖ followed by another year back with the group in Mexico. The story ends with Verlan‘s untimely death in an automobile accident. The reader is left without details about Irene‘s final transition to the outside. Irene Spencer‘s experience, grim as it was, pales beside the outright tyranny the two younger authors endured. Carolyn Blackmore Jessop, author of Escape, was born a generation later, in 1968, and, except for one early year in Salt Lake City, raised in the Hildale-Colorado City enclave that straddles the border between Utah and Arizona. While Carolyn‘s parents were descended from a long line of polygamists, they were monogamous for much of her early childhood. Although she was favored by her often-absent father, Carolyn describes frequent spankings and beatings by her severely depressed mother, given in the name of love, and viewed by the community as ―good discipline.‖ There were also good things—quilting parties, games, and friends, and a powerful message from her grandmother: FLDS members were of the elite few who, by practicing plural marriage, could win their way into Heaven. Supplementing this teaching were the children‘s own games that reflected the coming apocalypse and the evil ways of all outsiders. Carolyn attended the local public school, which was staffed and run by FLDS members as its own indoctrination center, and where teachers employed physical violence (occasionally at sickening levels) against the students, under supervision of a principal who was close to and protected by ―Uncle Roy‖ (Leroy Johnson), the prophet. When she was about 10 years old, Carolyn‘s father took a second wife, her cousin Rosie. A nurse, Rosie was better educated than most FLDS women. She worked in a nearby town and often took young Carolyn with her to take care of her infant daughter. Rosie‘s job contrasted powerfully with the factory work of most FLDS members and Carolyn was strongly impressed with the value of education. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 58

During Carolyn‘s early teen years, she began to feel the group‘s constraints. She struggled mightily to continue her education after the eighth grade, and contact with boys her own age was strictly limited. The first great turning point of her life came when her older sister, Linda, reached age 18—at that time the age of eligibility for girls to marry—and fled from Colorado City to avoid marriage with a much older man, disgracing the entire family and, in the eyes of the believers, consigning herself to Hell. Hunted and harassed by her father and other members of the group, Linda eventually was so worn down that she consented to a marriage with a different, younger man she knew but did not want to marry, on condition that she would not have to return to Colorado City. Even though Linda‘s ―apostate‖ status was then revoked, she remained cut off from her family and trapped in an unwanted marriage. From this Carolyn learned that ―escape was not the answer…. if I tried, I‘d be hunted down and then forced into a situation that guaranteed misery and unhappiness‖ (p. 60). Through luck and diligence, Carolyn not only graduated from high school, but also was able to fit in a year of community college before she turned 18. But her luck turned when ―Uncle Roy,‖ the prophet, decreed that she should marry Merril Jessop, a 50-year-old crony of his. After the distressing experience with Linda, the family was taking no chances of another humiliation. On very short notice, and under close guard against escape, Carolyn became the fourth wife of a man who was so indifferent to her that he did not address a single remark to her before the wedding. Merril Jessop‘s household was dominated by his jealous, tyrannical second wife, Barbara. Carolyn quickly learned that life there turned on the ability to intrigue and manipulate. She contrived to get Merril to send her to college, in large part because her absence would please Barbara. He also sent one of his daughters (a contemporary of Carolyn‘s) along with her as a monitor/spy. In November, 1986, Uncle Roy died and was succeeded by the elderly Rulon Jeffs. Merril‘s power within the group increased as he allied himself first with Rulon, and then with Warren, Rulon‘s son and eventual successor. (In 2008, Merril Jessop was in charge of the YFZ ranch in Texas when child-welfare authorities raided it.) Along with the increase in power came an increase in wives and children, with a predictable increase in household intrigues, manipulation, and disorder. Carolyn bore 8 children in a series of difficult pregnancies, coping not only with raising the children and holding her own in the complex home environment, but also with assisting Merril to run his various businesses. Having married her as part of a business proposition, Merril‘s attitude toward Carolyn gradually changed from indifference to hostility. However, the precipitating factor in her departure was the serious illness of a small child. Carolyn began to compare the care and support given by the supposedly evil outsiders at the hospital where she took the child for treatment with the blame accorded by her husband and other FLDS members, who objected to the child‘s receiving medical treatment on the grounds that her own sins were the cause of his illness. The reader is awestruck by the determination and courage of this mother, who desired nothing more than to get away, but who would not leave her children behind. She tells a gripping tale of how she planned her escape and eventually fled in the middle of the night in a car with just about enough gas to get to the nearest town, and with 8 children, one of whom required an oxygen mask, and several of whom were convinced that, as one of them put it, ―Mommy is taking us to Hell.‖ When Carolyn managed to get an appointment with Mark Shurtleff, Utah‘s Attorney General, her story became the catalyst for long-delayed state action to investigate the FLDS and initiate attempts to protect members in need of help.

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In Stolen Innocence, Elissa Wall both fills out and carries forward the grim narrative of Warren Jeffs‘ career. The 11th of her mother‘s 14 children, Elissa is about 18 years younger than Carolyn. During her early years, Elissa lived near Salt Lake City, in an environment in which secrecy about polygamy was required. Her father, a geologist and businessman, earned enough to provide a pleasant home for his large, but contentious family. The children attended Alta Academy, a private school for FLDS members, whose principal was Warren Jeffs, Rulon‘s son. Unlike Carolyn‘s parents, with their four-generation history of polygamy, Elissa‘s father and his first wife joined the FLDS as married adults. However, Elissa‘s mother, her father‘s second wife, came from an old-line polygamous family. The tension between the two wives, their 19 children, and later a third wife, was extreme, due not only to personality differences and rivalry for their husband‘s attention, but also to their differing backgrounds and perspectives. Elissa was 10 years old when the controversy first boiled over, resulting in the expulsion of her oldest full brother, Craig, aged 18. Under orders from Prophet Rulon Jeffs, Elissa‘s mother dutifully drove her son to a highway at the edge of town and dropped him there. Elissa‘s mother and an older sister, Rachel, who was married to Prophet Rulon Jeffs, had discussed the family difficulties with Rulon and Warren. The family strife did not abate, as Elissa‘s younger brothers also began to ask challenging questions. The upshot was a ruling that the father could not properly control his family. Elissa‘s mother and her children were summarily removed from his care and sent to live with a family member in a distant rural area; the children had no chance even to tell their father good-bye. More than a year went by before the family was again reunited. The family disintegration continued as younger children followed their brother Craig‘s example of questioning, even disobeying, their father‘s increasingly strict edicts. Five more of Elissa‘s older siblings were punished one way or another before the situation spiraled into a crisis that led to a second, permanent separation of wife and children from the father who could not keep them steady in the faith. Elissa‘s mother and the 5 children still with her, including 12-year-old Elissa, were placed in Hildale at ―Uncle‖ Fred Jessop‘s house. Elissa‘s mother was ―removed‖ from her father and given to Uncle Fred. Stolen Innocence describes the rise of Warren Jeffs in detail, starting with the author‘s personal encounters with him during her elementary school years; continuing with his ascension to complete power over his aged, ailing father; and finally including the crafty stages by which, after Rulon‘s death, he extended and increased his control, which ranged from elimination of TV watching to destruction of all books not approved by the leadership, to encouragement of family members to spy on one another and report violations to the prophet. Elissa also details the sect‘s preparation for the coming of Doomsday (at the turn of the century) and its response to the nonarrival of the promised Doomsday. Like Carolyn, Elissa entered into a forced marriage, but of a different sort. She was underage—only 14—when she was forced into marriage with a young cousin who had treated her cruelly when she was small, and whom she despised. Repeatedly raped by her husband during the marriage, Elissa experienced a string of difficult pregnancies without medical care, all ending in painful miscarriages. Desperate to prevent further disastrous pregnancies, she effected a separation by staying away from home and sleeping in a truck. Alienated from the group by its destructive role in her family during her childhood, hating her marriage, unpersuaded of the validity of the doctrine, and encouraged to leave during visits to the siblings who had already left, Elissa nevertheless stayed on, reluctant to desert her needy mother and two younger sisters. She did not actually depart until she fell in love with and became pregnant by another man, also a disaffected member of the group. Once this situation became known, she was forbidden to see her mother and, her sole reason for Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 60

