P.O. Box 2265 • Bonita Springs, FL 34133 USA [email protected] • www.icsahome.com • 239.514.3081

CONTENTS Life After Centrepoint: Accounts of Adult Adjustment After Childhood Spent at an Experimental Community Kerry Gibson, Mandy Morgan,i Cheryl Wooley, Tracey Powis................................................... 1 Prosecuting Child Sexual Abuse in Alternative Religions Andrea Willey, Stephen A. Kent........................................................................................................... 16 Second-Generation Religious Cult Survivors: Implications for Counselors Cyndi H. Matthews.................................................................................................................................. 37 Exit Intervention: A New Approach to Saving Family Members From Destructive Groups Steven A. Autenrieth............................................................................................................................... 50 The Unique Characteristics of Postcult Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Suggested Therapeutic Approaches Dennis Patrick Healy................................................................................................................................ 60

Book Reviews Destructive and Terrorist Cults: A New Kind of Slavery: Leader, Followers, and Mind Manipulation Reviewer: Ron Burks............................................................................................................................... 71

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Spiritual Abuse Recovery: Dynamic Research on Finding a Place of Wholeness Reviewer: Patrick J. Knapp.................................................................................................................... 74 Dead, Insane, or in Jail: A CEDU Memoir Reviewer: Joseph Szimhart.................................................................................................................. 76 Why They Believe: A Case Study in Contemporary Polygamy Reviewer: Arthur A. Dole...................................................................................................................... 78 Abstracts (Translations)...................................................................................................................... 82

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P.O. Box 2265 • Bonita Springs, FL 34133 USA [email protected] • www.icsahome.com • 239.514.3081

CONTENTS Life After Centrepoint: Accounts of Adult Adjustment After Childhood Spent at an Experimental Community Kerry Gibson, Mandy Morgan,i Cheryl Wooley, Tracey Powis................................................... 1 Prosecuting Child Sexual Abuse in Alternative Religions Andrea Willey, Stephen A. Kent........................................................................................................... 16 Second-Generation Religious Cult Survivors: Implications for Counselors Cyndi H. Matthews.................................................................................................................................. 37 Exit Intervention: A New Approach to Saving Family Members From Destructive Groups Steven A. Autenrieth............................................................................................................................... 50 The Unique Characteristics of Postcult Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Suggested Therapeutic Approaches Dennis Patrick Healy................................................................................................................................ 60

Book Reviews Destructive and Terrorist Cults: A New Kind of Slavery: Leader, Followers, and Mind Manipulation Reviewer: Ron Burks............................................................................................................................... 71

of

Spiritual Abuse Recovery: Dynamic Research on Finding a Place of Wholeness Reviewer: Patrick J. Knapp.................................................................................................................... 74 Dead, Insane, or in Jail: A CEDU Memoir Reviewer: Joseph Szimhart.................................................................................................................. 76 Why They Believe: A Case Study in Contemporary Polygamy Reviewer: Arthur A. Dole...................................................................................................................... 78 Abstracts (Translations)...................................................................................................................... 82

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International Journal of Cultic Studies Co-Editors Carmen Almendros, PhD, Associate Professor in Clinical and Health Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Dianne Casoni, PhD, Full Professor, École de criminologie, Université de Montréal; Associate Professor of Psychology, Université de Québec à Montréal, Canada Rod Dubrow-Marshall, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Visiting Fellow at the Criminal Justice Hub in the School of Nursing, Midwifery, Social Work and Social Sciences at the University of Salford, United Kingdom

About the International Journal of Cultic Studies The International Journal of Cultic Studies (IJCS) is a refereed annual journal that publishes scholarly research on cultic phenomena across a range of disciplines and professions with a view of making research results available to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers across the world. IJCS seeks to advance the understanding of cultic phenomena in their relationship to individuals, families, and society, notably in their psychological, social, legal, educational, religious, and cultural dimensions. Many definitions of the term cult exist, and the term has been applied to a wide range of groups. However the IJCS does not advocate nor support one particular definition and will consider submissions related to the full range of perspectives on cultic phenomena and issues that emerge from a scholarly or scientific study of such phenomena, including those of harm, treatment, individual subjectivity, agency, creativity, and the boundaries between the individual and society. IJCS publishes original empirical and theoretical work, as well as literature reviews, scholarly analyses, book reviews, and case studies across academic disciplines and applied sciences, notably in anthropology, criminology, ethics, the humanities, law, linguistics, political science, psychology, religious studies, and sociology, accepting both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The International Journal of Cultic Studies (IJCS) is published by the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA). As in most scholarly journals, the views expressed in IJCS are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of IJCS’s editors and editorial boards or of ICSA and its directors, advisory board members, or staff. Groups researched or mentioned in articles published in IJCS are not necessarily cults, nor should they be seen as undoubtedly harmful.

ISSN: 2154-7270 (print) 2154-7289 (online) Copyright 2017, International Cultic Studies Association

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Editorial Board Marybeth Ayella, PhD, Sociology, St. Joseph’s University, USA Eileen Barker, PhD, OBE, FBA, Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, UK Robin Boyle, JD, St. John’s University School of Law, USA Russell Bradshaw, EdD, Education, City University of New York, USA Louis Brunet PhD, Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada Pablo Briñol, PhD, Social Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Jose Antonio Carrobles, PhD, Clinical and Health Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Peter Caws, PhD, Philosophy, George Washington University, USA Manuel de Juan Espinosa, PhD, Clinical and Health Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Linda Dubrow-Marshall, PhD, Applied Psychology, University of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK Enrique Echeburúa, PhD, Clinical and Health Psychology, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Spain Steve K. D. Eichel, PhD, ABPP, Psychology, Philadelphia University, USA Manuel Gámez-Guadix, PhD, Clinical and Health Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Juan Francisco Godoy, PhD, Clinical and Health Psychology, Universidad de Granada, Spain Lorna Goldberg, LCSW, PsyA, Dean of Faculty, Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies, USA William Goldberg, LCSW, PsyA, Social Work, Dominican College, USA Pablo Guérez, JD, Penal Law, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Mª Ángeles Jiménez Tallón, PhD, Clinical and Health Psychology, Universidad de Murcia, Spain Stephen Kent, PhD, Sociology, University of Alberta, Canada María Jesús Martín, PhD, Social Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain José Manuel Martínez, PhD, Social Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Patricia Mercader, PhD, Institut de Psychologie, Université de Lyon, France Javier Martín-Peña, Social Psychology, Universidad de Barcelona, Spain Stephen Mutch, PhD LLB (UNSW), History, Politics, and International Relations, Macquarie University, Australia Piotr T. Nowakowski, PhD, Pedagogy, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland Julio Olea, PhD, Methodology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Adriana Pacheco Espino Barros, PhD, Editor of Criminologie, I. C.C.C, Canada Marie-Andrée Pelland, PhD, Sociology, Université de Moncton, Canada Miguel Perlado, PhD, Barcelona Institute of Psychoanalysis, Spain María del Mar Ramos, PhD, Sociology, Universidad de Granada, Spain Álvaro Rodríguez-Carballeira, PhD, Social Psychology, Universidad de Barcelona, Spain Omar Saldaña, PhD, Social Psychology, Universidad de Barcelona, Spain Alan Scheflin, JD, LLM, Santa Clara University Law School, USA Daniel Shaw, LCSW, Faculty and Clinical Supervisor, National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP), New York, USA Dennis Tourish, PhD, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK Humberto M. Trujillo, PhD, Social Psychology, Universidad de Granada, Spain Carlos Villagrasa, JD, Civil Law, Universidad de Barcelona, Spain Doni Whitsett, PhD, LCSW, University of Southern California School of Social Work, USA

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Table of Contents Life After Centrepoint: Accounts of Adult Adjustment After Childhood Spent at an Experimental Community Kerry Gibson, Mandy Morgan,i Cheryl Wooley, Tracey Powis ................................................................... 1 Prosecuting Child Sexual Abuse in Alternative Religions Andrea Willey, Stephen A. Kent .................................................................................................................. 16 Second-Generation Religious Cult Survivors: Implications for Counselors Cyndi H. Matthews...................................................................................................................................... 37 Exit Intervention: A New Approach to Saving Family Members From Destructive Groups Steven A. Autenrieth .................................................................................................................................... 50 The Unique Characteristics of Postcult Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Suggested Therapeutic Approaches Dennis Patrick Healy .................................................................................................................................. 60

Book Reviews Destructive and Terrorist Cults: A New Kind of Slavery: Leader, Followers, and Mind Manipulation Reviewer: Ron Burks................................................................................................................................... 71 Spiritual Abuse Recovery: Dynamic Research on Finding a Place of Wholeness Reviewer: Patrick J. Knapp ........................................................................................................................ 74 Dead, Insane, or in Jail: A CEDU Memoir Reviewer: Joseph Szimhart ......................................................................................................................... 76 Why They Believe: A Case Study in Contemporary Polygamy Reviewer: Arthur A. Dole ........................................................................................................................... 78 Abstracts (Translations) ............................................................................................................................. 82

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Life After Centrepoint: Accounts of Adult Adjustment After Childhood Spent at an Experimental Community Kerry Gibson,i Mandy Morgan,ii Cheryl Wooley,ii and Tracey Powisii University of Auckland, iiMassey University

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Reprinted by permission of New Zealand Psychological Society, www.psychology.org.nz

Abstract This study explores how former child members of a controversial community, in which child sexual abuse and drug use are known to have occurred, account for the effects of this on their adult lives. The narrative accounts of 29 participants were analyzed to identify key areas of psychological adjustment they described after leaving the New Zealand community known as Centrepoint. Participants’ accounts highlighted challenges in negotiating the initial transition, family relationships, friendships and intimate relationships, livelihoods, stigma and changing belief systems. Themes within participants’ accounts reflect disadvantage and suffering as a result of growing up at Centrepoint as well as some advantages, also attributed to this environment. While this research shows that there may be some significant adjustments to be made after childhood spent in such communities, it also cautions against a polarized perspective which focuses exclusively on either positive or negative consequences of this kind of experience.

New Religious Movements, Cults, Child Sexual Abuse, Psychological Effects; Qualitative Methodology Since the 1970s the psychological impact of alternative communities, known popularly as cults, have been the subject of considerable discussion and debate (Aronoff, Lynn, & Malinoski, 2000). Much of the existing research, however, has focused on those who had joined these groups as adults and less is known about the consequences of this lifestyle for those who grew up in these environments. This paper International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

explores how the former children of the controversial New Zealand community, Centrepoint, account for their adjustment to adult life outside of it. As Freckelton (1998) notes, there are differences of opinion on almost all aspects of alternative communities, including the terminology used to describe them. Those who use the label of cult generally see these communities as exercising a malevolent control over their members and as intrinsically harmful (Langone, 1993). But recent researchers have challenged assumptions that these communities are necessarily problematic and choose to call them New Religious Movements (NRMs) for groups with shared sets of beliefs (Beckford, 2003) or intentional communities, which specifically refer to residential groups who hold a shared set of values (Sargisson & Sargent, 1994). We preferred to use the more neutral term community in our research in order to the respect potential participants’ potential sensitivities around these labels. Not surprisingly, the clinical and research literature on the psychological effects of cults/NRMs reflects the diverse perspectives suggested by the different terms. The research on cults has noted significant psychological difficulties in former members, including symptoms such as anxiety, anger, low selfconfidence, flashbacks, depression, guilt, dissociation, passivity, psychosis, and also a unique experience of confusion that has been described as floating (Conway & Siegelman, 1995; Martin, 1993; Singer & Lalich, 1995; Singer & Ofshe, 1990). These psychological difficulties are described as being the consequence of manipulation, loss of control, and other forms of maltreatment that occur in cults (Langone, 1993; Singer & Lalich, 1995). While adverse experiences in cults are thought to have negative impacts on former members’ 1

adjustment, some researchers have suggested that giving up a strong investment in a community may also be a significant source of distress (Lewis, 1987). Based on a review of clinical reports and the empirical research in this area, Aronoff, Lynn, and Malinoski (2000) concluded that cult membership is linked to adjustment difficulties, although they acknowledged that it was not clear whether difficulties could be attributed to the cult itself or were a product of leaving it. In contrast, others have highlighted some of the potentially positive consequences of what they generally call NRMs (Anthony & Robbins, 2004). Richardson (1995) argues, on the basis of a review of the research, that there is no evidence to suggest that members of these groups have more mental health problems than others, and that there are likely to be psychological benefits that continue even after a member leaves. This finding has been echoed in some more recent research (Namini & Murken, 2009). Specific benefits identified as arising from involvement in NRMs include the provision of structure (Buxant, Saroglou, Casalfiore & Christians, 2007) and group cohesion (Galanter, 1989), as well as some of the general advantages that have been attributed to conventional religious beliefs (Van Dyke & Elias, 2007). Much of the research in this area has been concerned about evaluating the mental health status of former cult/NRM members, but there is less research on how former members themselves experience leaving a community and rejoining the outside world. There are, however, descriptions in the clinical literature which suggest that former members face some significant challenges after leaving a community. These challenges may include practical adjustments related to daily living and also a range of emotional and social demands (Singer & Lalich, 1995). The latter include pain at the loss of the community (Ward, 2002); difficulty in establishing autonomy (Martin, 1993); loneliness and a sense of alienation (Singer & Lalich, 1995); confusion over what went right or wrong at the community (Martin, 1993) and a reevaluation of the philosophical ideas held by the group (Singer & Lalich, 1995). 2

The research reviewed above focuses largely on adults, and there is less research available on the adjustment of children after experiences in these cults/NRMs. Children require separate and specific consideration because they will not normally have entered the community of their own volition and may have limited experience of the world outside of it. While again, there is little empirical research in this area, clinically focused reviews have discussed the experiences of children in cults (Langone & Eisenberg, 1994; Whitsett & Kent, 2003). This literature draws attention to the way that communities with cultic features may undermine the functioning of families and open the possibility for children to be exposed to various forms of abuse, including physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. Siskand (2001) argues that children may be particularly vulnerable to harm because adults cede their parental authority to the community’s leaders, members are relatively isolated from external supports, and the shared belief system can put the practices of adult members above the law. There appear to be fewer positive accounts of children’s experiences in community living as opposed to adults’, although Sargisson and Sargent (1994) suggest that there are some benefits for those who grow up in what they call intentional communities. They attribute benefits to factors such as the availability of adult attention, consultative parenting, and having other children to play with. Prosocial psychological effects noted for children growing up in Kibbutzim also seem to support claims for the value of collective living for children (Aviezer, Van IJzendoorn, Sagi, & Schuengel, 1994). But while this body of literature offers some insights into experiences children can have in communities, it is acknowledged that there is very little research available on which to base conclusions about the long-term effects of these kinds of experience (Langone & Eisenberg, 1993; Whitsett & Kent, 2003). It is also possible that cults/NRMs offer the potential for both good and bad experiences and with this, both good and bad outcomes for members. Wright (1984), for example, notes that people who leave NRMs are often ambivalent about their experience and are able to identify International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

both advantages and disadvantages. His research also suggests that, in spite of difficulties with the experience, former members felt they learned from it and were able to use this knowledge in their postcult lives (Wright, 1994). More recent qualitative literature has also drawn attention to the diversity in the way that people chose to narrate similar experiences. Writing about sexual abuse survivors, researchers have, for example, noted that they may choose to represent this experience and its effects on their lives in different ways, which foreground negative psychological effects or highlight resilience and transcendence (Harvey, Mishler, Koenen, & Harney, 2000; Reavy & Brown, 2007). It is possible then that those who have had childhood experiences in communities may offer diverse accounts of either the damage or benefits they feel they have experienced as a result. The literature clearly reflects divergent views on the likely harm or benefit of cult/NRM membership for later adjustment. This may be a consequence of fundamental differences in ideological position (Zablocki & Robbins, 2001), but it is also likely to be a product of the diversity of groups that can be included under this broad category. According to Langone (1993), cults are marked by devotion to a person or cause, mechanisms of control and persuasion that force adherence to the beliefs and practices of the group, the dependence of members on the group leader, and their exploitation. But as Freckelton (1998) notes, there is little homogeneity amongst these groups, and it is likely that some have more negative cult-like features than others. Communities may also vary from those that affiliate with religion and those that are linked to other value systems, including psychotherapy (Schwartz & Kaslow, 2001). Research clearly needs to take into account more specific features of each community, including, for example, child sexual abuse, which is known to have harmful psychological effects (Maniglio, 2009).

Centrepoint: The Context Centrepoint operated in Auckland between 1978 and 2000. Drawing from the Encounter Movement, it had as its central mission the International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

transformation of interpersonal relationships to be more open (Oakes, 1986). One of its more controversial characteristics was its emphasis on open sexuality, including for children. These values were expressed in the organization of life at the community, which included shared sleeping arrangements in “long houses” as well as open showers and toilets (Levitas & Sargisson, 2003; Oakes, 1986; Sargisson & Sargent, 2004). In terms of its resources, it operated communally, with members handing over their assets to the general pool upon joining Centrepoint (Levitas & Sargisson, 2003; Oakes, 1986). Centrepoint also utilized therapeutic strategies both in and outside formal group therapy to challenge interpersonal boundaries and encourage open expression of emotions and sexuality (Levitas & Sargisson, 2003). The practices of the community in relation to child sexuality and to illegal drugs became the focus of police investigation and resulted in the imprisonment of a number of its senior members, including the leader, Bert Potter, on child abuse and drugs charges. The community was closed by a court order in 2000. There were estimated to be from 200 to 300 children who spent some or all of their childhoods at Centrepoint. We were aware of contrasting viewpoints amongst this group because some had spoken out publically, decrying the abuse they had experienced at Centrepoint, while others had expressed their loyalty to the community and espoused its benefits. In the broader study from which this article draws, participants provided detailed descriptions of their experiences growing up in the community (Gibson, Morgan, Woolley, & Powis, 2010). These experiences highlighted features of the Centrepoint environment with the potential for adverse psychological effects, including early sexual experiences and child sexual abuse, parental neglect, psychological manipulation, and recreational drug use by children. But participants also described some positive experiences at the community, including support from a range of adults, strong peer-group connections, child-friendly facilities, and opportunities for communal interaction and activities. 3

Method

Participants

A retrospective, narrative-based research study was conducted to explore participants’ adjustment from the Centrepoint community to the outside world and their views on how their childhood experiences had impacted their adults lives. The study adapted a voice-relational narrative methodology (Brown & Gilligan, 1992; 1993; Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg, & Bertsch, 2003) to analyze the accounts of participants. This method was chosen for a number of reasons. First, as a feminist methodology, this approach is concerned to allow the voices of those with less power in society to be heard. This seemed appropriate for research on the former Centrepoint children who, despite having been the subject of public media and court proceedings, had had little opportunity to tell their version of their experiences. Second, this approach treats experience as fundamentally relational. This was particularly suitable for understanding the impact of Centrepoint, which had had the transformation of social relationships as fundamental to its ideology. Third, while this approach has much in common with other narrative methodologies, it differs in encouraging researchers to attend to different perspectives within a single account through the use of multiple readings of the same transcript. This is designed to illuminate both the obvious and less obvious voices contained in the narrative. We thought that this would be useful, not only in identifying differences between participants, but also in capturing potential diversity within as well as between participants’ accounts. Finally, this method also places emphasis on responses of the researchers and encourages a reflexive awareness of the way they attend to different strands in a story and also shape it in particular ways. This is particularly important in the study of controversial communities such as Centrepoint, which are known to evoke polarized perspectives amongst researchers (Zablocki & Robbins, 2001). We used discussion amongst the group of researchers to challenge the temptation to provide simplistic or one-sided interpretations of the data (Brown & Gilligan, 1992).

Letters of invitation to participate in this research were sent to about 180 former Centrepoint children, now adults, whose names were available on a database held by a Trust that administers the assets of the former Centrepoint. The research invitation was also advertised on the Trust’s website and by word of mouth. A 6month recruitment period resulted in the 29 participants (an estimated 10% to 15% of all the children believed to have spent their childhood at Centrepoint). Although probability sampling was not required for this qualitative study, there was concern to reflect the diversity of perspectives that was known to exist amongst the former Centrepoint children. Fortunately, those who volunteered included a reasonable balance of former members who felt largely positive about their experiences at Centrepoint and those who felt largely negative (although many had mixed opinions about this). This allowed us to reflect a reasonably full range of experience. Some participants, however, reported that they were aware of other former children who had experienced their involvement with Centrepoint as particularly damaging and who were reluctant to have any involvement with the organization that now managed its assets. It is, therefore, possible that those who had had the most difficult experiences at Centrepoint were not well represented in this study.

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A detailed breakdown of the demographics of the participants cannot be provided here because of the need to protect participants’ anonymity, but they ranged in age between early adulthood and middle age. There were 6 men and 23 women in the participant group who were all of New Zealand European or European descent. Participants had spent varying amounts of time at the community, ranging from those who had been born there and spent all of their childhoods there, to those who had spent only a few years there. Data Collection Participants took part in an unstructured narrative interview at a venue of their own choosing. Following standard narrative method, participants were simply asked to tell us about International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

their childhood at Centrepoint and its impact on their adult lives. If they did not respond to this request they were asked: “How did you come to be at Centrepoint?,” which provided a starting point for their narrative. They were assisted to continue their story with prompts, but the interviewers were careful not to structure the direction of their account with the researchers’ questions or prompts. Interviews lasted between 1 hour and 4 hours, with the average time being approximately two hours. Participants were allowed to stop the interview at any time they chose. Given the sensitivity of the issues discussed, participants were given access to free counselling if they needed this after taking part in the research. Analysis The interviews produced more than 1,000 pages of transcribed interview material. Transcripts were returned to participants for checking and amendments. The transcribed data was then analyzed using what Gilligan and her colleagues call the listening guide (Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg & Bertsch, 2003). In the listening guide, the transcribed interview is copied into the right-hand side of the margin, while the lefthand side is used to identify and reflect on themes and researchers’ responses related to an identified reading focus. In this study we used four readings that drew on but adapted those usually used in this method. The first reading focused on the plot. This standard narrative reading allowed us to identify and trace some of the key areas of adjustment experienced by participants after leaving Centrepoint. The second reading drew more specifically from Gilligan’s approach (Gilligan et al., 2003) and focused on the way that participants represented their relationships and themselves in their relational context. We introduced two further readings to elaborate our understanding of the way that participants characterized themselves and their experiences in relation to psychological difficulty. In one we focused on vulnerability, in which we tried to listen carefully to the stories that participants told about their suffering and difficulties after leaving Centrepoint. In the other we focused our attention on the resilient voice of participants to ensure that we were able to also hear the International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

strength in their accounts. The last two readings were particularly important in ensuring that we did not allow a dominant theme of either vulnerability or strength in a narrative to mask its counterpart. While we have explored the narrative structure and content of accounts in other papers (Gibson & Morgan, 2013; Gibson, Morgan, Woolley & Powis, 2011), in this paper we chose to highlight common areas of adjustment identified by participants while also acknowledging the diversity reflected in their accounts.

Findings The Immediate Transition to the Outside. Participants’ accounts highlighted immediate challenges in dealing with practical demands they had faced in leaving Centrepoint. Most families had few or no financial resources because all their assets had been handed over to the community. One participant describes her memory of this experience: We went to the Salvation Army and got everything—pots and pans, a bread board, and things. But yeah, on the bones of our ass we had to start again. But the initial adjustment went beyond these practical issues to include an emotional and social adjustment that one participant described as being like “coming from the moon . . . and landing on the earth again.” These adjustments seemed to focus on the transition from communal to noncommunal living: But what I found difficult when we lived in a small house was that we’ve got our family unit and there just wasn’t enough people around, really. Another participant described how she had become so used to the norms of communal living that she had been unsure about whether she could enter the kitchen in the house she shared with her family and help herself to food. She explained that having toilets with doors, after Centrepoint’s communal showers and toilets, had also felt strange to her. Some participants chose to continue to live in communal arrangements, albeit on a smaller scale than Centrepoint, rather than living in 5

nuclear family arrangements. One explained how her choice to continue to live communally made it easier to adapt when she left Centrepoint: I made sure I found a flat that had quite a few people in it, just to make it easier. In addition to these adjustments, participant narratives also revealed strong themes centred on the emotional loss of the community. Even though some participants acknowledged experiencing abuse at Centrepoint, for many it had been the only home they had known or remembered. They described their experience of leaving Centrepoint as being wrenched from their childhood home: . . . just a lot of crying, and just getting your head over that this is how life is, and to move on and accept it’s over. I think when we were young, we never really thought it would end. Some narratives also spoke about the loss of the ideal that the community had represented. One participant, for example, described how his departure from the community left him with an ongoing sense of emptiness: I feel a little bit incomplete a lot of the time, you know, like something missing. But there were also narratives that reflected excitement about leaving the constraints of Centrepoint for the outside world. For one participant, this was particularly so because she was able to spend more time with her mother, while another spoke about how she wanted more structure in her life. For others, there was simply the relief of escaping the abuse that they had been subjected to. One explained that it didn’t matter to her where she was “as long as [she] wasn’t there.” But even amongst participants who spoke about how Centrepoint had been harmful for them, there was an acknowledgement of complicated feelings of loss and confusion associated with the absence of familiar people and social arrangements at Centrepoint. This finding coincides with the general observations of other clinicians and researchers who suggest that adjustment from the community to the outside 6

world may involve both loss and disruption (Martin, 1993). It is perhaps unusual that some participants sought greater structure outside of the community, but this may reflect a desire to escape the particular way that Centrepoint defined and practiced freedom. Negotiating Family Relationships Over half of the participants in this study had come to Centrepoint with divorced or separated parents, and it is likely that Centrepoint’s emphasis on nonmonogamy and sexual openness may have further challenged the structure of the nuclear family. The narratives of participants who had come to the community during the course of their childhood described how Centrepoint had changed the way they related to their parents. They spoke of how Centrepoint had weakened their attachment to their nuclear parent(s) as they became less involved in the direct care of their children and handed over this responsibility to the broader community. Strong themes of neglect emerged in the narratives as participants told of having to fend for themselves: The adults were committed to their mission, which was sort of a therapeutic endeavor or whatever you want to call it . . . and the kids kind of were left to fend for themselves a lot, you know. Participants who had been born at the community also described being relatively distant from their parents but seemed to accept this as the norm. Participants’ narratives spoke of the difficulty in establishing or reestablishing family connections in the aftermath of Centrepoint. Some described how they had wanted to regain the sense of intimacy and the closeness that they had lost in their family relationships. As this participant put it: I still feel like we are still trying to reconnect our family . . . we don’t have what normal families have . . .you don’t have that wider sense of home, I suppose. Accounts also emphasised particular conflict and disconnection when participants or their family International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

members had been involved in sexual abuse at Centrepoint, either as victims or perpetrators: And that sort of tore our family apart a little bit, you know. Like me and [my sibling] would fight about it, me and my [parent] would fight about it, and . . . dealing with the fact that I was unsure and one said it never happened and there was a lot of confusion going on there. But even where families were described as generally supportive, participants’ accounts described how relationships were not always entirely comfortable because experiences at Centrepoint generated areas of silence between family members: Children could not easily ask questions about their parents involvement in abuse; parents may have been reluctant to acknowledge guilt, and siblings protected one another from knowledge about their experiences, as suggested in the following account by a participant: We have different experiences of Centrepoint. I have, you know, more years’ experience than her that I went through, and I sometimes don’t know how much does she know about what I experienced at Centrepoint compared to what she experienced. . . . We haven’t talked about it a lot; there’s been things I’ve held back on with her about. . . But, in contrast to these themes of disconnection in relation to families, there were also narrative threads that suggested increased closeness to family members after Centrepoint. One participant, for example, explained how, for her, it seemed that only her family could understand what they had all been through at Centrepoint: We share everything. . . . and they’ve been through it all with me. . . . I’ve always been able to lean on them for support. This capacity for closeness was, in some cases, attributed to a parent recognising the difficulties their child had experienced at Centrepoint. Closeness was less possible when parents were described as not taking responsibility for what had happened to their children.

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Participants’ accounts suggest that the transformations in family relationships at Centrepoint may have continued to impact on their relationships with family members after leaving the community. Some narratives carried strong themes of disconnection, conflict, and silence in these relationships. While much of the research on cults/NRMs has focused on disruptions to relationships with family members who remained outside of the community (Langone, 1993), less is known about how these experiences impact relationships between family members who spent time together in a community. Whitsett and Kent (2003) have discussed how cults undermine family relationship ties, and it is perhaps not surprising that these effects might last beyond the period spent in the community. Sexual abuse in families has also been recognised to have significant disturbing effects on family connections (Crosson-Tower, 2005). But it is also possible that a closeness borne of shared experiences may help to draw family members together. This is a possibility that has not been documented in the literature in this area. Establishing Intimate Relationships and Friendships Participants acknowledged the communal ethos of Centrepoint as fundamental to their experience there. In positive representations, this was depicted as allowing easy and continuous social connection with others, as the following extract suggests: All summer there’d be a volleyball net out and people would come and go and you’d just be playing volleyball after dinner or there’d be tennis games or soccer games. So there’d be just constantly people around. In less-positive narrative accounts, this ongoing requirement to interact with others was seen as a burden. Some described feeling trapped by the confines of the community, and others felt the burden of communal expectations which regulated social behavior. But regardless of whether the communal social interaction was represented as helpful or not, 7

participants recognised that an adjustment needed to be made to more independent living arrangements outside of Centrepoint. Themes reflecting isolation were present in many of the participants’ accounts of their adult lives. One participant, for example, described how she felt the stark differences between her life at Centrepoint and a new experience of living alone: I just didn’t have anyone that I could share and I was really not used to that. I had always had close friends or someone there that I could talk to, and it was strange to come home after a night out with a bunch of friends and be sad by myself. The contrast between communal life at Centrepoint and life outside was described in some cases as being exacerbated by difficulties in relating to outsiders: I didn’t have the social skills to, to really deal with normal people. Outside people—they were always bit scary to me. Participants provided other explanations for difficulties in integrating socially outside of Centrepoint. Narratives spoke of an awareness of being different, with some participants explaining that they felt that their experiences at Centrepoint had set them apart from others their age. Participants also described how Centrepoint had presented a negative perception of the outside world, and how they had struggled to overcome their learned prejudices against outsiders. Accounts also suggested that the Centrepoint experience had left some participants wary of manipulation or the misuse of authority, as the following extract suggests: I kind of, I watch people a lot more and check them out before, and start talking to them, you know, the third or fourth time I meet them rather than being straight in there. Themes of mistrust were linked in many narratives to participants’ experiences of having

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had their sexual boundaries transgressed at Centrepoint. But in contrast there were also narrative accounts that emphasised the value of social experiences that participants had had at Centrepoint and highlighted positive impacts on their adult lives. Accounts spoke of the way that Centrepoint had helped participants to develop social confidence: It basically gave you the opportunity to be an adult and be involved with adults, and not just adults that are your parents. So I remember actually hearing that the teachers commenting on these kids that were going through from Centrepoint, saying, “These kids have the most amazing people skills we’ve ever come across.” From this perspective, the range of social interactions at Centrepoint was seen to have been important in allowing participants the opportunity to practice their social skills across the diverse range of adults and children at the community. The shift from living communally at Centrepoint to the relative isolation of life outside of the community was recognised as an important area of adjustment in participant accounts. There were strong themes that emphasised loneliness, a sense of being different, and difficulties in trusting others after Centrepoint. This finding is consistent with the clinical observations of former cult/NRM members (Singer & Lalich, 1995) but also provides some insight into the reasons participants give for these experiences. Nonetheless, some accounts highlighted the social confidence that communal living provided to former members, which corresponds with the literature on the prosocial benefits of communities (Sargisson & Sargent, 2004). Becoming a Parent Taking on the role of a parent emerged as a significant adjustment period in participants’ accounts of their lives after Centrepoint. While this task would be widely recognised to require adjustment for any adult, particular experiences at Centrepoint were seen by participants as impacting on their ability to meet the demands International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

of this new life event. Participants explained how parenting in a nuclear family was very different to parenting at Centrepoint, where parenting was a collective responsibility. Some narratives emphasised the experiences of neglect that children had experienced at Centrepoint and talked about how having a child themselves had provided the impetus to work on their own psychological difficulties or to try and to identify the way they wanted to parent differently. The experience of having a child also evoked anxieties about sexual-abuse experiences participants had at Centrepoint. Having a child or having their child reach the same age as they were when they were abused at the community made participants newly aware of the significance of the sexual abuse at Centrepoint, as the following participant describes: Looking back, it’s like [my child’s age]! You know, it’s like, geez, I couldn’t imagine, younger than [my child] and yeah, just like all the kids, all the girls from [my child’s] classroom or something, it’s just quite bizarre that. . . Some narratives expressed a fear that participants’ experiences of abuse at Centrepoint may have had some impact on their capacity to parent their own children: [You] want to fix the damage not only to yourself but to your child as well. Because they’re like a sponge; they absorb everything you say. They’re being affected by the way you were influenced, too. But in contrast to these negative representations of Centrepoint and its impact on adjustment to parenting, other narratives highlighted the advantages of having a range of parenting models at Centrepoint. One male participant, for example, spoke about modelling his parenting on the men he had known at Centrepoint. He explained that the community allowed considerable scope for fathers to be involved with their children and, in spite of the abuse that had taken place, there had also been good fathering role models:

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‘Cause, I saw a lot of real, yeah, just very nurturing fathers, good fathers that spent lots of time with their kids. Becoming a parent was an important adjustment area for former Centrepoint children. Themes in participants’ accounts included those that related to increased awareness of the significance of child abuse at Centrepoint and fears that corresponded to the growing awareness of the inter-generational effects of abuse (Frazier, West-Olatunji, St. Juste, & Goodman, 2009). But in spite of these concerns, some were determined to use the parenting failures at Centrepoint as the impetus for developing better parenting skills themselves. Other narrative threads highlighted the value of having a range of parental role models at Centrepoint. There is no existing research that examines the effects of cult/NRM experiences on parenting. This is important because those who were children in the communities that proliferated in the 1960s and 1970s may now be in a position to reflect on their own parenting experiences. Establishing Livelihoods The resource arrangements at Centrepoint were intended to shift values away from individual responsibility for livelihood to collective forms of responsibility. Its belief system emphasised the importance of sharing resources and responsibilities, and members were expected to participate in the work required to keep it running. Even the children were expected to engage in collective tasks at Centrepoint: Every Saturday morning was a working bee, which was “Everyone go and clean the windows, go and do the toilets,” you know, and all of that sort of stuff. And it was really great, worked really well, and everyone got stuck in and had a really good time. In practice, however, while members may have felt a sense of responsibility for the day-to-day functioning of the community, the broader financial arrangements were taken care of by the leadership structure. One participant explained how his mother had described the advantages of living at Centrepoint:

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She was saying to me: “You know what I love about this place? The best thing? You don’t have to worry about money. You don’t have to worry about any bills—I haven’t paid a bill in 10 years.”

experiences at Centrepoint. Many narratives linked drug use with other stresses and described how it had had negative consequences on participants’ ability to pursue lasting or meaningful work.

Narratives highlighted the adjustment problems that had been created by families leaving the community without any financial resources. Many accounts reflected themes of bitterness associated with the permanent loss of resources to Centrepoint, with participants talking about how their parents had taken all their resources to the community, and how their inheritance had been stolen.

