THE CULT DISCIPLE

My research on cults has convinced me they are full of elements endemic to society in general. Cults, it seems, are nothing more than an extreme example of the influences within society.
For instance, who joins a cult? The easy and most popular belief is that cult disciples are inadequates of low intelligence. But in her extensive study of cults, sociologist Eileen Barker has found the opposite.

PROFILE OF A DISCIPLE

The normal cult member is of above average intelligence and comes from a well-balanced, middieclass background. What appears to be happening is that, as modern life becomes more secular and materialist, an increasing number of intelligent people are finding life unfulfilling and meaningless.
Intelligence requires purpose, and if established religions fail to appeal to this increasing minority, then spiritual values are found in fringe cults - of which there are well over a thousand in Britain alone.
And once hooked, the follower’s search for meaning, combined with the guru’s charisma, leads to a psychological process that guarantees obedience.

BRAINWASHING?

Ian Haworth, who formed the Cult Information Centre in Britain, would put it more forcefully. A leading member of the anti-cult movement, he would argue that once a cult has been formed by a guru, individuals who feel a lacking in life are sucked into the madness of cultism through psychological coercion, brainwashing or mind control.
People joining cults usually argue such techniques would not work on them, but the favoured methods of meditation used by cults, combined with forms of sleep deprivation and bombarding the initiate with information, inevitably lead to, first, sensory overload, and second, obedience to the whim of a guru.
Clearly cult membership also leads to a rejection of family ties as the cult becomes the new family. Fears rising in the natural family of the member has led to the rise of the exit counsellor such as Haworth, who see it as their mission to ‘de-program’ members and return them to their loved ones.

DE-PROGRAMMING

The father of such techniques was Ted Patrick, an American born-again Christian who worked as a youth worker in 1960s California. Noticing the number of people joining hippy cults, he saved a young Hare Krishna member by locking him up and using physical intimidation.
The founder of Freecog, the first anti-cult organisation, Patrick was also the inspiration for the American Cult Awareness Network, one of who’s members received a sixteen month sentence in 1994 for kidnapping.
Ian Haworth’s techniques are much more sedate than this. Using a process of reason and providing evidence for the member that the particular cult is not what it seems, he claims some success.
However, Eileen Barker argues that such anti-cultism is part of the problem, building the sinister side of basically innocuous cults out of all proportion. With the media also jumping on the bandwaggon, the public end up with an incorrect impression of all cults descending into depravity and corruption, whereas, for the vast majority, no such impulses are present.

ISOLATION

So does this mean we have nothing to fear in such cultism? With the majority, it seems we do not - the natural family excepted. The danger comes, argues Barker, with the cults who attempt to cut off their members from the outside world.
This process can be either physical or psychological. It causes too much reliance on the truths of the particular cult. And in this direction, one could argue, madness lies. Indeed, it is through this process that nearly all the mass suicides and group violence of cults has arisen.
Cults are, of course, ’strange’, and we can all hope that family or friends are never induced to join a cult. But it seems that the central problem with a cult may not necessarily be the cult itself, but the sense of isolation they can occasionally feel from society.
Indeed, such isolation has been called many things in the past, including ‘alienation’. And this can usually be the prompter for strange or violent behaviour in society at large. It seems, therefore, that a cult, and its disciples, can tell us much about ourselves.

(c) Anthony North, February 2008

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THE GURU

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Cults seem an enigma. We all know of their existence, or have heard of their more extreme measures such as mass suicide or even violence. Yet most cults are quite innocuous. But still the mystery remains.
How do we draw back the curtains of non-understanding? Well without doubt the most important factor in a cult is the guru himself. And it is to him we must turn to really understand what is going on. Some examples.

MARK PROPHET

In 1958, Mark Prophet was announced as a Messenger of the Masters by Ascended Master, El Morya. Just whether this character actually existed is unknown, but soon Mark began lecturing around America that God exists. In us all is the female presence, and we must all raise our feminine principle to wed the soul to the universal Christ consciousness.
Soon, Mark married Elizabeth and they formed the Summit Lighthouse. In 1973 Mark died but was said to continue to appear to Elizabeth to dictate his wishes. This led to the Church universal and Triumphant in 1974.
The Church was headquartered in a ranch near Livingstone, Montana, which housed a commune. Elisabeth married again, to Ed Francis, who was charged with holding illegal weapons at the ranch. The Church is convinced Armageddon will come through nuclear war. To this end, by 1990 they had sold thousands of places in their shelters for $6,000 a time.

DIVINE LIGHT MISSION

The Divine Light Mission began in 1930 under Sri Hans Maharaj Ji in India. He died in 1966, the religion only operating in India. His eight year old son, Prem Pal Singh Rawat, took over, directed to do so by a ‘divine voice’.
Taking the title, Maharaj Ji, he converted some Americans touring India, who invited him to America. News of the boy wonder spread, and thousands turned out to meet him when he arrived in 1971.
In 1973, he held the Millennium 73 event in Houston to declare a thousand years of peace, but it was a flop. Meanwhile, his family ousted him as leader so he returned to India to sue them. He remained in control of his Mission everywhere except in India, and successfully converted followers in South America, Southeast Asia and other regions.