staying removed, she was able to leave. Ironically, she soon learned that her previous miscarriages were to the result of her Rh negative blood type, a condition that would have been routinely dealt with had she been provided appropriate medical care. The heart of Stolen Innocence is the narrative of Elissa‘s decision to testify against Warren Jeffs at his 2007 trial, and the events leading to his eventual conviction on charges of accomplice to rape. The process by which she reached that decision, the pressures on her and her family to prevent her from testifying, the support from the government attorneys to counter that pressure, and much of the actual trial proceedings are set forth in gripping detail. One can only imagine the courage it took for her to take the stand, to reveal and subject to cross-examination intimate details of her life, and to maintain her composure in the face of the united hostility of those she had lived among most of her life. One could enjoy all these books for their stories alone, gripping narratives of hardship and courage culminating in events that effectively raised the curtain on the secret world of the FLDS. But for the student of cults and cult involvement, there is much more. All three authors convey the stunning power of belief. Why did Irene Spencer stay in a marriage that required her over and over to welcome additional wives whose presence deprived her even more of the emotional and physical intimacy she craved? What brings a mother to abandon an 18 year-old son by the roadside? Or a child to struggle, as Carolyn Jessop‘s daughter did, to return to a life of constriction, stigmatized by her mother‘s apostasy? But we also see that even in a high-demand, tightly controlled group, life has pleasures and joys, whether annual celebrations in Hildale-Colorado City, teenagers sneaking out of lectures to socialize clandestinely, family picnics, or even the gathering of pine nuts in the Sierras. While Irene Spencer in the 1960s and ‗70s experienced many evils as a polygamous wife, Carolyn Jessop and Elissa Wall a generation later lived under far tighter control. From the perspective of Warren Jeffs‘ reign, Carolyn Jessop looks back with nostalgia to the benevolent rule of ―Uncle Roy‖; yet it was during Uncle Roy‘s reign that she experienced serious physical abuse and the forced marriages of both her sister and herself. Elissa Wall describes Warren Jeffs‘ impact, first on her school in the Salt Lake City area, then on the entire community, as his power grew. One can see how much a totalist organization is subject to the personality of the leader, and how much can change on short notice. Members might find themselves in a system vastly different from the one they entered, yet they accept change because refusal would bring dire consequences. For all three women, contact with the outside world, and the growing conviction that this world was not really populated by evil people, was key to their decision to leave, while family ties anchored them to the group. Irene talks about the kindness of people in the European countries she visited with her husband during a reconciliation attempt. Carolyn noted not only the kind treatment she received at the local hospital, but also other kindnesses she experienced while managing a motel for her husband. Elissa made long visits to siblings who had left. Her ingenuity in getting permission to visit them for stays of several weeks was considerable; but, despite her enjoyment, she found it impossible to abandon her mother and sisters. Neither Irene nor Carolyn would leave children behind. For all, these emotional ties kept them in the group long after they became disillusioned with its beliefs and practices. All three struggled mightily after leaving. Carolyn found the available services—housing, health care for her children, and protection—miserably inadequate for her large family; and despite her efforts to convince them, not all her children would stay out. Elissa, supported

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throughout by a loving companion, had fewer practical problems, but relates in touching detail the powerfully symbolic act of cutting her hair. Although finding it more difficult to slough off the theological burden, Irene‘s description of her attempts to re-integrate into mainstream society echoes these themes: I felt like a zoo animal let loose in the wild. I had no job skills, so we lived off welfare. ... Everything was different. The variety among the people and the ideas I encountered was … a huge shift from my prior life, in which everyone thought and acted the same way … And then there was my constant doubt and guilt over the choices I made to leave Verlan and the church. The cultural adjustment was even harder for her children, who had never lived ―outside.‖ Irene—explaining to a school psychologist that the child in question was not retarded, but simply had never seen a baseball mitt, a fire hydrant, or even a light bulb, and in fact had never seen a single one of the items pictured in a test he had flunked—eloquently conveys this struggle. Perhaps the most salient message of these books is the variety of ways life can impose misery in a totalitarian group, and the valor and resiliency that can overcome a lifetime of indoctrination. Livia Bardin, M.S.W.