In contrast to negative themes that emphasised the absence of resources, role modelling and the impact of emotional trauma, there were accounts that suggested that the communal lifestyle had given participants greater capacities in relation to employment than those of their peers. Participants described how the community had fostered a work ethic, and how involvement in collective work had given participants confidence in their abilities that they used to good effect the outside community:

Narratives also suggested that Centrepoint provided poor role models for the individual goal orientation required in the world outside of Centrepoint: There’s been so much role playing missing, like simple things like no one had savings accounts, parents didn’t earn money, no one owned a car, no one paid a mortgage. But in some accounts, it was not a shift in values and priorities that interfered with the participants’ capacity to take care of themselves financially. Some participants emphasized the emotional damage inflicted by child abuse and manipulation at Centrepoint. One participant who told of experiencing years of sexual abuse described how this had affected her ability to work: Probably around my early twenties when I sort of started to really realize the cost that I paid. . . .And like, that’s sort of like a time in your life when you should be launching into life, you know, getting your career and all that. And I was just like literally dead in the water for about 10 years. I couldn’t. I managed some jobs, but it was just, a very, very intense thing to have to go through. Illicit drug use was described as being common at Centrepoint, and many participants spoke about how they had continued using these. Some narratives represented this as a habit, while others described it as a way of dealing with significant emotional distress related to abusive 10

And I love working. I started just starting a new job and probably I’m the youngest one there, and most people have [specific] qualifications. I haven’t done anything. So I, you know, I attribute stuff like that to the community. . . I’m not scared to take on; I’ll go for the biggest challenge. I never set my sights low. And that stuff they always taught you at the community is to be who you are, to not be scared of anything. Narrative themes related to livelihood highlighted participants’ bitterness about the loss of family resources to the Centrepoint community. In addition, accounts suggested some difficulties in adjusting from the communal resource arrangements and beliefs at Centrepoint to the individual achievement orientation of the broader society. Participants described the absence of role models, recognised to be important to developing financial management skills (Flouri & Buchanan, 2002). Traumatic experiences such as sexual abuse at Centrepoint were also described as impacting negatively on participants’ ability to support themselves effectively. But in contrast to these themes of disadvantage, some narratives referred to the work ethic and a sense of self-confidence fostered at Centrepoint as being valuable in their work adjustment. The latter would seem consistent with the role of self-efficacy in accounting for career success (Anderson & Betz, International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

2001). While literature has focused on psychological adjustment from cults/NRMs, there is less literature that explores the area of vocational adjustment for former members. Langone (1993), however, has suggested that there may be value in recognising and building on the skills developed in the community and using these to assist with integration into the conventional workforce. Negotiating Stigma There was considerable media publicity around Centrepoint during its years of operation and continuing up to the present, with a particular focus on the issues of child sexual abuse and drug use at the community. Participants described this publicity as a source of ongoing distress, and their narratives reflected themes of being unfairly judged and stigmatised by public attention. One participant explained how she experienced the stigma of being associated with Centrepoint: It’s a skeleton in the closet, that you [are]. . . secretly afraid people might find out and then would judge you. Because it is harsh to be judged on something that is not something that you choose, or you know. Like I guess the colour of your skin. Participants’ accounts suggested that their association with Centrepoint had had considerable impact on their interactions with friends and partners as well as broader social networks. Some accounts suggested that it was this element of the experience that made it particularly difficult to leave the Centrepoint experience behind them: It’s very hard to sort of be free of all that history that. . . continuing to be secretive about my past even 25 years after it’s really been over. . . I know I’m never going to be free of it. But while some participants described how they had been haunted by the stigma associated with Centrepoint, others told of how they had decided to risk social disapproval to be open and honest about their connection with Centrepoint:

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For me I had always sort of more tried to leave it behind me and never speak about it anymore, but [a friend] sort of helped me to see that where I come from is not anything to be ashamed of . . . It made me a lot more open to saying “Yeah that’s where I’m from and this is who I am and I’m still a good person and I’m still smart and I’m not ashamed from where I came from.” Some accounts, however, suggested that the open acknowledgement of association with Centrepoint was experienced as risky for participants: I would talk about it and then I would feel like “Whoah!” you know, and I think for some people it is too much . . . and then you run the risk of feeling like you’re being judged or it’s not understood . . .the aftermath wasn’t really worth it, so I’d sort of leave it. Some participants openly spoke about how they did not want to be labelled as victims and resented other former members for speaking out on their behalf: I definitely want to be kept as far away from the victims as possible ‘cause I’m not prepared to spend my life as a victim. Participants’ accounts suggest that they continued to feel burdened by stigma associated with Centrepoint. This was represented by some as a form of revictimization—especially for those who had already experienced sexual or other kinds of abuse at Centrepoint. Some participants tried actively to resist the stigma associated with sexual abuse and to distance themselves from these claims, a dynamic common amongst sexual abuse survivors (Tomlin, 1991). Negotiating a Different Reality Centrepoint held a strong set of beliefs that were at odds with those of the broader society, including those around child sexuality. Participants’ narratives spoke of continuous or intermittent negotiation between their old values

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and those generally accepted in mainstream New Zealand society. Some narratives alluded to the idea of brainwashing at Centrepoint. Several participants described how they felt their view of the world had been skewed by the ideas they were exposed to at the community using words such as manipulation, indoctrination, or propaganda to describe their experience. One participant explained how she had only become aware of how profoundly she had been influenced by Centrepoint’s ideas sometime after she had left the community: But it wasn’t until, probably, that I had kids, that I realised the extent of the brainwashing . . . I think when you grow up there you learn stuff you just take as face value and you think that’s how everybody’s lived, and it’s not until you get out into the real world and you think, “Oh my God, this is not what everybody else does.” Some narratives described a slow process in which participants had realised that what they had been taught to believe at Centrepoint was not necessarily so. One participant spoke about her growing awareness of the way in which she had been taught to view the world: I knew some things were wrong and I didn’t agree with them, but it was the things I didn’t question that were kind of in there, about relationships and people being happy and all that; and I guess it just took me time to figure out that it could be different. In some cases, participants reflected some uncertainty about where they stood in relation to the beliefs of Centrepoint. One participant seems to acknowledge her somewhat mixed feelings about whether or not Centrepoint was a good place to grow up: When I was younger I would’ve said, “Oh, I’m really glad I lived there,” but now I’d say “I wished I’d had a normal family” . . .as we sort of lose touch with it. . . . But you still feel, like when you go back, you feel very fond of it, yeah.

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Accounts also expressed some difficulty in making sense of the combination of good memories of Centrepoint and an awareness of some of the abuses: Which is something you can’t really get away from. Even though my memories were fine it’s just knowing what actually happened there, it’s difficult. In some cases, participant’s accounts also reflected doubtfulness about the validity of participants’ perceptions and opinions about Centrepoint. Participants often prefaced their claims with caveats such as “I’m a bit hazy on the details,” or “I can’t be sure.” One participant explicitly said that she sometimes felt confused when talking about Centrepoint because there were so many different views that she found herself becoming less certain of her own opinion. Although she knew what had happened to her and others there, she explained that she sometimes felt that she was “making it up.” But not all narratives adopted this cautious tone. Some participants seemed to respond to the possibility of doubt with a strident defence of the community. One participant explained how she refused to engage with what she saw as misguided and biased representations of Centrepoint: Yeah, just because I can’t be bothered dealing with the shit that people spin about the place. And they only see the bad stuff, they think of it as a big, everyone thinks it’s a cult, and a place where you know, people actually say, “Were you, did you get raped?” and stuff. And it’s like, you know, people are kind of so far from the reality of it. Participants’ narratives described, and also at times reflected, a process of adjusting to a different reality on leaving Centrepoint and rejoining the outside world. When they were at Centrepoint, they had accepted its practices as normal, but having left it they struggled to reconcile these beliefs with those outside. Some narratives spoke of brainwashing while others reflected more ambivalence about the values of Centrepoint versus those of the broader society. In general, participants accounts reflected International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

difficulty in managing a variety of competing realities as they moved from Centrepoint to the outside world. While the idea of brainwashing has debatable credibility (Zablocki & Robbins, 2001), these narratives suggest that there were some significant challenges for participants in reconciling the ideas held by the community with those of the broader society.

Conclusions Because every community will have its unique beliefs and practices, it is not possible to generalise directly from the findings of this study to other communities. Nonetheless, this study provides an insider’s view on the way that experiences in cults/NRMs can affect later adult adjustment. This analysis suggests an initial adjustment phase may include practical or financial difficulties as well as challenges in the immediate adaptations to a different lifestyle and norms. Relationships within families, which have been transformed by the requirements of communal living, may have to be renegotiated. Lack of skills, willingness to engage in social relationships outside of the community, and possible experiences of loneliness may also need to be addressed. Where resources are shared in communal living arrangements, there are likely to be practical implications for adjustment; and the different belief systems around money and individual goal orientation may also need to be developed. Former child members of experimental communities can also face ongoing stigmatising from the broader community. Finally, shifting beliefs and values from those of the community to those of the outside world are also likely to be a significant problem for former child members as they struggle to make sense of two competing sets of values and different opinions about their correctness. At Centrepoint, experiences of sexual abuse created an additional burden for those who had experienced this, interacting with other demands they faced in their integration into society. This paper raised questions which may be significant for others trying to research similar communities. Within participants’ narratives, it was possible to find themes that coincided closely with the more negative findings of research into cults. Participants spoke about loss International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

of familiar people and beliefs, which has been recognised in the literature to be a significant source of distress for former members, and particularly so for those, like the former children of Centrepoint, who have little knowledge of the world outside their communities (Aronoff, Lynn, & Malinoski, 2000). The breakdown in family relationships described by the former Centrepoint children has also been described in other research into communities, although its longer-term effects have not been studied (Whitsett & Kent, 2003). Child sexual abuse and manipulation at the community have similarly been noted to occur in other communities (Langone & Eisenberg, 1993; Whitsett & Kent, 2003); and the children of Centrepoint described some of the known effects of these things on relationships and other areas of adult functioning (Fergusson, Boden, & Horwood, 2008; Mullen, Martin, Anderson, Romans, & Herbison, 1994). Furthermore, the literature has also recognised the damage that arises from the stigma associated with cult membership, an issue that was identified by participants in this study as a significant challenge to their adjustment (Olson, 2000). Finally, much of the cult literature acknowledges the difficulty of making sense of the ideological differences between the community and the outside, an issue with which the Centrepoint participants also struggled (Walsh & Bor, 1996). But while this largely negative perspective of Centrepoint represents one reality for its former members, it is also important to acknowledge that there were themes in the narratives that coincided with some of the more positive research on the value of communities (Sargisson & Sargent, 1994). While the accounts of participants acknowledged very difficult experiences at Centrepoint, there was also recognition, even amongst some of those who had been abused, that there were aspects of their environment that they felt had benefited them in their adult lives. Positive narrative themes highlighted the sense of belonging in the community, continuous social interaction, having access to a variety of adult role models, collective responsibility, and social confidence as being helpful in their adult adjustment.

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It is tempting for researchers and clinicians to succumb to the temptation to oversimplify the experiences of former community members and become part of the often polarised academic debate between what have been called cult apologists and cult bashers (Zablocki & Robbins, 2001). It may, however, be important to recognise that, although dysfunctional communities have the potential to create difficulties for adult life, they may also provide former child members with some strengths and capacities that they can draw on in this process. While this cannot justify the abuse of children that can and does occur in communities like Centrepoint, it is an important consideration in supporting and empowering the former child members of such communities to tackle the challenges they face in their lives. It may also help former child members to resist stigmatised representations. Allowing for the possibility of both good and bad experiences as well as advantages and disadvantages in adulthood may give children who have grown up in such communities the space to find meaning for themselves out of the complex social environment in which they spent their childhood. This research was approved by the Massey University Human Ethics Committee: Southern B, Application 07/59

childrearing in Israeli kibbutzim. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 99– 116. Beckford, J. A. (2003). The continuum between ‘cults’ and ‘normal’ religion. In L. Dawson (Ed.), Cults and New Religious Movements (pp. 26–32). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing. Brown, L., & Gilligan, C. (1992). Meeting at the crossroads: Women’s psychology and girl’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brown, L., & Gilligan, C. (1993). Meeting at the crossroads: Women’s psychology and girl’s development. Feminism and Psychology, 3(1), 11–35. Buxant, C., Saroglou, V., Casalfiore, S., & Christians, L. (2007). Cognitive and emotional characteristics of new religious movement members: New questions and data on the mental health issue. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 10(3), 219–238. Chambers, W. V., Langone, M. D., Dole, A. A., & Grice, J. W. (1994). The Group Psychological Abuse Scale: A measure of the varieties of cultic abuse. Cultic Studies Journal, 11(1), 88–117. Conway, F., & Siegelman, J. (1995). Snapping: America’s epidemic of sudden personality change (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Stillpoint Press. Crosson-Tower, C. (2005). Understanding child abuse and neglect. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. Fergusson, D. M., Boden, J. M., & Horwood, L. J. (2008). Exposure to childhood sexual and physical abuse and adjustment in early adulthood. Child Abuse and Neglect, 32(6), 607–619. Flouri, E., & Buchanan, A. (2002). The role of work-related skills and career role models in adolescent career maturity. The Career Development Quarterly, 51, 36–43. Frazier, K. N., West-Olatunji, C. A., St. Juste, S., & Goodman, R. D. (2009). Transgenerational trauma and child sexual abuse: Reconceptualizing cases involving young survivors of CSA. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 32(1), 22–33. Freckelton, I. (1998). “Cults,” calamities and psychological consequences. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law. 5(1), 1–46. Galanter, M. (1989). Cults and new religious movements. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

Acknowledgements This research was funded by The New Zealand Communities Growth Trust and conducted under the auspices of Massey University.

References Anderson, S. L., & Betz, N. E. (2001). Sources of social selfefficacy expectations: Their measurement and relation to career development. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58, 98–117. Anthony, D., & Robbins, T. (2004). Conversion and ‘brainwashing’ in new religious movements. In J. R. Lewis (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements (pp. 317– 332). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Aronoff, J., Lynn, S. J., & Malinoski, P. (2000). Are cultic environments psychologically harmful? Clinical Psychology Review, 20(1), 91–111. Aviezer, O., Van IJzendoorn, M. H., Sagi, A., & Schuengel, C. (1994). “Children of the Dream” revisited: 70 years of collective

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Gibson, K., Morgan, M., Woolley, C., & Powis, T. (2010). A different kind of family: Retrospective accounts of growing up at Centrepoint and implications for adulthood. Auckland, NZ: Massey University. Gibson, K., Morgan, M., Woolley, C., & Powis, T. (2011). Growing up at Centrepoint: Retrospective accounts of childhood spent at an intentional community. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 20(4), 413–434. Gibson, K., & Morgan, M. (2013). Narrative research on child sexual abuse: Addressing perennial problems in quantitative research. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 10(3), 298–317. Gilligan, C., Spencer, R., Weinberg, M., & Bertsch, T. (2003). On the listening guide: A voice centred relational model. In P. M. Camic, J. Rhodes & L. Yardley (Eds.), Qualitative research in Psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design (pp. 157–172). Washington DC: American Psychological Association. Harvey, M. R., Mishler, E. G., Koenen, K., and Harney, P. A. (2000). In the aftermath of sexual abuse: Making and remaking meaning in narratives of trauma and recovery. Narrative Inquiry 10(2), 291–311.

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Langone, M. (1993). Recovery from cults: Help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse. New York, NY & London, UK: W. W. Norton. Langone, M., & Eisenberg, G. (1993). Children and cults. In M. Langone (Ed.), Recovery from cults: Help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse (pp. 327–342). New York, NY & London, UK: W. W. Norton. Levitas, R., & Sargisson, L. (2003). Utopia in dark times: Optimism/pessimism and utopia/dystopia. In T. Moylan & R. Baccolini (Eds.), Dark horizons: science fiction and the dystopian imagination (pp. 13–27). New York, NY: Routledge. Lewis, J. R. (1987). The cult withdrawal syndrome: A case of misattribution of cause? Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 26, 508–522. Maniglio, R. (2009). The impact of child sexual abuse on health: A systematic review of reviews. Clinical Psychology Review, 29, 647–657. Martin, P. (1993). Post-cult recovery: Assessment and rehabilitation. In M. Langone (Ed.), Recovery from cults: Help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse (pp. 203–231). New York, NY & London, UK: W. W. Norton Mullen, P., Martin, J., Anderson, J., Romans, S., & Herbison, G. (1994). The effect of sexual abuse on social, interpersonal and sexual function in adult life. British Journal of Psychiatry, 165, 35–47. Namini, S., & Murken, S. (2009). Self-chosen involvement in new religious movements (NRMs): Well-being and mental health from a longitudinal perspective. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 12(6), 561–585. Oakes, L. (1986). Inside Centrepoint: The story of a New Zealand community. Takapuna, Auckland, NZ: Benton Ross Publishers. Olson, P. J. (2000). Public perception of cults and new religious movements. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 45(1), 97– 106. Reavy, P. & Brown, S. D. (2007). Rethinking agency in memory: Space and embodiment in memories of child sexual abuse. Journal of Social Work Practice, 21(1), 5–21. Richardson, J. T. (1995). Clinical and personality assessment of participants in New Religious Movements. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 5(3), 145–170. Sargisson, L., & Sargent, L. (2004). Living in utopia. New Zealand’s intentional communities. Hants, UK: Ashgate Publishing. Schwartz, L, L. & Kaslow, F. W. (2001). The cult phenomenon: A turn of the century update. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 29(1), 13–22.

Van Dyke, C. J., & Elias, M. J. (2007). How forgiveness, purpose and religiosity are related to the mental health and well-being of youth: A review of the literature. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 10(4), 395–415. Walsh, Y., & Bor, R. (1996). Psychological consequences of involvement in a new religious movement or cults. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 9(1), 47–61. Ward, D. (2002). Cults and the family. Australia and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 23(2), 61–88. Whitsett, D., & Kent, S. (2003). Cults and families. Families in Society, 84(4), 491–502. Wright, S. A. (1984). Post-involvement attitudes of voluntary defectors from controversial New Religious Movements. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 23(2), 172–182. Zablocki, B. & Robbins, T. (2001). Introduction: Finding a middle ground in a polarized scholarly area. In B. Zablocki & T. Robbins (Eds.), Misunderstanding cults: Searching for objectivity in a controversial field (pp. 3–31). Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

About the Authors Kerry Gibson Department of Psychology University of Auckland Private Bag 92019 Auckland 1142 Mandy Morgan School of Psychology Massey University Palmerston North Cheryl Woolley School of Psychology Massey University Palmerston North Tracey Powis School of Psychology Massey University Palmerston North

Singer, M. T., & Ofshe, R. (1990). Though reform programs and the production of psychiatric casualties. Psychiatric Annals, 20, 188–193. Singer, M. T., & Lalich, J. (1995). Cults in our midst. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Siskand, A. (2001).Child rearing issues in totalist groups. In B. Zablocki & T. Robbins (Eds.), Misunderstanding cults: Searching for objectivity in a controversial field (pp. 415–451). Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Tomlin, S. S. (1991). Stigma and incest survivors. Child Abuse and Neglect, 15, 557–566.

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Prosecuting Child Sexual Abuse in Alternative Religions Andrea Willeya and Stephen A. Kentb* a

Duncan Craig LLP, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; bDepartment of Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Abstract 1 0F

In this article, we identify three different levels of court procedures (criminal, civil, and family) in which child sexual-abuse allegations are most likely to appear within the context of highdemand alternative religions, sometimes called sects or cults. We then specify strategies that these religious groups or their members have used in their defenses, along with appropriate counterstrategies with which prosecutors have responded. Our position is that, if prosecutors can see such cases go to trial without further traumatizing abuse survivors, then they should do so. Trials’ conclusions provide opportunities for clear (and often written) decisions that clarify what roles, if any, the alternative religions as organizations played in the abuses. Such decisions likely will impact remaining sect or cult members and even potential recruits about the legal and moral dimensions of the groups themselves. An alternative position, however, is that groups holding responsibility for child sexual abuse should experience pressure from authorities to compensate survivors without costly trials, since such trials may deplete resources away from survivors’ assistance. Keywords: alternative religions, cults, child sexual abuse, pedophilia, child sexual-abuse prosecution Alternative religions 2 frequently have tense relationships with mainstream cultures. In 1F

*Corresponding coauthor. 1 This article is a revised version of a presentation delivered at the July 2016 International Cultic Association Conference in Dallas, Texas. 2 The term alternative religions refers to groups that are outside of the main religious traditions of a particular society. They may represent the faiths of minority populations, sectarian schisms within existing groups, or new religious appearances with little if any precedents in a culture. If they arise within the milieu of social

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Canada and the United States, their religious dimensions provide them with protections provided by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the United States Constitution, especially its Bill of Rights. Nevertheless, aspects of their doctrines and operations keep the public suspicious of the ‘true’ natures of such groups. The most damaging allegations that alternative religions can suffer involve ones related to various forms of member harm. Physical and sexual assaults, 3 medical neglect, 4 2F

3F

upheaval, they may hold varying degrees of hostility to mainstream society and its religious traditions. They also may embody the idiosyncratic, and sometimes harmful, beliefs of their founders. Cults simply are groups whose beliefs or practices or both are at significant variance from those of the mainstream culture. These terms overlap, and controversies exist about the high demands that many of these groups place upon members’ time, resources, and social affiliations. Many of the child sexual-abuse cases that we consider involve new religions or new religious movements (NRMS), which simply mean that the groups formed in the West after the Second World War. For an overview of how some alternative religions use their theologies to justify child sexual abuse, see Stephen A. Kent, “Religious Justifications for Child Sexual Abuse in Cults and Alternative Religions,” International Journal of Cultic Studies, 2 (2012), 49–73. For a study that assessed risk factors involving child sexual abuse within fundamentalist Protestant families, see Ruth Stout-Miller, Larry S. Miller, and Mary R. Langenbrunner, “Religiosity and Child Sexual Abuse: A Risk Factor Analysis,” Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 6(4) (1997), 15–34. It found that, “first, persons coming from a fundamentalist Protestant religious family background were more at risk of being sexually abused by a relative. Second, persons coming from a home with little or no religious involvement were more at risk of being sexually abused by a non-relative” (pp. 30– 31). Also see David A. Wolfe, Karen J. Francis, and Anna-Lee Straatman, “Child Abuse in Religiously Affiliated Institutions: Long-term Impact on Men’s Mental Health,” Child Abuse and Neglect, 30 (2006), 205–212. Livia Bardin’s 2009 study of the childhood experiences of maltreatment in the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints and The Family [International] referred to these groups both as cults and isolated authoritarian groups (Livia Bardin, “Recognizing and Working with an Underserved Culture: Child Protection and Cults,” Journal of Public Child Welfare, 3 [2009], 114–138). 3

Janet Heimlich, 2011, Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment, pp. 75–120, 167–214 (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books); and Karel Kurst-Swanger, 2008, Worship and Sin: An Exploration of Religion-Related Crime in the United States, pp. 73–92 (New York, NY: Peter Lang).

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financial improprieties, 5 educational 6 deficiencies, and poor working conditions 7 can lead to public-relations nightmares and widespread acceptance that the group is a cult. More damaging are allegations of these types of abuses involving children. 8 Public suspicion about any of these types of abuse likely will lead to increased external scrutiny, which can lead to high-profile media accounts, police surveillance, anticult lectures, and court cases. Groups actually may modify their names, leaders, doctrines, or behaviors in response to that scrutiny, 9 or they may disintegrate and fade. 4F

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Amidst child sexual abuse allegations, 10 group leaders realize the gravity of the situations

confronting them, although they may respond in ways that do not acknowledge the primacy of protecting children from harm. The more astute leaders will make assessments of the circumstances surrounding the allegations (including the positions of the accused in the movements, the number of accusations, and the period in the movements’ histories that the violations allegedly occurred). Taking into account the alleged perpetrators’ positions in the religions, responses may vary from separating the alleged perpetrators from the groups themselves 11 to defending central or key figures/leaders. 12 Some controversial groups 10F

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4 Cameron Stauth, 2013, In the Name of God: The True Story of the Fight to Save Children From Faith-healing Homicide (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press). 5

Kurst-Swanger, 2008, pp. 93–94.

6

Julia Scheeres, 2015 (September 1), “Children of the Tribes,” Pacific Standard, pp. 14–15; Available from https://psmag.com/children-of-the-tribes-5b95e96c4bfa#.yz6tcb14l 7

Scheeres, 2015, pp. 13–15.

8

On the problem of multiple types of child abuse occurring within religious settings, see Gail S. Goodman, Gette L. Bottoms, Allison Redlich, Phillip R. Shaver, and Kathleen R. Diviak, 1998, “Correlates of Multiple Forms of Victimization in ReligionRelated Child Abuse Cases,” Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, (2)1, 273–295. 9 Two of these types of changes took place in 2011, after Guru Prakashanand Waraswati (82), who was the head of the Barsana Dham ashram (in Austin, Texas), was convicted of 20 counts of indecency with two children, each of whom claimed that the abuse started when they were 12 years old. His sentence was to spend 280 years in jail, but before sentencing he skipped bail and has not been located. The group’s new leader, who himself had beaten charges of rape in two countries, immediately changed the facility’s name to Radha Madhav Dham (Sean Kimmons, 2011 [March 4], “Hindu Guru Found Guilty on 20 Counts of Indecency With Children,” Hays Free Press; available from http://haysfreepress.com/2011/03/04/hindu-guru-found-guilty-on20-counts-of-indecency-with-children/; Mandy Oaklander, 2011 [April 15], “BarsanaDham Ashram, Once Home to Wanted Felon Guru Prakashanand Saraswati, Changes Name and Appoints a New Leader—Another Accused Rapist,” Houston Press; available from http://www.houstonpress.com/news/barsana-dham-ashramonce-home-to-wanted-felon-guru-prakashanand-saraswatichanges-name-and-appoints-a-new-leader-another-accused-rapist6736029 10 The Canadian Criminal Code has several sections devoted to identifying illegal sexual acts, and they also pertain to the exploitation of children. For example, the Code identifies Sexual Interference as directly or indirectly touching, for sexual purposes, “a part of the body or with an object; any part of the body of a person under the age of 16 years . . .” (Criminal Code RS C 2013 c C-151). The indictable offense of Sexual Touching involves

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“Every person who, for a sexual purpose, invites, counsels or incites a person under the age of 16 years to touch, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, the body of any person, including the body of the person who so invites, counsels or incites and the body of the person under the age of 16 years, (a) is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 14 years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of one year; or (b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years less a day and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of 90 days” (Criminal Code RSC 2013 c C-152). In the context of children, the United States Code defines “sexual abuse” as including “(A) the employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion of any child to engage in, or assist any other person to engage in, any sexually explicit conduct or simulation of such conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct; or (B) the rape, and in cases of caretaker or inter-familial relationships, statutory rape, molestation, prostitution, or other form of sexual exploitation of children, or incest with children” (U.S. Code › Title 42 › Chapter 67 › Subchapter I › § 5106g—Definitions). 11 For the example of Charles Leadbeater’s temporary expulsion (via resignation) from the Theosophical Society (beginning in May 1906) for teaching young and teenaged boys about the supposed health benefits of masturbation (sometimes giving that advice to boys who had not asked for it), plus probably touching some of them in an unspecified manner, see Gregory Tillett, 1982, The Elder Brother: A Biography of Charles Webster Leadbeater, pp. 83–87 (London, UK: Routledge; Kegan Paul). In December 1908, the Theosophical Society voted Leadbeater back in (Tillet, 1982, p. 100). From his jail cell, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints, Warren Jeffs, continued to run the remainder of his polygamous organization of perhaps 10,000 people after his conviction on two counts of sexually assaulting children (Alex Hannaford, “The Evil Preacher Who Runs His Cult From Prison,” 2014 [June 17], Telegraph; “Convicted FLDS Child Rapist Warren Jeffs Leads Polygamist Sect From Behind Bars,” 2015 [September 30], KYLA5. Toward the end of this article, we discuss Jeffs further. 12 For a summary of the discussion within the Branch Davidians over David Koresh’s (1959–1993) alleged vision that God had commanded him to have a child with his 11-year-old sister-in-law, and his wife’s dream that “David might be destroyed, even die, if he refused the divine command,” see David Thibodeau, 1999, A Place Called Waco: A Survivor’s Story, pp. 108–109 (New York,

17

may respond to allegations by attempting to compartmentalize the perpetrators as a few “bad apples” or a small number of deviant members. 13 Reactions to the time in groups’ histories in which the allegations occurred may result in self-presentations by the group as having reformed in relation to a previous period. Accountability may force groups to initiate safeguards 14 or, in extreme cases (usually involving systemic problems through which leadership perpetrated sexual crimes), will drive groups into oblivion. 15 12F

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In this article, we identify the three different levels of court procedures in which child sexualabuse allegations in controversial alternative religions are most likely to appear. We then present basic strategies that alternative religious defendants have used, and appropriate counterstrategies that prosecutors and plaintiffs’ counsel might utilize. Most if not all of the cases that we examine attracted considerable attention at the time they were argued, so extensive material about them exists on reputable (and in NY: PublicAffairs). When she was 12 years old, he began sexually assaulting the young girl and had a child by her when she was 14. Soon afterward, he took other girls and young women, aged 13, 14, 17, 19, and 20, as lovers (Thibodeau, 1999, p. 109). 13

See, for example, the debate about an admitted child sexual abuser within the Emissaries of Divine Light. In 1990, Ray Mickelic admitted to Loveland, Colorado police “that he had sexually assaulted children over a ten-year period” (Mike O’Keefe, 1990 [February 21–27], “Sunset at Sunrise Ranch: There’s a Dark Side to the Emissaries of Divine Light,” Westword, p. 10). A debate ensued about whether Mickelic “found justification for what he did from the Emissaries” (as one former member claimed), versus the belief of a local detective, which was that the Emissaries’ teachings had no role in the perpetrator’s crimes (O’Keefe, 1990, p. 14). From the detective’s perspective, Mickelic simply was a “bad apple” within the group. 14 For the exposure of extensive child sexual abuse in the Hare Krishnas, and the organization’s establishment of the Association for the Protection of Vaishnava Children in April 1998, see David Wolf, 2004, “Child Abuse and the Hare Krishnas: History and Response,” in The Hare Krishna Movement: The Postcharismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant, Edited by Edwin F. Bryant and Maria L. Ekstrand (pp. 321–344) (New York, NY: Columbia University Press). 15 The second generation’s negative reaction and subsequent defect from the Children of God/The Family played a major role in the group’s decline and eventual extinguishment. See Stephen A. Kent, 2004, “Generational Revolt by the Adult Children of FirstGeneration Members of the Children of God/The Family,” Cultic Studies Review, (1)1, 56–72; Stephen A. Kent, 2005, “Education and Reeducation in Ideological Organizations and Their Implications for Children,” Cultic Studies Review, (4)2, 136–139.

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almost all cases, official) Internet sites. We obtained additional primary and secondary files on child sexual abuse on alternative religions housed in the Stephen A. Kent Collection on Alternative Religions in the University of Alberta Library system. Further research by us and others will verify whether the cases that we selected are representative of other groups’ legal cases, but our familiarity with the literature on alternative religions suggests to us that they are. We assume that the organizations in which accused parties are members will be assessing how to respond to the allegations in ways that still preserve their respective groups. For these groups, justice for victimized children may or may not be a priority greater than or even equal to preservation. Thus, child sexual-abuse cases are different in kind from other types of religious minority deviance involving such issues as blood transfusions, corporal punishment, fasting, financial donations, and excommunication. Our firm position is that court systems and the attorneys involved in child sexual-abuse cases have a responsibility to ensure that all guilty parties face both legal accountability and social exposure for their actions, and religious groups are no exceptions. Consequently, we advocate that, whenever possible (which primarily means whenever litigation will not further traumatize survivors), 16 child sexual-abuse cases involving members of alternative religions should go to trial, thus producing decisions (and often written judicial decisions) that identify what if any roles the groups themselves played in facilitating the abuses. 17 15F

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16 Both the United States and Canada have Children’s Advocacy Centers, designed to minimize stress to children who give evidence, along with attempting to secure accurate and usable statements from them. See, for example, Melissa Lindsay, 2013 (December 5), “Just Facts,” Government of Canada, Department of Justice. Available from http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cjjp/victim/jf-pf/cac-cae.html 17 The most dramatic example of a case discussing the role of a group and its leader in child sexual abuse is W 42 In the High Court of Justice, Family Division, Principal Registry in the Matter of ST (A Minor) and in the Matter of the Supreme Court Act 1991, Lord Justice Ward (19 October 1995). We discuss this case following.

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In What Cases Do These Allegations Arise? Allegations of child sexual abuse arise in three forms of cases. The area of law in which these cases arise has a significant impact on the implications of legal decisions that develop from them. First, one form of cases occurs in the criminal field, which means that the charges are limited to alleged Criminal Code violations. In addition, conviction in this field requires that the prosecution meets a heightened burden of proof 18 at the same time that the accused has heightened protections around such issues as search and seizure, disclosure, meeting certain standards in case law, and so on. The criminal system in each country shapes the purpose of these cases, which will involve varying combinations of punishment, deterrence, and rehabilitation. The impact of these cases unfolds through the possibility of convicted perpetrators serving jail time, the significance of guilty decisions (especially from juries), high media attention, and the possibility of establishing legal precedents. Criminal investigations and cases, however, can be long and costly, with any number of procedural mistakes causing them to derail, with potentially guilty persons going free. The aborted criminal case against three members and one leader of the Apostles of Infinite Love (primarily in Quebec, Canada but also in Alberta) provides an example of what can go wrong. 17F

In April 1999, the self-proclaimed pope of the Apostles, Jean Gaston-Tremblay, and three followers were facing a total of 51 counts of sexual and physical abuse of children. The charges include[d] sodomy, sexual assault, indecent exposure and assault.

The case was dropped [in June 2001] after prosecutors told the court there were “problems” with the evidence. More than 40 documents had gone missing from the records of the Quebec Provincial Police. 19 18F

Officials concerned with child welfare had significant concerns about this group’s childrearing practices dating back to 1966, and “[i]n 1981, the Quebec Child Protection Committee declared that there was nothing it alone could do to tackle cults like the Apostles.” 20 Neither the Quebec government nor police provided additional assistance, so no authorities took action. By the time police laid charges in 1999 and were developing their case, officials seem to have lost 20 years of files, which they needed to proceed with the prosecution. 21 19F

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A second form of cases is civil, which means that the involved parties attempt to resolve disputes through compensatory rather than criminal means. The general impact of child sexual-abuse allegations involving cults or highdemand alternative religious movements occurs through the form of the award (monetary), which allows for relatively efficient settlements (in contrast to criminal plea bargains, which often still involve some form of jail time). Victims may pursue civil remedies, in conjunction with criminal proceedings or independently. In contrast to criminal proceedings, the standard of proof in civil cases is on a balance of probabilities, which means that the process by which the plaintiffs collect evidence is less likely to face stringent constitutional analyses, and the case is expected to proceed based upon full disclosure by all parties. 19 Simon Cooper, 2001 (June 16), “Missing Evidence Stalls Cult Sex-Abuse Charges,” Globe and Mail, A1.

18 For a discussion of factors that either facilitate or hinder prosecutors pursuing child sexual abuse cases, see Theodore P. Cross, Edward De Vos, and Debra Whitcomb, 1994, “Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse: Which Cases Are Accepted?,” Child Abuse And Neglect, (18)8, 663–677; Delores D. Stroud, Sonia L. Martens, and Julia Baker, 2000, “Criminal Investigation of Child Sexual Abuse: A Comparison of Cases Referred to the Prosecutor to Those Not Referred,” Child Abuse and Neglect (24)5, 589–700.

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20 Simon Cooper, 2001 (July 12), “The System Shields a Sinner,” Globe and Mail, A13. 21 Cooper, 2001, A13. For a discussion about why some child sexual-abuse cases experience delays in prosecutions (sometimes stretching over decades), see Deborah A. Connolly, Kristin Chong, Patricia I. Coburn, and Danyael Lutgens, 2015, “Factors Associated With Delays of Days to Decades to Criminal Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse,” Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 33, 546–560.

19

The third legal context in which allegations of religiously tainted child sexual abuse arise is in family law. The subject of these cases is not the sexual abuse itself, but rather the extent to which the abuse is evidence of an unsuitable living situation for children. 22 Defending counsel and even members of the public often view allegations of child sexual abuse with skepticism because of their highly prejudicial value. The mere suspicion of child sexual abuse makes it difficult for a court to place a child with a suspected abuser or with a parent who is associated with an allegedly abusive religious movement. The accusing party, therefore, has ample motivation to make unfounded allegations. 23 When allegations are factual, however, then the complainant frequently establishes proof to the court by locating the specific abuse against a child within the broader context of abuses that occurred against other children. In other words, complainants often try to establish that the abuses a particular client or clients suffered were part of a broad, systemic pattern of child sexual abuse. 24 21F

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Generally, these cases provide the catalyst to further investigation rather than having a singular impact. For example, in February 1987, Christina Mills was a former member of a Hare Krishna schism attempting to obtain sole custody of her three children who still resided with her estranged partner in the sect’s commune in New Vrindaban, West Virginia. 25 Calling the commune “a dangerous, unhealthy, 24F

22 Because these matters are extremely private, fewer allegations will reach the public unless the case goes to trial. 23 A 1997 study found “that cases were not likely to be prosecuted if they were outgrowths (or perceived to be outgrowths) of divorce or custody battles between divorcing or divorced parents” (Kathleen D. Brewer, Daryl M. Rowe, and Devon D. Brewer, 1997, “Factors Related to Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse Cases,” Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, (6)1, 106–107. 24 For an article on religiously connected ritual abuse of children published during the height of the so-called Satanic period of the early 1990s, and which used some sources now considered to be suspect, see Barbara Snow and Teena Sorensen, 1990 (December), “Ritualistic Child Abuse in a Neighborhood Setting,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, (5)4, 474–487. 22 For a critical look at this commune, see John Hubner and Lindsey Gruson, 1988, Monkey on a Stick: Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich).

20

and immoral environment,” 26 Mills specifically charged that the father of her three children had been involved with “the repeated and systematic oral and anal homosexual rape of schoolchildren.” 27 These allegations appeared in a lengthy investigative newspaper article about law-enforcement probes into suspected child sexual abuse, polygamy, sanitation, and educational deficiencies at New Vrindaban, even though Mills already had “lost an appeal for temporary custody at a hearing [the previous week], when a local judge ruled that her three children were in no immediate danger with their father at the commune.” 28 Subsequently a family-law master ruled in Mills’s favor, 29 but a Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed the earlier court ruling in favor of the father. 30 The negative allegations, however, already had appeared in the press. 25F

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A second example of a family court case having wide-ranging implications was the early 1992 custody battle over Kiri Jewell (b. 1981) who, along with her mother, lived in the Waco Branch Davidian compound with David Koresh (d. 1993). Jewell went for a Christmas 1991 visit to her father in Michigan, and he had been alerted by former member Marc Breault that she likely was, or was going to be, sexually assaulted by Koresh as one of his underage, illegal wives. Her father, David Jewell, won temporary sole custody of Kiri in early 1992, pending a full custody hearing. In both court proceedings, David Jewell introduced extensive evidence about Koresh’s sexual activities with minors, which contributed to the eventual joint custody decision that also prevented Kiri from having any contact with Koresh. 31 She never visited her 30F

26 Eric Harrison, 1987 (March 9), “Troubled Paradise: Krishna Site Focus of Probes,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 1-A. 27

Harrison, 1987, 4-A.

28

Harrison, 1987, 4-A.

29

This ruling is summarized in Christina M. Mills, on Behalf of Premanjana GORRICK, Parasara Muni Gorrick and Raktaka Mills, Infants v. Dennis F. GORRICK, a/k/a Dharmatma Das. No. 18916 Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. (May 18, 1989). 30

Mills v. Gorrick, 381 S. E. 2d 273 (1989).

31

Marc Breault and Martin King, 1993, Inside the Cult, pp. 254– 282 (New York, NY: Signet).

