Cult`s Activities
Cult activity has been on the rise over the
past few decades. With it there has
been an increase in the fear surrounding
it. From this fear, society has learned
much about cults, how they get
members and what to look out for as far as cult
recruiters go. Society as a
whole has also learned what can be done to deal with
cults. Cult activity and
the fear that surrounds it Throughout the last couple
of decades more and
more stories of illegal cult activity or murders by satanic
cults appear on
the news each night. This surge of reported cult activity has
caused a spark
in public interest. There has been a large increase in the fear
that
surrounds cults over the past couple of years. A cult is "a therapeutic
or
unconventional religious movement (McBride, 1985, 22)," and the more
cults
that fall beneath the public eye, the more serious the fear of cults
becomes.
Much of this fear has been sparked by major cult related
incidents such as mass
suicide by the People’s Temple or the murder of Sharon
Tate. These incidents,
and incidents like them, grab the nation’s attention
and create widespread
panic. But as the nation reads about these stories in
the paper, the same
questions seem to surface. Questions like "How does this
happen?" or "What
can we do to stop this from happening again?" are often
asked. The panic and
fear of cult activity in our country seems to continue
to grow with the more
unbelievable stories that hit the news. The first big
news event that was cult
related occurred in 1969. Five dead bodies were
found by the maid at 10050 Cielo
Drive. Beautiful actress Sharon Tate who
was pregnant at the time, and her
friends Steven Earl Parent, Abigail Folger,
Voytek Frykowski, and Jay Sebring
were found butchered thoughout the
residence (Bugliosi, 1974, 18). The murders
themselves grasped the nation’s
attention, but it was when the murderers and
their motives surfaced that the
fear began. It was in February of 1970 that the
motive of these murders was
discovered (Bugliosi, 1974, 283). Through police
investigation, it was
discovered that the murders were cult related. Charles
Manson and members
of his cult, known as "The Family," were to blame. Manson
and family lived on
a ranch in California. Manson was an avid fan of The Beatles
and believed
that this rock band spoke to him though their lyrics. He
particularly liked
The Beatles’ White Album which included the song "Helter
Skelter." Manson
interpreted this song’s lyrics as a prophecy of a race war
that would take
place between the blacks and the whites. In this war, he
believed the black
man would rise up and slaughter all of the whites. So
Manson’s plan was
to take his family out into the desert and hide in a
bottomless pit until the
war was over. After the war, he believed the blacks
would realize all they
ever knew was taught to them by the white man, and if
they wanted to survive,
they would need a white person to tell them what to do.
That is when
Manson and his Family would surface from the bottomless pit, and be
the
rulers of the world as the master race (Bugliosi, 1974, 284-290). The
only
problem with Manson’s prophecy was that Helter Skelter never came. So he
sent
Family members out to kill Sharon Tate and friends and instructed
them to make
it appear as if the blacks did it. He tried to accomplish this
by writing words
in the victims’ blood all over the walls like "Arise,"
"Helter Skelter,"
and "Death to the Pigs." All this was done in hopes of
starting the race war
(Bugliosi, 1974, 424). The trial for this terrible
crime was so publicized that
it played a very significant role in creating
cult fear. The next largely
publicized cult related incident occurred in 1979
with the mass suicide in
Jonestown (Green, 1993, 34). Jim Jones started
his cult in California. His cult
was referred to as the People’s Temple, and
his followers called him Reverend
Jim Jones. Jones operated his cult
under the cover of a home for depraved
children. He managed to round up 300
children, some taken illegally, and around
600 men and women who wanted
to help these children. Jones then left California,
and headed to Guyana
(Miller, 1990, 42). It was there that he convinced his 900
followers, made up
of men, women, and children, to drink orange squash laced
with cyanide. Jones
called it "revolutionary suicide (Green, 1993, 34)."
This event was such
a big deal in the public eye because of the number of people
involved in the
suicide. 900 people were convinced to voluntarily kill
themselves and when
this hit the newspapers, fear of cult activity grew. In
April of 1993,
the FBI became aware of man named David Koresh and the cult he
led which was
known as the Branch Davidians cult (Green, 1993, 38). He lived in
a house on
a Texas ranch with his followers who were known as "disciples."
Koresh
believed he was Christ reborn, and he would not allow any of his
followers to
come in contact with anyone outside of the cult. The FBI got
involved when
they discovered that the cult was stockpiling weapons. When the
FBI
discovered the Branch Davidians cult was heavily armed, they surrounded
the
Texas ranch with FBI marksmen and a fleet of tanks. Koresh refused to
allow any
of his disciples to leave, and the stand off lasted several days.
This stand off
ended, however, when a fire broke out in the ranch and
twenty-four people burned
to death (Green, 1993, 36). This occurrence helped
spread the fear of cult
activity because a number of the people that burned
to death were children who
really had no choice in joining the cult. If their
parents joined so did they.
Big news events like the Manson Family
murders, and the mass suicide at
Jonestown, only happen every so often.
However, events that seem to continuously
be in the news are those related to
Satanism. Most of these events are small and
isolated, but the massive
numbers of them are stirring worry. A highly
publicized example of this
occurred in Jasper County, in southwest Missouri.