What Orwell Didn’t Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics Edited by András Szántó, PublicAffairs (250 West 57th St, Suite 1321, NY, NY 10107). 2007. ISBN—10: 1-58648-560-1; ISBN—13: 978-1-58648-560-3 (paperback), $14.95 ($10.17, Amazon.com). 272 pages Publication of this collection of essays by twenty writers coincided with a symposium at Columbia University in New York to honor the sixtieth anniversary of Orwell‘s essay ―Politics and the English Language.‖ George Orwell (pen name for Eric Arthur Blair, 1903–1950) wrote his classic commentary on misuse of language in 1946, three years before he published his apocalyptic novel 1984 (or Nineteen Eighty-Four). The novel reflects Orwell‘s prognosis that language as propaganda can augment a social dystopia or totalitarian regime. Orwell argues that language should reflect reality as directly as possible. ―Politics and the English Language‖ is reproduced in full in the appendix of this volume. The editor, András Szántó, who resides in New York, is a writer and consultant to philanthropic organizations. He is also a freelance journalist. Most of the essays in this anthology reflect on our current state of politics, and that includes criticizing the Bush administration and its handling of the war in Iraq. The book project began when the deans of five prominent journalism schools commiserated about the sad state of political language and how rapidly it seemed to be disconnecting from reality. Despite the book‘s overall leftist lean (Orwell, a socialist, should have been pleased with that), a few essayists strike notes that cut left and right through political jargon. As Szántó notes, ―It goes without saying that politicians have always taken liberties with the truth‖ (p. x). However, Szántó already overlooks two Orwell rules (1 and 3) for writers here: ―It goes without saying that‖ is better stated as ―Invariably‖ or ―Notoriously.‖ Before I go on, let us look at Orwell‘s six rules for writers, from his essay: 1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

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2. Never use a long word where a short one will do. 3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. 4. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. 5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. 6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Now I feel better because I can make this review simply to the point. Of course, I am being facetious, or should I say coy? These are not simple rules to follow without professional discipline. I will try. Orwell‘s rules might be decent guidelines for editing, but they are also a death knell for totalitarian propaganda. As Robert J. Lifton stated, ―Totalist language then, is repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon, prematurely abstract, highly categorical, relentlessly judging, and to anyone but its most devoted advocate, deadly dull: in Lionel Trilling's phrase, ‗the language of nonthought‘‖ (see Lifton, 1961, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, chapter 22: Loading the Language). Several of the essayists refer to Lifton. Orwell‘s rules indicate the power of language to inform and enlighten, and to confuse and deceive. With that in mind, allow me to comment on the essays. The introduction is by Orville Schell, a journalist who authored twelve books. He currently is director of the Asia Society‘s Center on China-U.S. relations. Schell argues that manipulative language has evolved since the 19th century with the advent of a deeper understanding of the human psyche and the effects of communication technology. He believes that several evolutionary breakthroughs led to a level of ―efficaciousness‖ in propaganda today that would astound Orwell. The first step came about when Chinese Communists imbued Stalinist propaganda with Chinese characteristics, thus creating ―Mao Zedong Thought.‖ The second step married old-style politics with Freudian insights about what triggers human response. Not surprisingly, Sigmund Freud‘s nephew, Edward Bernays, developed new psychological mechanisms to induce people to buy more consumer goods by tapping desires and overriding needs. Bernays is ―the father of public relations‖ who developed mass persuasion ideas for advertising. The last evolutionary step came on the new wave of electronic technology and the Internet. Schell finishes his discussion with brainwashing in China that combines Confucian tradition of self-cultivation and obligation to community with a Maoist worldview. He cites Robert Lifton and writer Milan Kundera as particularly observant of how this all works. In the end, Schell states, ―…propaganda‘s evolution has hardly run its course.‖ Part One, Language and Politics, begins with ―Orwell Then and Now‖ by David Rieff, who is a contributing writer to The New York Times and author of eight books. Rieff discusses the fates of successful writers, most of whom fade into obscurity shortly after they die, if not before. Orwell struck a chord that still rings loud in our political arenas. Nearly everyone with an education understands what Orwellian indicates. Rieff compares and contrasts Orwell with Simone Weil: ―Both Weil and Orwell were ‗judgers‘… Their standards were high and their opinions severe.‖ Rieff sees a writer‘s influence ‗evolving‘ over time. Orwell, clearly a man of the left, is today claimed by both sides of the political debate. Opponents of the George Bush regime describe it as a propaganda machine that uses ―Newspeak,‖ whereas proponents see Bush with Orwell, fighting totalitarianism. Neither side has a right to claim Orwell, Rieff says. To attempt it is a ―vulgar quest … We haven‘t a clue what Orwell would have thought or what side he would have taken.‖ Nicholas Lemann is dean of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a staff writer for The New Yorker. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 63

In ―The Limits of Language,‖ he points out that Orwell‘s ―particular targets were intellectuals of the left‖ (and ―not the state,‖ as we might guess) who use ―fancy, pretentious and imprecise language.‖ However, today‘s propaganda is usually well-written and not with the clumsy language that Orwell noted in referring to the propagandists of his day. In a way, Orwell‘s proposition that precise language will reduce totalitarian power is wrong. Lemann cites a Bush speech post-9/11 that was precise and used common speech, or ―the words of everyday life,‖ that now presents as ―Orwellian‖ only in hindsight. When it was first presented, almost no one saw the Bush speech that way. Lemann is concerned or frightened less over the implications of corruption of language than he is about the corruption of information and how it is gathered. Weapons of mass destruction are a serious matter if they exist. Mark Danner, currently a professor at Bard and U.C. Berkeley, has authored several books on the Middle East. He argues that the Bush/Cheney team created a ―virtual war [that] begets real war‖ with vague propaganda such as ―War on Terror.‖ Danner quotes Orwell: ―From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned.‖ He implies that our administration is practicing a totalitarian approach to history as illustrated in Orwell‘s 1984. In that novel, the super states of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia are in a perpetual world war designed to better control their minions through fear. Danner ends his discussion with memories of a poignant visit he made to Baghdad more than a year ago. Real people are suffering, some collecting body parts of relatives for burial. An American soldier he interviewed—dead the following week. These are the real actors in history, not people ―creating their own reality,‖ as high-level politicos do. A columnist for The Nation and Professor of Law at Columbia, Patricia Williams states, ―…Orwell would have had no trouble cutting through the cowpokey folksiness and spewed malapropisms of President George W. Bush.‖ She proposes a list of rules Orwell might apply today, and then uses the list to skewer Bush‘s fundamentalist backers and the ―Fox-andfear driven media.‖ I had fun reading this essay despite its over-the-top, near stereotypical language. I surmise that Orwell would have cringed at this essay‘s title: ―An Egregious Collocation of Vocables.‖ The aptly named Francine Prose, the author of eleven novels and teacher at Bard, laments the ―sad‖ state of reading ability among students today compared to Orwell‘s day—sixty years ago. She takes ―Bush-Cheney‖ to task for getting us into Iraq with an abuse of language, using freedom, patriotism, and liberty with false meaning. ―Clarity of thought and attention to linguistic nuance are essential tools in subverting propaganda.‖ Prose marvels at how much Orwell can still teach us. Part Two of the collection covers Symbols and Battlegrounds and begins with George Lakoff‘s ―What Orwell Didn‘t Know About the Brain, the Mind, and Language.‖ Lakoff is a professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at U.C. Berkeley whose new book The Political Mind is due in 2008. Lakoff‘s is my favorite essay in the entire anthology because his view requires a scientific orientation to the brain function that was not available to Orwell, and he offers a foundation for critiquing all the other essays. We are all bound to biases ingrained in our brains, whether we profess progressive or conservative views. Brain change will occur over time as we absorb repeated slogans and images—―Uneraseable brain change,‖ says Lakoff. We can counter this process, but only with effort—we have to stop and think, and that can hurt. Conservatives, for example, mounted an attack on ―liberal,‖ which was a positive idea that flourished in the 1960s. They succeeded to demonize liberal to the point that even Democrats have been scrambling for decades to restructure their ideas without using liberal. Lakoff mentions that a reverse strategy is occurring with a smart effort by new Democrat candidates to reframe ―conservative‖ with notions such as ―Conservatives cannot be trusted to guide the government they scorn … they get the world wrong.‖ Of course, this Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 64