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mother again, who was one of more than 80 members to die in the compound’s fire in 1993. Koresh was aware that these court proceedings had exposed some of his illegal pedophilic activities, and this evidence reappeared in an extensive, multiday exposé printed by the local town’s newspaper 32 immediately prior to the March 1993 raid initiated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF). Subsequently, in 1995, before a congressional hearing on Waco, Kiri Jewel (by then 14 years old) provided detailed and powerful testimony about the sexual abuse she and other girls suffered at the hands of Koresh. 33 The allegations first presented in a family case, therefore, involving the custody of Kiri Jewel, and her subsequent elaboration of those allegations, has played a significant role in interpreting Koresh’s refusal to surrender to law enforcement, and his subsequent fiery death. We hypothesize that Koresh, as a publicly exposed pedophile, realized that, if he were to fall into the hands of law enforcement, then he would face significant jail time. Consequently, suicide was preferable because it allowed him to appear (to the public and to his followers) as a religious martyr fulfilling his own prophecies. 31F

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A third example of a family-court decision having wide-ranging implications for a controversial alternative religion involves the Lord Justice Alan Ward’s decision in the United Kingdom concerning the Children of God/The Family. 34 The custody case was between the mother of ST, who was a member of The Family, and the child’s grandmother and mother of ST’s mother, who feared for the child’s

welfare growing up in a controversial group rumoured to allow adult/child and child/child sex, severe corporal punishment, poor education, and a socially closed environment. Ward decided that the mother could retain custody of her child, although with significant restrictions and restraints laid upon her by the court. The decision, however, was a Pyrrhic victory for The Family, because Ward’s published decision contained detailed discussions about the group’s history of various forms of child abuse. In the words of a prominent Australian barrister, Ian Freckelton, 35 the Ward decision “is highly significant as arguably the most judicial analysis of the practices” of any such alternative religion. 36 As Freckelton summarized, 34F

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It is one of the most remarkable decisions of the Family Division of the High Court in terms of its methodology in grappling with some complex and conflicting rights and obligations and declining to grapple with others. Lord Justice Ward’s unashamed ultimatum to the group [which were 35

Freckelton had a history with The Family, dating back at least to 1992. In that year, Community Services Victoria (CSV) in Australia and their counterparts in New South Wales raided Family homes, and in Victoria a children’s court magistrate placed the children in CSV’s temporary custody. Parents quickly appealed the custody decision, and a few days later the issue appeared before the Supreme Court. On behalf of CSV: Dr. Freckleton told the Supreme Court the state’s case would include evidence from a child psychiatrist, and overseas expert on the sect, police officers who had investigated the group, and former members.

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32 Mark England and Darlene McCormick, 1993 (March 1), “An Incident Involving Vernon Howell and a Young Girl Sparks Marc Breault to Leave,” Waco Tribune-Herald, 7A. 33 Statement of Kiri Jewell, Resident at Mount Carmel, accompanied by her father, David Jewell; in Activities of Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Toward the Branch Davidians (Part 1), Joint Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, and the Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, One Hundred Fourth Congress (July 19, 1995), pp. 147–155. For a former member’s doubts about aspects of her testimony, see Thibodeau, 1999, pp. 339–340. 34

W 42 In the High Court of Justice, 1995.

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‘Those persons will say that they harbor the most serious of concerns if those children are retuned even for an extremely short period in the community,’ he told the court. ‘They’ll say that there is a possibility of significant emotional and physical misfortune befalling these children immediately.’ (Herald Sun, 2013) But in a landmark ruling, the court ordered that the children be reunited with their families until a future court hearing (Elissa Hunt, 2013 (March 4), “Children Snatched From Their Homes in Dramatic Raids on the Children of God Sect in 1990s Trials,” Herald Sun [Australia]. Available from https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/1jaho2xy9jxrn/?&v=c&th=13d 35d04711b5c9c 36

Ian Freckelton, 1998 (April), “‘Cults’, Calamities, and Psychological Consequences.” Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 5, 13–14.

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acknowledgements and agreements that the group, its leaders, and the mother had to make in order for her to maintain custody] constitutes a dramatic confrontation with a religious group in the context of what was litigation between specific parties, litigation that did not technically include the group. His decision and the reasoning by which he arrived at the decision enunciate a series of potentially highly influential approaches toward risks posed to children by heterodox child-rearing practices on the part of those who are adherents of non-mainstream religions.

More importantly, Ward rested the issue of custody partly on requiring Family leaders to denounce some of their founder’s teachings (specifically regarding sex), even though the case itself did not involve the group as one of the parties within the litigation. In Freckelton’s opinion, when Ward crossed the line into requiring assurances from the group as to its future intentions, the legitimacy in his requirements became somewhat questionable. Still further along the spectrum, though, it is doubtful whether Ward LJ had the power to require as a condition for granting custody to a particular litigant that a third party, “The Family,” repudiate and denounce its founder. 39

From an international perspective, Re ST (A Minor) is the most important judicial attempt thus far to analyse the impact of practices of [new religious movements] upon the wellbeing of children. The resolution of the case constitutes an extraordinary intrusion by the State into the functioning of a religious group and the decisions of a mother about the rearing of a young son. In terms of a confrontation between religious freedom and children’s rights, Re ST (A Minor) is a sophisticated but robust and opinionated balancing of fundamental interests and values. The focus of the decision throughout is upon what are identified to be the best interests of the child. However, the consequences of the reasoning for religious heterodoxy are likely to be the most significant legacy of the decision. 37

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These problems aside, and while also acknowledging that Ward’s decision only involved a custody dispute, Freckelton concluded that the Ward analysis and decision “will achieve a significant place in both international family law and its ‘cult’ litigation.” 40 Regardless of any imperfections in Ward’s decision, he achieved what we are advocating: an examination and public exposure of a group’s role in child sexual abuses. 39F

Difficulty Prosecuting Child SexualAbuse Cases in the Cult Context

36F

Nevertheless, problems exist with the decision, some of which go directly to questions about the depths into which the judiciary should enter and direct religious practice. Some jurists would have wished Ward to have ruled definitively on questions related to the validity of concepts such as “brainwashing,” “mind control,” and “coercive persuasion.” 38

Although we argue that prosecutors and plaintiffs’ counsels need to consider the institutional ramifications of not taking cases to trial, they also must weigh the ramifications of court proceedings with the inherent difficulties of gaining convictions on incidents that allegedly had taken place some time ago in private (even sanctified) areas. Child witnesses or victims always present difficulties for both prosecutors and defendants, as do witnesses or clients of any age who formerly or currently are involved with cults themselves. Child witnesses/victims present a multitude of issues within the courtroom. In Canadian

37F

39 37

Freckelton, 1998, p. 14.

38

Freckelton, 1998, pp. 27–28.

22

Freckelton, 1998, p. 26; see Re ST (A Minor), 1995, pp. 292– 293.

40

Freckelton, 1998, p. 25.

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criminal cases, a person over the age of 14 is presumed to have the capacity to testify. 41 Opposing counsel, however, may challenge the capacity of the witness. At that point, if the judge is satisfied that an issue of capacity may exist, then the court will conduct an inquiry to determine whether the child is capable of understanding and responding to questions. 42 If the children are to testify while they are under the age of 14, then the first issue the court will deal with is the child’s capacity. In criminal cases, the evidence need not be sworn as long as the witness is able to “understand and respond to questions.” 43 If the child is allowed to testify, then the judge or jurors or both will consider the testimony for its weight, taking into consideration the credibility and almost certainly the age of the witness. 40F

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Child sexual-abuse accounts involving children in cults contain all of the disturbing material that exists in cases where religion is not a factor, but the religious dimensions often add elements to some claims that almost make them surreal. Perpetrators in secular and religious contexts can groom children, threaten them if they tell, and even involve them in abusive actions against themselves or against other children. Religious contexts, however, also allow children (and even their parents) to be blindly trusting to those who have religious status, and subsequently can lead to children fearing reprisals by a supernatural being for disclosing. Children may claim to

have been abused in ritual settings, often involving close relatives. These allegations are so unusual and so damning if true that the courts must pay great attention to the conditions under which the children related

41

Canada Evidence Act, RSC 1985, c C-5 s 16.1(1).

the accounts to authorities or caregivers, and more than one case has fallen apart because of unprofessional interviewing techniques by law enforcement or bad therapeutic techniques used by social services personnel. In sum, courts must determine whether adults may have influenced children’s memories or (potential) testimonies. The McMartin case in California provides a stark example of the issues surrounding child witnesses and collaborative evidence. In 1983, Judy Johnson (who was a mother with a young child in the McMartin Preschool) reported to police “that her son’s bottom was red and that he had spoken of a man named Ray.” 44 (Johnson died of an alcohol-related illness in 1986, having been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic a year earlier.) 45 Police then contacted 200 parents who had children at the facility, indicating in their letters that “they were investigating oral sex and sodomy” that might have occurred at the preschool, and which would have involved children. Extraordinary stories poured in, and subsequently most of the 400 children were interviewed by “an administrator turned therapist” Kee MacFarlane. 46 On March 24, 1984, police arrested four members of the Buckey family who were involved with the school (Ray Buckey, his mother Peggy McMartin Buckey, his sister Peggy Ann Buckey, and his grandmother Virginia McMartin), plus three teachers on a variety of child abuse charges. 47 In January 1986, a new district attorney dropped the charges against everyone except Ray and his mother, and pursued charges related to lewd and lascivious conduct with minors under 14. The resultant trial against them “was the longest and costliest criminal trial in the United States” up until that 43F

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46F

42

See the Canada Evidence Act, RSC 1985, c C-5 s 16.1. For civil suits in Canada, the relevant provincial evidence act determines the competency of child-witness testimony. The Alberta Evidence Act, for example, states that the evidence of a child must be corroborated, and if the child does not understand the oath, then the evidence of children over the age of 14 years of age may be received if the child possesses a sufficient intelligence to justify the reception of the evidence and understands the duty of speaking the truth (Alberta Evidence Act, RSA 2000, c A-18 s 19).

43

Canada Evidence Act, RSC 1985, c C-5 s 16.1.

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44 Associated Press, 1990 (January 19), “No Conviction in ThreeYear Pre-school Molestation Trial,” Edmonton Journal, B7. 45 Margaret Carlson, 1990 (January 29), “Six Years of Trial by Torture,” Time, p. 32. 46

Carlson, 1990.

47

Carlson, 1990; Associated Press, 1990.

23

time, 48 but it led to their acquittal on 52 counts of child molestation and a deadlocked decision (leading to a mistrial) against Ray on 13 childmolestation charges. 49 47F

48F

A major factor contributing to their acquittal came because the jury heard how McFarlane and others had coaxed answers out of children, whose accounts had little if any collaborating evidence to support them. 50 The allegations were wide-ranging, and included an account of what seemed to have been a Satanic ritual in a church in which Ray Buckey “stabbed a rabbit to death on an altar, and made the children drink its blood” and another account of Ray Buckey beating a horse to death with a baseball bat. 51 Importantly, 49F

50F

Children described tunnels under the floor of the preschool which led to an outside exit under the rabbit hutch, and another underground passage to the neighboring building. They explained they would be loaded into vehicles in the garage of that building for transport to other locations of group ritual. They described also a secret room accessed by the tunnels under the preschool. 52 51F

Both parents and the district attorney’s office, however, had sponsored limited digs near the preschool in 1985 but found no tunnels, which failed to support the children’s allegations. 53 In addition, Charles Buckey, who was the father of Ray and husband of Peggy, testified under oath that “neither subterranean areas nor tunnels existed”—which was knowledge based upon his having designed and supervised construction of the building in 1966. 54 52F

53F

48

Associated Press, 1990.

49

Associated Press, 1990.

50

Carlson, 1990, p. 32; Kirk Makin, 1990 (January 27), “Listening to the Children,” Globe and Mail, D1. 51 Christopher Reed, 1989 (May 20), “Diabolical Debauchery or Mere Stories From the Mouth of Babes?,” Globe and Mail, D5.

The accuracy, however, of Charles Buckey’s testimony became a matter of debate. A group of persistent parents believed that they found the kind of collaborating evidence that the prosecution sorely needed, but it never made it into court. In 1990, a new owner of the preschool and its property was about to bulldoze the building when parents hired forensic archaeologist, Dr. Gary Stickel, to examine the preschool and its surrounding land one last time; and he concluded that, in fact, he found underground structures similar to what the children had described. He concluded that one was a 45-foot tunnel that snaked through and under the preschool; another was a 7-foot tunnel that led to a neighbor’s yard. The switches for the fire-alarm system apparently did not work as they were labeled but in fact were part of an internal alarm system. A plastic bag found while excavating contained the date 1982, giving a date when the tunnels may have been hand dug. 55 By this time, however, the trial against Ray and Peggy Buckey was long over, and Ray was amidst a second trial on some remaining charges (in which he again would receive an acquittal). It was too late to introduce the findings about tunnels into the second trial, so no judge or jury ever heard them. Consequently, the McMartin case has led to completely contradictory conclusions about the extent to which counselors have led children to invent tales of Satanism and horrific abuse. On the one hand, many people believe that McMartin represents a worst-case scenario about unskilled child welfare workers infusing children’s memories with events that never occurred. On the other hand, others insist that McMartin demonstrates the importance of believing children when they speak about having been sexually abused, even if the interview techniques used to solicit this information had been leading and directive. Subsequently, a psychologist who revisited Stickel’s report concluded that he simply had uncovered an old, buried, family 54F

52 Roland C. Summit, 1994, “The Dark Tunnels of McMartin.” Journal of Psychohistory, 401. 53

Roland C. Summit, 1994, “The Dark Tunnels of McMartin.” Journal of Psychohistory, 402. 54 Norma Meyer, 1989 (April), “Charles Buckey: No Secret Rooms on Campus,” Daily Breeze, A3.

24

55

Summit, 1994, pp. 405–409; Doctor Gary Stickel, archaeologist, (n.d.), “The Tunnels Found at the McMartin Preschool: A Preliminary Report,” Edmonton, filed in the Stephen A. Kent Collection on Alternative Religions (Satanism--Articles— Academic—Summit, Roland C.).

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trash pit, and that “confirmatory bias” had led him to perceive evidence that was not there, and misinterpret other evidence that was present. 56 55F

In Canada, a similar concern over leading and biased questions by child welfare workers when interviewing children appeared in a high-profile child welfare case in the Hamilton-Wentworth region of Ontario. In what became Canada’s longest and costliest child welfare hearing, District Court Judge Thomas Beckett heard testimony about ritual murder, cannibalism, gross sexual abuse and Satanism involving [two girls’] mother, father, and their mother’s boyfriend…. 57 The girls themselves were too young to testify, so their foster mother and other adults (such as Children’s Aid workers) spoke on their behalf in the courtroom. 58 A police officer, however, who had spent time with the girls testified that they had told him “that their lurid and bizarre allegations about murder and cannibalism were ‘all a big story.’” 59 56F

57F

58F

Believing that the girls were telling adults what they thought the adults wanted to hear, the officer mentioned in testimony that one of the Children’s Aid Society social workers “offered the girls an inducement in the form of a promise of a future visit to Canada’s Wonderland [which is an amusement park] and threatened them that they would not go home until they found a graveyard where babies were allegedly buried.” 60 The officer also reported that the children had indicated that adults had used their home’s backyard to temporarily bury bodies, but police were unable to find evidence that the ground had been dug up or disturbed. 61 Despite 59F

60F

56

W. Joseph Wyatt, 2002, “What Was Under the McMartin Preschool? A Review and Behavioral Analysis of the ‘Tunnels’ Find,” Behavior and Social Issues, 12, 29–39. 57 “Macabre Ritual Murder, Satanism Tales, ”1986 (November 27), Lloydminster Daily Times. 58 Kevin Marron, 1986 (July 16), “Case Raises Spectre of a Violent Cult,” Globe and Mail, A1. 59 Kevin Marron, 1986 (July 4), “Officer Says Children Manipulated,” Globe and Mail, A14. 60 61

Marron, 1986 (July 14): A14. Marron, 1986 (July 14): A14.

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the officer’s reservations about the quality of the evidence, the judge (in late March 1987) made the two girls wards of the Crown and prohibited their parents from ever seeing their daughters again. 62 61F

Reporter Kevin Marron sat through the entire case, and the year after it concluded he published a book on the whole affair. He concluded, [i]n the absence of other credible explanations, we cannot afford to dismiss the possibility that these [children’s] allegations point to the activities of groups engaged in satanic ritual, or pornography, or both, and that there may be some communications or connection between such groups. 63 62F

In a related book that he published in 1989, Marron continued to reflect upon the child welfare case: Having observed the Hamilton case first hand and done further research on investigation of the issue, I do not accept the theory that child care workers have invented the concept of ritual abuse or that the child victims have imagined or fabricated their allegations—but I do not know what it all means. Rather than accept the idea of a network of cults, for which there is little evidence, I am more inclined to believe that this kind of abuse is perpetrated by disturbed individuals who have been influenced by Satanism or some other similar beliefs. I think it also is possible that people are using the trappings of Satanism either as a theme for sadistic pornography or as a means of frightening children into complying with sexual abuse. 64 63F

Although he was not sure about what to make of the children’s allegations and did know about the alleged leading questions posed by at least one Children’s Aid worker, Marron remained 62 Kevin Marron and Drew Fagan, 1987 (March 31), “Ritual-abuse Girls Made Crown Wards,” Globe and Mail, A1. 63

Kevin Marron, 1988, Ritual Abuse: Canada’s Most Infamous Trial on Child Abuse, p. 239 (Toronto, Canada: Seal Books).

64

Kevin Marron, 1989, Witches, Pagans, & Magic in the New Age, p. 204 (Toronto, Canada: Seal Books).

25

convinced that horrific things had happened to the children. Not everyone shared Marron’s conclusion that the children had been through horrific abuses. Author Martyn Kendrick examined the same evidence as did Marron, but took seriously the possibility that adults, through questions, had led the children in their answers, and that little if any evidence supported the children’s claims: The officials of the Hamilton-Wentworth Children’s Aid Society had taken only two interviews to reach their decision. At the conclusion of the trial, despite the mother’s tragic history and the law enforcement agencies’ reluctance to attempt prosecution, [Children’s Aid Society] tried to revive the matter within the criminal justice system. Because of lack of evidence, the police concluded that they did not have a case. 65 64F

Kendrick’s clear implication was that the Children’s Aid Society also did not have a case, since the Society built it entirely upon uncollaborated children’s evidence, possibly created by adults getting them to say what investigators wanted to hear. Adults’ influence of children’s accounts is only one of many factors that may impact the reliability of children’s reports of abuse. Psychologist, legal consultant, and expert witness Daniel Reisberg developed a helpful “pragmatic guide for the justice system” that included a review of research on childhood memory and appropriate forensic techniques for obtaining them for courts. 66 That guide spoke favorably about the utility of children’s memories, but did so in the context of identifying numerous factors that can compromise their accuracy:

complete provided that the children are questioned properly from the start. Children can (if properly questioned) show impressively detailed memory for day-to-day events and even better memory for distinctive emotional events—presumably the sort of events that might be relevant to a criminal case. 67 66F

Later he added, The data are telling us that children can remember the past accurately, completely, and for a long time. Moreover, the types of events relevant to the justice system tend to be especially memorable for children because the events are distinctive, often stressful, and sometimes repeated. 68 67F

Reisberg offered these conclusions, however, amidst a detailed presentation of factors that influence children’s ability to form memories (such as age, language competence, and personality variables), 69 in addition to a dozen factors that can adversely affect their memory accuracy. 70 68F

69F

So many circumstances occur when investigators are examining cases that involve children’s recollections that trained staff should handle these investigations as quickly as possible. This quick involvement is crucial because “the early conversations with the child, in which an allegation first emerges, are crucial. If these early conversations shape the child’s report or, worse, plant ideas in the child’s memory, there may be no way to undo this memory.” 71 Professionals, therefore, who work 70F

65F

Let’s emphasize that memory reports from even very young children can be accurate and

65 Martyn Kendrick, 1988, Anatomy of a Nightmare: The Failure of Society in Dealing with Child Sexual Abuse, p. 182 (Toronto, Canada: Macmillan of Canada). 66 Daniel Reisberg, 2004, The Science of Perception and Memory: A Pragmatic Guide for the Justice System. Oxford Scholarship Online. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199826964.001.0001

26

67

Reisberg, 2014, p. 255.

68

Reisberg, 2014, p. 257.

69

Reisberg, 2014, pp. 245–252.

70

Reisberg, 2014, pp. 260–267. These factors are using directive questioning; giving children feedback to their answers; asking repeated questions; receiving information from a trusted source; saying that other people (such as mothers) have already told investigators; receiving information from peers; receiving a plausible suggestion; inducing a false memory by stereotyping; receiving a suggestion that has a basis in truth; using delayed reporting and questioning; building upon an initial lie; and confusing imagination or dreams with reality. See also Jon’a F. Meyer, 1997, Inaccuracies in Children’s Testimony (London, UK: The Haworth Press). 71

Reisberg, 2014, pp. 271–272.

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on these cases require formal training in childinterviewing techniques, and then proceed under “careful supervision” to ensure that they “will conduct interviews that are neutral, objective, and nonsuggestive.” 72 Many (perhaps even most) cases, however, unfold under less-thanideal circumstances that can provide difficulties for prosecutors and courts. 71F

The “Amish Aunt” cases provide evidence of both the difficulty in relying on children’s testimony and recovered memories to mount a case of alleged child sexual abuse. Children in an Amish community made allegations of sexual abuse, including sexual touching, beatings, attempted suffocations and strangulations, and forced ingestion of manure, dead animals, and urine. 73 During testimony, two of the children indicated that they had blocked memories of the alleged abuse, with at least one of the witnesses indicating that she recovered them after her family went to a counseling center. 74 The Judge declared a mistrial on the basis that the defense did not have an opportunity to call an expert witness on the reliability of blocked and repressed memories. Subsequently at the retrial, the Amish Aunt was acquitted of all charges because “it was too much for the children to testify against their aunt a second time.” 75 72F

73F

74F

In addition to the issues surrounding the victim’s own testimony, the private nature of sexual abuse often creates an absence of other evidence. Often the cases are of “he said-she said” battles of credibility. Sometimes, however, the evidence of the victims is bolstered by similar factual or circumstantial evidence.

72

Resiberg, 2014, p. 275.

73

Jane Sims, 2004 (April 27), “Amish Case Ends in Mistrial,” London Free Press. Available from http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/04/ 27/437562.html 74 Jane Sims, 2004 (April 23), “Amish Girl Recounts Abuse,” London Free Press. Available from http://www.jehovahswitnesses.net/watchtower.child-abuse.70649/1Amish-Abuse -Case 75 Jane Sims, 2005 (February 22), “Woman Acquitted of Abuse: A Retrial Seen As Too Traumatic for Five Children Who Testified to Mistreatment,” London Free Press. Available from http://injusticebusters.org/04/Amish_London.htm

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In the specific situation of alternative religious movements, an additional hurdle exists that both parties must overcome. In our opinion, the involvement of a cultic or sectarian group in the proceedings should include an investigation into that group or movement itself. The involved group may be attempting to protect an operational structure that facilitates abuse, or even may be concealing doctrines that condone abuse or its cover-up. 76 Because people in mainstream culture (who as the judge and jury are the triers of facts) are not likely to understand how these groups operate, counsel must provide evidence about how particular beliefs influence if not direct behaviors that are relevant to particular cases. 75F

With many abusive alternative religions, however, few explanatory resources are available to the court, and any witnesses or experts whom counsel attempts to use likely will undergo intense scrutiny by the opposing side. Plaintiffs and defendants who are selecting potential expert witnesses appearing before a court have three options: current members; former or ex-members; 77 or professionals with relevant related 76F

76 In late June 2016, for example, “a San Diego Superior Court judge ordered the church of Jehovah’s Witnesses, also known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, to pay $4,000 a day in fines as long as it refuses to produce documents in a sexual abuse case brought by former church member Osbaldo Padron.” Experienced sexual abuse attorney, Gilion Dumas, concluded, “the fact that the Church of Jehovah’s Witnesses has absolutely refused to produce its documents, despite a court order to do so, and now in the face of daily, steep financial fines, shows how desperate the Church is to hide whatever those documents show about the Church’s history of child sex abuse” (Gilion Dumas, 2016 (June 28), “Jehovah’s Witnesses Face Sanctions for Withholding Documents in Sex Abuse Case,” Dumas Law Group. Available from http://dumaslawgroup.com/2016/06/28/jehovahswitnesses-face-sanctions-withholding-documents-sex-abuse-case/ 77 For a generally critical discussion of apostates’ roles in legal cases, see David G. Bromley, 1998, “The Social Construction of Contested Exit Roles: Defectors, Whistleblowers, and Apostates.” In David G. Bromley (Ed.), The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements (pp. 42–43) (Westport CT: Praeger).

27

expertise. 78 Courts should attempt to determine the extent to which current members can testify truthfully, especially if that testimony causes harm to the group itself. 79 Similarly, courts should strive to ascertain whether former members are willing to speak truthfully, even if doing so benefits the group’s position. In other words, courts will attempt to ascertain whether both types of witnesses are credible and free to speak truthfully without fear of group Hearsay is generally reprisal. 80 inadmissible, but experts are able to provide opinion evidence as insight into groups’ structures, beliefs, and practices. The court will judge the quality of the evidence by the experts’ research methodology, their use of current and former members, their relationships with either the groups or their former members, the length and depth of contact with the groups, peer-reviewed publications, and so on. Biased data collection is likely to get experts’ testimonies ignored or rejected. 77F

78F

79F

Furthermore, many of the groups in which abuse occurs create another hurdle to prosecution. As sociologist of religion and lawyer James T. Richardson indicated: [t]he communal, sectarian, and often isolated nature of the groups in question makes it very difficult for authorities to gather the information 78

Stephen J. Ceci and Helene Hembrooke (Eds.), 1998, Expert Witnesses in Child Abuse Cases: What Can and Should Be Said in Court (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association). 79 In W 42 In the High Court of Justice, Family Division, 1995 (which was a child custody case that pitted a nonmember grandmother fighting for custody of her grandchild against her daughter, who was a member of the Children of God/The Family), Chief Justice Ward outlined his initial cautions about being deceived by either side (p. 5), but was compelled to provide a long, detailed list of deceptions, prevarications, and lies that current members told on the witness stand (pp. 13–14), followed by specific criticisms of current members’ credibility (pp. 14, 22, 24– 25, 41, 81, 83). Alternatively, key former-member witnesses impressed him with their objectivity and honesty (pp. 30–31, 38– 39, 47). 80 See Stephen A. Kent, 1994, “Misattribution and Social Control in the Children of God,” Journal of Religion and Health, (33)1, 41.

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needed to assess grievance claims. Current laws dealing with child abuse are based on the assumption that the claims can be readily investigated through social contacts: using corroborating testimony of teachers, neighbors, or friends of the family. Child abuse laws, moreover, assume a reasonable degree of cooperation on the part of the accused. 81 80F

As Richardson realized, however, often groups do not cooperate. 82 81F

Even if groups do cooperate, authorities may encounter statute-of-limitation restrictions. They also may discover that groups themselves may have investigated allegations before calling authorities, thereby inadvertently allowing perpetrators to hide or destroy evidence. In a trial itself, a risk always exists that cross-examination will find that key witnesses are unreliable or biased, or that a child cannot understand important questions. The cumulative effect of the above factors motivates prosecutors’ and plaintiffs’ counsel to avoid trial. If prosecutors can obtain some accountability for their clients/the victims, then it is likely the prosecutors will encourage their clients to settle for certainty rather than risk the expensive uncertainties of trial. A complete loss at trial for either side may have a devastating impact. 83 We argue, however, 82F

81 James T. Richardson, 1999, “Social Control of New Religions: From ‘Brainwashing’ Claims to Child Sex Abuse Accusations.” In Susan J. Palmer and Charlotte E. Hardman (Eds.), Children in New Religions (p. 182) (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press). 82

Richardson, 1999, p. 182.

83 Two convictions against preacher Tony Alamo have led to the dismantlement of a substantial portion of his organization’s property. In November 2009, he was convicted on 10 counts to 175 years in jail for transporting five underage girls across state lines for the purposes of sex. In January 2010, a judge ruled that Alamo owed the victims $42.5 million in restitution, which he did not pay. Consequently, in mid-June 2013, the American federal government filed a suit to obtain Alamo’s properties in Arkansas to obtain payment for the victims. Making matters worse for him and his ministry, in early 2014, an Arkansas judge awarded $525 million to seven women who alleged abuse by him after his church failed to respond to their lawsuit. He also owed $30 million to two men who, as youths raised in his group, experienced beatings,

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that even with these risks, the aggrieved parties involved must consider the potential harms of not having their allegations aired in a public court. Preparing for the Most Extreme Position: Assertions That Adult-Sanctioned Sexuality Involving Children Is Protected if Not Divinely Ordained Prosecutors—and for that matter, defense counsel—in criminal, civil, or family trials may find themselves involved in cases in which the accused parties defend, in varying degrees, either adult sexual contact with children or adult-sanctioned child-upon-child sex. 84 A small number of cult members and leaders will believe that adult-sanctioned sexual activity involving minors is acceptable, but at least a few of the offending parties will realize that an attempted public defense of their beliefs would be fatally harmful for their cases. 85 Whatever variation 83F

84F

starvation, and denial of proper education. By August 2014, some of his 27 owned or controlled properties in Fouke, Arkansas sold at auction, and federal officials already had announced their likely intention to go after properties in Los Angeles. See “US Evangelist Tony Alamo Gets 175 Years for Sex Crimes” (2009, November 14), Telegraph [UK]. Available from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/656 5830/US-evangelist-Tony-Alamo-gets-175-years-for-sexcrimes.html; Paresh, Dave, 2004 (March 1), “Tony Alamo Victims Awarded $525 Million; L.A. Properties May Be Sold,” Los Angeles Times. Available from http://articles.latimes.com/2014/mar/01/nation/la-na-nn-tonyalamo-arkansas-victims-20140228; Julie Parr, 2014 (Updated July 23), “Tony Alamo Properties Sold at Auction,” KTBS [Shreveport, LA]. Available from http://www.ktbs.com/story/25764986/tonyalamo-properties-sold-at-auction; Julie Parr, 2014 (Updated August 23), “Tony Alamo Church Empire Dismantled,” KTBS [Shreveport, LA]. Downloaded from http://www.ktbs.com/story/26274422/tony-alamo-church-empiredismantled 84 For a sociological analysis of this phenomenon, see Kent, 2012, p. 49. 85 A dramatic example of a group that had sanctioned adult/child sex but realized that society disapproved and criminalized such activities was the Children of God/The Family. In an internal publication for members only, written in late 1992 or early 1993, The Family’s leader, Karen Zerby/Mama Maria, wrote a long document to her followers, which contained a section entitled “CONCERN ABOUT CA [child abuse] QUESTIONS: PRESENTING IT TO THE PUBLIC & EXPLAINING IT TO THE FAMILY.” In the section that followed, she shared with followers: “129. I’m sorry that we couldn’t come out a little more forthrightly in the Child Abuse Statement, bringing out the point that all sex between adults & minors in not bad, sinful, harmful or abusive. However, the problem was that we didn’t know how

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there may be among criminal, civil, or family court cases, these defenses never work; and even sincerely held beliefs in the sanctity of sex with or between minors never trumps child sexualabuse statutes. For purposes of illustration, we provide three examples of unsuccessful defenses. In New Mexico, Wayne Bent of the Lord Our Righteousness Church faced charges that accused him of touching a female teen’s breasts. Throughout the process, Dent insisted that he only had touched a teen girl’s sternum, and done so for nonsexual, religiously healing purposes. Convicted in mid-December 2008 “of one count of criminal sexual contact of a minor and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” 86 Bent received an 18-year sentence, with 8 years suspended. 87 He petitioned the New Mexico Court of Appeals on several points, and he received a reversal on the grounds that the term of service had expired for the grand jury that had indicted him. The New Mexico Supreme Court, however, upheld the authority of the initial conviction. 88 85F

86F

87F

In a Canadian case, pastor Daniel Cormier of the Church of Downtown Montreal claimed unsuccessfully to a court that he had married his 10-year-old victim. Charged in 2004 with sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, sexual assault, and two counts of sexual

much we could say without putting the Family at legal risk. We wouldn’t have been afraid to admit more if we had known we could do it legally, but we had to be careful & try to protect the Family, & since at the time we were unable to get any expert advice on that subject, we had to do the best we could” [Maria], Summit ’93 Mama Jewels!—No. 2 (1992/1993?), 18–19 (underlining in original). 86 Deborah Baker, 2008 (December 15), “Leader of NM Sect Guilty in Child Sex Case,” Huffington Post. Available from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires.20081215/sect-leadertrial/; State of New Mexico v. Wayne Bent, Docket No. 33,136 (N Mex Sup Ct 2012). 87 Tim Maestas, 2008 (December 30), “Bent Sentenced to 18 Years.” KRQE News [NM]. Available from http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime_krqe_clayton_cult_leader_c all verdict_cruxifixion_200812291835 88

State of New Mexico v. Wayne Bent, Docket No. 33,136 (N Mex Sup Ct 2012).

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exploitation of girls, 89 Cormier’s initial defense regarding one of his victims was that he had married her according to provisions in Quebec’s civil code when she was 10 years old (and he was at least 38 years older), although he had initiated sexual contact when she was 9. A Quebec court rejected his arguments in 2005, 90 and during part of his 2008 trial he continued to represent himself. The judge, however, prevented him from cross-examining the victim and her mother, assigning a lawyer to conduct the questioning. 91 The victim herself even refused to be in the same room as Cormier, so she testified via a video link from a nearby room. 92 Nevertheless, Cormier contacted her by e-mail, which lead to his arrest because by doing so he broke his bail conditions. 93 After the conclusion of the trial (in October 2008), Cormier received a 5-year sentence for assaulting the victim, 94 and by the end of 2009 he received another conviction for the sexual exploitation of a minor over whom he was in a position of trust. For that second crime, he received an additional 9 months in jail. 95 88F

89F

90F

91F

92F

93F

94F

In a third instance, Joseph Cardillo of Boulder, Colorado went through two trials concerning the 89 “Preacher’s Child ‘Wife’ Won’t Face His Questioning at Trial,” 2008 (January 11), The Gazette [Montreal]. Available from http://www.religionnewsblog.com/20334/daniel-cormier-2

Christiane Desjardins, 2005 (Fevrier 12), “Cormier Cité ả Procės Pour Agressions Sexuelles,” La Presse [Montreal], A19; “le Mariage Réfuté” 2008 (Avril 25), CBC Radio Canada. Available from http://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/394251/cormier-procesvendredi

sexual practices in which he engaged with an 8year-old girl, which included mutual nudity, use of a vibrator, nude hot-tub events, chest and genital fondling, and drinking the child’s urine. 96 He had met the girl’s mother at a Hare Krishna event, and the mother came to consider Cardillo a member of the family. She allowed her daughter to stay at Cardillo’s home, even though she never visited it herself. In an affidavit, the mother “said that her daughter told her what was happening, but she emphasized that it was OK as long as everyone is comfortable with it.” 97 Despite the mother’s views, authorities charged Cardillo with felony sexual assault, to which he pleaded not guilty. When his trial was about to begin in late March 2009, however, Cardillo jumped bail and failed to appear, 98 only to be captured days later in Sedona, Arizona. 99 95F

96F

97F

98F

The trial then proceeded but ended in a mistrial, with one jury member out of 12 refusing to convict. Perhaps the juror was convinced by Cardillo’s testimony that the girl wanted him to drink her urine, and that he had received “urine therapy” training in India and attended nudist schools. He told jurors both are normal practices in “alternative communities” and he was never aroused or gratified by anything that happened when he was with the child. 100 99F

90

91 “Preacher’s Child ‘Wife’ Won’t Face His Questioning at Trial,” 2008 (January 11), The Gazette [Montreal]. Available from http://www.religionnewsblog.com/20334/daniel-cormier-2 92 “Girl Clueless Montreal Pastor Had Claimed Her As His Wife on 10th Birthday,” 2008 (May 2), Canadian Press. https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-westernstar1948/20080502/textview 93

Jan Ravensbergen, “Child-bride Accused Back in Jail,” 2008 (May 27), A6.

In August 2010, Boulder County officials launched a retrial, this time resulting in a 10-

96 “Nudist Accused of Sex Assault, Drinking Girl’s Urine,” 2007 (November 5), ABC 7 News [Denver, CO]. Available from http://www.dreamindemon.com/forms/archive/index.php/t16120.html 97

“Nudist Accused of Sexual Assault” 2007 (November 5).

98

Vanessa Miller, 2009 (March 24), “Niwot Man Accused of Drinking Girl’s Urine Disappears,” Denver Post. Available from http://www.dreamindemon.com/forums/archive/index.php/t16120.html

94 “Quebec Pastor Who Took Child Bride Sentenced to 5 Years,” 2009 (January 26), CBC News. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-pastor-who-tookchild-bride-sentenced-to-5-years-1.816158

99 Vanessa Miller, 2009 (March 26), “Man Accused of Drinking Girl’s Urine Arrested in Arizona,” Denver Post. Available from http://www.dailycamera.com/archivesearch/ci_12958545.

95

100

QMI Agency, 2010 (March 8), “Sentence Extended for Man Jailed Over Child Bride.” Available from http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2010/03/08/pf13154241.html.

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Erica Meltzer, 2009 (October 30), “Mistrial: Jury Can’t Agree in Niwot Sex Assault Case,” Colorado Daily. Available from http://www.coloradodaily.com/cuboulder/ci_13676872?source=rss

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year-to-life sentence. Previously the girl’s mother had received a misdemeanor child-abuse conviction, a charge that was brought against her in January 2008. 101 Rarely do these cases present opportunities for out-of-court settlements because defendants are adamant about their innocence and prosecutors have ample evidence of defendants’ undisputed abuses. The only option for prosecutors is to have courts determine the accused’s guilt through trials; but in doing so, both the nature and the extent of the crimes, and the unjustified excuses that defendants attempted to use, become public knowledge. 100F

The “Bad Apple” and the Role of Settlement Generally, resolving a lawsuit prior to trial is ideal. In the civil context, doing this saves a client expense, time, and the emotional stress of a protracted legal process. In the criminal context, it saves court resources and minimizes risk. In the specific case of child sexual abuse, settlements and pleas prevent the victim or victims from further victimization on the witness stand. The court process demands that victims retell the painful events repeatedly. In the courtroom, they must expose these personal details to complete strangers (the police, their lawyers, the accused’s lawyers, the judge, possibly jurors, the media), and to family and friends whom they may never have told. In addition, they must retell these personal details in the presence of the accused. 102 101F

Settlements and plea bargains ensure that the victims receive some form of justice, whereas trial risks a complete acquittal. Settlements provide certainty. For example, when 535 plaintiffs (who had been children in the Hare Krishna/ISKCON movement) sued the International Society of Krishna Consciousness 101 Laura Snider, “Niwot Urine-Drinker Joseph Cardillo Sentenced to 10 Years to Life in Prison,” 2010 (November 23), Boulder Daily Camera. Available from http://www.dailycamera.com/rss/ci_16693560 102

For an early description of courts allowing children to testify through videotape and closed circuit television, see Charles B. Schudson, 1987 (March), “Making Courts Safe for Children,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 120–122.