Three high school
seniors Ron Clements, James Hardy, and Theron Roland II, were
convicted of
murdering Stephen Newberry. The three struck Newberry over the head
with a
baseball bat more than 50 times during a satanic ritual and then dumped
the
body in a cistern, which already had the remains of mutilated cats
and
squirrels. The three boys used their obsession with Satanism and devil
worship
as their defense during the trial (Futterman, 1989). Cases like these
from all
over the country hit headlines and widen the fear surrounding
Satanism and
Satanic Cults. Larry Jones, founder of the Cult Crime Impact
Network, claims
that Satanists slaughter 50,000 children each year (O’Reilly,
1993). With the
quoting of statistics like these, it’s no wonder that the
alarm over satanic
activity is on the up-rise. With all of the panic and fear
surrounding cults,
much research has recently been done to see who is at risk
of becoming a cult
member and how the cult leaders recruit them. For the most
part the young are at
risk. It has been thought that most cult members must
have started off with
deeply rooted psychological problems, but this is not
the case. Predominantly,
the kids are normal in every way, but are at some
"in-between" part of their
lives, such as entering college (McBride, 1985,
115). Usually the recruiter is
of the opposite sex and approaches the
potential cult member with a smile and an
invitation to dinner with some
friends. It is there that the complex method
known as brainwashing begins
(McBride, 1985,116). Brainwashing, also known as
mind bending or thought
reform, is professionally known as psychological
coercion. There are many
different methods of brainwashing, each usually very
subtle. Fritz Knabe, an
ex-cult member, said "It’s very hard for people to
understand brainwashing.
People think that their mind is a temple and that
nobody can force them to
think anything. The point is, you can’t tell it’s
happening if it’s
successful (Green, 1993, 36)." The main goal of
brainwashing is as follows:
(1) to drastically alter a person’s sense of
reality, (2) to get the
potential cult member to accept a new reality, (3) to
alter the understanding
of the potential cult member’s past, (4) to get the
potential cult member to
accept a new belief system, and (5) to get that person
to be a loyal member
of the cult (Miller, 1990, 96). The book Coping with Cults
outlines a very
general method of the brainwashing process. The method is as
follows:
"Isolate the person and manipulate his or her environment. Control
the
channels of information and communication. Wear the person down
though
inadequate diet and fatigue. Replace uncertainty, fear, and confusion
with the
promise of joy but only as part of the group. And finally, assign
repetitive
tasks such as singing, chanting, or copying pages from a book
(Miller, 1990,
98)." A prime example of the recruiting and brainwashing
process is Charles
Manson’s method. He used the girls in the Family as a
recruiting method. He
would allow men to have sex with any of his girls as
much as they like. After
they did it once, the men were his, they would do
anything Manson said (Bugliosi,
1974, 120). The family stayed on a ranch
that had no clocks and was isolated
from the rest of the world. There was
also much drug use by Manson and the
Family. The average family member
ate LSD at least 300 times while they were at
the ranch, while Manson
preached about Helter Skelter or orchestrated massive
orgies (Bugliosi, 1974,
431). Occasionally he would feed the family LSD and
reenact the crucifixion
of Christ with himself as Jesus (Bugliosi, 1974, 120).
How extreme the
cult recruiters will go to get new members seems to be matched
with how
extreme people will go to get their loved one out of cults. The first
method
to get someone out of a cult came about in the 1970’s and is known
as
deprogramming. It was started by the "Father of Deprogramming," Ted
Patrick.
Ted Patrick was an ex-trucker with no training in psychology or
cults who
decided something needed to be done. He offered his services of
getting a loved
one out of a cult for the cost of nearly $80,000. In his
book, Let Our Children
Go, he spoke of "fighting fire with fire" meaning
going to extremes in order
to get the loved one out of a cult (Miller, 1990,
109). His idea sounds good in
concept, but deprogramming is illegal.
Deprogramming involves holding people
against their will after being
kidnapped and then convincing them over many days
not to go back to the cult
(Miller, 1990, 111). He also openly took part in
hundreds of kidnappings and
went to jail repeated times for breaking the law. It
is a sort of reverse
brainwashing, only not nearly as subtle. Ted Patrick was
quoted as stating,
"I believe firmly that the Lord helps those who help
themselves -- a few
little things like karate, mace, and handcuffs can come in
handy from time to
time (Green, 1993, 38)." A much safer and legal way of
getting the same
result is known as exit counseling. It is a much better way of
cult recovery
because it doesn’t involve kidnapping or restraint, which is
just as bad as
what the cult leaders do. Exit counseling is really a quite
simple process.
It involves the cult member that the family or friends wish to
get out of the
cult having a meeting with ex-cult members and a psychologist. In
the
meetings, the cult member hears similar experiences from ex-cult members
and
they learn more about topics such as mind control (Miller, 1990, 110).
After the
cult member realizes what they have gotten themselves into, they
need help
getting out and rejoining society. Exit counselor Ayman Aksar,
speaking on the
topic of exit counseling said, "People can feel very insecure
and afraid, and
need help (Green, 1993, 38)." Continuing to meet with the
exit counselor helps
deal with these feelings. Cult activity has been in the
headlines for decades.
With each story comes the heightening of the fear
surrounding cults and cult
activity. Cult activity can take the form of
something as obvious and publicized
as the Manson Family murders or can come
in random and unrelated Satanic acts.
With the fear from the public came
many questions that were demanded to be
answered. It was from this fear that
society now knows who is at risk, what to
look out for, and how to get
someone out a cult safely and legally.
Bibliography
Bugliosi,
Vincent. (1974). Helter Skelter. New York: W.W. Norton &
Company,
Inc. Futterman, Ellen. (1989, February 5). Hints of Darkness:
Satanism
Reports Stir Worry. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, pp 1A+. Green,
Caroline. (1993,
Febuary). The Far-out World of Cults. Focus Magazine,
pp. 34-38. McBride, James,
Sheperd, Williams C., & Robbins, Thomas
(Eds.). (1985). Cults, Culture, and
the Law: Perspectives on New Religious
Movements. The American Academy of
Religion. Miller, Maryann. (1990).
Coping With Cults. New York: The Rosen
Publishing Group, Inc. O’Reilly,
David. (1993, July 18). The Devil, You Say.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, pp
G1+.