refers to the symbol of conservative in a president who appears clumsy and pedestrian when addressing other worldviews; thus, the inept initial handling of the war in Iraq. Lakoff points to Al Gore‘s successful campaign and film about global warming as a good example of the proper use of ―real mechanisms of mind … to tell important truths.‖ Gore‘s film producers used a host of influence techniques, including personal narratives, emotions, images, and worldviews to get the point across. If they had merely stuck to the facts, the project would have flopped. Drew Weston is a psychologist and a professor at Emory with a particular focus on politics as a consultant with Western Strategies. He believes Orwell got the title of his novel wrong by two decades: 2004 marked a several-year period that was ―the most Orwellian of American democracy.‖ Weston lists typical criticisms of the Bush administration‘s positions on education, the environment, and waging ―perpetual‖ war. He believes that Orwell would have recognized ―No Child Left Behind‖ and ―Clear Skies Initiative‖ as Newspeak. He might have been surprised at how well television images and Internet propaganda have increased manipulation of the public even in a democracy. He argues that Reagan was able to defeat Carter largely through ―masterfully crafted‖ patriotic media adverts. Weston notes offensive manipulation of Barack Obama‘s image by the ―right‖ that has associated Obama with Muslims and Blackness. Weston suggests we combat 21 st century Newspeak by exposing it as it happens. Alice O‘Connor writes in ―Bad Knowledge‖ that the ―‗faith-based‘ administration‖ and the ―right-wing‖ establishment battered ―evidence-based knowledge‖ with their propaganda for war and misreading of evidence for global warming and stem-cell research. Her critique is not entirely partisan. The left also contributes to bad knowledge with its ―technocratic think tanks‖ that pretend to an aura of neutrality as well as gravity. O‘Connor refers to the conservative reaction to the ―culture wars … in the 1970s and 1980s‖ against an increasingly permissive and ―liberal‖ activism as one factor that contributes to our present state of political obfuscation. O‘Connor teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her latest book is Social Science for What? (2007). Frances FitzGerald, author of several books and frequent contributor to The New Yorker (I recall her excellent 1986 New Yorker articles on the Rajneesh cult), follows the progression of U.S. defense policy from the Cold War years. In 1983 President Reagan announced plans for a Strategic Defense Initiative, or ―star wars‖; thus, FitzGerald‘s essay ―Stellar Spin.‖ Although there was never a viable technology to prevent enemy ballistic missiles from entering the United States, administrators continued to make policy as if they had something. ―The U.S. National Missile Defense program is a case study in just what George Orwell warned us about: rhetoric over reality.‖ Konstanty Gebert, a former Solidarity activist in Poland, is a columnist and reporter for Gazeta Wyborcza and visiting professor at universities in America. He writes in ―Black and White, or Gray: A Polish Conundrum‖ that Orwell may have been naïve to think that democracy with its ―freedoms‖ of speech would be an antidote to the Newspeak of totalitarian regimes. In Gebert‘s native Poland, the current regime of Chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski, with his twin brother Lech as president, created a coalition under their Law and Justice Party with the smaller Self-Defense (leftist and led by a former Communist) and the extreme right-wing League of Polish Families parties. Gebert argues that this posttotalitarian democracy has maneuvered into becoming a version of a ―post-Communist monster‖ that it opposes. The coalition has done this by manipulating the ―silent majority‖ of Poland to believe that it was both rooting out old Communist influences and relieving the guilt of those who supported Communism. In effect, Kaczynski has been suppressing media criticism of his alliance by using neo-Orwellian Newspeak.

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Susan Harding teaches anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and has written a book critical of Reverend Jerry Falwell; thus, her essay ―After the Falwellians.‖ Harding follows Lakoff above in pointing out that conservatives have undermined liberal agendas by reframing political language and burdening the liberal with creating a relativistic and immoral society. She takes the Falwellians to task for constricting the discussion about the secularization of society, but predicts that their challenge might lead to the emergence of a new social soul. The signs are among evangelicals who support environmental care and good science. She sees Al Gore‘s An Inconvenient Truth as an example of a ―jeremiad‖ and a leftist adaptation of a faith-based style. She notes that Orwell would have agreed with Falwellians that the revolt against religion caused the ―amputation of the soul‖ in modern society; however, Orwell defined soul as ―the belief in human brotherhood.‖ Part Three covers Media and Message and begins with Martin Kaplan‘s ―Welcome to the Infotainment Freak Show.‖ Kaplan was a campaign manager and chief speechwriter for Vice President Walter Mondale. He earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and he holds the Norman Lear Chair in Entertainment, Media, and Society at the USC Annenberg School. Kaplan writes that it is not so much Orwell‘s 1984 world that should worry us, but rather, Aldous Huxley‘s Brave New World, which describes a society on the drug ―Soma.‖ We are in ―immanent danger of amusing ourselves to death.‖ In our media-driven lives, everything has to be entertaining—politics, sports, news, commerce, health care, self-image, law—or we will merely ignore it. Informing an audience is less important than having an audience. A postmodern consciousness or ―pomo‖ of subjectivism has trumped the robustness of science and real journalism. Perhaps there is an antidote via the Internet, but Kaplan warns, ―[o]n the Internet, no one knows if you are Big Brother.‖ Victor Navasky asks ―What About Big Media?‖ in his essay that discusses the changes in postal rates that now advantage the largest media corporations such as Time-Warner while all small publishers must pay much higher rates. The founding fathers of our nation wanted free fare for posted opinion magazines, to better inform the public and thus keep the citizen as free as possible. Since the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the USPS demands that ―each class of mail must pay its own way.‖ That Act was implemented in 1984, ironically. In 2007, after a decade of lobbying, Time-Warner convinced the USPS (a monopoly) ―that in the name of ‗efficiency‘ it ought to adopt an Orwellian plan whereby the smaller the magazine, the higher the postal rates.‖ Navasky reports that this newsworthy reversal of public policy ―received little or no coverage in the conglomerated, mainstream media.‖ The number of Big Media companies is now in the single digits. Navasky asks, ―Whatever happened to antitrust?‖ He doubts the Internet‘s ―unfact-checked blogosphere‖ will have any effect because studies show that any blog longer than 1,000 words is discouraged; thus, it is no substitute for the journal of opinion that flowed more freely through the snailmail system in the past. Geoffrey Cowan formerly directed Voice of America and is a professor at University of Southern California. His essay ―Reporters and Rhetoric‖ discusses rhetoric deployed by the administration in recent events in Iraq. For example, there was a political debate over media reports of the so-called ―surge‖ of troops in Iraq that Democrats called ―escalation.‖ Also, the government resisted all media efforts, led by NBC-TV, to declare that ―civil war‖ had broken out in Iraq. Fox TV commentator Bill O‘Reilly insisted it was ―out-of-control chaos, not civil war.‖ Noting Orwell‘s admonition, Cowan urges that we continue to ―struggle against the abuse of language.‖ In ―Lessons from the War Zone,‖ Farnaz Fassihi, an Iranian American born in the United States of America, discusses ethics and dilemmas of journalists. She worked as a journalist post-9/11 in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Fassihi ponders the role of a journalist who hears of an impending attack on U.S. troops. Does she have a duty to inform the troops, thus augmenting the news, or does she remain neutral to just report events? If a journalist Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 66