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over the child abuse that they had suffered, the out-of-court settlement obtained $9 million as a partial payment for them. The plaintiff’s attorney, Windle Turley, surmised, The confirmation of this settlement by the Bankruptcy Court, combined with the explicit apology, issued . . . to the victims, where [the] Krishna [organization] acknowledged wrongdoing, helps provide validation to these innocent young people. Many of them were terribly abused, sexually, physically, and emotionally, for years in various Krishna Boarding Schools. While the money received by these victims will be of help in securing needed therapy, and for many, vocational training, more important is the self-validation of their own worth brought about by these payments and the unequivocal acknowledgement and apology by this religious organization. 103 102F

This settlement, therefore, brought compensation to the victims and an organizational apology, which provided plaintiffs with a degree of closure even if individual perpetrators escaped public scrutiny. We argue, however, that despite all the reasons to keep these cases out of courtroom, plaintiffs’ lawyers and crown (or other governmental) prosecutors have a responsibility to consider the potential that the perpetrator is not the only guilty party. Consequently, without a trial to expose the underlying participation of others and the cult organization as an entity, the victims and the public do not receive comprehensive justice. To some degree, settlements and plea bargains allow alternative religions to separate themselves from allegations and continue 103 Windle Turley, 2016 (June 22), quoted in “Hare Krishna,” LawyersandSettlements.com Available from https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/settlements/03629/hare_k rishna.html?utm_expid=360752213.Y4u1ixZNSt6o8v_5N8VGVA.0&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F %2Fint.search.myway.com%2Fsearch%2FGGmain.jhtml%3Fsearc hfor%3DHare%2BKrishna%252C%2BWindle%2BTurley%2522 %26n%3D782aa8aa%26p2%3D%255EC4P%255Exdm106%255E TTAB02%255Eca%26ptb%3DF3AD3A49-91ED-473D-A9DF8532886CB091%26qs%3D%26si%3Dflightupdates2%26ss%3Dsub%26st%3Dtab%26trs%3Dwtt%26tpr%3Dgsb

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practices that may condone, contribute to, or cause abuse. Journalistic accounts often attempt to establish links between the perpetrators and their groups, but these links have more consequences when a court identifies and reveals them. The purpose of settlement is generally aligned with the goals of tort damages. “The basic principle is restitutio in integrum, which means that the amount must be such as to put victims in the same financial position as they would have been if the accident had not occurred.” 104 Damage has been done, and legal decisions with financial consequences should put people in monetary positions as if they had not been violated. 103F

lives but outrage about the lives of the alleged abusers. Reporters, therefore, must resist the temptation to sensationalize. Media sensationalism may be an inevitable consequence of how reporters gather and assess information. Media outlets vary over what their institutions consider to be printable (or suitable for broadcast), what levels of repetition is necessary for verifying facts, and even whether sources can remain anonymous. Consequently, readers (or viewers) may not have enough methodological information about the reporters’ data collection to make a full assessment about its adequacy.

Child sexual abuse, however, is not easily aligned with the ideals of civil litigation. It is impossible to repair the damage and calculate its financial harm. Likely the only easily calculable damage involves counselling expenses, but lawyers may be able to convince juries to include pain and suffering within damage awards. The justice that victims seek is more akin to punishment and deterrence, which one finds through criminal-law remedies. If awards are large enough, then they may dismantle organizations. Such a large award is rare, however, since groups would be unwilling to settle for amounts that would be so crippling. The targeted groups likely would take such destructive decisions to trial in the hope of maintaining the groups’ continued existence.

The legal arena provides opportunities for officials to better inform the public about cultrelated child-abuse issues, since its rules of evidence and citations are more rigorous than what reporters necessarily use. In instances of judgments by judges or juries, the media can report on the range of facts that the decision makers used to draw their conclusions, which remain authoritative unless overturned by a higher court. Written decisions provide in-depth analyses of allegations. More importantly, judgments by judges or juries offer opportunities for the public to understand the involvement of alternative religions or cults, since inevitably cults’ roles become part of the reasons for judgments. Alternative religions discussed in these decisions are under great pressure to alter their practices if they hope to remain free from continued legal interference. 105

Whether there is a trial or not, the media provides the public with information about the case. In high-profile cases, the media engages the initial allegations against the defendants and follows the stories to the cases’ conclusions and beyond. In general, however, stories are more likely to appear if reporters and editors deem them to be newsworthy—determined in part by their appeal to general readers’ interest and their help in selling papers. Cult stories, especially those involving child sexual abuse, reinforce readers’ feelings of normalcy about their own

In contrast to written court decisions, private settlements do not provide the media with enough information for their stories to pressure cults to reform themselves regarding the protection of children. Often the only information the media is able to provide is that the parties involved reached an agreement, which includes nondisclosure clauses and financial payments without acknowledging wrongdoing. Consequently, groups may approach the media with attempts to discount or spin the initial allegations.

104 Jean-Louis Baudouin and Allen M. Linden, 2010, Tort Law in Canada, p. 93. Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands: Kluwer Law International.

105

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104F

W 42 In the High Court of Justice, Family Division. 1995.

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The Impact of Trials on Leaders, Founders, and Members of Alternative Religions When alternative religious leaders face childabuse allegations, they and their groups face difficult decisions. By pleading guilty, they will have admitted that they had been involved in inappropriate if not illegal activities with minors over which they now acknowledge a court’s (rather than God’s) jurisdiction. Even out-ofcourt settlements imply that courts have authority over actions that members may have considered to have been godly. By fighting the allegations through a trial, the leaders and their groups risk widespread negative publicity, the possibility of a harmful decision by a judicial entity, and the resultant condemnation of their religious practices and ways of life. Sometimes, however, the risks of trial provide the best if not only options for leaders and their groups, and they will fight allegations and charges through an array of legal and extralegal actions. If courts convict them, then groups may portray their fallen leaders as martyrs, denouncing the legal institutions that prosecuted/persecuted them. Perhaps these denunciations will be enough to maintain sufficient legitimacy for the groups to continue, sometimes with convicted leaders still in charge from prisons. Leader Controls From Prison A remarkable example of a convicted and imprisoned leader still directing followers from prison involved an African-American preacher, Reverend (sometimes called Bishop) Wilbert Thomas, Sr. (b. 1929) from Trenton, New Jersey. 106 Thomas, his wife, and 11 other church members were indicted in 1983 for having perpetrated “sexual assaults, coercion, aggravated and atrocious assault and battery and criminal restraint.” 107 His ministry had begun in 1969, attracting members through his musical talents, oratorical skills, and ecumenical 105F

106F

106

Kent, 2012, pp. 52–53.

teachings. 108 Within a decade, however, Thomas had taken over people’s private lives and made himself the subject of worship. 109 Racial hatred frequently appeared in his sermons, as did sexual comments, often directed at female members. 110 Court testimony indicated that he required some female congregants to give him what he called “spiritual nourishment,” which was code for sex. All the while he worked members mercilessly in church-owned businesses, and directed severe beatings against those who displeased him. 111 For these crimes Thomas received a 20-year sentence, while his wife received only a year’s probation for lewdness. 112 107F

108F

109F

110F

111F

Over the prison telephone, and through directives sent back to the congregation through members who visited him, Thomas directed and maintained a unique sex-education program, which involved eroticized instructions about women sexually expressing themselves, partly to further please their men. Often the group ended the telephone conversations by members putting down the phone (but not having hung up) so that Thomas could hear congregants’ sexual responses to his instructions. The instructions covered a range of topics, often using underage girls in demonstrations in front of others. 113 112F

The best-known example of a cult leader still controlling his flock while serving prison time for crimes related to child sexual abuse is the Fundamentalist Later-day Saints “prophet,” Warren Jeffs (b. 1955). Serving a life sentence for forcing two teenage girls into “spiritual marriages” and impregnating one of them while she was 15 years old, 114 Jeffs still maintains 113F

108 Lisa Hoffman, 1983 (February 27), “Beatings, Sex Inflicted on Faithful, 6 Charged,” Miami Herald, 1b, 4b. 109 Laura Hatfield and William Outlaw, 1983 (February 21), “The Cult (Out of the Wilderness), Beacon Journal [Akron, OH], 4ff. 110 Hoffman, 1983, 4B. 111

Hoffman, 1983, 4B; Josh Meyer, 1985 (June 28), “Minister Forced Sex on Her, Woman Testifies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, E2.

112 Joel Siegel, 1986 (December 26), “N.J. Cleric Gets Prison for Assaults,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 1-B, 8-B. 113

107

Indictment, quoted in Lee Pasternack and Tom Torok, 1983 (February 18), “Pastor, Family, Church Members Charged with Sexual Abuse,” Philadelphia Inquirer, W5-B.

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Haferd & Outlaw, 1983, pp. 9–10, 14.

114

Clayton Sandell and Christina Caron, 2014 (January 24), “Polygamist Warren Jeffs Guilty of Child Rape,” ABC News.

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control of perhaps 8,000 FLDS members and their families. Relaying directives through devout followers who visit him in a Texas prison, Jeffs has issued edicts against children’s bicycles and toys, limited the right of paternity to only 15 men, restricted people’s diets to beans and water, ordered boys to drop out of school so that they could become laborers on his new home-construction project, and required followers to turn in their automobiles for sales to meet the cult’s debts. 115 Apparently members believe that he has been persecuted for the religious principles that they shared with him, which they considered to be sacred principles beyond the authority of civil law. 114F

In sum, the power of some leaders over their members cannot be overestimated. Members have invested their lives in these groups, and the most dedicated may stay loyal to leaders even in the face of horrendous accusations and sound convictions. Full exposure, however, of a group’s harmful practices (as we are advocating here through trials and their coverage in the media) likely will cause at least some members to remove themselves from potentially being harmed (further) themselves. Likewise, media accounts likely will have the impact of protecting potential members from joining and becoming victims.

Group Disintegration or Division The starkest example of a cult leader whose criminal conviction led to a movement’s disintegration involves Dwight York, who was the founder and spiritual leader of a group known as the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors (whose members loosely based their beliefs and practices on aspects of Egyptian and Native American cultures). In 2002, York was arrested on charges of 177 counts of child molestation, 116 which—according to some 115F

Available from http://abcnews.go.com/US/warren-jeffs-guiltychild-rape/print?id=14228198 115 “Warren Jeffs Still Calling the Shots From Prison?,” 2014 (January 24), ABC News. Available from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs.headlines.2013/04/warren-jeffs-stillcall-the-shots-from-prison/ 116

Bill Osinski, 2007, Ungodly: A True Story of Unprecedented Evil (p. 247) (Macon, GA: Indigo Publishing).

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estimates—underrepresented the number of assaults that he had committed. 117 Prior to his trial in Georgia, York’s attorneys attempted to create a plea bargain, but a federal judge determined that the plea “was simply too sweet.” 118 116F

117F

The trial began, along with York’s attempts to manipulate if not derail it. He declared, for example, that “I’m a sovereign. I’m a Native American. I’m a Moorish Cherokee and I cannot get a fair trial if I’m being tried by settlers or Confederates.” 119 After some of his victims testified about the countless acts of sexual abuse they had endured, the jury found him guilty on all counts. 120 In his sentencing, he claimed this was a “religious case” and not a “child molestation case,” and he alleged that he was not given a fair trial. 121 Despite this unfounded allegation, he was sentenced to 135 years in a federal penitentiary, and subsequently an appeals case sustained his sentence. 122 In 2005, the federal government seized and destroyed York’s temple at Tama-Re, Georgia. 123 The remaining number of Nuwuabian followers is unknown, but only a small number of them attempted to vindicate him. 124 The trial and the accusations decimated the number of followers York had, and the community complex in Georgia now sits abandoned. As the case of Dwight York and the Nuwuabians suggests, many charismatically centered groups are unable to continue without the presence of their leaders. 118F

119F

120F

121F

122F

123F

Group Division Together, overwhelming negative evidence and significant punitive sentences, in conjunction 117

Osinski, 2007, p. 247.

118

Osinski, 2007, p. 252.

119

Osinski, 2007, p. 252.

120

Osonki, 2007, p. 258.

121

Osinski, 2007, pp. 259–260.

122

Osinski, 2005, p. 267.

123

Osinski, 2007, p. 267.

124

Osinski, 2007, p. 266. Available http://www.nuwaubianfacts.com/nuwaubianfacts.com http://nuwaubian.blogspot.com/Dr.Malachi Z.York

from and

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with ideologies dependent upon the charismatic whimsies of leaders, increase the likelihood of group disintegration after a devastating verdict. Groups, however, that have routinized the teachings have a greater chance of surviving, especially if some members believe that the now-discredited leader had been acting outside of established doctrinal boundaries. These groups even may rupture during and after their leaders’ trials, with some loyalists remaining true to their leaders while others seek to maintain aspects of the beliefs and practices separate from the convicted leadership. For example, Ivon Shearing (b. 1928), who was the leader of a British Columbia-based group calling itself the Kabalarians, received a jury’s conviction on 12 counts of gross indecency, sexual assault, and rape concerning seven complainants from events occurring between 1965 and 1990. From a Canadian legal standpoint, the case was important because the defendants applied for access to an alleged victim’s diary (as a third-party record), which went through the British Columbia Court of Appeal, then to the Supreme Court of Canada, with the defendant being victorious. The second legal precedent in the case involved reporters successfully petitioning the court to release support letters that various members wrote on behalf of Shearing in an attempt to minimize his sentencing. Sociologically, however, an interesting consequence of the case was that it divided those members who did not renounce their beliefs into two camps. As the judge reported in his ruling, Having sat as the trial judge for over nine weeks, I have concluded that there are two groups of Kabalarians warring for control of the Society. The groups dislike each other intensely. Most of the harassment of which Ms. Daniel speaks has, I infer, come from the opposing group of Kabalarians. 125 124F

Even before the conviction, therefore, the trial itself caused a split in the organization between those whom supported Mr. Shearing and those 125

R v. Shearing, 1998, CanLII 4952 (BC SC), para 11.

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who wanted to move on and distance themselves from him. Potential members, however, who search the group on the Internet will find information about the conviction, which they then can weigh in their decision to involve themselves with the organization and its followers. Conducting a trial, however, does not guarantee the dismantling of the group or the structures/doctrines that facilitated the sexual abuse.

Conclusion People’s quests for salvation are timeless, with examples of these quests going back millennia. Contemporary religious seekers will continue such quests well into the future. Some seekers immerse themselves in old, even ancient religions; others form or join new religious expressions. To nonbelievers, the content of these faiths may seem implausible and unbelievable; to adherents, that same content may be sublime and revelatory. These adherents will be so taken with their faiths that they likely will want to share them with loved ones, including their children; and the opportunities that some alternative religions provide their young are far more interesting and enjoyable then they are harmful. Harm, however, even of a sexual nature, happens far too often, and many of these incidents of harm lead to charges, court cases, or both. Adults naively assume that others in their flocks are people of integrity, and all members believe that their leaders are above reproach. Both assumptions can be dead wrong, and can have dire consequences for the sexual integrity of children (and for that matter, adults also). Court cases present victims with a host of potential problems—perhaps having to testify in front of the alleged perpetrator(s); justifying recalled memories from long-ago incidents; experiencing stress from the length of trials; and often incurring extensive legal costs. Nevertheless, we have argued—especially when child sexual abuses are systemic or facilitated by groups—that full trials which lead to court decisions best serve the public good. In family and civil, but especially in criminal cases, the bar for admissible evidence is high; so judges and juries are receiving degrees of evidence that 35

they can weigh against objective standards for admissibility. Innocent group members have to face the reality of abuses inflicted in secret; leaders become accountable for their roles in abuse occurrences; and continuing members (in instances where groups do not simply dissolve) must accept the stigma of association and accede to public pressure regarding internal structural and doctrinal reforms. Moreover, abused members not involved with a particular trial may begin to reassess their experiences and conclude that they, too, have been harmed, and they can see parallels with cases from other groups.

He has published articles in numerous sociology and religious study journals. His 2001 book, From Slogans to Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era, was selected by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2002. In 2012 he received The Margaret Thaler Singer Award for advancing the understanding of coercive persuasion and undue influence from the International Cultic Studies Association. E-mail: steve.kent@ualberta,ca

Obtaining justice and appropriate compensation for victims are ideal goals, but these goals are only partially served by outof-court settlements (especially those with silencing clauses). Beyond justice and compensation for victims, however, public trials and court decisions provide important educational opportunities for society, and possibly even serve as motivations for deterrence, as well. Victims usually feel vindicated, and they may experience enormous burdens of guilt, anger, and frustration lift from their shoulders upon hearing guilty verdicts against those who harmed them. About the Authors Andrea Willey BA, LLB, completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Alberta, where she received an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. She continued her studies at the University of Alberta to obtain her law degree in 2011. Currently she practices law at the firm of Duncan Craig LLP in Edmonton, Alberta, primarily in the areas of family law and mortgage enforcement. E-mail: [email protected] (please send all correspondence regarding this article to steve.kent@ualberta,ca). Stephen A. Kent, PhD, Professor of Sociology, University of Alberta, teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the sociology of religion and the sociology of sectarian groups. 36

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Second-Generation Religious Cult Survivors: Implications for Counselors Cyndi H. Matthews University of North Texas at Dallas, TX

Abstract First- and second-generation cult survivors experience psychological challenges in the process of leaving a cult and reintegrating into society. Second-generation cult survivors face additional challenges, such as the effects of a lifetime of abuse and neglect, attachment disorder, lack of education, continuing familyrelationship challenges, and lack of externalworld support. Scant attention has been paid in the literature to experiences of secondgeneration cult survivors. In this study, the experiences of 15 second-generation adult (SGA) former cult members were explored utilizing grounded theory. Results of this study hold promise for those counseling with SGAs in understanding their experiences and needs. Key words: second generation cult survivors, cult recovery, counseling cult survivors Mindy and Joan (pseudonyms) came to counseling with presenting problems of stress, anxiety, and depression due to school and family issues. It became apparent only after several sessions that their respective issues were more complex than the presenting problems, and successful therapeutic resolution would require beyond the typical eight-session treatment plan covered by insurance and involving teaching basic communication skills and relaxation techniques. After initially consulting with both clients, I discovered that these clients were second-generation adult (SGA) cult survivors. They were born and raised in and subsequently left religious cults several years previously. Both Mindy and Joan were experiencing aftereffects of years of manipulation, thought reform, abuse, attachment disorders, and isolation from the external world. These two clients experienced many fears and anxieties, including “What if my group was right?” What if I really am going to hell?,” along with feelings of inadequacy regarding work and financial issues, and being International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

alone and scared moving into the outside world where everything was strange and unfamiliar. A religious cult is defined as a life encompassing religious organization that seeks to control members’ choices, decisions, and lives (Singer, 2003; Zablocki, 1997). Researchers and counselors have found that cults have a high potential for manipulation, abuse, control, and exploitation of their members (Lalich & Tobias, 2006; Langone, 1993; Singer, 2003). Although religious cults differ in doctrine, many use the same techniques, thought-reform practices, and manipulation tactics, thus producing similar consequences (Lalich & Tobias, 2006). Tactics include controlling information and communication, espousing confession and purity of their members, controlling physical and social environments, creating a sense of powerlessness in members whereby they look to the group for support, manipulating rewards and punishments to promote group beliefs, and enforcing a closed system of logic from an authoritarian structure (Lifton, 1961; Singer, 2003). The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) has estimated that more than 2,500,000 individuals in the United States and Canada have joined cultic groups over the past 30 to 40 years (McCabe, Goldberg, Langone, & DeVoe, 2007), and that there are more than 5,000 cultic groups operating in the United States of America and Canada that range from five members to millions in each group (Singer, 2003). McCabe et al. (2007) estimated that five percent of those who pass through cults stay long enough to have and raise children. First-generation cult survivors, or individuals who join cults later in their lives, experience a variety of psychological and emotional challenges once they leave their groups and integrate into society. Challenges for firstgeneration survivors include feelings of betrayal, emptiness, depression, and anxiety; loss of trust; 37

suicidal and destructive tendencies; and feelings of loss and grief (Almendros, Carrobles, & Rodríguez-Carballeira, 2007; Coates, 2010; Dahlen, 1997; Lalich & Tobias, 2006; Langone, 1994, 1996; Martin, 1993a, 1993b; Moyers, 1994; Singer, 2003). Research has been sparse concerning those who were born and raised in cults, or SGAs. Researchers who focused on SGAs have discovered they were more likely to experience physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; neglect; attachment disorders; lack of education and marketable job skills; and lack of decisionmaking and socialization skills. SGAs were also more likely to suffer from anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, low selfesteem, and suicidal ideation (Furnari, 2005). Researchers have found that more than one third of counselors will work with cult survivors some time during their therapeutic work, but they are ill-prepared to do so (Lottick, 2005). Most of the current literature addresses reasons firstgeneration cult survivors join and leave cultic groups and how to counsel these survivors (Furnari, 2005; Goldberg, 2006; Langone, 1996; McCabe et al., 2007). The purpose of this study was to address the void in the literature concerning individuals born and raised in religious cults, their experiences being raised in and leaving their respective groups, and the experiences they faced integrating into the outside world. The purpose for collecting SGAs’ experiences was to increase the understanding and competence of professional therapists and counselors when counseling with these individuals. This paper represents a synthesis of the published dissertation study I conducted (Matthews, 2012).

Method I undertook a qualitative, constructivist, grounded-theory approach, with the goal of identifying lived experiences (Creswell, 2007) and underlying meanings (Mertens, 2005) of individuals born in, raised, and leaving religious cult. Currently, no theory exists to explain the experiences of SGA cult members; thus, grounded theory provided a method for discovering and conceptualizing frameworks, themes, categories, and theory emerging from 38

the data (Charmaz, 1983; Glaser, 1965). A constructivist researcher seeks to establish meaning from participants, realizing the impossibility of researcher neutrality, and constructs data based on the interacting realities of both participant and researcher (Charmaz, 2003). A constructivist, grounded-theory researcher seeks to determine how study participants construct and see themselves within their world (Black, 2009; Chamarz, 2008). Researcher positionality can influence the data gathered and analyzed. I took both an emic, or first-hand, lived-experience view, and an etic, or outsider view of the research environment (Eppley, 2006). I spent 43 years living inside a cultic group, being privy to the manipulation and thought-control techniques utilized by a cultic group. As an outsider who left more than ten years ago, I am no longer aware of or part of cultic life. Eppley (2006) described other individuals who have taken both an emic and etic view of being both in and outside of the Amish community and regarded the success of these researchers based on their fluidity in positionality, in that they were able to flow back and forth from being both understanding insiders and disengaged outsiders.

Participants I utilized purposeful and snowball sampling (Mertens, 2005) in bringing together SGA former cult members as participants in this study. Participants were 18 years of age or older and met the definition of a cult as defined by Singer (2003). I gathered 15 former cult members from referrals from therapists, ICSA, and cult-support groups. All participants, when notified of the study by the referrals, contacted me to let me know of their interest in the study. Thirteen participants representing eight different cults came from Bible-based cults, with two coming from Eastern-origin religious cults. All participants described themselves as Caucasian, and they lived in the United States of America or Canada; there were 14 females and one male (n = 15), and they ranged in age from 18 to 56 years. All had been out of their cults from 2 years to 16 years. Four participants reported growing up in a closed community or

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compound, and 11 reported growing up in an open community.

Procedure Individuals who were interested in participating completed a consent-to-participate form and a screening questionnaire to determine their viability for this study. The definition of cult in the screening questionnaire was based on Singer’s definition (Singer, 2003) and specified a religious cult. To be classified as a cult, (a) the organization must be life-encompassing; (b) there is a God-appointed leader the group proclaims to have supernal powers; (c) members must devote time, energy, and devotion to their leader and group; (d) members are expected to lose contact with or be separate from the outside world; (e) cult members are taught they are part of a special or elite group; (f) members experience emotional, physical, or social harm or a combination of these in the group; and (g) each member is expected to spend time daily with other group members. The screening questionnaire also included demographic data such as age, gender, ethnicity, name of the group, how long the members had been out, and whether or not they made the decision to leave themselves. Fifteen individuals met the criteria and participated in the study. Once they completed the screening questionnaire, participants participated in 2hour interviews with me to address their experiences of being in, leaving, and being outside of their respective cults (See Appendix for interview questions). I conducted follow-up interviews with all participants, which lasted up to 1 hour each. Once the first round of data analysis was complete, I contacted and interviewed all participants again regarding their perceptions and reactions to emergent themes. All participant interviews were tape recorded and conducted either in person or via Internet video depending on availability of the participant. I also maintained field notes in a journal, making note of any strong emotions or reactions by either participants or myself (Spradley, 1980).

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Data Analysis As noted, I utilized the grounded-theory concept of constant comparative analysis in gathering, evaluating, and analyzing data (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Charmaz (2003, 2008) encouraged researchers participating in constructivist grounded theory to evaluate the data in terms of credibility, originality, resonance, and usefulness. I addressed credibility, or the ability to support claimed findings (Mertens, 2010) through peer and expert review, persistent and prolonged engagement with the participants, memberchecking, triangulation of the data, integration of discrepant or negative data, and an audit trail (Charmaz, 2008; Guba & Lincoln, 1989). Peer and expert reviewers, who were aware of my positionality, were engaged in the process of reviewing data, ensuring that actual meaning instead of my meaning was incorporated throughout. I used member-checking to confirm the accuracy of the analysis (Mertens, 2005). I solicited participant’s feedback regarding the themes and theory, and then integrated the feedback into the final presentation of data. I incorporated triangulation, or comparison of data with literature and expert opinion. I recognized discrepant data throughout the process, and an audit trail, including all recordings, transcripts, and coded data, was securely stored. I achieved originality in grounded theory (Charmaz, 2008) by expanding and deepening the theory about SGA cult survivors. Initial contact, screening questionnaires, initial interviews, follow-up interviews, and member-checking achieved prolonged engagement (Charmaz, 2008). The study reflects usefulness (Charmaz, 2008) in expanding the field of knowledge that counselors can use in counseling with SGA cult survivors.

Results and Discussion The data analysis described above yielded 12 themes in all, with the first eight themes being based on material the participants discussed, and the final four being overarching themes that were implicitly interwoven throughout participants’ responses. I discuss each theme in the following sections, including how the theme 39

played into participants’ experiences of being in the cult, deciding to leave, leaving, and living outside the cult. Theme 1: Patriarchy and Gender Roles Not all cults utilize patriarchy and rigid gender roles as a means of control and structure. Some researchers have noted that religious cults tend to follow a patriarchal structure in both church and home (Boeri, 2002; Jacobs, 1991; Lalich & Tobias, 2006). Similar to those observations, all participants in this study experienced patriarchal cults that utilized rigid gender roles as a method of control in both family and church. Participants described the subjugation of women and domination by men in their religious cults. Several participants chose to leave their groups because they were not happy with the rigid gender roles or patriarchy. One participant described being pulled over by male members of her community for being too loud, unladylike, or strongly opinionated. The one male participant discussed how he was taught to humiliate other members if they were not obeying church leaders, or to call out wives if they were not submitting themselves to their husbands. One participant stated, “I got married, we had kids, and we had four kids. I was the perfect wife, mother, homemaker … You’re going to become dependent. And not question it … And I wasn’t happy.” Another stated, “What made me leave was that he told me I wasn’t allowed to have any kind of career or work. My job was to have his babies.” Several participants discussed how they chose to leave because they were not happy in the gender-restricted role, and how they were not happy in what the cult allowed for women. After leaving, however, almost all participants experienced marriage or relationship difficulties in terms of superior/subordinate relationships. They found they needed to redefine their roles in marriage, and most considered the possibility of ending marriages that were created in the cult. Counselors can work with clients by assessing patriarchy and gender roles their clients experienced in the cult and help educate their clients regarding manipulation and control techniques of the cult. The counseling 40

relationship itself can serve as an example of egalitarian roles, and as a way of assessing power dynamics in relationships. Subjugation and manipulation techniques utilized in the cult may have contributed to former members’ feelings of low self-esteem, powerlessness, and worthlessness (Dahlen, 1997). Theme 2: Obedience to Authority Throughout their time in the cult, participants were forced to unquestioningly submit to authority. Cultic groups foster “dependency by focusing on submission and obedience to those in authority” (McCabe et al., 2007, p. 1). One participant explained how she was taught from birth that the leader was the only one who spoke for God and had final say over activities, doctrines, and daily living. Another related, “The will of God was dictated to you by the leader… He alone had the authority to forgive people of their sins.” Those who did question authority were subjected to humiliation, shaming, and possible abuse, such as being yelled at, shamed in public or private, called out from the pulpit, and even spanked in public. One former member described how a cult leader came up and started yelling at her in front of a crowd of people, saying, “‘You’re a horrible little girl.’ I had no idea what he was talking about. That was normal.” Another participant related, I didn’t know what I was submitting and obeying to because I never saw behind the scenes. It’s kind of like Wizard of Oz. That’s what I tell people. My experience was like Wizard of Oz. Not until you get behind the curtain do you really know what’s happening. And the minute that I saw what was really happening [chuckles], “No, this is not what I signed up for.” Some participants left because they did not agree with the authority figures or the means they used to control. Participants related that today they have difficulty trusting authority figures. For most, if someone in authority tells them to do something, their initial reaction is to rebel. Counselors can help clients do an analysis of power in relationships, such as client/counselor International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

relationships, marriage relationships, and boss/employee relationships. Counselors can help clients strengthen their personal thoughts and beliefs by teaching assertiveness skills and the difference between aggressiveness and assertiveness, increasing their client’s power and ability to say “no,” and strengthening their clients’ ability to rationally weigh an authority figure’s words to them (Singh & Salazar, 2010). Theme 3: Decision Making Related to obedience to authority, all participants discussed how all decisions were made by the cult leaders, or in some cases, fathers in the community. Cult members and family members were not allowed to question the authority or decisions of leaders. One participant stated, “All decisions were made by the leader—guilt, shame, and shunning occurred if you hadn’t accepted him as your leader or accepted his decisions.” Another stated, “The leader taught that he alone understood the mind of God; his church members needed only to get the mind of God by listening to and obeying the leader.” Another shared, “I just did what I was told. I followed directions and I was submissive.” Many participants mentioned that physical, emotional, or psychological abuse would follow if decisions made by the leader were not followed. Some participants left because they were tired of obeying and blindly following leader decisions. Once they left, participants experienced difficulty with black and white or polarized thinking, magical thinking, and trying to find the one right answer to a problem or question. One individual mentioned, “I had to rethink every single decision to see if it fit or whether it was ‘cult think.’” Similarly, Boeri (2002) noted that individuals born and raised in a cult had very little experience with decision making and were entirely dependent on the leaders in the cult. Combined with very little employment training or education, many former members can find it extremely difficult to function independently and make decisions on their own once leaving the cult. Counselors can teach SGA clients about mind control and how it impacted their thinking. Lifton’s criteria for mind control (1961) can be International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

discussed in terms of how cult leaders manipulated and controlled members’ thoughts. Counselors can also teach goal-setting and decision-making skills by practicing with small goals and decisions. Because mistakes are often punished in cults, helping clients learn from mistakes would be useful in teaching selfacceptance. Discussing grey areas in decision making would also help clients move away from polarized or black and white thinking. Empowering clients to make decisions on their own could strengthen former members in their ability to move forward toward independence (Singh & Salazar, 2010; Toporek, Lewis, & Crether, 2009). Theme 4: Group and Relationship Support In a cult, all relationship support comes from the group because members are isolated from the outside world. Cult leaders utilize isolation as a means of control and to ensure members’ loyalty and fidelity (Lalich & Tobias, 2006; Singer, 2003). Likewise, for participants in this study, all relationship support came from within the cult because they had no outside ties or means of connecting with the outside world or persons. For those raised in a compound, homeschooling was the norm, and going outside the compound was allowed only under direct supervision. Those living in the outside world were taught to “Be in the world but not of the world.” Because of the isolation, most participants dated, courted, and married within the group, thus solidifying the isolation of the cult structure. Several participants stated, “Outside influences and associations were bad,” “The cult is where safety is and where God is,” and “Be with us [the cult] and be separate from the world.” During the leaving process, almost all participants had been shunned or ostracized by other cult members. One participant stated, “Every person that I had ever known in my entire life were [sic] not allowed to speak to me at all, even a greeting. I had to start over socially.” Another conveyed, “Because I grew up in [the cult] I lost everything.” Today, many participants discuss how they are continuing to deal with the loss of family and friends, loss of their personal history, and feelings of being judged by others outside of the cult because of 41

their cult background. They have found they neither belonged in or belong outside of the cult. Moyers (1994) found that first-generation cult survivors had the option to reunite and reconnect with family and friends. SGA survivors do not have that option and are dealing with complete loss of friends and family, and are struggling with building new relationships and friendships in an outside world where they feel “judged” and “weird.” Because most cult survivors have not experienced healthy relationships and tend either not to trust at all or to trust too much in relationships, counselors can help these clients explore relationships and healthy boundaries (Lalich & Tobias, 2006). Counselors can also encourage SGAs to find social and emotional support groups to help them process their cult experiences and form new, healthy relationships (Goldberg, 1993). Participants in the study who were actively involved in cult-support groups reported that the groups helped them not to feel alone, normalized their experiences, and helped them navigate the outside world. Theme 5: Relationship With Parents For participants in this study, because of the patriarchal structure of the family and cult, parents had full authority over their children in the cult. With rigid gender roles, fathers were authority figures and mothers were nurturers. Significantly, participants noted that fathers used anger and punishment to control, and mothers used guilt and shame to control their children. Overall, parents put children’s needs second to the cult. One participant stated, “My mom put me as the second priority. They would say explicitly, ‘It’s awesome that you’re so submissive to us—making our path to God our first priority in life.’” Leaving parents behind in the cult was emotionally straining for participants. One participant stated, What made it difficult to leave was family pressure. Knowing all the stress and drama it was going to create on both sides. And both my parents and in-laws felt they had the authority to tell us what to do.

42

Two participants described leaving with their parents and immediate family members as less stressful than for those who left parents behind in the cult. “We all talked about leaving together. We made the decision to leave together.” Another stated, “My mother chose to leave with us partly because of the abuse being inflicted upon her children.” As Markowitz and Halperin (1984) described, parents in cults are often put in the role of middle management in that they are expected to carry out the instructions of cult leaders even if these instructions go against their parenting instincts. The loyalty of parents is often measured in the cult by how well they carry out the edicts of the leaders, especially in terms of discipline tactics with their children. For participants who continued to communicate with their parents after leaving, conversations were generally guarded because the cult continued to come up in conversation and the participants would be invited back to church. One participant stated, “My dad said he was going to go to hell because of me leaving the [cult]. I know the bottom line—he wants me to come back.” Some chose to move away from their parents and lie about their activity in the cult, to smooth the transition. One stated, “We lived near my parents. They were involved in every aspect of our life. So finally, we just moved. I wasn’t strong enough to lock them out. I needed distance.” Most often, if the parents did know about the participants leaving, the father would cut off all ties with the child who left, regardless of age. The relationship with the mother was often confusing because conversations were secretive from the father. As a result, participants continued to feel anger toward their fathers and feel confused about their relationships with their mothers. As one participant stated, “I just had to lower my expectations with my relationship with my dad—it’s not going to be a Hallmark card … the church is the only thing that matters to him.” Even after participants left their respective cults, parents continued to put the cult first and their children second. Counselors need to understand that clients are working through both past abuse and family-oforigin issues. Often the cult and the family are International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

intertwined and are difficult to separate. Counselors can help clients cope with anger, pain, and the grief of leaving parents behind, and also negotiate new parental relationships. Boeri and Boeri (2009) noted that cult survivors leaving their parents in the cult may never come to terms with their parents’ cult involvement. Counselors can help clients work through residual anger, grief, and resentment of children toward parents who choose the cult over them. Theme 6: Religiosity and Spirituality While in the cult, participants considered both spirituality and religiosity as synonymous terms. To be spiritual meant to be religious and obey all cult rules and regulations. One participant stated, “It was more about how early did you get up? How much time did you spend in the word?” and another stated, “It was all about the rules instead of a relationship with Christ.” The cult was considered the only way to heaven, nirvana, or enlightenment, and the organization of the cult was considered perfect. One participant stated, “We were taught that no other church had the right message.” Some left their cult because they questioned the doctrine or the behavior of the leaders when the behavior was not in tandem with the doctrine. Some were able to find outside sources, books, Internet blogs, chats, and groups that provided support and information for them to leave. One participant stated that, once the Internet information had been found, “I read and read and read. I read websites. I was pretty addicted to several of the [anticult] websites.” Another related, “I started to find holes in the doctrine that I couldn’t fix in my brain to make this religion still be true. There were longstanding issues like racism and polygamy. It just didn’t make sense.” Several participants questioned their relationship with God while they were leaving, afraid that it would mean they had been cut off from God. Today, most participants consider religiosity and spirituality as completely different entities, with spirituality meaning connection with a higher power or nature, and religiosity meaning dedication to a specific religious denomination. Most participants agreed with the statement from one participant that

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I consider myself spiritual. I believe in a Creator, Being, or Nature, but I don’t call it God. I find in religion that men get in the way, religion is about men. Spirituality is about the Creator, being a holistic person. Almost all participants discussed a lack of trust toward any church organization. Only two had gone back to any kind of church attendance, and that was after they had extensively checked out the religious organization, its clergy, and its members. Counselors can help clients normalize their spiritual and religious anger and confusion after the have left a cult (Boeri, 2002; Moyers, 1994). Educating clients regarding cult thought reform and manipulation can help clients see through tactics used to control spiritual/religious life. Counselors can encourage spiritual growth and questioning, and encourage SGAs to ask questions of religious leaders before they join religious congregations. SGAs do not have the option to return to religious roots as firstgeneration cult survivors do (Lalich & Tobias, 2006). Study participants tended to be skeptical of and distrustful toward religious organizations, searching for a new religious home, and finding new spiritual practices that did not include religious organizations. Counselors would need to look at their own religious biases and not pathologize clients who find their spiritual path leading toward scientific exploration and atheism or other nontraditional forms of spirituality (D’Andrea & Sprenger, 2007). Theme 7: Abuse All participants discussed psychological/ emotional, physical, spiritual, and sexual abuse they suffered in their respective cults. One participant stated, “It became this fear-based religion; if you didn’t do what was right you were going to be punished.” All forms of abuse in a cult could be classified as spiritual abuse because it was done in the name of a higher power or religious organization (Johnson & VanVonderen, 1991). Physical abuse took the form of hitting, spanking, isolation, and food and sleep deprivation. Emotional abuse was the most common form of abuse reported, such as calling people out, public or private rebuke, 43

public humiliation, intimidation, and threats. “I was yelled at; I was put on the spot in front of everybody; I was silenced for a week, berated, and then told, it was ‘because we love you.’” Some participants even talked about how they were manipulated into and participated in the abuse of disobedient or defiant members. They discussed the guilt and shame they experienced because of the abuse, and how they left because they could not tolerate inflicting abuse upon others. “With the leader’s approval, I would take initiative to verbally attack anyone in the church who was not following the program … He intentionally used me to reprimand members of my own family.” Several participants discussed how they had to leave because they were so angry, depressed, and even physically ill because of the abuse. One spoke of her meetings with doctors regarding her physical illness and how together they made the connection that cult abuse was causing the physical illness. One participant reported, “I was scared all the time. I had never had nightmares before [a particular abusive incident]. I had problems sleeping and my thoughts were racing too much.” During the leaving period, almost all participants suffered some sort of abuse from the other cult members, including threats, shunning, being cut off from family members physically and financially, and so on. As one participant stated, “Everybody turns their back on you and they can’t talk to you. You are dead.” Today, participants report that they still deal with depression, anger, guilt, shame, PTSD, and some physical symptoms, and they still feel vulnerable to the abuse of others in terms of trust and lack of trust in relationships. One stated, “I don’t think I am going to feel whole ever again. It is rooted in me.” Participants who were parents expressed concern regarding disciplining their own children and tended to lean toward leniency in discipline because they did not want to inflict harm or damage upon their children. “I have a son who[m] I am very permissive with. I can’t tolerate the thought of anyone hitting him. It worries me that I am so permissive.” Counselors can assess for past abuse and trauma of former cult members and help unravel threats 44

and curses from current members as they occur. They can explore with SGAs their own guilt and personal shame about past abuses toward others in the cult, putting those abuses in the context of thought reform and manipulation. Counselors can also explore discipline techniques and effective parent education. Theme 8: Outside Influences Because these former cult members were separated from the outside world while in the cult, they saw outside influences such as work, school, and counseling as evil and to be avoided. Many were homeschooled to keep their education in compliance with cult teachings. One participant reported, “People of the world— they were bad associations that would lead to bad habits. You were not to associate with those people.” If participants did participate in outside organizations, they were chastened to be “in the world but not of the world”: “If you were part of the world you were going to be destroyed. … Outside-world individuals were seen as acquaintances and inside people were seen as friends.” In all instances, participants were expected to donate all time, energy, and money to the cult. One explained, “My whole life was the church.” Schooling itself was often discouraged because it was a negative influence, as one person stated: “You need to get out of college—you have everything in life from your parents”; and another was told, “Jesus could come at any moment and it is a waste of time to educate yourself.” Several participants found that, when they did seek outside educational and counseling experiences, they found new ways of thinking, doing, and being. Several explained how classes started them thinking about things they had not considered before and strengthened them in their resolve to leave. Almost all reported that they felt behind in education, finances, and employment. Because all their time had been spent working in the cult, they had not had the opportunity to advance their own skills and abilities. “I kind of feel like I’m from another age sometimes. Like I’m from another time. Out of time. And that will never change”; and “There were a lot of gaps and a lot of things that I knew nothing about, but it wasn’t going to stop me.” International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

Also, because all of their time was spent in the cult, most participants reported that they did not know how to spend free time. Counseling for SGAs can include a psychoeducational piece that incorporates financial discussions, living arrangements, and long-term educational and career plans. Counselors can provide resources and information to help clients empower themselves as they integrate into society. ICSA provides resources and support groups at icsa.com for SGAs to learn skills related to integrating into the outside world. Theme 9: Sense of Identity Of the 12 themes that resulted from my data analysis of participant responses, the final four serve to unify those responses. As noted previously, these overarching themes were implicitly interwoven throughout the various responses. While in the cult, members were taught how to be and act. Their cult personalities, or pseudopersonalities (West & Martin, 1994) were formed in the cult as a result of the cult socialization and teachings. “I had built my entire way of thinking about being [a cult member]. And, like, that’s how I defined myself.” Most participants reported that they had two identities, one that was constructed in the cult and one secret self that was not known to the cult. Participants felt torn between their two identities. One stated, “I got the message that it’s not okay to be who you are or do anything that is not outlined socially. … I always felt they were trying to guilt and shame you … You have to do this or be this to support the cult.” While coming out of the cult, one participant remembered, I had to find and recognize an inner voice. At first I ignored it in the cult. I wasn’t allowed to and I couldn’t follow my gut. I am trying to learn to recognize it now. I feel it in my gut. Once they left, many participants reported feeling lost, confused, different, behind, and even somewhat childlike or naïve in relationship to others around them. Participants reported that discovering their true personality was difficult but rewarding. “It was sort of a personality International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

disintegration thing that went on,” one participant described. “So if I’m not [a cult member], what am I?” Another stated, “I am all about self-discovery and self-awareness now. It is a big process. I realized that I was muted in my childhood.” All participants affirmed that even though finding out who they were was difficult, they were glad they had the opportunity to figure out their personality outside of the cult. One participant stated, “The fake person is gone. I am real now.” Counselors can help break down the personalities of the cult with their clients, and can encourage the exploration of authentic client personalities, formerly the secret selves. Exploring parts or beliefs of cult life that clients agreed with and disagreed with can be a starting point in terms of defining who they are. For example, one SGA described a love for science and how science was discouraged in the cult, and also how the SGA appreciated love of family in the cult. Ultimately this individual came to identify as someone who appreciated scientific reasoning and a deep love for family. SGAs can expect confusion, depression, and feelings of alienation throughout selfexploration as they try to untangle who they are versus who the cult persona was (Lalich & Tobias, 2006). Theme 10: Emotional Consequences of Life in the Cult While they were in the cult, participants reported feeling judged by others, guilty about their decisions and thoughts, and angry as a result of manipulation, abuse, and control. Some individuals left because of their anger toward parents or leaders or both. They all experienced a wide variety of strong emotions, especially guilt and anger, while they were leaving. One participant talked about how she was “called out and judged all the time while in the cult,” and how “leaders would fixate on her behavior.” Today, participants report that they continue to deal with guilt, anger, shame, and depression. One participant related, "I was pissed and I still am. They owe me an apology! I did nothing wrong! I feel wronged by them. They don’t know how to treat people.” Another stated, “I constantly feel guilty over a lot of things.” 45

Cult members are taught to distrust individuals outside their cult. Thus, it can be terrifying for SGAs to interact with people they have been taught to distrust all their lives (Goldberg 2006; McCabe et al., 2007). Counselors can assess for, explore, and help explain to these clients their feelings of guilt, shame, anger, and depression, and help them work through these emotions. Counselors can also assist clients in becoming more self-accepting and less self-critical of these emotions. Processing and deconstructing cult techniques and ramifications of growing up in a cult can be advantageous for clients (Boeri, 2002). Working through and validating grief and loss is essential when one is working with SGAs because they experience loneliness after leaving their cult. Even though the individuals in this study were from different cults, they were relieved to know that their emotional experiences were similar to other SGAs. Validating feelings of anger, loneliness, and guilt can help SGAs feel less abnormal and strange. Theme 11: Fear and Courage Cult leaders manipulated and controlled the group’s members by inducing fear in them through threats, shunning, humiliation, and abuse. “I was afraid that I could lose my salvation at any time,” one SGA stated. Fear is often the “backbone of cultic control: fear of those outside the group; fear of failure, ridicule, and violence in the group; or fear of spiritual failure or the disintegration of your belief system” (Lalich & Tobias, 2006, p. 141). These feelings of fear led to dread, hopelessness, and helplessness that continued to reappear for participants during and after leaving. In spite of their fear, all participants found the courage to leave by relating to and discussing leaving with someone else in the cult. “It was so scary,” stated one participant, “but I had a friend who left with me; we moved to a new city together.” One participant described, It takes a lot of courage to leave and make something of your life. You have to have the courage to fight against your family and to face a world you have been taught is scary and evil. I had the fear of being judged by the cult 46

members and also by the people in the world. I was afraid of shunning, like when they shunned Simba in The Lion King. He was disgraced—and it did happen to me. Today the SGAs continue to face their demons as a result of unresolved issues from their respective cults. As one stated, “I still have to face demons in my closet that arise today. It’s scary to stand up to people. I have to face people.” Many have found healing through the courage to speak out for others as a way of healing. Exploring fear tactics used in cults when individuals leave may be necessary for counselors and their clients. Discussing fears and phobias client has, and figuring out whether or not the fears are valid may also be paramount. Reminding SGAs of the courage they had to actually leave their cult may be helpful to them in facing new challenges. One participant stated, “I never realized I had courage until I saw the results of this study. It made me realize that it took a lot of courage for me to leave and change my life.” Theme 12: Long Process of Change For all participants, leaving took a lot of thought and reflection. As one woman stated, “It was really hard leaving. I felt like I was falling for about 8 months, like Alice in Wonderland.” They all continue to face issues today, and all mentioned that they felt forever affected and damaged because of their cult experiences: “There’s lots of hard drive in there. And sometimes I have to isolate that. And then I have to evaluate it based on what is really the deal.” Counselors can help normalize the long process of change and help SGAs continue to explore triggers and coding hardwired in their brains by the cult. Moyers (1994) found that the effects of living in a cult last long beyond when one leaves. Participants in this study reiterated that change and healing were a lifetime process. Counselors can help empower their clients by reinforcing client resilience and skill development, and helping them process the years of damage and mind control unloaded on them in the cult. Counselors can help remind International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

clients of the coping strategies they utilized to survive while in the cult. Their secret selves helped them find ways to survive in the cult. Despite all of the pressure and subjugation they experienced in their former cult, their true selves took root and helped them leave and start new lives. Books, articles, and support groups can help through this process. Books written for cult survivors such as Take Back Your Life (Lalich & Tobias, 2006), Releasing the Bonds (Hassan, 2000), and Recovery From Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse (Langone, 1994) can be extremely helpful in the recovery process. ICSA also provides resources and links to conferences, workshops, and websites for counselors and cult survivors alike.

Limitations As with all qualitative research, transferability of the results is up to the individual reader, and not all themes directly transfer to all SGAs. Participants represented eight different cults, and their time out of the cult ranged from 2 to 16 years. Each participant’s cult and postcult experience may be different based on the different cults and the participant’s length of time outside of the cult. However, Lalich and Tobias (2006) found cults are very similar in techniques and practices; thus, consequences may be similar to former members. Also, all participants identified themselves as white/Caucasian, with 14 participants being female and one male. Experiences may be very different for ethnic minorities and for males and females. Also, several participants had been in therapy, while others had not. Because the interviews were in the form of self-reports, some participants may have had more self-awareness than others.

Recommendations for Future Research More research on SGA cult survivors is needed, especially in terms of healthy/unhealthy attachment and also in terms of trauma. Experiences of ethnic minorities, males, and lesbian, gay, and transgender individuals also needs to be explored, along with subsequent issues. Other areas include parenting styles of former SGAs and marital relationships of those born and raised in cults. There also is much to explore and research in terms of helping SGAs International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

and counselors understand the cult experience and resultant issues.

Conclusion Individuals born and raised in religious cults often deal with a number of issues beyond those of first-generation cult survivors. Those SGAs who leave often experience a lifetime of consequences based on their treatment in the group. SGAs experience depression, anger, suicidal thoughts, trauma, neglect, and the results of prolonged abuse. Former members are often behind in job and education skills, and they often lack decision=making skills and trust in authority figures. SGAs struggle with trusting others in relationships, experiencing loneliness, and being cut off from former friends and family. Cult personalities and secret selves are formed in the cult. Former-member SGAs spend their time trying to figure out who they are separate from the cult doctrines, practices, and structures. Information from this constructivist grounded theory can provide information for SGAs and help them move into and feel empowered in the outside world. This information can provide a foundation for continued discussion between counselors, researchers, and SGAs in continuing to meet the needs of SGA religious cult survivors.

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Goldberg, L. (2006). Raised in cultic groups: The impact on development of certain aspects of character. Cultic Studies Review, 5, 1–27.

Moyers, J. (1994). Psychological issues of former fundamentalists. Cultic Studies Journal, 11, 189–199.

Goldberg, W. (1993). Guidelines for support groups. In M. Langone, (Ed.), Recovery from cults: Help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse (pp. 275–284). New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Guba, E., & Lincoln, Y. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Hassan, S. (2000). Releasing the bonds: Empowering people to think for themselves. Somerville, MA: Freedom of Mind Press. Jacobs, J. (1991). Gender and power in new religious movements: A feminist discourse on the scientific study of religion. Religion, 21(4), 345–356. doi:10.1016/0048-721X(91)90037-Q Johnson, D., & VanVonderen, J. (1991). The subtle power of spiritual abuse: Recognizing and escaping spiritual manipulation and false spiritual authority within the church. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House. Lalich, J., & Tobias, M. (2006). Take back your life: Recovering from cults and abusive relationships. Berkeley, CA: Bay Tree.

Singer, M. (2003). Cults in our midst: The continuing fight against their hidden menace. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Singh, A. A., & Salazar, C. F. (2010). Six considerations for social justice group work. The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 35(3), 308–319. doi:10.1080/01933922.2010.492908 Spradley, J. (1980). Participant observation. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. Toporek, R., Lewis, J., & Crethar, H. (2009). Promoting systemic change through the ACA advocacy competencies. Journal of Counseling and Development, 87(3), 260–268. West, L., & Martin, P. (1994). Pseudo-identity and the treatment of personality change in victims of captivity and cults. In S. J. Lynn & J. W. Rhue (Eds.), Dissociation: Clinical and theoretical perspectives (pp. 268–289). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Zablocki, B. (1997). The blacklisting of a concept: The strange history of the brainwashing conjecture in the sociology of religion. Nova Religion: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 1(1), 96–121.

Langone, M. (1993). Recovery from cults: Help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse. New York, NY: American Family Foundation. Langone, M. (1994). Are “sound” theology and cultism mutually exclusive? Cult Observer, 11, 9–10. Retrieved from http://icsahome.com/infoserv_respond/by_studyguide.asp?Subject =Are+%22Sound%22+Theology+and+Cultism+Mutually+Exclusi ve%3F

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Appendix Interview Questions Introduction: 1. What do I need to know about your experience in the group to help me understand you? Deciding to Leave: 2. Tell me about your decision to leave the group. What kinds of concerns led to your final decision to leave?

exemplified in her counseling practice and current research, both of which focus on effective counseling interventions for marginalized populations, such as cult survivors, domestic-violence survivors, and LGBT populations. Based on her scholarship and clinical expertise, she has researched and developed theory for counseling with former second-generation-adult (SGA) cult-recovery survivors. Website: www.drcyndimatthews.com Email: [email protected]

Leaving the Group: 3. Describe to me the process you went through in leaving the group.

4. What kinds of issues made it difficult for you to leave? 5. What made it easier for you to leave the group? Life Outside the Group: 6. Tell me what it has been like for you integrating into life outside of the group. 7. What kinds of things did you struggle with initially? Life Today: 8. What do you continue to struggle with as a result of your former group life? 9. Tell me what you miss about your former group life. 10. Tell me what you don’t miss about your former group life. Summary:

What else would you like me to know about being in the group, leaving the group, or integrating into life outside the group? About the Author Cyndi H. Matthews, PhD, LPC-S, NCC is an experienced counseling clinician working in private practice and as a Counselor Educator at the University of North Texas–Dallas. Her passion for social justice and advocacy is International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

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Exit Intervention: A New Approach to Saving Family Members From Destructive Groups Steven A. Autenrieth Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Phoenix, AZ [Editors’ Note: Because of the legal focus and content of this article, we have retained the legal citation style of the original submission (based on The Bluebook system) in lieu of standard APA citation and References style.]

Abstract

On January 21, 1978, two members of the Unification Church approached David Molko, a recent graduate from the Temple University School of Law, offering him a membership to an “international community.” 126 Their interaction began with dinner, and, after 7 continuous weeks of spiritual retreat on the Church’s campground, 127 ended with Molko becoming a member of the Unification Church. It was not until the twelfth day of group activities that 125F

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Molko v. Holy Spirit Ass’n for the Unification of World Christianity, 762 P.2d 46, 50 (Cal. 1988). 127 Id. at 50–51. During the weeks of spiritual retreat, the group subjected Molko to an intense exerciselecture-discussion regimen. The group also kept him under constant surveillance. Id. at 51.

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When a family member becomes involved with a destructive group, the courses of action available to families are limited. This article provides a new approach, know as an exit intervention, that enables the family courtgranted access to their loved one for a limited time. This model provides a necessary balance between the family member’s First Amendment and Due Process rights, and the family’s interest in the safety of their loved one. If the exit intervention works properly, the family member’s critical-thinking ability will be returned to her, and she can make an informed decision about whether she wants to remain in the destructive group.

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members told Molko the truth—the group did in fact have a religious affiliation. 128 When Molko did not return home after his January 21 encounter, his parents grew concerned and decided to visit him at the campground. 129 Not only did Molko refuse to go home, but he also believed his parents were the agents of Satan trying to tempt him away from the Church. 130 His parents left the campground both bewildered and exponentially more concerned for their son. 131 130F

Although this story may seem extreme, cults 132 are known for using deception to recruit new 131F

128 Id. When finally told the group belonged to the Unification Church, “[Molko] was confused and angry, but was informed the deception was necessary because people who had heard negative stories about the Church tended to be unreceptive if they knew the group's identity before hearing what it had to say.” Id. 129 Id. 130 Id. 131 Id. In Molko, the California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Church, holding that judicial sanctioning of traditional tort liability for fraudulent recruitment is constitutional. The Court stated: “first, its purpose and effect is plainly to advance the legitimate secular goal of protecting persons from being harmed by fraud. Second, it is nondiscriminatory: all organizations, religious or otherwise, may be held liable for damages caused by their fraudulent acts. Were a nonreligious organization—e.g., a group espousing a political or social cause—to deceive a person into unknowingly submitting to coercive persuasion, the same liability would ensue.” Id. at 61. Therefore, Molko was not barred from bringing traditional fraud actions against the Church for inducing him by misrepresentation and concealment of its identity into an atmosphere in which he was “subjected to coercive persuasion.” Id. 132 Commentators, scholars, legislators, and psychologists have all struggled with a precise definition of a cult. For purposes of this discussion,

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members into the group. 133 After an initial welcoming period with the group, recruits find themselves under long periods of thought reform, isolation, and physical and mental exhaustion. Thought reform is a manipulative technique whereby the group controls every element of the recruit’s environment, including physical activity, diet, and sleep deprivation. 134 Over time, thought reform creates a feeling of dependency, powerlessness, and fear that cult leaders use against the recruit to instill new attitudes and behaviors. This environment inhibits the recruit’s critical-thinking ability, leaving him completely defenseless against his new authoritarian group leader. 135 Even Molko’s success in graduate-level education was no match for the Unification Church’s manipulative tactics. 132F

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loved one, a family must take affirmative action to try to break the group’s control over their son. Although there are variations on the actions families employ, there are three traditional models—seeking a conservatorship, deprogramming the member, and employing exit counseling. Until the late 1970s, parents successfully sought temporary conservatorships by showing courts that their adult child had become incapacitated by the group. 138 Unfortunately for parents today, doing this required courts to “deprive the believer of his freedom of action and to subject him to involuntary treatment,” a violation of the First Amendment. 139 Thus, without a showing of actions that rendered the believer gravely disabled as defined by state law, the justice system cannot be involved. 140 Without help from the courts, parents are forced to employ the more coercive model of deprogramming. Deprogramming involves forcibly removing the member from the group against his will, detaining him in an isolated area, and denigrating the group’s fundamental tenants by using many of the same thought-reform processes noted previously. 141 The family’s goal is to snap the member out of the cult mindset, returning to him his ability to think critically, 137F

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By the time the new recruit becomes a member, the family of the new convert are rarely allowed to maintain contact with their loved one because the group maintains control over the person, isolating him from the outside world. 136 Additionally, cults implant an “us vs. them” mentality (i.e., the group vs. the outside world, including family) to exacerbate isolation from outsiders. 137 With such limited access to their 135F

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Dr. Arthur Wassmer’s definition is useful: “A cult is an organization whose stated mission is religious, political, philosophical or psychotherapeutic, with a covert mission to accumulate wealth and/or power to benefit its leadership.” See Susan Landa, Children and Cults: A Practical Guide, 29 J. FAM. L. 591, 593 (1990/1991) (citing telephone interview with Dr. Arthur Wassmer (Apr. 3, 1990)). 133 Richard Delgado, When Religious Exercise Is not Free: Deprogramming and the Constitutional Status of Coercively Induced Belief, 37 VAND. L. REV. 1071, 1072–73 (1984). 134 See Catherine Wong, St. Thomas on Deprogramming: Is it Justifiable, 39 CATH. LAW. 81, 95 (1999) (citing Margaret Singer). 135 See Delgado, supra note 8, at 1074–75. 136 See Douglas H. Cook, Tort Liability for Cult Deprogramming: Peterson v. Sorlien, 43 OHIO ST. L.J. 465, 483–84 (1982); Landa, supra note 7, at 608. 137 Janja Lalich & Michael D. Langone, Characteristics Associated with Cultic Groups, INT’L CULTIC STUDIES ASS’N, http://www.csj.org/ International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

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infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm (last visited Apr. 14, 2016). 138 See generally Gretta Spendlove, Note, Legal Issues in the Use of the Guardianship Procedures to Remove Members of Cults, 18 ARIZ. L. REV. 1095 (1976); Note, Conservatorships and Religious Cults: Diving a Theory of Free Exercise, 53 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1247 (1978). 139 Katz v. Superior Court, 141 Cal. Rptr. 234, 256 (Cal. Ct. App. 1977) (discussing United States v. Ballard 322 U.S. 78 (1944)). 140 Id. 141 See Stephen Kent & Joseph Szimhart, Exit Counseling and the Decline of Deprogramming, 1 CULTIC STUDIES REVIEW 246–47 (2002). An example of a deprogramming appears in Molko, 762 P.2d at 51 when Molko is abducted by hired deprogrammers after leaving his final session of the bar examination and being taken to a motel for 3 days of deprogramming. In that case, the deprogramming was successful and Molko returned home to his parents.

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and ultimately leading him to denounce his membership with the group. 142 141F

When a deprogramming is successful, the story ends. The former member goes back to life before the group and occasionally to some continued counseling. However, when the member resists the deprogramming, he has legal recourse for being forcibly abducted and detained against his will. 143 For example, in Scott v. Ross, infamous deprogrammers Rick Ross and the Cult Awareness Network were successfully sued for conspiring to deprive the deprogrammee of his civil rights for four million dollars in punitive damages. 144 With such large damages at stake, cases such as Scott v. Ross resulted in a large chilling effect on the practice of removing group members using deprogramming. 142F

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Given the First Amendment issues of conservatorships and the civil liability of deprogramming, the last practical option the family is left with is exit counseling. Exit counseling is a noncoercive intervention model that relies solely on the voluntariness of the cult member. 145 The purpose of exit counseling is to get the member to reevaluate his membership by educating him about the particular group, the manipulative techniques the group uses, and the 144F

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Id. at 245. See generally Wanda Ellen Wakefield, Civil Liability for “Deprogramming” Member of Religious Sect, 11 A.L.R. Fed. 4th 228 (1982). 144 Scott v. Ross, 140 F.3d 1275, 1279–80 (9th Cir. 1998). In this case, Scott was abducted and held captive for 5 days. Scott feigned acceptance to Ross’s position and later escaped and filed suit against Ross. Id. at 1279. Interestingly, Scott later denounced his membership with the group and employed Ross to help him adjust to life outside of the group. 145 See Kent & Szimhart, supra note 16, at 261. Exit counseling typically takes three shapes: (a) the targeted member agrees to talk openly with the exit counselor or family; (b) exit counselors arrange surprise meetings where the targeted member meets the counselor in a public setting; (c) a formal intervention similar to drug counseling occurs if the member agrees to meet with the family. 143

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thought-reform process. 146 Exit counseling also provides psychological and emotional support during the member’s difficult transition out of the group. 147 Although this model proves to be very effective in terms of denouncing membership, the member must voluntarily leave the group or be involuntarily cast out of it to trigger exit counseling. Thus, as long as the member stays faithful to the group and is in good standing, family members have no recourse. 145F

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With the problems of each existing model considered, in this paper I seek to propose a new model, called exit intervention. Exit intervention not only strengthens exit counseling, but also avoids impinging on a group member’s civil liberties or constitutional rights. This model allows the court to grant the family of the cult member a 1-month “access period,” for 2 hours per week, to convince the member to denounce his membership with the group. Like exit counseling and deprogramming, exit intervention seeks to reignite the member’s critical-thinking ability by educating him about the thought-reform process and the manipulation cults often employ.

The Proposed Model Exit intervention begins with a court hearing at which the parents present evidence of the harm their loved one faces by remaining in the group. If the court determines the member is in danger, it can grant the family 8 hours over a 4-week period to have weekly meetings with the member in a public setting. If after this time the cult member decides to stay in the group, his parents have a heavy burden to convince the court that a traditional conservatorship is necessary.

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Id. at 261–62; see also MARGARET THALER SINGER & JANJA LALICH, CULTS IN OUR MIDST 286– 87 (1995). 147 For a discussion on many of the problems former members face when they leave a cultic group, see Patrick Ryan, Post-Cult Problems: An Exit Counselor’s Perspective, INT’L CULTIC STUDIES ASS’N, http://www.csj.org/pub_affnews/ affnews12.html (last visited Apr. 14, 2016). International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

The Initial Court Hearing When a family finds a loved one in a destructive cult, they must first try to contact him and convince him to exit the group. If access is denied or the loved one refuses to leave, they can seek an exit intervention through a formal court hearing. The family must be able to present evidence about the cult member before he interacted with the cult, evidence of the member after he joined the cult, evidence of the dangers specific to the particular cult, and evidence of failed contact attempts with the member. 148 Evidence may be testimonies from family and friends that display a drastic change in the member’s behavior, 149 former members of the particular group testifying about the potential danger the group poses, or a professional exit counselor or deprogrammer providing the court with an idea of how damaging thought reform can be. 147F

facts shown by . . . the verified complaint that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or [psychological] damage will result to the [group member] before the [group member] . . . can be heard in opposition”; and (b) “the applicant’s attorney certifies to the court in writing the efforts, if any, which have been made to give the notice or the reasons supporting the claim that notice should not be required.” 151 Although courts may be unfamiliar with this kind of evidence, they are familiar with applying the TRO standard. Thus, a strong showing that the cult member is at risk of psychological or physical harm would be sufficient to start the 4week access period. 150F

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The court will apply a standard similar to a temporary restraining order (TRO). 150 For example, in Arizona the parents would have to show that (a) “it clearly appears from specific 149F

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It is recommended that the family seek advice from a professional exit counselor or psychologist before their appearance in court. Many professional exit counselors and psychologists are familiar with testifying in court regarding destructive groups and will be able to strengthen the family’s case. For a useful list of what the family should try to prove, see Rick Ross, Warning Signs, CULT EDUC. INST., http://culteducation.com/warningsigns.html (last visited Apr. 16, 2016). 149 Although affidavits from family members and friends may be used, the family is better off with live testimony. This testimony provides the court a detailed description of the changes in the individual’s behavior and possible harms present. 150 Unlike in normal TRO hearings, there should be a slight presumption that the group member voluntarily joined the group and there is no reason for the court to interfere. Thus, the stronger the evidence of a drastic change in personality, or of a particularly dangerous cultic group will help carry the parents’ burden of proof. The slight presumption is because of the balancing of interests when it comes to dueprocess concerns. Because the cult member chose not to leave the group when contacted by the parents, the court should initially respect this decision. International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

The 4-Week Access Period If the court determines that the group member is in danger, it will grant the family 4 weeks of mandatory access to their loved one. However, the family is limited to 2 hours per week, and the meetings must take place in public. 152 By court order, the group must present or allow the member to attend his weekly meetings, and the family cannot take more than 2 hours of the member’s time each week. The meeting must be in a neutral public place to ensure the meeting is civil, and so that the cult member’s will is not overborne. The overall purpose of these meetings is to allow the family members to voice their concerns with the group, provide an education about how thought reform works, and provide the member with an opportunity to justify his attraction to the group. If things go as planned, the member will critically reevaluate his choices and exit the group. 151F

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16 ARIZ. REV. STAT. R. CIV. P. 65(d) (2016). The brackets in the statute indicate the only changes made to the existing TRO statute in Arizona. It is important to note that the court will not be looking into the group’s belief system, just the irreparable physical or psychological harm present. 152 The recommended public setting is a restaurant where the family has shared family birthdays or celebrations—this brings back positive memories the family members share and will hopefully reignite any love that has been lost. However, a public park, coffee shop, or shopping mall would satisfy this requirement.

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Pressure on the group member to make his decision will progress over the 4-week trial period. The first 2-hour meeting will be only the parents (or those loved ones who have had a significant impact on the person’s life) and the group member. 153 This week is designed to be conversational in tone, where the parties can neutrally present their concerns, talk about the group generally, and start the education process regarding thought reform. 154 Assuming the group member resists exiting the group after the first week, the second meeting will be between the parents, extended family members, close friends, and the group member. The second meeting will likely be more emotionally charged because close family and friends are telling the member how much they miss him, how worried they are about his health, and how much they care for him. Although this week lacks the educational goals of exit interventions, it will show the member how much support he has if he decides to exit the group. Conversely, this week provides the member with an opportunity to show his family and friends how happy and satisfied the group makes him. 155 152F

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If the member remains in the group after 2 weeks, the third meeting is between the parents, a former member of the group, and the current member. During this meeting, the former member will discuss the following: her experience with thought reform, her reasons for leaving the group, her experience after leaving the group, and the process and resources she used while exiting the group. In addition to being able to relate with the current member, the former member approaches the situation with a different perspective by focusing on things particularly relevant to the current member. 156 Ideally, discussing these issues will force the current member to question certain aspects of the group, which ignites his critical thinking, causing him to realize he can actually leave the group. 155F

If the member remains in the group after 3 weeks, the fourth meeting resembles a formal drug or alcohol intervention with a professional exit counselor or deprogrammer. The meeting in week 4 places the most pressure on the member to leave the group. The counselor or deprogrammer will directly attack the group’s practices and force the member to answer questions about the group. 157 While the other weeks are focused on emotion and education, the week 4 meeting is designed to force the member to choose either the family or the group, similar to a drug or alcohol intervention when the addict must go to treatment or never see his family again. 158 Hopefully this ultimatum convinces the member to leave the group. 156F

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Alternatively, the time for the first week could be simply a 2-hour period away from the group instead of meeting with the family. Theoretically, this option gives the cult member time away from the group to reflect on his choices without inside pressure. However, this model seems too passive because nothing is preventing the cult from following the member around; and without any pressure from outside the group, he may spend his 2 hours obsessing over his authoritarian leader. 154 The group member will also be told of the 4-week program during this meeting. It should be noted that this week may not go as planned. This may be the group member’s first time away from the group in months, which may cause separation issues. Also, the group member may be angry about his parents’ involvement, which could stall progress for the week. Moreover, if the thought-reform process has run its full course, the group member may be too zombielike to be conversational. Regardless of how the meeting progresses, the parents get 2 full hours of access. 155 The neutral, public forum is especially important this week because the cult member will be up against five to 10 people trying to convince him of something against his beliefs. If the meeting were at a private

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residence, this would be giving the family a license to coercively deprogram the member. 156 If the parents cannot find former members of the particular group, they are encouraged to reach out to former cult members who can relate to their loved one. It is important for the current member to interact with someone who has defeated the thought-reform process. 157 Keep in mind that this meeting is still at a public place. Thus, the deprogrammer still has to be civil with the member and cannot be abusive. 158 Although making the member choose between the family or the group seems harsh, the family had limited to no access to the member before the 4-week trial. Assuming the cult maintains its isolation International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

The Formal Conservatorship Hearing

Limitations and Caveats

If the member remains in the group after the 4week access period, the family’s last chance is to remove the member using a traditional conservatorship. 159 The family must be able convince the court that the cult has rendered their loved one incapacitated. Since the family already had 4 weeks to convince the member to leave the group, this outcome should be an especially high bar for the family. Moreover, there are First Amendment protections to consider when the court gets involved with religious groups. As such, the family must prove that the member is “gravely disabled” under state law and cannot make his own decisions. 160 The appropriate standard for this conservatorship hearing is whether the person is incapacitated beyond a reasonable doubt. 161 Satisfying this standard will be difficult, but if the family can present evidence that the group member is unreasonably unresponsive, depressed, mentally unstable, or if there are signs of physical or sexual abuse, a conservatorship may be appropriately granted.

Because exit interventions force the group member to attend meetings against his will, even if for only 2 hours per week, there must be controls in place. First, if the family or anyone invited by the family violates the court order, it will be immediately vacated. The 4-week period is not a license to coercively deprogram the member. 162 This component applies to the public-place requirement and the requirement of 2 hours per week for 4 weeks. Second, after 2 weeks of meetings, the group member may present himself in front of the same judge and convince her that he is able minded and well informed in making his decision to remain in the group. Doing so will show the judge that a conservatorship is unnecessary because the member is capable of exercising his right to freedom of action and religion. However, the judge has the discretion to order the group member to finish the remaining 2 weeks. 163 At this point in the process, the judge can properly balance the interests of both parties and make a decision accordingly.

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practices, this decision will likely amount to whether the member wants to maintain a relationship with the family and leave the group, or stay in the group and lose his family. 159 For purposes of this paper, see ARIZ REV. STAT. ANN. § 14-5101 (2016). According to the statute, an incapacitated person means “any person who is impaired by reason of mental illness, mental deficiency, mental disorder, physical illness or disability, chronic use of drugs, chronic intoxication or other cause, except minority, to the extent that he lacks sufficient understanding or capacity to make or communicate responsible decisions concerning his person.” Id. 160 See Katz v. Superior Court, 141 Cal. Rptr. 234, 256 (Cal. Ct. App. 1977). This standard seems to appropriately balance a believer’s right to freedom of action and the family’s argument that he is incapable of making his own decisions. 161 According to ARIZ REV. STAT. ANN. § 14-5304(B) (2016), an applicant must prove an individual is incapacitated by clear and convincing evidence. The more stringent beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard accommodates the First Amendment issues and the fact that the family failed to convince the member over the 4-week period. International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

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Alternatively, if the group fails to present the member for his weekly meetings, the court can use an officer of the law to secure the member’s presence. 164 Because the officer is carrying out a court order, and not targeting the group’s beliefs, the group cannot argue First Amendment 163F

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If the family ignores the order and attempts to coercively deprogram the group member, this evidence will be admitted against the deprogrammer if the deprogrammee later attempts to bring a civil action. 163 Most importantly, this feature allows the family dispute to be adjudged by a neutral third party. If the judge feels the family is being unreasonable about the group member making his own decisions, then she can vacate the order. In contrast, if the judge believes it is beneficial for the parties to finish the remaining time, she can order the member to continue meeting with the family. 164 For an example of how cults deny access to family members by transferring the cult member to various locations, see Today Show: Cathryn Mazer and the Unification Church (NBC television broadcast, Nov. 15, 1993), https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=zcu3Ty4golY

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violations. 165 Moreover, the focus of exit intervention is to ensure that the group member is making an informed and healthy decision, not merely following the group’s influence. Thus, cults must comply with the court order by making the targeted member available for his meetings. 164F

Objections to Exit Intervention Although exit interventions are far less coercive, and hence far less impinging on an individual’s civil rights than other approaches, they still affect an individual’s freedom of choice by requiring him to be present at weekly meetings. There are two main arguments against exit interventions: They violate an individual’s First Amendment rights of freedom of belief and expression, 166 and they violate an individual’s due-process rights because the person is not present for the initial court hearing to defend himself. 167 165F

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See Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 402–03 (1963) (“the Court has rejected challenges under the Free Exercise Clause to governmental regulation of certain overt acts prompted by religious beliefs or principles, for ‘even when the action is in accord with one's religious convictions, [it] is not totally free from legislative restrictions.’”) (quoting Braunfield v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 603 (1961)). Assuming exit interventions would be enacted through legislation, an officer of the law can carry out the court’s order without impinging the group’s free exercise under the First Amendment. 166 See U.S. CONST. amend. I (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”); NCAAP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 444–45 (1963) (“For the Constitution protects expression and association without regard to the race, creed, or political or religious affiliation of the members of the group which invokes its shield, or to the truth, popularity, or social utility of the ideas and beliefs which are offered.”). 167 See U.S. CONST. amend. V (“No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”).