challenges the official version of events, is he or she siding with the enemy? The truth is that war is very ugly—how much of that reality does one need to report, or can one report something that offends the purpose of the administration? Fassihi cites actual cases to illustrate these dilemmas. She concludes that journalists, following Orwell‘s rules, need to be as truthful as possible. Michael Massing is a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review and the author of Now They tell Us, about the American press in Iraq. In ―Our Own Thought Police,‖ he notes how both the mass media and the public ―filter‖ what they want to hear and see about the war, thus sanitizing the most gruesome aspects and behaviors of soldiers. Although Massing does not mention this, I was reminded of what T.S. Elliot wrote: Human kind cannot stand very much reality. Although American soldiers have reached out to Iraqis in outstanding acts of charity, Massing mentions a number of books and articles by soldiers that give a truly ―un-sanitized‖ look at the horror of the Iraq war. The Epilogue is by George Soros, who offers his thoughts on an ―Open Society Reconsidered.‖ Soros is no friend of current ―conservative‖ administration, but he does argue that ―both Democrats and Republicans engage in deliberate deception‖ even if the radical right has more money to spend and is therefore more effective at it. I have not done justice to this collection in my brief sketches. Whether I agreed with a writer or not, upon a second reading I found the anthology even more worthwhile. Orwell struck a deep chord for good, honest journalism that he believed was necessary for human freedom. Times have changed but the need for good journalism has not. Joseph P. Szimhart

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New Summaries Details on these and other news reports are available in the ICSA E-Library.

Ria Ramkissoon, also known as Princess Marie, and three other members the very small 1 Mind Ministries, including supposed leader Toni Ellsberry, also known as Queen Antionette, have been charged with murder in the starvation death of Ramkissoon‘s 15month old child, found dead by authorities in a suitcase in 2007. He was punished because he allegedly refused to say ―amen‖ after meals. Ramkissoon‘s family says she shouldn‘t be held responsible because ―She had no control over that situation at all.‖ Her mother adds, ―My daughter [who is being held in a psychiatric ward] was a victim, just like my grandson. Somebody made that decision to not feed that child, and my daughter had to follow instructions. They made the rules. I don‘t think my daughter knew what she was getting into.‖ When the child died, Antionette allegedly told followers to pray, and said that God would resurrect him. Members of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam based in Silver Spring, MD, are upset by the town of Walkersville‘s rejection of their plan to build a worship center in the municipality. Mainstream Muslims worldwide, including the U.S., are hostile to the century-old Ahmadiyya, whose 70 million members believe their founder was the messiah. The sect has 40 mosques in this country, with 3,000 members in the Silver Spring establishment, and they have successfully proselytized on the East Coast. ―The mainstream community went after them and basically said: ‗Look, as long as you don‘t think that Muhammad is the last prophet, you have violated the creed of Islam . . . and you are not a Muslim,‘ ‖ says Muqtedar Khan, director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware. Mainline Muslims in the U.S. sometimes discriminate against Ahmadiyya, for example, by refusing to buy at shops run by members of the sect. Walkersville refused to rezone the 224-acre farm, on which the Ahmadiyya wanted to build not only a mosque, but a school and facilities to host 10,000 people for an annual three-day convention. Some local residents have expressed disdain for Islam and fear of Muslims. Following a September raid on his Arkansas compound by authorities pursuing a child pornography investigation, Tony Alamo said he won‘t fight extradition from Arizona to face charges that he took minors across state lines for sexual purposes. He believes that the age of consent is puberty, and that early marriage for girls is sanctioned by the Bible, although he added, ―I don‘t marry them if they want to at 14–15.‖ He has reportedly said that the raid was part of a federal effort to legalize same-sex marriage and stamp out polygamy. After 12 years, bankruptcy procedures for Aum Shinrikyo have culminated, and an estimated 1.5 billion yen are to be distributed to the group‘s victims. Although more than twice that amount is owed, attorneys believe that the split in the group means that it would be difficult to collect more money. Meanwhile, both the ruling and opposition political parties in Japan are considering a bill to financially aid the victims. Rev. Carl Stevens, founder of The Bible Speaks, who lost a $6.5 million suit brought by a follower who accused him of mind control, died in Baltimore in June at the age of 78. Following the judgment against him, Stevens left his Lenox, MA-based church — which continues, with 460 branches in 76 countries — and founded Greater Grace World Outreach, which today lists 25 affiliated churches nationwide. Michael Baldasaro and Walter Tucker, who ran the Church of the Universe, in Hamilton, Ontario, have been sentenced to jail for two years and one year respectively for selling marijuana at the church. They said God tells them to smoke it and pass joints around. The judge said they were running ―a marijuana convenience store that operates for profit like a prohibition-era speakeasy.‖ Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 68