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First-Amendment Concerns According to the Supreme Court, it is well established that a person’s beliefs, unlike actions, are absolutely protected under the First Amendment. 168 Thus, cult members can argue that exit interventions are unconstitutional because they target an individual’s belief system. However, the goals of an exit intervention are to ensure that the member is informed when deciding to stay in the group, and that he is mentally capable to do so. 169 The exit intervention has nothing to do with his beliefs; it has everything to do with his decision to stay in the group. The decision to stay in the group is an overt act prompted by religious beliefs or principles—overt acts are not “free from legislative restrictions.” 170 Moreover, exit interventions seek to bring back the group member’s ability to think critically. If the program successfully promotes critical thought, and the group member decides to remain with the group, then his beliefs were strengthened, not attacked. 167F

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A group member may also raise the argument that exit interventions substantially burden an individual’s exercise of religion. 171 For the sake 170F

168 See, e.g., Sherbert, 374 U.S. at 402–03; Braunfield v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 603 (1961); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303–04 (1940); Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 166 (1878). 169 The only meeting that could be argued as an attack on the member’s belief is week 4 when the deprogrammer is present. However, having a 2-hour disagreement about whose belief system is correct does not seem like the kind of attack that warrants First Amendment protection. 170 Sherbert, 375 U.S. at 403. 171 See Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb (2015); Holt v. Hobbs, 155 S.Ct. 853, 859– 860 (2015) (“RFRA provides that ‘[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability,’ unless the government ‘demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.’”). For purposes of this discussion, assume the RFRA applies under state law.

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of argument, assume that exit interventions are a substantial burden on a person’s exercise of religion. Then the government must show that (a) exit interventions are in furtherance of a compelling government interest, and (b) they are the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest. 172 In this scenario, the state has a compelling interest in the health of its citizens. 173 As seen in previous comments, the use of thought reform can result in irreparable physical and psychological harm. 174 Therefore, the state has a compelling interest in preventing the use of thought reform by destructive groups such as cults. Since exit interventions require the group member to be present for only 8 hours in a month-long period, it is hard to imagine a less restrictive means of furthering this compelling state interest. Thus, exit interventions do not violate an individual’s First Amendment rights. 171F

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Due-Process Concerns Although the group member is not present to be heard in the initial court hearing, due process is not offended because there are enough procedural safeguards to prevent error. The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without the due process of law.” 175 A group member may argue that the initial court hearing is unconstitutional because it creates subjective, standardless discretion that authorizes drastic relief without notice and without any of the constitutionally necessary 174F

172 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. §2000bb (2015). 173 The Supreme Court has demonstrated that the state may have a compelling interest in preventing fraud under the guise of religion. See Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 221–29 (1972); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 403 (1963); NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 438 (1963). Because the use of deception is not the focus here, it suffices to say that the state has a compelling interest in the health of its citizens and protecting its citizens against thoughtreform techniques. 174 See Wong, supra note 9, at 95; see generally SINGER & LALICH, supra note 21. 175 U.S. CONST. amend. V.

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procedural safeguards. 176 In general, the Supreme Court holds that “[d]ue process is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands.” 177 More precisely, the Supreme Court considers three distinct factors: (a) “the private interest that will be affected by the official action”; (b) “the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards”; and (c) “the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.” 178 175F

176F

177F

Applying these factors to exit interventions assures that the initial court hearings are constitutional. First, the private interest being affected is the 4-week access period that requires the group member to be present for 2 hours per week. Meeting with family and friends in a public place for a total of 8 hours over a 4-week period is not a substantial deprivation of the group member’s liberty. Moreover, the group member is able to present himself in front of the hearing judge after the first 2 weeks to convince the judge the exit intervention is unnecessary. Second, the family must carry the burden of not only showing a drastic change in the member’s behavior and the dangers present in the group, but also must overcome the slight presumption that the member voluntarily joined the group and the court should not interfere. Between the group member’s ability to try to opt out after 2 weeks and the burden the family must carry, an erroneous deprivation of liberty is unlikely. Thus, the procedural safeguards in place appropriately protect the group member’s liberty interest. Finally, there are large administrative burdens if any other safeguards are implemented. The reason the family must rely 176

To see how this argument fared in a TRO hearing regarding a guardianship of a 100-year-old woman, see In re Guardianship of Carlsmith, 151 P.3d 717, 720 (Haw. 2007). 177 Matthews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 321 (1976) (quoting Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481 (1972)). 178 Matthews, 424 U.S. at 335.

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on an exit intervention is because they have been denied access to the group member. Requiring the group member to be present at the initial hearing would be nearly impossible unless the court issues some kind of subpoena. 179 Moreover, it is unfair to require the group member to appear in court before the family has shown any evidence at all. 180 Thus, exit interventions through the initial court hearing satisfy the flexible due-process standards. 178F

179F

Other Concerns Some other concerns regarding the exit intervention model include its practicality, its effectiveness, its economic burden, and the family’s evidentiary burden. The main practicality concern is whether the parties can meet civilly for 2 hours each week. The group member is facing family and friends telling him how his life should be run, while the family is confronting their loved one who they believe is in grave danger. This may be a recipe for disaster. Although this is a legitimate concern, the exit intervention may be the family’s last chance to see their loved one for the rest of their lives. Therefore, the family will try their best to make the meetings as constructive and educational as possible. Because any breaking of the rules results in the 4-week trial period being vacated, the family should be given the 4-week access period to try to make things work. Furthermore, an argument can be made that 8 hours is simply not enough to make any meaningful difference with the group member. After all, some deprogrammings take many full days to convince the member to leave the

179

Using a subpoena in this way is likely more of a burden on the group member’s private interest because it would require him to appear in court and then go through 4 weeks of intervention. 180 It can be argued that, after the parents have satisfied the court with enough evidence, the court would hold another hearing that requires both parties to be present. Although this may be an effective safeguard, it seems like an unnecessary use of time and money when considering that the hearing is for only 8 hours of the group member’s time.

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group. 181 Although 8 hours may not be enough to make exit interventions as effective as the family would like, the group member has constitutional interests in both his liberty and his ability to freely exercise a religion of his choosing. Allotting more than 8 hours may strengthen group members’ arguments and render exit interventions unconstitutional. Thus, the family must be able to work with what they can get. Eight hours may not be sufficient, but the mere chance of reigniting the group member’s critical thinking and denouncing his membership is worth every minute. If the family and the exit counselors carefully craft their plan by making every second count, exit interventions can be just as effective as forcibly removing the member from the group. 180F

Additionally, since the group member presumably disappeared, it may be difficult for the family to put together enough evidence to obtain the exit intervention. In an easy case, the family could provide records to the court showing that the group member has recently transferred his capital assets and pension to the group for little or no consideration. 182 This is especially probative of behavioral changes if the person never made similar transfers in the past. However, what happens in a more difficult case in which the group member had no assets, not many friends, and a less-than-perfect family life before disappearing? In a case like this, the parents must rely on the dangers of the particular group, including testimony from former members of the group and experts who are familiar with the group. The more dangerous the group seems, the more likely the family member is in risk of irreparable harm. Families could also rely on photos showing physical changes. Even if access to the loved one is restricted, the family should attempt to capture a photo that evidences dangerous weight loss, sleep 181F

181

See Scott v. Ross, 140 F.3d 1275, 1279–80 (9th Cir. 1998) (deprogramming lasted 5 days); Kent & Szimhart, supra note 16, at 246–47. 182 For an example of this, see Andree Brooks, ‘Cults’ and the Aged: A New Family Issue, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 26, 1986, http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/26/style/ cults-and-the-aged-a-new-family-issue.html? pagewanted=all (last visited Dec. 12, 2016). International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

deprivation, and other negative physicalappearance differences. Therefore, when gathering evidence is difficult, the family must focus on the particular group in question and any sort of physical evidence the family can gather that is probative of behavioral changes. Finally, exit interventions will be very expensive for the families seeking the 4-week program. Families must pay for the filing costs and fees, the gathering of evidence and experts for the initial hearing, dinner and transportation costs throughout the 4 weeks, and the cost of hiring a deprogrammer or exit counselor for the final week. 183 However, families routinely pay up to $20,000 per month for alcohol or drug treatment. 184 If the exit intervention is successful and the group member leaves the destructive group, the family will be reunited with their loved one and the process will be worth every penny.

interventions do not require the justice system to deprive the group member of his right to exercise his beliefs. Because the court is ordering only a temporary 4-week access period, the group member’s constitutional rights are not violated. Finally—perhaps the best part about this model, it allows the family to educate and inform the group member of what to be aware of with destructive groups, while it allows the group member to make the ultimate decision at the end of the 4 weeks. This freedom of choice gives the group member control over his life while allowing his parents to express their concerns and gain closure on the topic.

182F

183F

Conclusion The exit-intervention model properly balances the family’s interest of ensuring their loved one’s safety and well-being with the group member’s interest of making his own decisions and freely exercising his system of belief. It also improves all three of the conventional intervention methods. First, exit interventions are much stronger than exit counseling because they allow the family to intervene instead of waiting for the group member to walk away from the destructive group. Second, exit interventions are much less coercive than deprogramming because they are held at public places and are only for 2 hours per week. The group member is not held against his will in violation of his civil rights. Third, exit

About the Author Steven Autenrieth is a law student at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona. He began his studies of cults and other destructive groups as a part of his Cults and Alternative Religions lawschool course taught by Professor Linda Demaine. In addition, he is a graduate of South Dakota State University with a degree in mathematics. Email Steven at [email protected]

183

Deprogrammings typically cost around $10,000, and a 3- to 5-day exit counseling will cost anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000. Michael D. Langone & Paul Martin, Deprogramming, Exit Counseling, and Ethics: Clarifying the Confusion, INT’L CULTIC STUDIES ASS’N, http://www.icsahome.com/articles/ deprogramming-ethics--langone (last visited Apr. 17, 2016). 184 How Much Does Rehab Cost?, REHABS.COM, http://www.rehabs.com/about/how-much-does-rehabcost (last visited Apr. 17, 2016). International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

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The Unique Characteristics of Postcult Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Suggested Therapeutic Approaches Dennis Patrick Healy counselor and psychotherapist in private practice

Abstract In this paper, I assert that postcult posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a unique form of Complex PTSD. With this knowledge, and incorporating understandings in neuroscience, I make recommendations about appropriate therapeutic interventions. I present the characteristic symptoms of Complex PTSD as described by Herman (1997), such as hyperarousal, intrusion, and constriction, and I describe in detail the unique features of cultinduced PTSD. I also consider the effects of superstition and the association with a God or the truth in the cultic context. This discussion leads to the conclusion that postcult PTSD is a unique form of Complex PTSD. Alongside this content are developments in neuroscience that have identified different forms of memory (implicit and explicit memory) located in separate centers of the human brain. Against this neuroscience knowledge, I discuss the commonly occurring and highly distressing experience of triggers, a form of implicit memory frequently reported by victims of trauma, including former cult members, and observed by therapists working with these victims. I then discuss the implications for therapy of the considerations of a unique form of PTSD and neuroscience knowledge.

found the lifetime prevalence of PTSD among men to be 3.6% and among women, 9.7% (p. 14). Further, citing Hoge et al. (2004) and Thomas et al. (2010), Rosen noted that, considering a more high-risk population— postdeployment military personnel—the prevalence of PTSD ranged between 10% and 25% (p. 14). In citing Almendros (2006) and Carrobles, Almendros, Rodríguez-Carballeira, & Gámez-Guadix (2010), Rosen (2014) has highlighted the much higher percentages of PTSD for former cult members and has reported results of research on former cult members that show rates of PTSD in a sample of former members in Spain at 27.9% (males) to 43.6% (females) (p. 14). In the United States, a study listed PTSD in former members at 61.4% for males and 71.3% for females (p. 14).

Herman’s Definition of Complex PTSD Symptoms Herman (1997) defined three distinct symptoms of Complex PTSD: hyperarousal, intrusion, and constriction. I describe each symptom in more detail in the sections that follow. It is important to highlight that each of these symptoms incorporates symptoms that are both psychologic (relating to the mind or mental phenomena) and somatoform (physical symptoms without physical cause).

Postcult Complex PTSD Prevalence of PTSD in Former Cult Members At the outset, it is important to state that multiple studies have concluded that the prevalence of PTSD is greater for former cult members than for any other specific population. Rosen (2014), citing Kessler et al. (2005), lists the results of the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R), which found “that the lifetime prevalence of PTSD among adult Americans is 6.8%” (p. 14). The survey also 60

Finally, the data regarding PTSD in former cult members, together with Herman’s work regarding Complex PTSD symptoms, and the relevance of superstition and the cultic approach to God and truth, which I discuss further in the following pages, support Whitsett’s (2010) assertion that a specific form of Complex PTSD, postcult Complex PTSD, is a direct result of members’ experiences in cults. In the context of this larger discussion, it is important to understand that cult members are often kept in International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

either a state of hyperarousal (emotionally aroused, easily startled) or hypoarousal (flat, numb, lethargic, not fully present). Hyperarousal occurs as a result of cultic practices such as the application of Bateson’s double-bind principle (“If you’re not getting this, it’s not because my [the cult leader’s] dogma is wrong; it’s because you [the cult member] are just not trying hard enough!”); public confessions; poorly defined and everchanging boundaries; sleep and food deprivation; and many others. Hypoarousal occurs through extensive meditation, chanting, and hypnotic guided sessions (Jenkinson, 2011). Hyperarousal Generic PTSD hyperarousal. Pitman (1990, as cited in Herman, 1997, p. 36) describes hyperarousal as a combination of phobias and generalized anxiety that is experienced physiologically as an increased startle response to general stimuli and an intense response to stimuli related to the traumatic event. Hyperarousal includes hypervigilance, “an elevated baseline of arousal: Their bodies are always on the alert to danger” (McFall, Murburg, Roszell, & Veith 1989, p. 252). Cult-induced, Complex PTSD hyperarousal. What distinguishes this form is that some of the former members’ phobias, to which they respond as presented above, have been deliberately installed by the cult/cult leader (Hassan, 2000, p. 233). Equally, as a consequence of their extended periods of hyperarousal in the cult, the former members have a significantly increased predisposition to physiologically recognize and respond to these installed phobias (Hassan, 2013, p. 155). One of the most common ways for cult leaders to install phobias is to make suggestions, use testimonials, or tell stories during psychologically vulnerable altered states such as extensive meditation, chanting, and guided hypnotic sessions. These phobias frequently relate to the world outside the cult and, for example, instill fear in members of dire circumstances relating to their physical and mental health, their social life, or their spiritual life (their “chance of redemption/ salvation”) if the members ever leave the cult (Hassan, 2000, p. 239). In addition, cult leaders often use International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

information of individuals’ vulnerabilities obtained during public confession sessions as the basis for creating a phobia, which they then install. Superstition. Similarly, cult leaders will utilize superstition to control their members. They do this first by deliberately maintaining this hyperaroused state of nervousness/high anxiety and thereby increasing the likelihood of facilitating a self-serving superstition. Second, they will take full advantage of unconnected events to create a superstitious belief—for instance, linking the death or misadventure of a former cult member directly to the member’s decision to leave the cult. Superstition As we consider the impact of superstition, Dictionary.com defines it as …a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like. … a system or collection of such beliefs … irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, especially in connection with religion … any blindly accepted belief or notion. An important understanding about superstition is that, the more anxious and frightened we are, the more likely we are to make an irrational connection between factually unrelated events. For example, in a 1977 experiment, the experimenters were able to demonstrate that paratroopers, in an obvious state of apprehension about to jump from an aircraft, were shown a TV screen with no image other than noise and snow. They were more likely to see “a nonexistent embedded figure” in this situation than if they had been presented with the TV image earlier (Goldberg, 2013, pp.1–3). Superstitions seem to be a desire for control or the illusion of control because we human beings generally don’t like to feel that things occur capriciously; rather, we want to believe that there is a reason for things happening, and we look for simple, causal relationships between complex events.

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signals, group symbols, items used in group activities rituals, certain buildings or locations

Intrusion Generic Complex PTSD intrusion. Herman (1997, p. 37) depicted intrusion as “long after the danger is past, traumatized people relive the event as though it were continually recurring in the present.” As a result of triggers, which are “seemingly insignificant reminders” of the trauma, the traumatic moment instantaneously bursts into consciousness and the traumatized persons experience them either as flashbacks during waking states or as traumatic nightmares while they are asleep. What is significant about these flashbacks and nightmares is that, because they have become encrypted into a specific form of memory (implicit memory), where they are stored as graphic images and sensations without context and verbal narrative, they recur with “the emotional intensity of the original event,” (Herman, 1997, p. 42) and with a heightened reality. The consequence of this for the traumatized person is one of never feeling safe because triggers can occur in what are normally safe environments. (Brett & Ostroff, 1985, pp. 422–423). Postcult PTSD intrusion. Several aspects distinguish postcult PTSD intrusion: the nature of the nightmares, the range of triggers to which the former cult member is vulnerable, and a phobic avoidance of triggers. The nightmares of former cult members are different. They are distinctly “themes of death, dying, violence and/or loss, helplessness” (Whitsett, 2010, p. 3). Former cult members experience a wide range of triggers, which reconnect the individuals with often-abhorrent cult experiences. For example, a tone of voice, a particular song or chant sung in the cult, a word or a phrase—in fact, any type of sight, sound, smell, taste, or sensation, can trigger former members, who frequently have many triggers. Lalich and Tobias (2006) provided an extensive list of common postcult triggers: Sensory triggers are probably the most common. Typical ones are: •

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Sights: special colors, flags, pictures of the leader, facial expressions, hand

•

Physical sensations: hunger, fatigue, touches, handshakes, a kiss or caress, massage

•

Sounds: songs, certain music, slogans, mantras, certain prayers, key words and phrases, a certain rhythm or tone of voice, yelling

•

Smells: incense, perfume or Cologne of the leader, certain food aromas, room odors, body odors

•

Tastes: certain foods or liquids, herbs or spices

In addition, certain emotions, such as feelings of guilt, fear, and shame, all of which were encouraged in the cult, may function as triggers. (Lalich & Tobias, 2006, p. 121) Phobic avoidance of triggers. As a result both of their hyperarousal, including hypervigilance, and of the vividness and emotional force of the flashbacks, many former members are confronted with a double whammy: the trigger itself, and a panic, a phobic response to the whole idea of triggers—the fear of the fear (Whitsett, 2010, p. 3). Constriction Generic Complex PTSD constriction. Different authors use different terms to describe this phenomenon, and they all claim that it lies at the heart of trauma disorders: constriction and numbing (Herman, 1997); floating (Lalich & Tobias, 2006); dissociation (Lifton, 1989; Martin, Langone, Dole, & Wiltrout, 1992; Singer, 2003); and splitting (Lifton, 1989). All the authors were referring to the commonly observed PTSD reaction that has been likened to the freeze state in animals when they are attacked (Herman, 1997, p. 42). According to Herman, These detached states of consciousness are similar to hypnotic trance states. They share the same features of surrender of voluntary action, suspension of initiative and critical judgment, International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

subjective detachment or calm, enhanced perception of imagery, altered sensation, including numbness and analgesia, and distortion of reality including depersonalization [a sense of separation or detachment from your body], derealization [“the world seems unreal”], and change in the sense of time. (1997, p. 43) Postcult PTSD constriction. Cardena & Spiegel (1993, p. 477) suggested that people who go into a dissociative state at the time of the traumatic incident are among those most likely to develop long-lasting PTSD; and, as mentioned above, cult members, as a result of extensive periods of hypoarousal (meditation, chanting, hypnotic guided sessions, fatigue accompanied by insufficient food and sleep), have a much greater predisposition to dissociation. In other words, they have an increased likelihood of developing long-lasting PTSD (Lalich & Tobias, 2006, p. 108). Former cult members also experience a particular type of constriction. Once again, various authors use different terms to describe the phenomenon of the former member frequently floating between their precult, in-cult, and postcult identities/ personalities: doubling (Lifton, 2000, as cited in Jenkinson, 2008, p. 199); false self (Winnicott, 1965, as cited in Jenkinson, 2008, p. 199); pseudopersonality (West, 1992, as cited in Martin et al., 1992, p. 66); altered persona (Goldberg, 2006, p. 5); double self (Herman, 1997, p. 103); new identity (Singer, 2003, pp. 77–79), to “surrender their identity” (Curtis & Curtis, 1993, p. 458); and cult pseudopersonality (Jenkinson, 2008, pp. 199–224). Traumatized people suffered damage to the basic structures of the self. They lose their trust in themselves, in other people, and in God [italics mine]. Their self-esteem is assaulted by experiences of humiliation, guilt, and helplessness. Their capacity for intimacy is compromised by intense and contradictory feelings of need and fear. The identity they have formed prior to the trauma is irrevocably destroyed. (Herman, 1997, p. 56)

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God and the Truth Many cult leaders claim to be God or to have unique connection with God, or to be the sole source of spiritual knowledge. For example, Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate claimed, “I am in the same position to today’s society as was the One that was in Jesus then” (Lalich, 2004, p. 55). As Lalich and Tobias (2006) noted, “in cults, the love of God or higher ideals, the desire for self-improvement or the wish to help mankind and society are twisted and used to influence, control or exploit devoted believers” (p. 13). And earlier, Hassan (1990) observed, “There is a cult pattern now in which a particular ‘chosen’ human being is seen as a savior or source of salvation… The leaders become mediators for God” (p. 202). Cult leaders use a variety of techniques to establish this God connection/unique truth, including the following: •

Mystical manipulation is the use of preplanned, supposedly spontaneous mystical experiences to demonstrate the enigmatic skills of the cult leader. Singer (2003) explains one example of this when she discusses hyperventilation (overbreathing and repetitive sighing) (128– 131). Cult leaders will conduct group sessions in which members, in unison and frequently accompanied by chanting, will exhale rapidly, forcefully, and sharply. The effects of hyperventilation are lightheadedness and a feeling of being on a high, accompanied by loss of judgment and an inability to think critically. In its extreme, the action can lead to a range of physical symptoms such as tingling in the extremities, ringing in the ears, racing of the heart, even fainting. Cult leaders exploit this experience and describe it as “bliss”—the experience of taking in the spirit, of “being on the path.”

•

Sacred science is reflected when the group leader positions himself as close to God, as God’s spokesperson, with the highest possible level of enlightenment and knowledge, accompanied by “unique insights into the science of the world and universe” (Dubrow-Marshall, 2010, p. 5). 63

The approach is positioned so that no member would dare criticize this ultimate science. Its effect is to inhibit any search for knowledge and discourage independent thinking (Jenkinson, 2011). •

A spiritual experience is artificially contrived by the leader. For example, the leader might gain private information about an individual from a close affiliate in the cult and, at the right moment, the leadership will reveal this secret information, thus leading the cult member to believe that the leader can either “read their mind” or that the leader has some special contact with the spirit world (Hassan, 1990, p. 70).

Developments in Neuroscience Having established that there are unique characteristics of cult-induced, postcult Complex PTSD, I now explore developments in neuroscience that extend the knowledge of the symptoms and effects of postcult Complex PTSD. From there, I make recommendations for appropriate therapeutic interventions. Neuroscience Background Siegel (2011) has presented a simple model of the human brain (pp. 14–22) that comprises three separate components: (a) the brain stem (reptilian brain), which is responsible for regulating basic processes— for example, eat, sleep, and sex; (b) the limbic brain, which includes the amygdala and manages instantaneous survival responses (fight, flight, freeze), is the center of implicit memory, and is also responsible for emotional attachment, relationships, and habits (pp. 149–153). Habits are patterns of behavior repeated with little or any conscious awareness (e.g., cleaning our teeth); the suggestion is that it requires 1,000 repetitions (either verbal or imagined) to change or develop a new habit (Gordon, 2009); and (c) the prefrontal cortex, which is a reflective system that performs an executive function. The center of explicit memory, the prefontal cortex is responsible for thinking, decision making, strategy, regulation of emotions, 64

and establishment of routines (Siegel, 2011, pp. 153–155). Routines are regular courses of action that require some conscious awareness (e.g., learning a new dance step) and can be altered relatively easily. Routines are distinct from habits, and this contrast between habits and routines becomes important later, in the discussion of neurochemicals/neurotransmitters. Hierarchical Organization Conceptually, the brain is organized hierarchically for processing; in this model, the prefrontal cortex, in nontraumatic circumstances, dominates lower-level centers and exercises a veto power over limbic responses. However, in the context of complex trauma, emotions and sensory-motor reactions (in the limbic control center) can disorganize the cognitive capability of the prefrontal cortex and interfere with its top-down regulation. This process has been described as “bottom-up hijacking” (Ogden, Pain, & Fisher, 2006, p. 365). Neurochemicals As Fuel A possible analogy is the use of fuel to describe the function of some of the brain’s neurotransmitters. The limbic brain uses a range of these neurochemicals and, in particular, adrenaline (composed mainly of epinephrine— fast acting and short lasting, and Cortisol— slower to increase but remaining longer); whereas a major neurochemical for the prefrontal cortex is dopamine (Whitsett, 2006, p. 353). It is cortisol that reduces the effectiveness of dopamine and blocks prefrontal cortex functioning, as described previously in the bottom-up hijacking process (Ogden et al., 2006, p. 365). One important characteristic of dopamine is that it utilizes a lot of energy (burns a lot of fuel); and significantly, if the limbic brain is predominating, for example, in the extended periods of both hyper- and hypoarousal, the prefrontal cortex has a long recovery period; it takes a long time for it to kick in (Gordon, 2009), particularly as a result of the cortisol staying in the blood stream longer. This behavior exacerbates the situation for cult members and has the potential for them that operating in the limbic brain becomes their International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

habitual response. As a consequence, this way of functioning, without the critical-thinking oversight of the prefrontal cortex, becomes very difficult to change. This finding is reinforced by Kunsman (2014), who has reported neurophysiological imaging results that demonstrate greater blood and metabolism shifting toward the brain areas responsible for survival, and “the mind loses smooth, healthy integration of separate brain functions” (p. 1) as a result.

of the past, but as events happening in the present, and with little, if any, explicit awareness of the original traumatic incidents.

Another highly detrimental effect of too much adrenaline-based cortisol in the bloodstream, as a consequence of the brain spending significant amounts of time in the limbic state, is that, if cortisol remains in the bloodstream for too long, it actually burns out synaptic connections (Whitsett, 2006, p. 3). Equally in this context, the brain has difficulty recalibrating autonomic arousal—the return to baseline—because the body’s adaptive response of metabolizing the neurotransmitters has not functioned effectively (Ogden et al., 2006, p. 366; Whitsett, 2006, p. 353). This limitation might have the effect of further reinforcing the brain habitually operating in the limbic state.

Significantly, the limbic brain’s flooding of adrenaline in response to any trigger potentially reinforces the initial neural wiring laid down with the original traumatic incident—what fires together wires together. There are several consequences of this sequencing: first, there is a risk that this response becomes habitual and, as mentioned previously, the habits established via the limbic brain are far more difficult to change than the routines that are established via the prefrontal cortex; second, there is the potential for the former cult member to become increasingly more vulnerable to progressively “minor triggers” (Post, Weiss, & Smith, 1995, as cited in Ogden et al., 2006, p. 4); third, former members also lose somatic connection to current reality; and, fourth, this response reinforces the member’s phobic avoidance of triggers. As van der Kolk et al. (as cited in Ogden et al., 2006) described it, Operating in either hyper-aroused (too much activation) or hypo-aroused states (too little activation) means information cannot be effectively processed (p. 3).

Neuroscience and Memory Systems

Trauma and the Speech Center

According to Siegel (2011, pp. 149–154; Applegate & Shapiro, 2005, as cited in Whitsett, 2006, p. 354) and mentioned previously, the limbic brain is the center of implicit memory, which is not conscious, does not require focused attention, involves no sensation of recollection from the past, and does not involve the prefrontal cortex. In contrast, the prefrontal cortex is the center of explicit memory, which is conscious, does require focused attention, and integrates the elements of our experience into factual autobiographical representations—in other words, it creates the narratives of our lives. This distinction is important in the context of trauma because recollections of past traumas, typically referred to as triggers, are a flooding of implicit-only memory activation.

Cozolino (2002, as cited in Whitsett, 2006, p. 355) discusses the fact that, during trauma, Broca’s area, the area of the brain responsible for speech, actually shuts down, a phenomenon described as speechless terror. The implication of this action is that, when former cult members are triggered by past traumas, their capacity for verbal communication is drastically reduced.

So triggers do not involve the prefrontal cortex because cortisol is inhibiting its function. This means that top-down regulation is lost and meaning making is inhibited. This is why we experience traumatic incidents, not as memories

Presentation in Therapy

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Implications for Practice Thus far, I have reviewed the definition of Complex PTSD, identified some unique characteristics of cult-induced, postcult Complex PTSD, and presented some developments in neuroscience. I now discuss the implications of all this for former cult members in therapy, followed by various therapeutic interventions. Former cult members often come to therapy with many of the following:

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•

They feel a loss of the sense of safety.

•

They have been (one or a combination of) psychologically, physically, spiritually, or sexually abused by people in positions of power.

•

They might have lost trust in people, in God, and in themselves; they may have a predisposition to be influenced by authority figures.

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They are highly reactive to a wide range of triggers; they may have developed a phobic avoidance of triggers.

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They might readily dissociate.

•

They can float between their pre-, in-cult, and postcult personality.

•

They are likely to be hypervigilant; they probably feel disempowered.

•

They frequently demonstrate a lack of critical thinking, possibly having incorporated deliberately installed phobias and superstitions, and are unable to make simple decisions (the prefrontal cortex “muscle” has atrophied).

•

They are frequently operating in the limbic state, with the limbic “muscle” being constantly overstimulated, which can become an habitual way of operating.

•

They can display motor symptoms that include numbness, paralysis, and ataxia.

Distinctions for Therapy Based on the above analysis, I review important distinctions between therapeutic approaches for generic PTSD and postcult Complex PTSD in the following subsections. Hypnosis and Meditative Practices The therapeutic use of hypnosis and meditative practices runs a high risk of triggering and retraumatizing former cult members because of their extensive negative experiences with hypnosis and meditation during their time in the cult (Whitsett, 2006, p. 358; Kunsman, 2014, p. 3). Rosen (2014, p. 22) has warned that, although mindful meditation is a popular practice in the treatment of trauma, caution is 66

advisable when one is considering these practices for former cult members. Diagnosing The process of diagnosing, as in a medical model, is to be discouraged because it might result in the former cult member experiencing further feelings of disempowerment (White, 2004, p. 70). Citing Najavitas (2002) and Rosen (2013), Rosen (2014, p. 23) recommended that the client and the therapist together create and use nonpathologizing language. Therapist-Client Relationship Similarly, decision making by the therapist on the behalf of former members can contribute to the former members’ sense of disempowerment. Dubrow-Marshall (2015) relates the circumstances of former members having been in cultic groups and experiencing the initial “love bombing” in conjunction with feigned intimacy, wherein other members pretended to share similarities with the new members, to exert influence over them. As a consequence, these former members can find the counselling relationship “cold and uncaring.” And because of their previous experiences of a highly structured, rule-driven environment within the cult, former members have an expectation and may “pressure therapists to be directive” (p. 16). Similarly, the therapist acting as an authority figure can be distinctly counterproductive: This approach can provoke a trigger, potentially disempower the person seeking therapy, or reproduce the destructive cult leader-follower relationship (Herman, 1997, pp. 134–139). Rosen (2014) has recommended an authoritative and collaborative, rather than an authoritarian, approach (p. 23, my italics). In the same sense, failure to take into consideration the power imbalance between the therapist and the former cult member runs the risk of retraumatizing the former cult member because he is placing himself in a vulnerable position and has previously been abused by power figures while he was vulnerable within in the cult (Herman, 1997, pp. 134–139).

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Biblical/Religious Counsellors Kunsman (2015) identified concerns for former members with nouthetic-style biblical counsellors, who are not trained in therapeutic techniques and who believe that the Bible is the sole basis for counselling (p. 10). Some nouthetic counsellors believe that sin/demonic causes are the basis of all health issues. Similarly, citing Dowhower (2013), Langone (2015) reported on a study of people seeking help from mainline religious organizations. In the study, 40% of respondents rated the services “not at all helpful” (p. 12). Langone (2015) has recommended that religious organizations provide education about the needs of spiritually abused persons. Multiple Triggers As mentioned previously, the range of possible triggers for former cult members is extensive. Consequently, it is important for the therapist to recognize the potential for multiple triggers in a situation that the therapist’s past experience might otherwise suggest is a very safe environment (Brett & Ostroff, 1985, pp. 422– 423). Risk of Retraumatization Exposure therapy, in which the person seeking therapy is exposed to episodes of past trauma, can exacerbate the situation for former cult members by retraumatization, and can create a “renewed sense of alienation rather than resolve symptoms” (White, 2004, p. 70; see also Ogden et al., 2006, p. 364). Citing Miller (2011) and Tremontin and Halpern (2007), Rosen (2014) reported that recent studies have confirmed that trauma symptoms are worse for survivors if they talk about the traumatic event before their personal stabilizers of home and community have been put into effect (p. 21). Accomplishing this can be extremely difficult for former members, many of whom have, with encouragement, cut of relationships with family, friends, and community. The consequences of any retraumatization are that the former cult member is highly likely to drop out of this exposure therapy (Ogden et al., 2006, p. 2). In her therapy program for former cult members, Jenkinson (2011) has presented the traumaInternational Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

managing strategies of containment and centering for hyperarousal, and orienting and grounding for both hyper- and hypoarousal. She has recommended implementing these strategies during any therapeutic occurrences of retraumatization. Critical Thinking A return to critical thinking and the ability to make decisions are of paramount importance for former cult members. Whitsett (2006) suggested that therapists be alert for opportunities for “encouraging disagreement or seeking the client’s opinion” (p. 5). Full Range of Emotions Linked with redeveloping skills of critical thinking is the need to for former members to redevelop a tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, as contrasted with the simple, dogmatic solutions and explanations that are endemic within cults (Dubrow-Marshall, 2015, p. 16). Recognizing the effects for former members of extensive periods of hyper- and hypoarousal, Dubrow-Marshall also has encouraged therapists to seek opportunities for former members “to express and accept a full range of emotions, including existential angst, anger, and grief” (p. 16). Psychoeducation Dubrow-Marshall (2015) considers psychoeducation to be a “key element” for families, close relations, and the individuals themselves, so that people can understand “the experience and the principles behind undue influence” (p. 16). Rosen (2014) has made similar recommendations, describing psychoeducation as possibly “the most stabilizing of all interventions” (p. 22). Such education needs to support an understanding of the potentially damaging health practices within the cult, and also some understanding of the dysfunctional personalities of cult leaders. Finding Words Whitsett has cited Siegel’s (2002) recommendation that, “If, as some have suggested, the hippocampus and Broca’s areas do not work properly during trauma, clients may need help in finding words to attach to their 67

experience (Cozolino, 2010; van der Kolk, 1996)” (Siegel, 2002, as cited in Whitsett, 2014, p. 5). And again, to cite Siegel, “If an event is not encoded in words, it cannot be retrieved in words, so that therapist must be careful not to blame the client for being resistant, that is, not talking” (Siegel, as cited in Whitsett, 2014, p. 5). In another example, Rosen (2014) recounted the case of a client, Mary, who “would be unable to engage in talk therapy for the remainder of the hour because she ‘couldn’t think straight’” (p. 23). Because of the extensive periods of hyperarousal and hypoarousal within the cult, former cult members, in particular, struggle with finding words. Affect Regulation Whitsett (2014) has stressed how important it is for clients to be able to express their feelings in a safe space. The implication of this is that therapists must feel confident that they themselves are capable of maintaining their own state of calmness, in case the client picks up on this and “goes back into her shell” (p. 5). At the same time, it also implies that therapists must have the skills of assisting their clients to remain calm; otherwise, there is a risk of the clients becoming disorganized. Bearing Witness Another aspect of the initial phase of recovery, in which the client is moving toward a place of safety, is the importance of the therapist bearing witness. As Whitsett (2014) has warned, “the therapist must watch his own tendency to dissociate because the material is too painful to hear” (p. 5). Believing Whitsett (2014) also has spoken of the risk that clients might have their cult-related experiences invalidated because, through lack of experience/understanding, the therapist does not believe that the practices and experiences the client has described about the cult could be perpetrated by one human being on another, and, as a consequence, sees the client as “paranoid or exaggerating” (p. 5).

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Mind Science and Neurophysiological Imaging Kunsman (2014) has reviewed a range of therapeutic options for trauma, including the following: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) reports very favorable results but, significantly, reports “works rapidly in non-complex trauma” (p. 2; my italics). There is no indicative success of EMDR with Complex PTSD. Rosen (2014) has cautioned about the use of this method, indicating that, during EMDR therapy, rapid stimulation of “associative networks” (p. 25) occurs, and it is possible for the former member to recall something frightening (i.e., retraumatizing) during processing. Kunsman (2014) has observed that Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) are “not harmful,” there is “no need of therapist,” and “early research results findings appear favorable” (p. 2) for the use of EFT in the treatment of PTSD. Kunsman (2014, p. 2) has emphasizes the rapid effect of EFT in treating noncomplex trauma. Ogden et al. (2006) identified studies “with patients who are relatively stable or have adultonset, single-incident trauma” (p. 364). Neither Kunsman nor Ogden reported studies relating to complex trauma. Internal Family Systems Rosen (2014) has highlighted the “built-in stabilizing elements” within Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, which facilitate clients being both “present” and also “regulated” in their emotions during therapy (p. 25, my italics). Similarly, van der Kolk (2014, pp. 281–284) is supportive of this therapy for Complex PTSD and has suggested its suitability for postcult Complex PTSD (van der Kolk, personal interview, 2016). Talk Therapy Rosen (2014) has stated that “talk therapy works” (p. 25) and, citing Norcross & Lambert (2011), has reemphasized that the therapeutic alliance, combined with respect and understanding, constitute a large part of what is effective in therapy. In the absence of this International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

alliance, the former member could experience a sense of abandonment, loneliness, and have the feeling that something is being “done to them, rather than with them” (p. 25)—in other words, running the risk of creating another situation in which the clients have little or no agency and, thereby, reproducing their experience in the cult. Sensorimotor Therapy Sensorimotor psychotherapy uses bodily experience as the primary entry point (Ogden et al., 2006), including working in the state of “optimal arousal” (p. 4)—the “window of tolerance” between the extreme physiological states of hyper- and hypoarousal (Siegel, 1999, as cited in Ogden et al., 2006, p. 364) “within which the individual can experience psychophysiological arousal as tolerable…” (Ogden et al., 2006, p. 4) …by keeping the treatment focused on the patient's here-and-now somatic experience in the session, by mindfully noticing the trauma as it manifests in changes in heart rate, breathing and muscle tone, the individual is encouraged to experience being “here and now”, while acknowledging the “there and then” of traumatic experience. (Ogden et al., 2006, p. 366) Sensorimotor psychotherapy is typically integrated with talking therapies. Whitsett (2006) argued that therapists “should take advantage of occurrences such as flashbacks, since it is at these times that implicit memories are most available for processing. Helping the client put words on the limbic experiences will bring down the autonomic arousal” (p. 358). This approach commences with a top-down approach, engaging the prefrontal cortex by incorporating psychoeducation and creating the narrative/ meaning making for the former cult member. It is not clear that any particular talking-therapy modality is more effective than any other, but it is important that, whichever modality is employed, close attention be paid to the issues of caution mentioned above. Further research into the effectiveness of different modalities is warranted. International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

Conclusions Cult-induced PTSD is a unique form of Complex PTSD. A key contributor to this outcome is the highly structured practice by cult leaders of maintaining cult members in extensive states of hyper- and hypoarousal. The uniqueness of their in-cult experiences predisposes many former members to a range of vulnerabilities that require both caution and knowledge when one is proposing therapy for such members. It is highly recommended that further studies be conducted into the effectiveness of therapeutic methods for working with the traumas of former cult members.

References Brett, E. A., & Ostroff, R. (1985). Imagery in post-traumatic stress disorder: An overview. American Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 417– 424. Cardena, E., & Spiegel, D. (1993). Dissociative reactions to the Bay Area earthquake. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 474– 478. Cozolino, L. (2002). The neuroscience of psychotherapy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Curtis, J. M., & Curtis, M. J. (1993). Factors related to susceptibility and recruitment by cults, Psychological Reports, 73, 451–460. Dubrow-Marshall, L. (2015). Curiosity and willingness to learn. ICSA Today, 6(2), 16. Dubrow-Marshall, R. (2010). The influence continuum—The good, the dubious and the harmful – Evidence and implications for policy and practice in the 21st century. International Journal of Cultic Studies, 1(1), 1–12. Goldberg, L. (2006). Raised in cultic groups: The impact on the development of certain aspects of character. Cultic Studies Review, 5(1), 1–28. Goldberg, W. (2013). Superstition (draft submission for ICSA Trieste Conference). Gordon, E. (2009, December). The brain and its potential. Presentation at The Mind and Its Potential conference, Sydney, Australia. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3rFNCPSfCU Hassan, S. (1990). Combatting cult mind control. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press. Hassan, S. (2000). Releasing the bonds. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press. Hassan, S. (2013) Freedom of mind: Helping loved ones leave controlling people, cults and beliefs. Newton, MA: Freedom of Mind Press. Herman, J. (1997). Trauma and Recovery. New York, NY: Basic Books.

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Jenkinson, G. (2008). An investigation into cult pseudopersonality: What is it and how does it form? Cultic Studies Review, 7(3), 199–223. Jenkinson, G. (2011). Time away in the Peak District program. (conference presentation conducted by Hope Valley Counselling, Hope Valley, UK.)

Whitsett, D. (2010). Overview of mental health treatment: Consequences of cult involvement: Assessment and treatment. Paper presented at Cult Information and Family Support Conference, Queensland, Australia, March 12–13. Whitsett, D. (2014). Why cults are harmful: Neurobiological speculations of interpersonal trauma. ICSA Today, 5(1), 2–5.

Kunsman, C. M. (2015). My unexpected journey. ICSA Today, 6(1), 8–12. Kunsman, C. M. (2014, July 3–5). The efficacy of post-traumatic stress disorder research for former high-demand group members (Abstract of poster presentation at the ICSA Annual Conference, Washington, DC.) Lalich, J. (2004). Bounded choice. Berkeley & Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Lalich, J., & Tobias, M. (2006). Take back your life: Recovering from cults and abusive relationships. Berkeley, CA: Bay Tree Publishing. Langone, M. (2015). Afterword by Michael Langone, ICSA Today, (6)1, p. 12. Lifton, R. J. (1989). Thought reform and the psychology of totalism: The study of brainwashing in China. Chapel Hill, NC & London, UK: University Of North Carolina Press. Mabel, T. (2007). The adjustment process of ex-Buddhist monks to life after the monastery. Journal of Religion and Health, 46(1), 19– 33. Martin, P. R., Langone, M. D., Dole, A. A., & Wiltrout, J. (1992). Post-cult symptoms as measured by the MCMI before and after residential treatment. Cultic Studies Journal, 9(2), 51–72. McFall, M. E., Murburg, M. M., Roszell, D. K., & Veith, R. C. (1989). Psychophysiologic and neuroendocrine findings in posttraumatic stress disorder: A review of theory and research. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 3(4), 243–257. Ogden, P., Pain, C., & Fisher, J. (2006). A sensorimotor approach to the treatment of trauma and dissociation, Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 29(1), 263–279. Rosen, S. (2014). Cults: A natural disaster—Looking at cult involvement through a trauma lens. International Journal of Cultic Studies, 5, 12–29. Siegel, D. (2002) Attachment: From early childhood through the lifespan. Paper presented at a UCLA conference on attachment. Siegel, D. (2011). Mindsight: The new science of personal transformation. New York, NY: Bantam Books. Singer, M. T. (2003). Cults in our midst: The continuing fight against the hidden menace. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

About the Author Denis Patrick Healy, BA, Grad Dip (Counselling), M (Counselling and Applied Psychotherapy), has specific expertise in working with senior executives individually, in “corporate couples,” and in teams, to get beyond the “noise” of current dysfunctional behaviors and illuminate their underlying causes. He brings a unique set of skills through his own career in senior-management roles, extensive coaching experience with senior executives, and formal qualifications in counselling, coaching, and psychotherapy. Over the past 25 years, Denis has become one of Australasia’s most experienced executive counsellors. His clients have included Federal cabinet ministers; chairmen and CEOs of publicly listed organizations; partners and managing partners of the Big 4 accounting firms; secretaries and deputy secretaries within both state and Australian public-service organizations; and a chief judge. He has more than 10,000 hours of one-on-one development sessions with senior executives. Denis’s other credentials include Fellow, Australian Human Resources Institute (FAHRI); member of CAPA; PACFA registered; accredited coach; and Fellow, Australian Institute of Management (FAIM). Website: www.the executivewhisperer.com.au Email: [email protected] Phone: (61) 41146-3534.

van der Kolk, B. A., Pelkovitz, D., Roth., S., Mandel, F. S., McFarlane, A., & Herman, J. L. (1996). Dissociation, somatization, and affect dysregulation: The complexity of adaptation of trauma. American Journal of Psychiatry 153(7 Suppl.), 83–93. van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score. New York, NY: Viking. White, M. (2004). Working with people who are suffering the consequences of multiple trauma: A narrative perspective. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 1, 45–76. Whitsett, D. (2006) The psychobiology of trauma and child maltreatment. Cultic Studies Review, 5(3), 351–353.

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Destructive and Terrorist Cults: A New Kind of Slavery: Leader, Followers, and Mind Manipulation By Masoud Banisadr Reviewed by Ron Burks Research Institute on Destructive Cults (RIDC; www.ridc.info). 2014. ISBN-10: 1502384795; ISBN-13: 978-1502384799 (paperback). 504 pages. $20.00 (Amazon.com); $5.00 (Kindle). In the first three days after September 11, 2001, I spoke to several former Wellspring clients who lived in the New York City metropolitan area. They had all been triggered by the question everyone was asking: “How could anyone fly a plane into the side of the building just because somebody told them to?” As former members of cults, they knew very well how a normal person could eventually get to that place—and think they were obeying God. Then I took a call from an investigative reporter from The Portland Oregonian. He introduced himself as having covered the entire affair at Antelope, Oregon, where Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had formed an enclave that almost took over the local government. The reporter said, “The more I dig into this thing, the more I feel like I’m covering the same story. What do you people think: Is this Al Qaeda really just a cult masquerading as Islam?” Masoud Banisadr is in a position to know. Long before 9/11, he joined a group whose leader, Massoud Rajavi, was trying to use propaganda and violence to overthrow the Shah of Iran and establish the Mojahedin-e-Khalegh (MeK) as the means of bringing democracy to Iran. He made his escape from the group in 1996. He had been an unlikely terrorist. In Destructive and Terrorist Cults: A New Kind of Slavery: Leaders, Followers, and Mind Manipulation, Banisadr debriefs his experience using Lifton’s criteria of thought reform. In chilling detail, he shows how a “liberal, middleclass, semi-intellectual” was made into “a dogmatic, cultic zealot, ready to die for the leader” (p. 6). Indoctrination could not make him into a killer, but he became the public voice International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

of a group that used intimidation, violence, and murder, believing it was for the good of Iran. He describes a terrorist organization as one “whose ‘only tactic, or at least its main tactic for reaching its goals is an act of terrorism’” (p. 10). He adds that “the terrorist organization is either a destructive cult or that it has no choice but to become one . . . to survive. . . . to combat terrorism, we have to tackle the problem of destructive cults” (p. 10). The author’s insights into how Al Qaeda came to bring the world not just 9/11, but multiple 9/11s, which continue today, suggest that the differences between the author’s group and Al Qaeda or Daesh, the socalled Islamic State, are likely to be cosmetic. Yes, MeK, Al Qaeda, and Daesh are cults. I share my journey through this book as a former member of a church whose pastors used our commitment to the cause to control our lives in personal matters not related to what, at first, were the core principles of the group. Banisadr demonstrates the astonishing similarities between the control tactics of psychologically harmful groups with which we are all familiar and those that perpetrate mass murder on a global scale. My experience became less like reading a very good book, which this one is, and more like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Banisadr's group, “distorted popular beliefs and exploited social injustice to radicalize its members, [and to] give them the semblance of legitimacy” (p. 10) in its grooming of members to become suicide bombers or to take part in attacks against trained standing armies, effectively sending them to their deaths. Terrorist groups do not need to use thoughtreform techniques to recruit. Black and white, for-us-or-against-us statements in political speeches in the West after 9/11 sounded to Muslims, moderate and radical alike, that the 71

military action to come was going to be a battle between Christianity and Islam. Al Qaeda and other organizations were inundated with volunteers. Well-chosen quotes from George Orwell’s 1984 made me wish I had paid more attention when I had been forced to read it in high school. I could have avoided a lot of pain. The author admits that, looking back, he could identify as Orwell’s “unperson,” while at the time, he believed he “was becoming a better person, even a superman,” when “in fact” he “was becoming a nobody,” acting only out of loyalty in “absolute obedience” to his leader (p. 1). He contrasts escaped slaves of old who at least had scars on their bodies from their masters’ lashes or from the chains on their wrists and ankles to remind them of the injustice perpetrated against them. Former members of cults bear no signs to show how they were captured, imprisoned, tortured, and held against their will. They cannot explain their invisible psychological lashes, chains, and cages. Although his contrasts and comparisons between cult membership and historical slavery may not play well on this side of the Atlantic, Banisadr demonstrates that the relationship between a cult leader and a member is closer “to the old slavery than to any other kind of membership or allegiance, such as among followers of a faith, members of a political party, members of a club or the workforce of a factory” (p. 14). He parses the term free will to explain. He argues that the will-power of members of cults tends to strengthen. This is because they are no longer bound by the concerns of ordinary life such as personal and family safety and security, or planning for the future. Will may be strengthened, but individuality has been suppressed to the point that it no longer plays a role in the exercise of willpower. Members can exercise willpower but are not free to gather the information they need to make informed decisions. Freedom does not exist when all the selfconfidence and self-esteem have been snapped out of persons on the pretext that such qualities are ugly or selfish. Cult members are filled with overwhelming will to do something for the cause 72

and, at the same time, emptied of the means to choose what to do. Now dependent on the leader for direction, they are ready to do almost anything the leader asks. Those who hold back face the most powerful tool for suppressing personality, guilt: Members who were working in Europe and America were made to feel guilty for not being in Iraq fighting the Iranian revolutionary guards; and those in Iraq felt guilty for ‘not begging from the bourgeois’ on the streets of European and American cities, braving the cold in countries such as Norway. If you had given up your wealth, you were expected to feel guilty for not giving up your family, and if you had given up your family, you felt guilty for being free in Europe or Iraq and not in Iran in prison and subject to torture; whereas if you were being tortured in prison, you were made to feel guilty for being alive and not a martyr. Only death could bring relief from guilt—and then MeK could hold you up as a martyr in front of others and make them feel guilty. (p. 346) At first, I was relieved when the author compared MeK to famously horrific groups. Groups such as mine are different, surely. MeK used a mixture of Islam and socialism. Jim Jones mixed liberal Christianity and socialism. MeK’s leader, Rajavi, married the wife of one of his closest friends. Members were then required to engage in self-condemnation for thinking the marriage was motivated by sexual desire. The similarity to David Koresh’s sexual proclivity for preteens and his deft but twisted Bible teaching was not lost on the author. MeK’s “order to members to divorce their spouses, leave their children and accept celibacy for life and afterlife recalls, for him, the edicts of” the eleventh-century cult leader “Hassan Sabah, who ordered members of the Assassins to be castrated, or Marshall Applewhite, founder of the Heaven’s Gate group, whose male members underwent voluntary castration inn order to maintain their extreme ascetic lifestyle” (p. 10). Surely these groups were different. Terrorist groups have similarities to famously horrific International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

groups, but not to mine. Not to the groups whose former members I have treated through the years. I could not compare my experiences to theirs, but could I identify? The author explains his categorization of cults first around the nature of the leader, then to their doctrine or cause, and finally to their method of mind manipulation. He uses psychoanalytic insights to explore narcissism of cult leaders. He says, “No amount of attention, care and giving from others satisfies them.” To Banisadr, cult leaders have “a childish, narcissistic ego and” are “unable to fulfill” their “unrealistic needs . . . in the real world.” The leader’s “charm” and “sense of utter superiority,” “totalitarian behavior,” “need for worshipers and his loneliness” (p. 11) are manifested in the “miniworld” of the cult in psychological or physical isolation from wider society. Now he is hitting closer to home. To cult leaders, the cause or ideology is just a means to an end. They choose a doctrine or ideology that seems to meet a public belief or need so they can recruit people who have that interest in common. They never let commitment to the cause or a belief system get in the way of their own self-importance. Banisadr recalled the Assassins, a group that he believes created the model for modern terror groups. They “allied themselves with ‘Hindu heathens’ and ‘infidel Christian’ crusaders against their Muslim brethren” (p. 29). For them, “Islam was but a convenient black curtain behind which to hide.” When Banisadr, an Iranian, joined MeK, the Shah, Iraq, and the West were the enemy. When Khomeini came to power, the Rajavi found himself at odds with the new regime. Saddam Hussein and his friends in the West were suddenly friends of the Mojahedin. After sending hundreds of his followers to their deaths fighting the army of the Shah, Mojahedin thought nothing of sending hundreds more to die alongside Saddam’s army against the forces of the Ayatollah Khomeini. That feeling in the pit of my stomach returned. Rajavi’s techniques to make terrorists out of idealistic, thoughtful young people were nothing more than a dramatized version of the same old familiar, cultic manipulation. To me, Rajavi’s methods of International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

mind manipulation were almost identical to the self-condemning techniques of Lifton’s “Cult of Confession”; those used by Stewart Trail, leader of the Church of Bible Understanding (COBU); the Moon organization; and hundreds of others. The author acknowledges his debt, as do I, to Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans, and her coauthor Jon Halliday, who also collaborated with her on Mao the Unknown Story, for their insights into self-denigration as a tool of control. Banisadr calls Rahavi a “mini Mao” (p. 5). Banisadr divides Rajavi’s control techniques into three categories that might be used in any order. Reason was used initially to change new recruits’ beliefs and as a tool for recruiting new members. Rajavi and his wife then used familiar techniques such as isolation in remote locations and humiliation to stabilize new beliefs and prevent new recruits from returning to their previous belief systems, family, and friends. Finally, the cult leader has to change disciples’ personalities into one that is compatible with the collective cult personality. He asserts that this is done mainly by manipulating emotions, which he calls brainwashing. Masoud Banisadr now teaches mathematics in Britain. So it is only natural that he would use algebraic formulas to express the complex relationships between belief and emotion in a thought-reform environment. His formulas maybe difficult for some to follow, but effort by the reader will be rewarded. It could be argued that his distinctions between mind manipulation, thought reform, and brainwashing might be contrived. But clearly the approach works for him as he winds his way through the labyrinth of the severe unethical persuasion he experienced. The author intertwines his story with truly dedicated scholarship. His incredible attention to detail is most evident in the copious annotated endnotes after each chapter. Destructive and Terrorist Cults: A New Kind of Slavery: Leaders, Followers, and Mind Manipulation is a nuanced view of thought reform as it applies to groups whose adherents we would call terrorists. After reading this book, I will be calling former terrorists what they are: fellow former members. 73

Spiritual Abuse Recovery: Dynamic Research on Finding a Place of Wholeness Barbara M. Orlowski Reviewed by Patrick J. Knapp Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock. (2010). ISBN-13: 978-1-60608-967-5 (paperback). $23.90 (Amazon.com); $9.99 (Kindle). 248 pages.

(b) what factors influenced their decision to

This book is a result of the author’s extensive doctoral research on the topic of religious abuse and recovery, identified as originating from Evangelical, Pentecostal, or Charismatic (EPC) churches. The primary focus of the book is on how Christian believers most effectively discover authentic healing after being spiritually abused by those in church leadership. Through the related experiences of those abused, the author puts forth a challenge to clergy to understand both the nature of spiritual abuse and how they may best act as effective change agents rather than continuing to contribute to the problem.

emotionally, how they coped, and how they processed their positive and negative emotions.

The author’s research included an extensive questionnaire that resulted in the completion of 110 individual surveys coming primarily from Canada and the United States. Orlowski used strict and careful criterion to identify those most appropriate participants for the study. This approach resulted in 100 individual surveys being used in the final analysis of the research. Seven of these surveys were completed by clergy who had counseled with those who had had religiously abusive experiences. The survey included both quantitative and qualitative factors. Participants were asked (a) the length of time they had attended their

previous home church, their ministry areas, their date of exiting, how long ago they left, the church’s Sunday attendance size, and the geographic location of the church (urban to rural). People’s marital status was not one of the questions; but as participants described their situations, this factor was also discerned and added to the data.

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leave their home church. (c) how these circumstances impacted them

(d) whether they had learned anything from this

experience, and whether they felt that God had used this situation to mature them in their faith. (e) to describe what specific helps aided in their

spiritual recovery. (f) whether they had found a church they could

call home, and what criteria they now had for finding a home church. (g) whether they felt personally disillusioned

with their former church group, and what advice they would give to others who find themselves in a similar circumstance. (h) whether they had any shifts in their beliefs,

and whether their view of God or his Word had been affected. They were asked if they felt they were Pentecostal or Charismatic in experience. In the final question, participants were asked to describe their journey with Christ today (p.143–144). From each of these basic categories, Orlowski derived information and made a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of this project. She provides a review of the primary Christian literature, with a discussion of the complex nature of the subject. She examines and discusses reasons for and results of religious abuse. She also considers various definitions of spiritual or religious abuse. Further, she examines the relational nature of this form of abuse and explores the unique individual and complex nature of recovery. She reviews the healing role of community and the importance of good theology. Orlowski gives considerable International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

attention to the importance of egalitarian relationships and the importance and role of forgiveness without at the same time denying abuse. She affirms the inseparability of emotional and spiritual health, and she considers the role of healthy decentralized relational leadership models. One full chapter focuses specifically on how the Bible speaks into this topic. The author identifies four particular factors as relevant to the topic: She examines legalism, a faulty hermeneutic, the role of leadership, and the place of spiritual and emotional injury, all in Scripture. She places a primary emphasis on the place of authority as identified in both the Old and New Testament and suggests a suitable leadership model. She also examines the results of the research and explores and discusses its implications.

have significantly added to its gravitas. This chapter would have included considerations provided from both family systems and attachment theories as seen through the grid of a Trinitarian Christian worldview. This addition would have helped round out a more holistic conceptualized picture of how people are abused and how they might best understand and experience recovery. That said, I gladly recommend this book to those with interest on the topic of spiritual abuse and recovery.

Orlowski identifies the most effective means of recovery from religious or spiritual abuse. The five most identified sources, in the order of their effectiveness, are (1) having a significant nonjudgmental confidant and support from friends and family; (2) reading relevant books; (3) examining various Scripture passages; (4) gaining insights derived from relevant blogs; and (5) receiving support from small, focused support groups. She also identifies prayer, journaling, and music as being significant in the healing process. She notes that the rarity of finding relevant small support groups was rather significant. She offers the antidote of sound theology and the importance of healthy relationships as most important to finding authentic healing. Finally, she suggests further research projects and topics of interest. I found this text theologically and academically refreshing and on most levels well-informed. The book involved a great deal of time, energy, and carefully reasoned arguments on the part of the author. Although the text was clearly an academic effort, it provides the average reader with many insights and thoughtful suggestions. It offers helpful contributions to a broader audience than to the clergy to which it was originally intended. I applaud the author’s efforts in confronting this form of abuse. One additional chapter might International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

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Dead, Insane, or in Jail: A CEDU Memoir Zack Bonnie Reviewed by Joseph Szimhart Dyke, VA: Not With the Program. (2015) (with assist of Chenille Books for editing and production). ISBN10: 0996337822; ISBN-13: 978-0996337823 (paperback). $15.95 (Amazon.com). 316 pages. Brutal therapy for teen meets pulp fiction is my initial impression after reading Zack Bonnie’s memoir. More than brutal therapy, the Rocky Mountain Academy (RMA) in a remote, panhandle region of Idaho was an example of many such therapeutic boot camps yet operating that combine inept staff and quasi-militaristic culture. The camps purport to strip away bad beliefs and behaviors to get to the pure “me” from which a new self can emerge. An RMA parent handbook stated, “Raps are generally 3.5 hours in length, occur 3 times a week and are designed to facilitate personal growth…” That was in 1988 when 14-year-old Zack Bonnie’s parents signed him into an “emotional growth program” at a CEDU branch in Idaho. Personal growth may have been the goal, but the author exposes something more like a teenager learning to cope emotionally while sequestered in a psychologically abusive environment. CEDU doubles as a neologism for see-do, or “we can help you see what and who you really are and show you how to behave after you do.” The roots of Bonnie’s CEDU in Idaho were in Synanon, a rehab cult founded by Charles “Chuck” Dederich (1913–1997). Synanon started on $33 in 1958 and grew into a multimillion dollar enterprise. Early in its development, Synanon was popularly regaled as a great breakthrough in addictions treatment; but fame, power, illegal financial dealings, criminal behavior, and unethical social control eventually brought it down. Synanon gained infamy on anticult activist lists by the mid-1970s. Lawsuits and former member complaints eventually brought Dederich’s empire to legal reckoning. For many members, there was no way out but escape as Dederich came to teach that once an addict, always an addict, and the only salvation was to remain in his program for life. One 76

Synanon client, Mel Wasserman, founded the first CEDU organization in 1967, borrowing Synanon’s in-your-face, ego-busting style. Bonnie writes that CEDU was acquired by Brown Schools, Inc., in 1998. Brown Schools and CEDU declared bankruptcy in 2005. Some of the CEDU schools were reopened by Universal Health Services as behavioral health centers. According to Bonnie, RMA staff tried to get us to go off the deep end. Then they could say or do anything to you. If they threw you out, they assured us, you’d be dead, insane, or in jail [thus, the title]. If you split, and went to a lock-up, or perhaps a mental institution, your life was over. (p. 97) The author did split once from RMA, only to find a ride hitchhiking with a lurid, scraggly fellow in a pick-up truck. In the truck’s cab, Bonnie had to endure a sexual proposition by the driver, who tightly gripped the teen’s leg with one hand while he masturbated with the other. Bonnie fled his first ride, then made it to Seattle airport with the help of nicer people. A collect call to his parents to please fly him home only got him into custody with a sheriff, who delivered Bonnie to a wilderness survival program. Bonnie had to endure 25 days hiking around the Mojave Desert in Southern Idaho with sparse provisions. He was the youngest member of the group run by the School of Urban and Wilderness Survival (SUWS). Other RMA runaways ended up there, as well. The last quarter of the narrative is about Bonnie’s experience with SUWS and how he lost a lot of weight but did learn to start a fire with primitive tools. Then he learned that his parents would force him to return to RMA. Those next grueling 30 months or so are the topic of a forthcoming book in the series. Others have published reviews of this book, with most reviewers favorably commenting on the International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

author’s courage and honesty. A few still claim that the CEDU experience for their teen was beneficial, and perhaps some teens, now adults, praise their CEDU experience for helping them to become better people. This is not unusual. The nastiest of cults have their advocates who might claim that the cult experience saved their lives or continues to inform the truth for them. What does come across clearly in Bonnie’s treatment is that this was precisely the wrong approach for someone with attention deficit and anxiety as a misfit kid. Bonnie may have been a handful to raise as a result of his disobedience to rules, smoking, indiscriminate sex with girls, and habit of running away and ditching school. His well-off, frustrated parents enrolled him in an expensive boarding school at age 13 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. I grew up in Pottstown, so I knew The Hill School very well. While in high school, I competed against The Hill in tennis and scrimmage football. Lately I have exhibited art and curated a show at The Hill School gallery. Bonnie lasted only a month there under its strict rules, getting kicked out for insubordination and smoking. He did not get caught for smoking pot with a fellow student. Nevertheless, his parents had had enough and signed him into RMA out of exasperation, it seems. Bonnie offers this view of his errant youth for readers to better understand where CEDU-type retraining programs get their clients. I mentioned that this book reads like pulp fiction because we are not spared vulgar language and raw yuck stories about sex, drugs, and bad behavior that emerged in the hours-long encounter sessions, or “raps.” An elite RMA session called a Truth propheet (sic) began with pithy quotes from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. A Truth propheet included bizarre human “smoosh circles.” These were human chains wherein teens would lay their heads on another’s tummy or thigh, linking up this way around the floor, stroking a partner’s face or hair as people shared intimate stories. Many were reduced to tears. Spent tissues littered the area. I had an image of Freud’s couch in group therapy without the couch. This quirky smoosh eroticism was attended by a strict rule or agreement that no sexual contact or flirting was allowed. (Oddly, International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

smoking was allowed, so Bonnie continued his nicotine habit). Breaking an agreement got the teen placed on bans, which meant no talking or communicating with anyone except during program rap sessions. We learn that some teens began to exaggerate or even lie, as Bonnie did, to better fulfill the requirements of the authoritarian program directors. Loud, “snot-ripper” songs, including some by Barbra Streisand and from the film Chariots of Fire, played repeatedly to drive emotions to tears during all these sessions. Nearly all self-transformational, mass-therapy cults have played loud, snot-ripper recordings. This is a provocative book. Bonnie effectively conveys his story as if he were telling it at age 14, while interspersing mature commentary after decades of recovery. I came away from my reading feeling that I needed a psychological shower to wash away the vulgarity, and a stiff drink to quell my anger that these bogus rehabs are allowed to operate. I have encountered many young people (in the intake area of the psych hospital where I have worked since 1998) recently emerged from a teen boot camp, not unlike a CEDU program. Most were feeling suicidal when I met them, for a variety of reasons beyond surviving a boot camp, but all told similar stories to Bonnie’s. Despite their psychological disorders (depression, anxiety, ADHD, social phobia, substance-use disorders), to the person, they described their sequestered boot-camp experience as a “cult” that used “brainwashing.” In the end, Bonnie offers what he found to be useful sources, including works by Margaret T. Singer and Robert J. Lifton. He recommends Alliance for the Safe, Therapeutic and Appropriate Use of Residential Treatment (ASTART) and International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA). Bonnie maintains a website—deadinsaneorinjail.com—where one can go for notification about Book 2. Today, Zack Bonnie advertises himself as an actor, a tournament gambler, and an avid hiker who lives in Virginia. He wants to contribute to research that exposes what happens to the brains of youth in sequestered “emotional growth” camps.

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Why They Believe: A Case Study in Contemporary Polygamy By Amy Osmond Cook Reviewed by Arthur A. Dole San Clemente, CA: Sourced Media Books. 2011/2014. ISBN-10: 1937458156; ISBN-13: 978-1937458157 (paperback), $29.99. 332 pages.

devote themselves to making a profit. Since The Order has a large business empire in Utah, organizational identity is a promising key to understanding it.

Why They Believe… is a sometimes tedious and redundant text, but frequently informative and a potential boon to scholars.

Cook prefers to call the Kingstons a new religious movement (NRM) rather than a cult (too pejorative). She acknowledges but rejects psychology’s emphasis on abuse, and also the sociological focus of cultic studies.

Amy Osmond Cook published her dissertation at the University of Utah as a case study in contemporary polygamy. Her intent: to answer why the estimated 2,000 members of The Order, a.k.a. the Kingstons, a polygamous group, believe what they do and how they function today. She does not mention her own religious background. Cook (PhD, University of Utah) is a faculty associate at Arizona State University. She teaches interdisciplinary and communicationrelated courses such as negotiation, organizational studies, organizational identity/ identification, and methods of interdisciplinary studies. She earned her BA and MA in English at Brigham Young University. Her paper-cover book includes 264 pages of text and 14 pages of notes. In addition, Appendix A is a three-page report to the Safety Net Committee (a state-sponsored committee established to improve safety in polygamous groups). Appendix B presents six pages of tables, and Appendix C quotes two pages of definitions of organizational identity. Nine pages of references are followed finally by seven pages of Index. No wonder Dr. Cook spent 6 years on this work! In the face of such abundance, I will be brief, summarizing each chapter, followed by a comment.

Chapter 1. Organizational Identity Cook begins with the concept of organizational identity borrowed from communications theory in business: Members of a commercial group 78

She concludes that “studying organizational identification in the Kingston polygamous organization will yield interesting results about the organization itself . . . polygamous organizations and new [religions] . . . and how rhetoric operates to induce identification within them” (p. 8). Comment. I speculate that the concept of organizational identity might well be applicable to other new religious groups such as Scientology and the Unification Church. Alternatively, it might reflect a temporary fad in support of privatization.

Chapter 2. the Kingstons In 1850, Joseph Smith and a handful of followers came upon some golden tablets; these were translated into English as the Book of Mormon and, they claimed, were a supplement to the Christian Bible. Thus Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (LDS). As a fundamentalist Christian group, early Mormons were persecuted in the Midwest partly because they advocated polygamy. Many fled West and settled in Utah, where they played a major role in developing the territory. In 1890, to attain statehood for Utah, the LDS issued a Manifesto, renouncing the practice of polygamy. However, a few small groups have persisted in practicing polygamy despite their excommunication by LDS and the threat of legal punishment. Excommunicant Mormon Charles Elden Kingston in 1935 created one such organization, now called The Order, or the International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

Kingstons. Cook describes three major ideological platforms that guide the organization's policies and procedures: communal living, polygamy, and intermarriage (incest). Comment. Thus the family unit is strengthened and combined with religion and business enterprise. Fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist LDS are blended in the official texts of the Kingston organization. Within the organization’s hierarchical structure, each female is assigned a number and must please the male above her in rank (husband or father). At the top is the Heavenly Father. Each member of The Order (the elite) is encouraged to become a perfect person who is devoted to family and the organization, who accepts a life of poverty, and whom the Heavenly Father will reward with admission to Heaven—a familiar scheme to make money, and to control and exploit members.

Chapter 3. Theoretical Perspectives and Positions In this chapter, Cook argues for interdisciplinary theory building, “a tentative framework through which to view possible linkages and connections between theories of uncoerced obedience in rhetoric, sociology, psychology, organizational communication, and organization science” (p. 107). Comment. In this chapter, I found Cook hard to follow, redundant, and overgeneralized. As I understand her as she uses five or six different specialty languages (vernaculars), she addresses the question, “How does a NRM (The Order) function?” Cultic theorists and researchers may be excited by these different, deductive approaches. Other readers may prefer to skim.

Chapter 4. Methodology To understand the rhetorical processes used by the Kingston organization to instill identification, Cook applied a retrospective interview technique to 14 members and 14 former members. Participants’ replies were recorded and transcribed. Cook and another rater analyzed the transcripts along with relevant organizational documents: “To analyze these International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

texts I employed three theoretical methods: . . . extended metaphor analysis; classical Aristotelian analysis and . . . Burkean-inspired analysis of identification strategies” (p. 108). The author identifies interviewees by participant numbers and uses samples from the transcripts to illustrate findings. The appendices present a variety of tables, including definitions of key terms. She reports interrater reliability (Cohen’s Kappa), but does not mention the qualifications and training of the second rater. Comment. These methods differ from my experience with case studies used by psychologists, sociologists, social workers, and business specialists. Rather than collecting data to build theory (inductive reasoning), Cook used theories to analyze and interpret her findings (deductive reasoning). She omitted sample characteristics, and failed to account for the possible effect of interviewer behavior or characteristics. Bias? Cook’s attempt to compare members with former members is flawed by uncontrolled variables such as the participants’ age, gender, and experience with polygamy. Statistics are limited to frequencies and percentages. On the positive side, researchers may be challenged by her work to experiment with deductive qualitative approaches.

Chapter 5. “Kingdom of God”: The Organization and Order When Cook applied extended metaphor analysis to the Kingston organization, she described it as a “hybrid organization with three fully integrated dimensions: normative (church), utilitarian (business), and family” (p. 141). For example, Figure 1, “Organizational Rhetoric (by Or. Dimensions),” includes 19 citations about spirituality, 15 concerning business, and 13 concerning family. Cook supplemented her quantitative analysis with theories, the voices of participants, observations, interpretations, and scripture. She noted her attempt to remain neutral in the dispute between advocates of polygamy and the Attorney General.

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Comment. In her blending of the quantitative and qualitative, Cook was clear, articulate, and informative about the Kingdom of God. I encourage cult researchers to experiment with this deductive approach to case study.

Chapter 6. Aristotelian Analysis Cook discusses the results when she applied Aristotelian analysis. The behavioral component fits well, she argues, with Aristotle’s revision of the soul as bipartite. This explains why all four psychological components of occupational identity, and also four sociological processes (Lalich’s bounded choice) work together. In addition, Aristotelian analysis highlights rhetorical types, decision premises, and rhetorical appeals. When Cook compared 14 current members with 14 former members on the frequency of rhetorical appeals, the former members cited 128 and the current members only 35. Comment. From my perspective as a social scientist, I am amazed at Cook’s intellectual gymnastics. Relying primarily on participants’ responses to the retroactive interviews and selected documents supplied by the Kingston organization, she has used deductive thinking and interpretation within a classical system of logic. Is Aristotelian analysis a Procrustean bed or a productive new approach to cultic research? Can further research validate her results? On a positive note, both the participants’ views and many of Cook’s interpretations were interesting and provocative. For example, she claimed that her analysis of rhetorical appeals supports Margaret Singer. According to Cook, “. . .new religious movements use persuasive tactics that focus on emotion and suppress reasoning. . .” (p. 181).

Chapter 7. Burkean Identification Strategies: Bounded Choice In this chapter, Cook extends Aristotle’s rhetoric as it applies to the process of identification in respect to her sample of the Kingston organization. She analyzes concepts proposed by Kenneth Burke, an American philosopher, Rob Van Dik, a professor of social psychology, and Janja Lalich, Associate Professor of Sociology at California State University and ICSA member. 80

Cook concludes that aspects of identification are related to Burke’s theory of logology and Lalich’s system of bounded choice. Van Dick’s affective, cognitive, behavioral, and conative dimensions of identification influence and control members. She shows “how they are used to create member loyalty in thoughts words, and action” (p. 238). From childhood on, these identification strategies lead to loyalty to family, to the Kingston group, to the Kingdom of God, and to the charismatic Heavenly Father. Comment. Cook draws on a theoretician/ philosopher, a sociologist, a German social/vocational psychologist, and other specialists to interpret how and why. As in the preceding chapter, she uses relevant participantinterview statements and official documents to illustrate her deductions.

Chapter 8. Conclusions In this chapter, Cook summarizes her theoretical findings as an in-depth exploration of organizational identification within the Kingston organization; members changed over time. By showing how identification occurs in the Kingston organization, she hoped to understand NRMs in general. She also wanted to show how classical rhetoric is applicable to our postmodern world. Among other conclusions, Cook was “completely mesmerized” by the Kingstons, “thunderstruck” by their effectiveness, “saddened” that former members felt mistreated. She wanted to let each side speak for itself, and to be fair and unbiased. Recognizing the conflict also between The Order and the Utah Attorney General, she concluded that the question of abuse in the practices of polygamy and intermarriage “will remain a contested issue” (p. 251); so too whether or not the Kingstons’ economic practices abuse some of its members, especially girls and women. The Kingston organization was masterful, she argues, in its development of organizational identity through veneration of the charismatic leader. “While spiritual development is stressed in The Order, the structure of the family is tightly controlled; it is run like a corporation” (p. 223), with the strongest emphasis on International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

economics. In sociological terms, the Kingston organization is a sect and “a new religious movement (or cult) in psychology-based literature” (p. 259).

Comment Cult theorists and researchers will find in Why They Believe: A Case Study on Contemporary Polygamy a wealth of possibilities. To describe the whys and hows of this Mormon sect, Cook describes definitions, concepts, laws, rules, and the like of organizational identification theory (I counted more than a hundred such variables in Appendix A). She added depth and nuance from observations, participants’ interviews, a brief history of the Kinston family from Jesus to Joseph Smith, and official documents. Her multidisciplinary approach strengthened her deductions and recognized diversity, complexity, and variety. As a psychologist and skeptical cultural Christian, I found that her use of organizational identification theory may have created serious methodological problems. Her descriptions of her sample of participants were minimal and included no specific mention of age, marital status, education, hierarchical rank, and so on. The 24 interviewees were not randomly selected, and there were too few to describe a population of about 2,000. She presented no evidence of the validity of the retrospective interview technique. How were the raters selected and prepared? What were their relevant characteristics, such as religious background? How familiar were they with organizational identification theory? In my opinion, it is premature for Cook to generalize about the Kingstons or all NRMs. Is The Order a cult, a new religious movement? I agree that, so far as the evidence about this sample is concerned, yes, it does resemble a cult.