The sexual abuse trial of Daniel Cormier, self-proclaimed minister of the now-defunct Church of Downtown Montreal, continued in April with testimony from the alleged victim‘s mother telling about his relationship with her family. Having emigrated from Nova Scotia with her two pre-school children in 1993, ending up on the street, on drugs, and prostituting herself, she says Cormier became a sort of guardian, helped get the girls out of child protection, paid the family‘s bills, took them all on vacations, once to Disney World, and spent a great deal of time with the older girl when their mother was at work. He made the girl his wife when she was 10, with the mother‘s approval, he says. Cormier asserts that his admitted sexual relationship with the now 18-year-old girl — she was nine when it began — was legal because they were — as they are still — husband and wife, and, moreover, that a spouse cannot be forced to testify against a husband or wife. ―I didn‘t see any harm in it because I trusted him,‖ said the mother. ―He was a pastor, and I never would have thought in a million years that he‘d hurt my children.‖ He says the girl ―used every trick in the book to win me over,‖ but that everything he did with her was out of love and for her benefit. ―She was very sexually aware at 8 years old. I don‘t know if she was abused before. She loved me a lot and had certain needs. I‘m convinced that what I did with her was for her and was good for her.‖ A senior Liberal Party (Australia) source has confirmed allegations made in a new book, Behind the Exclusive Brethren, that members of the Exclusive Brethren tried to offer large donations, anonymously, to help the re-election campaign last year of Prime Minister John Howard. The source said, ―What the Liberal Party stands for should not be confused in the mind of the electorate by the acceptance of donations from fringe groups.‖ Brethren members, active lobbyists who are urged on principle not to vote, took advantage of the Howard government‘s lax disclosure law to put $370,000 into a pro-Howard and anti-Green campaign in 2004. An appeal court in Montreal has refused to award damages to Falun Gong members even though it agreed that Les Presses chinoises had published defamatory statements about the group. . . Falun Gong computer experts provided software to journalists and others attending the Olympics claiming that it would get them through any firewall devised by the Chinese government to limit the flow of information from the outside world. A Texas judge on June 2 ordered authorities to return to their families hundreds of children seized in a raid late last month on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) ranch. The terms of the release are severe: parents must agree to be photographed picking up their children, allow themselves to be fingerprinted, provide identification, agree to attend ―standard parenting classes,‖ and agree not interfere with the Texas Child Protective Services‘ investigation into alleged child abuse and neglect. The parents must also agree to allow CPS workers to visit, question, and examine the children, both medically and psychologically, in their homes; provide seven days notice before any moves, and 48 hours notice of any travel over 100 miles from their homes; and promise not leave Texas with their children. Only a few FLDS members have returned to the ranch. Many, fearing more government intrusion, have gone to live elsewhere, while remaining loyal to the FLDS. Some have already found outside jobs and apartments. By August, the cases involving 150 children had been dismissed — mainly because the parents had complied with court requirements — and the Texas Supreme Court ordered the state to release them from custody, saying there was a lack of evidence that they were in danger. The cases are being dropped not because abuse never occurred, but because many children can safely live with a parent or relative — something that members and their lawyers argued early on. Authorities have widened their probe of the group, and are now investigating 20 cases of sexual assault and 50 bigamy charges against members. An FLDS lawyer said conviction on bigamy charges would be difficult because no deception was involved and the plural Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 69

marriages were consensual. It was noted that, by giving their ages and the names and ages of their children to a grand jury, and undergoing court ordered paternity tests, some of the FLDS mothers might thus contribute to the indictment of their husbands. The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled in August that that there is no religious right to practice polygamy — at least with minors — thus rejecting the claim of an FLDS member that he was entitled to have sex with a 16-year-old girl because she was his ―celestial wife.‖ The unanimous decision held that while the right to believe is absolute, the right to act on that belief is not. The appellant says he may now go to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing the recent striking down of the Texas anti-sodomy law as an argument against anti-polygamy laws, but it may be difficult to sustain that claim because the Arizona case involves a minor, while the Texas case involved adults. The Texas attorney general has indicted imprisoned FLDS leader Warren Jeffs and four followers on charges of first-degree felony sexual assault of a minor. Evidence from the raid on the FLDS compound in Eldorado included two photos of two girls, one 12 and other 13, sitting in Jeffs‘ lap and embracing and kissing him. One photo is captioned ―first anniversary,‖ the caption on the other says it‘s a ―marriage picture.‖ Utah-based private detective Sam Bower says daughters of FLDS members serve as pawns in alliances. ―If your father-in-law is prominent, this helps with business dealings — maybe you have another wife and then you have daughters that you can place with other church members. The circle goes around — the more business dealings, the more wives, the more daughters, the more business dealings, and it goes on.‖ When the Supreme Court struck down the Texas sodomy law, the state raised the age of consent from 14 to 16, and outlawed marriages between stepchildren and stepparents. These changes were modeled on a Utah law that is thought to have prompted Jeffs to move his followers to Texas. The FLDS now says it will not sanction the marriage of underage girls. Former FLDS member Carolyn Jessop says Jeffs‘ continuing hold on members is not simply religious; he is also at the center of a financial and business trust that involves them all. ―So many are networked into his crime. Husbands were kicked out; ladies knew they were safe if they were obedient. If they had lots of daughters, they got handed out to everybody — it was like a feast.‖ If a man resists the leadership, he risks losing his wife (or wives) and his home, she says. ―If a woman does [resist], her children are taken from her. The coercive power of the FLDS is immense. Right now, leaving the FLDS is like jumping off a cliff.‖ Fifty-six percent of Utahns polled in August believe that the federal government should help prosecute crimes in polygamous communities in the state, although members of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who publicly disavow polygamy, were more likely to oppose federal prosecution than non-LDS respondents. One LDS member said: ―If [polygamists] are working hard, holding down jobs, as far as I‘m concerned, we ought to leave them alone.‖ The Texas attorney general said a federal response would greatly diminish ―the possibility that persons within the FLDS who may be predisposed to commit polygamy, or other crimes, will simply move their operations to another location. The poll followed Senate Judiciary Committee hearings focused on the FLDS, at which Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid called the communities a ―form of organized crime.‖ The FLDS filed suit in Utah in August seeking to set aside a 2007 judgment awarding $8.8 to a trust, once controlled by Warren Jeffs and other FLDS trustees, which a court-appointed fiduciary found had been misused. The church says the judgment ―is now being used to destroy the FLDS Church by systematically taking away its property.‖ The fiduciary has identified, among other assets, 596 acres in Apple Valley that he says Jeffs transferred to private individuals in order to protect the property from court action. Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 70

Proliferating heavily armed gangs in the U.S., run like military units and corporations, are forging alliances among themselves, and with overseas gangs, to conduct a variety of illegal activities, including prostitution, and the drug and arms trades. Large street gangs use violence and extortion to ensure that members adhere to the gang‘s code of conduct and to prevent them from leaving. A Moscow court has found Grigory Grabovoi guilty of swindling followers and customers out of money and property ―using methods of psychological pressure‖ and sentenced him to 11 years in prison. He promised victims he would resurrect the dead, including children who died in the Beslan School terrorist attack. His wife denies he ever made such promises. A 70-year-old retired follower said, ―Once he put his name down for the presidential elections, a criminal case was immediately started against him.‖ Under pressure from the Hindu Council UK and the Hindu Forum of Britain, the Krishna Avanti School, which receives some government funding and is scheduled to open in London in the fall of 2008, has modified its admission standards to include Hindu children who do not practice the Hare Krishna variant of the religion. Zacharyah ben Ya‘aqov, head of The Truth After Knowledge, one of a number of Hebrew Israelite groups in large American cities, describes the activities of the more radical branches of the movement as ―evangelical terrorizing.‖ He says leaders in these violently anti-white groups brainwash new recruits and employ ―fear tactics to break you down.‖ An Alberta Court of Queen‘s Bench justice has, on appeal, dismissed most of the claims of Lawrence Hughes, representing himself, who argued that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses) and two of its lawyers were responsible for his teenage daughter‘s ―wrongful death.‖ He claims they misinformed her about the nature of her medical treatment. Under a protective court order, and against her will, physicians transfused her with blood to treat her ultimately fatal leukemia. ―She was under tremendous pressure [not to accept transfusions],‖ Hughes said. He initially agreed with the rest of his family in opposing transfusions, following their Jehovah‘s Witnesses faith, but broke with them when it seemed to him that the procedure might help save her life. Consequently, his wife divorced him and the Witnesses shunned him. A court in Seoul in August sentenced Jung Myung-seok, the leader of Jesus Morning Star to six years in jail for raping female followers. Former members say attractive young women were presented to Jung as ―gifts,‖ and that he forced them into sex as part of a purification ritual. The group, founded in 1980, expanded to Japan as Setsuri. Todd Bentley is a ―32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher‖ who for more than 100 days recently led a ―supernatural healing revival‖ in central Florida that drew crowds of more than 10,000 from around the world. Many of the numerous church pastors who attended believed Bentley when he said he‘s spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven and that the saint looks ―very Jewish.‖ Bentley prophesies that Joel’s Army — he is one of several independent leaders of the broad movement — will become a military force of young people with a divine mandate, at Armageddon, to physically impose Christian ―dominion‖ on non-believers. Although not violent now, Christian Right observers say, ―The pitch and intensity of the military rhetoric of this branch of the global Dominionist movement‖ — some of the pastors dress in camouflage, and are addressed by congregants as commander — ―has substantially increased since the beginning of 2008. One can only wonder how long before this transforms into real warfare with actual warriors.‖ For now, the movement‘s main strategy is to take over Pentecostal and other churches. The Assemblies of God, the world‘s largest Pentecostal denomination, is concerned about the authoritarian quality of Bentley‘s teachings.

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Many of his followers appear to be teenagers and young adults who are leaving mainline Pentecostal churches ―in search of spontaneous physical healing and a desire to be part of a mystical community marked by dancing, shouting, gyrating, speaking in tongues and other forms of ecstatic release.‖ Many are drawn by the group‘s presence on Facebook and MySpace. ―Fathers wail in tongues as their confused children look on.‖ The 2006 documentary Jesus Camp shows grade school-aged children in army fatigues at a North Dakota camp inspired by Joel‘s Army ideology brandishing swords on field maneuvers. ―A lot of people die for God and they‘re not afraid,‖ says one, and another adds: ―We‘re kinda being trained to be warriors.‖ The woman who runs the camp says that one third of the campers are under six years of age because they‘re ―more in touch with the supernatural.‖ Former members of Kingdom Center, a congregation led by pastor Christer Segerliv, in southern Sweden, say it is a cult that performs exorcisms, demands total subjugation of members, and takes children out of school to work at the group‘s cowboy-themed Lone Star park and conference center, near Malmö. Segerliv, who denies the allegations, calls himself the Sheriff of Lone Star. Roman Catholic Archbishop Edwin O‘Brien, of Baltimore, has issued a set of directives regarding the Legionaries of Christ and its lay movement, Regnum Christi, demanding an accounting from them of all personnel and activities in the archdiocese, and barring the two groups from one-on-one spiritual counseling with anyone under the age of 18. O‘Brien is concerned that the Legionaries and Regnum Christi practice ―heavily persuasive methods on young people, especially high schoolers, regarding vocations.‖ Both groups, part of the constellation of ―new movements‖ within Catholicism, are known for their missionary zeal. He directed the two organizations to inform the archdiocese of summer programs they run and provide the names of participants, as well as the names of candidates for the priesthood or religious life, so that the information can be reviewed ―with the parents and pastors of these candidates. I want to ensure that encouragement of vocations is carried out in a way that respects the rights of parents in the upbringing of their children and the rights of young persons themselves to be able to make free and fully informed decisions about their futures. ―There seems to be a tendency, in one-on-one counseling,‖ O‘Brien added, ―to say: ‗We represent God. You can tell us anything, and you better believe that what we tell you is from God, too. If your parents disagree, we know better. We‘re in the God business, and they‘re really not.‘ This is a caricature, but it‘s there.‖ O‘Brien went on, during his long interview with the National Catholic reporter, to say he believes that the problem with the Legionaries can‘t be fixed because they‘re ―so deeply ingrained. There‘s a sense of secrecy right from the seminary. The seminarians move two-by-two wherever they go. If one criticizes anything about the institution, the other one has to report it . . . All this flows into Regnum Christi as well. Nothing happens in Regnum Christi without the Legionaries.‖ William Kamm, known as Little Pebble, who claimed to be the Messiah, has lost his appeal to be released from a New South Wales prison, where he is serving a term of no less that 3.5 years following a conviction for raping and assaulting a teenager, his ―mystical wife,‖ in 1993. Michael Travesser, a former sailor, Seventh Day Adventist minister, and self-proclaimed ―Son of God,‖ is leading a group of acolytes in The Lord Our Righteousness Church in Strong City, New Mexico, and waiting for the imminent end of the world. He has sex with the women in the group — who welcome the opportunity — including his daughter-in-law, whose husband says, unconvincingly, that it‘s a great honor. Parents who‗ve left the cult try to persuade their children to follow them out, but those who do leave find it difficult to Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 72