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These members were brainwashed, were tightly controlled by a charismatic leader and an illogical belief system, and were expected to donate their property and earnings to the group. Evidence of harmfulness or goodness is incomplete. In my experience as an academic, most dissertations are hard to write and hard to read. They are not usually written to teach or to entertain, but rather first to please a committee of specialists within a particular university department and then to impress the members of a particular academic discipline—members who are professionals, future employers. and colleagues. In this instance, sociology applied to communications in business organizations is possibly a temporary fad. Perhaps also it reflects a popular political struggle: Advocates of privatization vie with supporters of government for control of schools, prisons, health care providers, and so on. For cult researchers and theorists, the challenge in reading Why They Believe. . . is to separate the important from the jargon. For example, as a further test of deductive approaches, let’s encourage lawyers, political scientists, linguists, and hypnotists to submit case studies of new religions. What about encouraging experimental social psychologists to compare new religions on the effectiveness of hierarchical versus bottom-up democratic problem solving? These finding invite a well-designed quantitative study that might correlate variables and compare members with former members. Finally, I hope to read a briefer and clearer version by Cook of what this new religion does, and why. I am sure that those interested in Mormonism and polygamy, along with former Kingstons and feminists, will find it especially informative.

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Translations of Abstracts Life After Centrepoint: Accounts of Adult Adjustment After Childhood Spent at an Experimental Community Kerry Gibson, Mandy Morgan, Cheryl Wooley, and Tracey Powis English This study explores how former child members of a controversial community, in which child sexual abuse and drug use are known to have occurred, account for the effects of this on their adult lives. The narrative accounts of 29 participants were analyzed to identify key areas of psychological adjustment they described after leaving the New Zealand community known as Centrepoint. Participants’ accounts highlighted challenges in negotiating the initial transition, family relationships, friendships and intimate relationships, livelihoods, stigma and changing belief systems. Themes within participants’ accounts reflect disadvantage and suffering as a result of growing up at Centrepoint as well as some advantages, also attributed to this environment. While this research shows that there may be some significant adjustments to be made after childhood spent in such communities, it also cautions against a polarized perspective which focuses exclusively on either positive or negative consequences of this kind of experience. Español La vida después de Centrepoint: informe de la adaptación de un adulto tras una infancia en una comunidad experimental Kerry Gibson, Mandy Morgan, Cheryl Wooley, and Tracey Powis Este artículo expone los efectos producidos durante la vida de adulto en niños ex miembros de una comunidad controvertida, en la que se conocían los abusos sexuales a menores y el uso de drogas. 29 participantes han sido objeto de estudio con la finalidad de identificar las zonas claves de la adaptación psicológica tras dejar la comunidad de Nueva Zelanda conocida como Centrepoint. Las explicaciones de los 82

participantes reseñan inconvenientes en negociar la transición inicial, las relaciones familiares, de amistad e íntimas, la subsistencia, el estigma y el cambio en el sistema de creencias. Estas cuestiones revelan desventajas y sufrimiento, resultado de la educación en Centrepoint, así como algunas ventajas también atribuibles a este entorno. Mientras que esta investigación muestra que puede que se tengan que hacer algunos cambios significativos después de una infancia transcurrida en tales comunidades, también advierte de una perspectiva polarizada que se centra exclusivamente en una de las consecuencias, tanto las positivas como las negativas. Français La vie après Centrepoint : récits de l’ajustement d'adultes après une enfance passée dans une communauté expérimentale Kerry Gibson, Mandy Morgan, Cheryl Wooley et Tracey Powis Cette étude explore la façon dont les enfants membres d’une communauté controversée, dans laquelle ont eu lieu des abus sexuels sur mineurs et l’usage de drogues, rendent compte des effets de cette communauté dans leurs vies d’adultes. Les récits de 29 participants ont été analysés afin d’identifier les enjeux centraux de l’ajustement psychologique qu’ils ont décrit à leur sortie de la communauté néo-zélandaise connue sous le nom de Centrepoint. Les récits des participants ont souligné les défis pour négocier la transition initiale, les relations familiales, les amitiés et les relations intimes, les moyens de subsistance, la stigmatisation et le changement des systèmes de croyances. Au fil des témoignages des participants, les thèmes abordés reflètent aussi bien les inconvénients et la souffrance qui résultent d’avoir grandi au Centrepoint, que certains avantages, également attribué à cet environnement. Tandis que cette recherche montre qu’il pourrait y avoir des ajustements significatifs à faire après une enfance passée dans de telles communautés, elle met également en garde contre une perspective polarisée qui se centrerait uniquement ou bien sur les International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

conséquences positives, ou bien sur les conséquences négatives de ce type d’expériences. Deutsch Leben nach Centrepoint: Umstände der Erwachsenenanpassung nach der in einer experimentellen Gemeinschaft verbrachten Kindheit Kerry Gibson, Mandy Morgan, Cheryl Woole und Tracey Powis Diese Studie untersucht, wie ehemalige KinderMitglieder einer umstrittenen Gemeinschaft, in denen sexueller Kindesmissbrauch und Drogenkonsum bekanntermaßen aufgetreten sind, deren Auswirkungen auf ihr Erwachsenenleben erfahren. Die Erzählungen von 29 Teilnehmern wurden analysiert, um Schlüsselbereiche der psychologischen Anpassung zu identifizieren, die sie nach dem Verlassen der neuseeländischen Gemeinschaft, bekannt als Centrepoint, beschrieben haben. Die Berichte der Teilnehmer betonten die Herausforderungen bei der Verhandlung des anfänglichen Übergangs, der Familienbeziehungen, der Freundschaften und der intimen Beziehungen, der Lebensgrundlagen, der Stigmatisierung und der Veränderung der Glaubenssysteme. Themen innerhalb der Teilnehmerberichte spiegeln Nachteile und Leiden infolge des Erwachsenwerdens bei Centrepoint wieder, sowie auch einige Vorteile, die ebenfalls diesem Umfeld zugeschrieben werden. Während diese Forschung zeigt, dass nach der Kindheit in solchen Gemeinschaften einige bedeutende Anpassungen durchgeführt werden müssen, warnt sie auch vor einer polarisierten Perspektive, die sich ausschließlich auf entweder positive oder negative Folgen dieser Art von Erfahrung konzentriert. Italiano La vita dopo Centrepoint: racconti di adulti che si sono adattati dopo un’infanzia vissuta in una Comunità Sperimentale International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

Kerry Gibson, Mandy Morgan, Cheryl Wooley, and Tracey Powis Questo studio esplora come gli ex membri, bambini di una comunità controversa, in cui si è a conoscenza di abusi sessuali sui minori e uso di droghe verificatisi, raccontano gli effetti sulla loro vita adulta. I racconti dei 29 partecipanti sono stati analizzati per identificare le aree chiave di adattamento psicologico descritto dopo aver lasciato la comunità Nuova Zelandase Centrepoint. I racconti dei partecipanti hanno sottolineato le sfide nella negoziazione della transizione iniziale, i rapporti familiari, con gli amici, le relazioni intime, i mezzi di sussistenza, la stigmatizzazione e la modifica dei sistemi di credenza. I temi all'interno dei racconti dei partecipanti riflettono lo svantaggio e la sofferenza causata dalla crescita in Centrepoint, così come alcuni vantaggi, sempre collegate a questo ambiente. Anche se questa ricerca dimostra che ci possono essere degli adattamenti significativi dopo un'infanzia trascorsa in comunità simili, mette anche in guardia da una prospettiva polarizzata che si concentra esclusivamente su una delle due conseguenze, positive o negative. Polski Życie po Centrepoint: relacje o własnym przystosowaniu do dorosłości po dzieciństwie spędzonym we wspólnocie eksperymentalnej Kerry Gibson, Mandy Morgan, Cheryl Wooley i Tracey Powis W niniejszym studium zbadano, jak osoby zaangażowane w dziecinstwie w kontrowersyjną wspólnotę, co do której wiadomo, że dochodziło w niej do seksualnego wykorzystywania dzieci i zażywania narkotyków, wyjaśniają następstwa tego faktu w swym dorosłym życiu. Poddano analizie narracyjne relacje 29 uczestników w celu zidentyfikowania kluczowych obszarów psychologicznej zmiany, którą opisali oni po opuszczeniu nowozelandzkiej wspólnoty znanej jako Centrepoint. Opowieści uczestników uwypukliły wyzwania dotyczące radzenia sobie z początkową przemianą, relacjami wewnątrzrodzinnymi, przyjaźniami i związkami natury intymnej, środkami utrzymania, stygmatyzacją i niestałym systemem wierzeń. 83

Tematyka opowieści uczestników odzwierciedla krzywdę i cierpienie będące rezultatem wzrastania w Centrepoint, jak też parę korzyści, również przypisywanych temu środowisku. Podczas gdy badanie pokazuje, że jednostka może dokonać paru znaczących modyfikacji po dzieciństwie spędzonym w takiej wspólnocie, wypływa zeń przestroga przed przyjmowaniem spolaryzowanej perspektywy, koncentrującej się li tylko na pozytywnych lub negatywnych konsekwencjach tego rodzaju doświadczeń. Prosecuting Child Alternative Religions

Sexual

Abuse

in

Andrea Willey and Stephen A. Kent English In this article, we identify three different levels of court procedures (criminal, civil, and family) in which child sexual-abuse allegations are most likely to appear within the context of highdemand alternative religions, sometimes called sects or cults. We then specify strategies that these religious groups or their members have used in their defenses, along with appropriate counterstrategies with which prosecutors have responded. Our position is that, if prosecutors can see such cases go to trial without further traumatizing abuse survivors, then they should do so. Trials’ conclusions provide opportunities for clear (and often written) decisions that clarify what roles, if any, the alternative religions as organizations played in the abuses. Such decisions likely will impact remaining sect or cult members and even potential recruits about the legal and moral dimensions of the groups themselves. An alternative position, however, is that groups holding responsibility for child sexual abuse should experience pressure from authorities to compensate survivors without costly trials, since such trials may deplete resources away from survivors’ assistance. Keywords: alternative religions, cults, child sexual abuse, pedophilia, child sexual-abuse prosecution

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Español Persiguiendo el abuso sexual a menores en las religiones alternativas Andrea Willey and Stephen A. Kent En este artículo identificamos tres niveles diferentes de procedimientos legales (penal, civil y familiar) en los cuales las alegaciones de abuso sexual a menores se dan probablemente en mayor medida en un contexto de religiones alternativas, a veces llamadas sectas. Asimismo, se especifican las estrategias que estos grupos religiosos o sus miembros han usado en su defensa, así como las correspondientes estrategias alternativas mediante las cuales han respondido los fiscales o abogados de la acusación. Nuestra posición es que si los fiscales pueden enviar tales casos a los tribunales sin traumatizar a los supervivientes de abusos, tienen que hacerlo. Las conclusiones de los juicios ofrecen oportunidades para dilucidar decisiones (a menudo escritas) que clarifican qué roles han jugado en el tema de abusos, si existe alguno, las religiones alternativas como organizaciones. Tales decisiones probablemente tendrán repercusión en las sectas o en sus miembros e incluso en reclutamientos potenciales acerca de las dimensiones morales y legales de los mismos grupos. Sin embargo, se ofrece una posición alternativa para que los grupos responsables de los abusos sufran presión por parte de las autoridades compensando a los supervivientes ahorrándoles las costas de los juicios, ya que estos procesos pueden mermar los recursos en asesoramiento. Français Poursuivre en justice l’abus sexuel sur mineur dans les religions alternatives Andrea Willey et Stephen A. Kent Dans cet article, nous distinguons trois niveaux de procédures judiciaires (criminelle, civile et familiale) pour lesquels les allégations d’abus sexuels sur mineur peuvent vraisemblablement se présenter dans le contexte de religions alternatives très exigeantes, parfois appelées sectes. Nous précisons ensuite des stratégies que ces groupes religieux ou leurs membres ont utilisées pour leurs défenses, ainsi que les International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

contre-stratégies appropriées par lesquelles ont répondu les procureurs. Notre position consiste à dire que si les procureurs peuvent faire juger de tels cas sans traumatiser davantage les victimes, alors ils devraient le faire. Les conclusions des procès offrent des opportunités de décisions de justice claires (et souvent écrites) qui clarifient quels rôles, le cas échéant, les religions alternatives comme organisations ont tenu dans ces abus. De telles décisions auront vraisemblablement un impact sur les membres restants de la secte ou du groupe et même sur les recrues potentielles quant aux dimensions légales et morales des groupes eux-mêmes. Néanmoins, une position alternative consiste à ce que les groupes reconnus responsables d’un abus sexuel sur un mineur devraient faire l’objet de pressions de la part des autorités pour indemniser les victimes sans procès coûteux dans la mesure où de tels procès risquent d’épuiser les ressources nécessaire pour recourir à une assistance. Mots clés : religions alternatives, abus sexuel sur mineur, pédophilie, poursuites judiciaires de l’abus sexuel sur mineur Deutsch Verfolgung von sexuellem Missbrauch von Kindern in alternativen Religionen

bieten Chancen für klare (und oft geschriebene) Entscheidungen, die klären, welche Rollen, wenn überhaupt, die alternativen Religionen als Organisationen bei den Missbräuchen spielten. Solche Entscheidungen werden wahrscheinlich Auswirkungen auf die übrigen Sekten- oder Kultmitglieder und sogar auf potenzielle Rekruten bezüglich der rechtlichen und moralischen Dimensionen der Gruppen selbst haben. Eine alternative Position ist jedoch, dass Gruppen, die Verantwortung für den sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern tragen, von den Behörden Druck erfahren müssen, um Überlebende ohne kostspielige Verfahren zu entschädigen, da solche Verfahren Ressourcen von der Unterstützung der Überlebenden dezimieren könnten. Schlüsselwörter: alternative Religionen, Kulte, sexueller Missbrauch von Kindern, Pädophilie, Verfolgung des sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern Italiano Perseguire l’abuso sessuale su minori nelle religioni alternative Andrea Willey e Stephen A. Kent

Andrea Willey und Stephen A. Kent

Inglese

In diesem Artikel identifizieren wir drei verschiedene Ebenen von Gerichtsverfahren (Straf-, Zivil- und Familienprozesse), in denen Vorwürfe sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern am häufigsten im Kontext von alternativen Religionen mit hohen Anforderungen auftreten, die manchmal Sekten oder Kulte genannt werden. Daraufhin benennen wir Strategien, die diese religiösen Gruppen oder ihre Mitglieder in ihrer Verteidigung eingesetzt haben, zusammen mit geeigneten Gegenstrategien, mit denen die Staatsanwälte reagiert haben. Unsere Position ist, dass, wenn Staatsanwälte solche Fälle ohne weitere Traumatisierung von Missbrauchsüberlebenden zur Verhandlung gehen sehen können, dann sollten sie dies tun. Die Schlussfolgerungen der Verhandlungen

In questo articolo, identifichiamo tre diversi livelli di procedure giudiziarie (penali, civili e familiari) nelle quali è più facile riscontrare accuse abusi sessuali su minori in gruppi religiosi alternativi, anche definiti sette o gruppi manipolativi. Successivamente specifichiamo le strategie che questi gruppi religiosi o i loro membri hanno utilizzato nelle loro difese, insieme con le controstrategie con cui i pubblici ministeri hanno risposto. La nostra posizione è che, se i pubblici ministeri possono portare a processo questi casi senza traumatizzare ulteriormente le vittime di abusi, allora dovrebbero farlo. Le conclusioni dei procedimenti forniscono delle opportunità per chiarire le decisioni (spesso scritte) che spiegano quali ruoli, se ce ne sono stati, hanno giocato queste religioni alternative o altre organizzazioni su tali abusi. Tali decisioni potrebbero avere un

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kosztownych procesów, gdyż takie rozprawy mogą wyczerpać zasoby służące wsparciu ofiar.

impatto sui membri della setta rimasti ed anche sulle potenziali reclute con riferimento alle dimensioni legali e morali dei gruppi stessi. I gruppi con responsabilità per gli abusi sessuali su minori dovrebbero ricevere delle pressioni da parte delle autorità per compensare i sopravvissuti, senza costi per il giudizio, dato che gli stessi potrebbero esaurire le risorse per l’assistenza dei superstiti.

Słowa kluczowe: religie alternatywne, sekty, seksualne wykorzystywanie dzieci, pedofilia, ściganie sądowne seksualnego wykorzystywania dzieci

Parole chiave: religioni alternative, sette, abusi sessuali sui minori, pedofilia, procedimenti giudiziari per le accuse di abusi sessuali su minori.

Cyndi H. Matthews

Polski ściganie sądowne wykorzystywania dzieci alternatywnych

w

seksualnego religiach

Andrea Willey i Stephen A. Kent W niniejszym artykule przedstawiamy trzy różne poziomy procedur sądowych (karnych, cywilnych i rodzinnych), w ramach których bardzo możliwe jest wystąpienie oskarżeń o seksualne wykorzystywanie dzieci w kontekstach alternatywnej religijności o autorytarnym charakterze, zwanej niekiedy sektami lub grupami kultowymi. Następnie wymieniamy strategie używane na swą obronę przez owe ugrupowania religijne bądź ich członków, ale i odpowiednie kontrstrategie, przy pomocy których odpowiadają oskarżyciele. W naszym przekonaniu, jeśli oskarżyciele czują, iż takie przypadki mogą iść na wokandę bez ryzyka wywoływania dalszych urazów u ofiar nadużyć, to winni podjąć takie kroki. Konkluzje wynikające z procesów sądowych dają możliwość klarownych (i często pisemnych) decyzji wyjaśniających, jaką rolę, o ile w ogóle, alternatywne religie jako organizacje odgrywały w tych nadużyciach. Takie decyzje przypuszczalnie wpłyną na osoby, które pozostały w sekcie, a nawet na potencjalnych nowicjuszy odnośnie do prawnych i moralnych aspektów samej grupy. Wedle alternatywnego stanowiska, ugrupowania odpowiedzialne za seksualne wykorzystywanie dzieci winny być poddane presji ze strony władz, by zrekompensowały ofiarom te cierpienia bez

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Second-Generation Religious Cult Survivors: Implications for Counselors English First- and second-generation cult survivors experience psychological challenges in the process of leaving a cult and reintegrating into society. Second-generation cult survivors face additional challenges, such as the effects of a lifetime of abuse and neglect, attachment disorder, lack of education, continuing familyrelationship challenges, and lack of externalworld support. Scant attention has been paid in the literature to experiences of secondgeneration cult survivors. In this study, the experiences of 15 second-generation adult (SGA) former cult members were explored utilizing grounded theory. Results of this study hold promise for those counseling with SGAs in understanding their experiences and needs. Keywords: second generation cult survivors, cult recovery, counseling cult survivors Español Supervivientes de segunda generación en sectas religiosas: implicaciones para los asesores Cyndi H. Matthews Los supervivientes de sectas de primera y segunda generación experimentan problemas psicológicos en el proceso de abandono y de reintegración en la sociedad. Los supervivientes de segunda generación se enfrentan a problemas adicionales tales como los efectos de por vida de abuso y abandono, trastornos afectivos, falta de educación, continuos problemas de relación en los vínculos familiares, y falta de apoyo del mundo exterior. En la literatura se ha prestado poca atención a estos casos. En este estudio se International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

han explorado las experiencias de 15 ex miembros adultos de segunda generación (SGA, por sus siglas en inglés) utilizando la teoría fundamentada en datos. Los resultados son prometedores para los asesores a la hora de entender sus experiencias y necesidades. Français La deuxième génération des survivants des sectes religieuses : implications pour les conseillers Cyndi H. Matthews La première et la deuxième génération de survivants font l’expérience de défis psychologiques dans le processus de sortie de secte et de réintégration à la société. Les survivants, à la deuxième génération, sont confrontés à des défis supplémentaires tels que les effets d’une vie d’abus et de négligence, de troubles de l’attachement, d’un manque d’éducation, des défis continuels dans les relations familiales et un manque de soutien de la part du monde extérieur. Peu d’attention a été accordée par la littérature aux expériences des survivants de deuxième génération. Dans cette étude, les parcours de 15 anciens membres de sectes de deuxième génération sont examinés en employant la théorie ancrée. Les résultats de cette étude sont encourageants pour les conseillers travaillant auprès des survivants de deuxième génération dans la compréhension de leurs expériences et de leurs besoins. Mots clés : survivants de sectes de deuxième génération, récupération post-sectaire, accompagnement des survivants de sectes Deutsch Zweite Generation Überlebender aus religiösen Kulten: Auswirkungen für Berater Cyndi H. Matthews Die Kultüberlebenden der ersten und zweiten Generation erleben psychologische Herausforderungen im Prozess des Verlassens des Kultes und der Wiedereingliederung in die Gesellschaft. Kultüberlebende der zweiten Generation stehen vor zusätzlichen Herausforderungen, wie die Auswirkungen von International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

lebenslangem Missbrauch und Vernachlässigung, Bindungsstörungen, Mangel an Bildung, fortgesetzter Herausforderung familiärer Beziehungen und dem Mangel an Unterstützung durch die äußere Welt. In der Literatur wurde bisher wenig Aufmerksamkeit auf die Erfahrungen der Kultüberlebenden der zweiten Generation gerichtet. In dieser Studie wurden die Erfahrungen ehemaliger Kultmitglieder der zweiten Generation (SGA) mit Hilfe einer begründeten Theorie erforscht. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie sind verheißungsvoll für die Beratungen mit SGAs im Verständnis ihrer Erfahrungen und Bedürfnisse. Schlüsselwörter: Kultüberlebende der zweiten Generation, Wiederherstellung nach Kultzugehörigkeit, Beratung von Kultüberlebenden Italiano I sopravvissuti di sette di seconda generazione: implicazioni per i consulenti Cyndi H. Matthews I sopravvissuti di sette di prima e seconda generazione vivono delle sfide psicologiche nel processo di uscita dalla setta e reinserimento nella società. I sopravvissuti di seconda generazione devono affrontare sfide aggiuntive, come ad esempio gli effetti di una vita di abusi e di abbandono, disturbi di attaccamento, mancanza di istruzione, continue sfide nelle relazioni familiari e la mancanza di supporto dal mondo esterno. Scarsa attenzione è stata posta nella letteratura alle esperienze dei sopravvissuti di setta di seconda generazione. In questo studio, sono state esplorate le esperienze di 15 adulti di seconda generazione (SGA) ex membri, utilizzando la Grounded Theory. I risultati di questo studio risultano promettenti per la consulenza agli SGA nel comprendere le loro esperienze ed esigenze. Parole chiave: sopravvissuti di sette di seconda generazione, il recupero da una setta, consulenza ai sopravvissuti di setta

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Polski Byli członkowie sekty religijnej w drugim pokoleniu: implikacje dla doradców Cyndi H. Matthews Byli członkowie sekty w pierwszym i drugim pokoleniu doświadczają wyzwań psychologicznych w trakcie procesu opuszczania grupy kultowej i powrotu do społeczeństwa. Eksczłonkowie w drugim pokoleniu stawiają czoła dodatkowym wyzwaniom, takim jak konsekwencje życia w atmosferze nadużyć i zaniedbań, zaburzenie więzi, braki w edukacji, stałe wyzwania dotyczące rodziny i relacji interpersonalnych oraz brak wsparcia z zewnątrz. Ich przeżyciom poświęcono w literaturze niewiele miejsca. W niniejszym studium zbadano, przy zastosowaniu teorii ugruntowanej, doświadczenia 15 dorosłych eksczłonków sekty w drugim pokoleniu. Uzyskane wyniki dobrze rokują dla zrozumienia doświadczeń i potrzeb tej kategorii osób przez specjalistów im doradzających. Słowa kluczowe: byli członkowie sekty w drugim pokoleniu, odzyskiwanie zdrowia po odejściu z sekty, doradzanie byłym członkom sekty

Exit Intervention: A New Approach to Saving Family Members From Destructive Groups Steven A. Autenrieth English When a family member becomes involved with a destructive group, the courses of action available to families are limited. This article provides a new approach, known as an exit intervention, that enables the family courtgranted access to their loved one for a limited time. This model provides a necessary balance between the family member’s First Amendment and Due Process rights, and the family’s interest in the safety of their loved one. If the exit intervention works properly, the family member’s critical-thinking ability will be returned to her, and she can make an informed

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decision about whether she wants to remain in the destructive group. Español Intervención de salida: una nueva aproximación para salvar de grupos destructivos a los miembros de una familia Steven A. Autenrieth Cuando un miembro de una familia se involucra en un grupo destructivo, la maniobra de acción es limitada. Este artículo ofrece una nueva aproximación, conocida como intervención de salida, en que un tribunal permite a la familia acceder a su ser querido durante un tiempo limitado. Este modelo brinda un equilibrio necesario entre, por un lado, el derecho a la primera enmienda y a las debidas garantías procesales del miembro, y, por otro, el interés de la familia por la seguridad de su ser querido. Si la intervención de salida resulta satisfactoria, la capacidad crítica del miembro queda restablecida y puede tomar una decisión informada acerca de si desea permanecer en el grupo destructivo. Français Intervention de sortie : une nouvelle approche pour sauver les membres d’une famille des groupes destructeurs Steven A. Autenrieth Quand le membre d’une famille fréquente un groupe destructeur, les moyens d’action des familles s’avèrent limités. Cet article propose une nouvelle approche, connue comme intervention de sortie, qui consiste en ce qu’un tribunal permette à la famille de rencontrer leur être aimé pour un temps limité. Ce modèle exige un équilibre entre le respect du premier amendement et de la procédure pour le membre de la famille d’une part, et l’intérêt de la famille pour la sécurité de l’être aimé. Lorsque l’intervention de sortie fonctionne correctement, le sens critique du membre de la famille sera rétabli, et il pourra prendre une décision en connaissance de cause s’il souhaite rester dans le groupe destructeur.

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Deutsch

Polski

Ausstiegs-Intervention: Ein neues Konzept, um Familienmitglieder aus zerstörerischen Gruppen zu retten

Interwencja wyjścia: nowe podejście do ochrony członków rodziny przed grupami destrukcyjnymi

Steven A. Autenrieth

Steven A. Autenrieth

Wenn ein Familienmitglied in eine zerstörerische Gruppe involviert wird, sind die für Familien verfügbaren Handlungsabläufe begrenzt. Dieser Artikel bietet einen neuen Ansatz, als eine Ausstiegs-Intervention bekannt, dass der Familie für eine begrenzte Zeit einen vom Gericht gewährleisteten Zugang zu ihren Lieben ermöglicht. Dieses Modell bietet eine notwendige Balance zwischen den Rechten des Familienmitglieds auf Grund des Ersten Zusatzes zur Verfassung und auf einen angemessenen Prozess und dem Interesse der Familie an der Sicherheit ihres geliebten Menschen dar. Wenn die Ausstiegs-Intervention ordnungsgemäß funktioniert, wird dem Familiemitglied die kritische Denkfähigkeit zurückgegeben, und es kann eine informierte Entscheidung darüber treffen, ob es in der zerstörerischen Gruppe bleiben möchte. Italiano

Gdy członek rodziny przyłącza się do destrukcyjnego ugrupowania, możliwości działania osób najbliższych są ograniczone. W niniejszym artykule zaproponowano nowe podejście, określone jako interwencja wyjścia, które pozwala rodzinie na zagwarantowany sądownie dostęp do krewnego na ograniczony czas. Omawiany model zapewnia niezbędny balans pomiędzy prawami członka rodziny wynikającymi z pierwszej poprawki do konstytucji i stosownych procedur prawnych a troską rodziny o bezpieczeństwo bliskiej osoby. Jeśli interwencja wyjścia realizowana jest poprawnie, zdolność członka rodziny do krytycznego myślenia zostaje mu przywrócona, w efekcie czego może on podjąć świadomą decyzję o tym, czy chce pozostać w destrukcyjnej grupie.

The Unique Characteristics of Postcult Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Suggested Therapeutic Approaches

L’intervento di uscita: un nuovo approccio per salvare i membri della famiglia dai gruppi distruttivi

Dennis Patrick Healy

Steven A. Autenrieth

In this paper, I assert that postcult post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a unique form of Complex PTSD. With this knowledge, and incorporating understandings in neuroscience, I make recommendations about appropriate therapeutic interventions. I present the characteristic symptoms of Complex PTSD as described by Herman (1997), such as hyperarousal, intrusion, and constriction, and I describe in detail the unique features of cultinduced PTSD. I also consider the effects of superstition and the association with a God or the truth in the cultic context. This discussion leads to the conclusion that postcult PTSD is a unique form of Complex PTSD. Alongside this content are developments in neuroscience that have identified different forms of memory (implicit and explicit memory) being located in

Quando un membro di una famiglia viene coinvolto da un gruppo distruttivo, le linee di azione a disposizione delle famiglie sono limitate. Questo articolo fornisce un nuovo approccio, conosciuto come intervento di uscita, che consente l’accesso alla famiglia del proprio caro per un tempo limitato da parte del Tribunale. Questo modello fornisce un necessario equilibrio tra il Primo Emendamento del membro e diritto al giusto processo, e l'interesse della famiglia di sicurezza del proprio caro. Se l'intervento di uscita funziona correttamente, il membro della famiglia recupererà il suo senso critico e potrà prendere una decisione informata sul fatto di voler restare nel gruppo distruttivo. International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

English

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separate centers of the human brain. Against this neuroscience knowledge, I discuss the commonly occurring and highly distressing experience of triggers, a form of implicit memory frequently reported by victims of trauma, including former cult members, and observed by therapists working with these victims. I then discuss the implications for therapy of the considerations of a unique form of PTSD and neuroscience knowledge. Español Las singularidades de un trastorno de estrés postraumático causado por una secta y tratamientos terapéuticos aconsejados Dennis Patrick Healy En este artículo afirmo que el trastorno de estrés postraumático (TEPT) postsectario es una forma única de TEPT complejo. A partir de esta información, e incorporando conocimientos en neurociencia, formulo recomendaciones sobre intervenciones terapéuticas apropiadas. Presento los síntomas característicos del TEPT complejo tal como los describió Herman (1997) – hiperexcitación, intromisión y opresión- y describo en detalle los rasgos únicos de un TEPT inducido por una secta. También tengo en cuenta los efectos producidos por la superstición y la asociación con un dios o una verdad en un contexto sectario. Esta discusión nos lleva a la conclusión que el TEPT provocado por una secta es una forma única de TEPT complejo. Desde una perspectiva adyacente, existen avances en neurociencia que han identificado diferentes formas de memoria (explícita e implícita) alojadas en centros separados del cerebro humano. Frente a esta información neurocientífica, analizo la experiencia común y altamente estresante de los desencadenantes, una forma de la memoria implícita a la que con frecuencia aluden las víctimas de traumas, incluyendo ex miembros de sectas, y que han observado los terapeutas que trabajan con ellas. Finalmente trato las implicaciones a considerar entre aplicar la terapia en una única forma de TEPT y el conocimiento neurocientífico.

Français Caractéristiques spécifiques de l’état de stress post-traumatique post-sectaire et proposition d’approches psychothérapiques Dennis Patrick Healy Dans cet article, je soutiens que l’état de stress post-traumatique (ESPT) post-sectaire est une forme spécifique d’ESPT complexe. Sur la base de cette conception, et en intégrant les avancées des neurosciences, je formule des recommandations pour des interventions psychothérapiques adaptées. Je présente les symptômes caractéristiques de l’ESPT complexe décrits par Herman (1997) tels que l’hyperexcitabilité, l’intrusion, l’évitement, et je décris en détail les spécificités propres de l’ESPT induit par une secte. Je considère également les effets de la superstition et de l’association avec un dieu ou avec la vérité en contexte sectaire. La discussion conduira à la conclusion selon laquelle l’ESPT post-sectaire est une forme spécifique d’ESPT complexe. Parallèlement à cela, on trouvera les développements en neurosciences qui identifient différentes formes de mémoire (mémoire implicite et mémoire explicite) localisées dans différentes régions du cerveau humain. Contre ces données des neurosciences, j’aborderai l’expérience rencontrée fréquemment et hautement bouleversante des déclencheurs (triggers), une forme de souvenir implicite dont font état les victimes de traumatisme, parmi lesquelles d’anciens adeptes de sectes, et observés par les thérapeutes travaillant auprès de ces victimes. Enfin, je discute des implications pour la thérapie de considérer une forme spécifique d’ESPT et des connaissances en neurosciences. Deutsch Die einzigartigen Merkmale der nachkultischen posttraumatischen Belastungsstörung und vorgeschlagene therapeutische Ansätze Dennis Patrick Healy In dieser Arbeit erkläre ich, dass nachkultische posttraumatische Belastungsstörung (PTSD) eine einzigartige Form Komplexer PTSD ist.

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Mit diesem Wissen und der Einbeziehung von Verständnissen der Neurowissenschaft lege ich Empfehlungen für entsprechende therapeutische Interventionen vor. Ich präsentiere die charakteristischen Symptome von Komplexer PTSD wie von Herman (1997) beschrieben, wie Übererregbarkeit, Flashbacks und Vermeidungsverhalten. und emotionale Verengung, und ich beschreibe im Detail die Besonderheiten der kultinduzierten PTSD. Ich betrachte auch die Wirkungen des Aberglaubens und die Assoziation mit einem Gott oder mit der Wahrheit im kultischen Kontext. Diese Diskussion führt zu dem Schluss, dass nachkultische PTSD eine einzigartige Form der Komplexen PTSD ist. Neben diesem Inhalt gibt es Entwicklungen in der Neurowissenschaft, die unterschiedliche Formen des Gedächtnisses (implizites und explizites Gedächtnis) identifiziert haben, die in getrennten Zentren des menschlichen Gehirns lokalisiert sind. Gegen dieses neurowissenschaftliche Wissen bespreche ich die häufig auftretende und äußerst schmerzliche Erfahrung von Auslösern, einer Form von impliziter Erinnerung, die häufig von Opfern von Traumata, einschließlich ehemaliger Kultmitglieder, berichtet und von Therapeuten beobachtet wird, die mit diesen Opfern arbeiten. Ich diskutiere dann die Implikationen für die Therapie der Erwägungen einer einzigartigen Form von PTSD und neurowissenschaftem Wissen Italiano Le caratteristiche uniche del Disturbo post traumatico da stress post settario e gli approcci terapeutici suggeriti Dennis Patrick Healy In questo lavoro, affermo che il Disturbo posttraumatico da stress (PTSD) post settario è una forma unica del PTSD complesso. In questa prospettiva, ed integrando con le conoscenze delle neuroscienze, faccio delle raccomandazioni su adeguati interventi terapeutici. Presento i sintomi caratteristici del PTSD complesso come descritti da Herman (1997), come ad esempio International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

ipervigilanza, intrusioni e costrizione, e descrivo in dettaglio le caratteristiche uniche del PTSD post-settario. Considero inoltre gli effetti della superstizione e l'associazione con un Dio o la verità in un contesto settario. Questa discussione porta alla conclusione che il PTSD post-settario è una forma unica di PTSD Complesso. Accanto a questo contenuto ci sono gli sviluppi delle neuroscienze che hanno individuato diverse forme di memoria (memoria implicita ed esplicita) situate in centri separati del cervello umano. Contro questa conoscenza delle neuroscienze, discuto l'esperienza che si verifica comunemente e molto angosciante dei trigger, una forma di memoria implicita spesso riferita dalle vittime di traumi, tra cui gli ex membri di setta, e osservata dai terapeuti che lavorano con queste vittime. Discuto poi le implicazioni per la terapia delle considerazioni per una singolare forma di PTSD e le conoscenze delle neuroscienze. Polski Unikalne cechy postkultowego zespołu stresu pourazowego i sugerowane metody terapeutyczne Dennis Patrick Healy W niniejszym artykule przekonuję, że postkultowy zespół stresu pourazowego (PTSD) stanowi unikalną formę złożonego PTSD. Z tym zasobem wiedzy, i uwzględniwszy rozumienie nauki o mózgu, formułuję rekomendacje odpowiednich interwencji terapeutycznych. Charakteryzuję objawy złożonego PTSD opisane przez Herman (1997), takie jak nadmierne pobudzenie, wtargnięcia i zawężenie, oraz przedstawiam w szczegółach unikalne cechy PTSD wywołane oddziaływaniem sekty. Uwzględniam też następstwa przesądu i asocjacji dotyczących Boga lub prawdy w kontekście kultowym. Przeprowadzona dyskusja prowadzi do konkluzji, iż postkultowe PTSD stanowi wyjątkową formę złożonego PTSD. Obok tych kwestii zwracam uwagę na rozwój nauki o mózgu, który doprowadził do rozpoznania innych form pamięci (pamięć nieuświadomiona i uświadomiona), umiejscowionych w odrębnych ośrodkach ludzkiego mózgu. Wbrew tej neurobiologicznej wiedzy, omawiam powszechnie występujące i 91

wysoce niepokojące doświadczenie silnych bodźców, stanowiących formę pamięci nieuświadomionej często zgłaszaną przez ofiary traumy, wliczając w to byłych członków sekty, a dostrzeganą przez terapeutów pracujących ze wspomnianą kategorią ofiar. Następnie wskazuję implikacje dla terapii uwzględniające tę unikalną formę PTSD oraz wiedzę neurobiologiczną.

Translators Dott. Cristina Caparesi—Udine, Italy Giorgio Fabbro—Udine, Italy Dolors Gironés—Barcelona, Spain Friedrich Griess—Kierling, Austria Xavier Leger—Tassin La Demi Lune, France Arthur Mary—Toulouse, France Piotr T. Nowakowski—John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland

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International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017

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ISSN: 2154-7270 (print) 2154-7289 (online) Copyright 2017, International Cultic Studies Association P.O. Box 2265 Bonita Springs, FL 34133 USA www.icsahome.com [email protected] 1.239.514.3081

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