adjust to life on the outside. The FBI is watching the group, worried about another Waco. [A Channel 4 (UK) 12 December 2007 TV program on the group includes interviews with both leader and followers.] Men‘s fraternities at many southern Nigerian universities have become violent cult-like gangs in recent years as the higher education system has stagnated and deteriorated, with inter-cult violence accounting for some 115 deaths among students and teachers between 1993 and 2003. In the 1980s and 1990s, the country‘s military leadership used the cults against leftist student unions, and politicians still employ them to intimidate opponents. Older students and alumni recruit new students to the cults at the beginning of the school year, and some students join so they can ―harass professors‖ who might fail them, says a faculty member. Cult membership is also an opening to post-graduate employment in a country where college graduates find it very difficult to find work. Bishop Michael Reid, leader of the Peneil Pentecostal Church, in Brentwood, Essex, England, has moved to his Arizona ministry after confessing to adultery. In 2002, a Brentwood city councilor called the church a dangerous cult, which resulted in church members winning damages in a libel suit. Reid, formerly a police officer and insurance salesman, was made a bishop in 1995 by the International Communion of Charismatic Churches in Nigeria. The Texas Supreme Court in June ruled that the First Amendment protected the exorcism carried out in 1996 by the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God that injured a young woman in Colleyville. A jury had found the church and its members guilty of abusing and falsely imprisoning Laura Schubert, and awarded her $300,000 for mental anguish, reduced by an appeal court to $122,000 for loss of future income. The church claimed that Schubert‘s problems did not arise from the exorcism but rather from traumatic events she witnessed while with her missionary parents, in Africa. The appeal court said that upholding the church‘s First Amendment rights did not preclude it from being held liable for mental distress triggered by a ―hyper-spiritualistic‖ environment. The Texas Supreme Court, on the other hand, said that while Schubert‘s secular injury claims might ―theoretically be tried without mentioning religion, the imposition of tort liability for engaging in religious activity to which the church members adhere would have an unconstitutional ‗chilling effect‘ by compelling the church to abandon core principles of its religious beliefs.‖ A dissenting justice said that a church now would simply have to claim a religious motive to deny a church member‘s claim against it. ―This sweeping immunity is inconsistent with United States Supreme Court precedent and extends far beyond the protections our Constitution affords religious conduct,‖ the justice wrote. ―The First Amendment guards religious liberty; it does not sanction intentional abuse in religion‘s name.‖ Katrina Fairlie, who in 1994 falsely accused her father of sexual abuse at the hands of a pedophile ring involving him and two local politicians, has received £20,000 from the British National Health Trust in an out-of-court settlement. Fairlee, who received no apology from her father, wishes the case had gone to court. Recovered memory therapy has been discredited by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Dr. Jill Mytton, of London Metropolitan University, reports her research indicates that former cult members experience fear, guilt, loss, and alienation, among other emotions, when they leave their cult communities, according to a June article in Inspire magazine (UK). ―There is very little known about the effects on children who are raised in cults and choose to leave when an adult,‖ she says. ―By continuing research in this area, we can gain a better understanding of those who leave religious cults, which will help therapists who work with them.‖ Officers of the Metropolitan Police in London and West Sussex are handing out Scientology anti-drug literature and attending community meetings hosted by Scientology to discuss the Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 73

drug problem. The literature recommends Scientology‘s Narconon drug treatment program. . . Actor Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, have founded New Village Academy, a private school, in Calabases, near Los Angeles, which will use teaching methods developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and employ some Scientologists among its faculty. Responding to sensational press reports, the Smiths said they are not Scientologists, and that they want to ―Create an educational environment in which children have fun learning.‖ An experienced private school administrator hired by the Smiths says it will be a secular school employing many methods, including Montesori, Bruner, and Gardner as well as some Scientology modes, but that it will have no Scientology content. Scientology critic David Touretsky, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, calls the program religion disguised as education. The informal coalition of individuals called ―Anonymous‖ continued in August its attacks against Scientology on the Internet and in street demonstrations. An Anonymous lawyer says the New York City police find the picketing ―fun,‖ but asserts that police in Los Angeles have infringed on the protestors‘ freedom of speech. The ten-year-old case of a 33-year-old French woman [name not given], who charges that Scientology ruined her financially through fees she was pressured to pay for its courses, has finally come to court. The judge agreed that Scientology‘s ―sole aim‖ was to ―claim her fortune‖ by ―exercising a psychological hold‖ over her. France‘s professional pharmaceutical association has also filed charges — the woman says Scientology illegally prescribed drugs it gave her. Unlike most previous cases, the charges, which allege ―organized fraud,‖ are against the church as well as certain individual members. Judicial sources believe that the main Scientology establishment in France — where it is not recognized as a religion — could be shut down if convictions are obtained. The German Department of Interior Affairs invited TV actor Jason Beghe and several other American former Scientologists to be part of a three-hour September seminar in Hamburg entitled, ―That is Scientology! Reports from the USA. The session was organized by Ursula Caberta, ―Head of Working Group, Scientology, Office for Domestic Affairs, Hamburg.‖ The Muslim Education Center of Oxford has joined other Muslim groups in Britain in opposing plans of Tablighi Jamaat (Propagators of the Faith) to build Europe‘s largest mosque adjacent to the 2012 London Olympic Games site. The Education Center believes the will mosque will become ―the headquarters for radical Wahabi sectarianism in the UK.‖ The estate of the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder and leader of Transcendental Meditation, is conservatively estimated to be worth £600 million. The guru‘s anointed successor is Lebanese former research scientist Maharaj Nader Ram (formerly Dr. Tony Nader), who said that 48 ―towers of invincibility‖ would be built in 48 countries in order to continue the Maharishi‘s teachings. Another report says that the guru‘s successor is Allahabad Maharaja Adhiraj. Hyo Jin Moon, once the heir of Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon and head of the church‘s Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles, died of a heart attack at age 45 in October, 2007. He fell from grace following a divorce from his wife in an arranged marriage. She wrote a book in which she referred to Rev. Moon as a ―false Messiah.‖ . . . Harvard educated Hyung Jin Moon, youngest son of Sun Myung Moon, took over leadership of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (Unification Church) in April at a ceremony in Seoul. Church membership is estimated to be 250,000 — with a strong presence in the U.S., South Korea, and Japan — although the church claims ten times that number. . . Sun Myung Moon spent a day in the hospital in July following the crash of his helicopter, northeast of Seoul.

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Kristen Skedgell, a former member of The Way International, has written a book about her fifteen years in the group during the 1970s and 1980s entitled Losing the Way: A Memoir of Spiritual Longing, Manipulation, Abuse, and Escape. The 200-page memoir characterizes The Way less as a Christian fundamentalist group than as a predatory cult, an organization designed to prey on the lonely and spiritually thirsty. Skedgell documents her experience, illustrating The Way‘s recruiting and maintenance methods — ―brainwashing‖ — and how the late leader Victor Paul Wierwille manipulated her into a sexual relationship. Now a Columbia University-educated social worker, Skedgell gives advice to families with members in cults.

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