GRIGORI RASPUTIN

A typical cultish guru was the ‘mad monk’, Grigori Rasputin. Born a peasant in Siberia in 1872, he became an alcoholic womaniser - traits that never left him. However, after the death of his son he had a vision of the Virgin Mary and went on a pilgrimage to Mt Ethos, Greece.
This turned him into a charismatic healer. Eventually arriving in St Petersburg, he gained favour with the Czarina Alexandra when he seemed to help her son, Alexis’s, Haemophilia.
Gaining political hold over the Czar Nicholas, a virtual cult formed in the Russian hierarchy, with Rasputin declaring the End Times for Russia if his ideas were not followed. However, by Decemnber 1916, plots were afoot to kill him. He was invited to a small party where he was poisoned, twice shot, and finally thrown into a river by Prince Feliks Yusupov.
His End Times prediction then came true, with the Russian Revolution the following year and execution of the Royal Family the year after that.

JOSEPH SMITH

Elements of the guru can be found in founders of some movements growing into major religions. A typical case was Joseph Smith, the son of poor Vermont farmers, born in 1805, and founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, better known as the Mormons.
Caught up in the spiritual revivals of the 1820s, Smith agonised over his faith, leading to a vision of a pillar of light telling him to begin a new Church. Many visions followed, culminating in the appearance to him of an angel in September 1823, telling Smith that he was the descendant of Israel, and his people had lived in America.
Smith was sent on a quest to dig up a number of plates made of gold. He claimed to do this four years later. Translating the hieroglyphics on them, the result was the Book of Mormon.
By 1830 his Church was set up, but persecutions led them to move. In 1844 Smith stood for President, but following a conspiracy, he was charged with treason. Whilst in prison a mob attacked and killed him.
Brigham Young became the new Mormon leader and took them into the wilderness, settling on Salt Lake, Utah, in 1848, and advocating the policy of polygamy, for which the Mormons are famous.

LIFE PATH OF THE GURU

Rasputin and Smith seem to be very different gurus. However, whilst this may be true in a cultural sense, how close was their psychology? Psychiatrist Dr Anthony Storr studies many gurus in his book ‘Feet of Clay: A Study of Gurus’, and he built up a picture of the archetypal cult leader.
In early life they tend to have lonely, isolated childhoods. This leads to introversion and narcissistic tendencies. As they grow older, they find friendship difficult to handle. They tend to have acquaintances rather than friends.
This lifestyle eventually leads to a psychological crisis point, leading to acute mental instability. The way out of such a crisis comes with a spiritual realisation; a unique and particular way of understanding the world. And once this realisation is complete, a guru is born.
Building absolute faith from such a realisation, confidence and missionary zeal propel the guru on, formulating the embryo cult through contact, not with friends, but acquaintances.

NARCISSISM

Most gurus go through these stages of life, argues Storr. For many, the eventual cults are essentially good. Jesus himself shows echoes of this process, his mission beginning following the resolution of his psychological traumas in the wilderness. To the people of his time, his view of the world was different, and his initial cult had only twelve members.
The essential goodness of this new cult went on to birth Christianity, where it ceased to be a cult, and eventually became a system lived by a large proportion of humanity.
The problem with such cult formulation lies in the guru who retains his essential narcissism. It is a natural element of growing up for a child to seek love and attention, both of which are narcissistic demands.
Yet for those who do not find fulfillment in life, such impulses do not go away. Thus, writes Storr: ‘Those who remain narcissistic in adult life retain this need to be loved and to be the centre of attention together with the grandiosity which accompanies it’.
Thus we have the essential characteristic of a guru who goes off the rails. And as his cult formulates, this weakness in the guru feeds off the adoration of his disciples, whilst the essential religion-seeking of the disciple compels him to follow the guru. The end result can be a cultish system that is unhealthy, childish and destructive.

THE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

The ‘mechanics’ of the spiritual realisation can be equally important. Brought up a loner without friends, frustrations can come to the fore which lead, in effect, to a psychological illness which masquerades as a spiritual event.
This can cause an over-reliance on a specific spiritual philosophy, such as the Bible. Such an experience is essentially a delusion, but causes the future guru to build his own spiritual philosophy with himself as the centrepiece.
This ‘truth’ turns the inadequate loner into a charismatic, who gains total control over all those who come under his influence. Such processes can be seen in Rasputin and Smith, and can be found in virtually all cult and founding religious leaders. And a similar process laid behind Mary Baker Eddy.

MARY BAKER EDDY

Born in New Hampshire in 1821, Mary Baker Eddy became founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. With many physical and mental disabilities in early life, she turned to the Bible, becoming a healer and preacher, and going on to establish her own Church in 1875. Her sect became official in Boston four years later.
We can see, with Mary, a specific theology emerging based on her own experiences of illness, with illness only being combated by prayer, shunning orthodox medicine. To her, physical suffering was an illusion to be conquered by the spirit-filled mind - the main tenets of her Church continued this belief.
As to her general mental health, Mary eventually fell out with her own ministry, and when her third husband, Asa, died, she blamed her detractors who, she argued, had killed him by psychic warfare. Further, there is evidence that she, herself, was affected by another guru, a mental healer called Quimby, from whom she is said to have taken her own philosophy.

EXTREMELY NORMAL

It is easy to see the psychology of such gurus as different from normal behaviour. But to Storr, we can learn much about cults and their relation to normal life by going a little deeper. He argues that the process through which the future guru approaches mental illness and is saved by spiritual enlightenment is similar to normal thought processes in both the arts and science. Both involve a degree of fanaticism where the artist thinks of an idea or the scientist attempts to grasp a theory.
This can often lead to a degree of delusion. When the idea finally comes, it is most likely to come as an inspired thought following relaxation, from the deep unconscious. But the problem with the guru is that the inspiration can, due to mental instability, appear to come from some spiritual being.
Further, whereas the scientist will be kept from delusion by the critical responses of his peers, the guru has no peers to keep his inspiration in perspective. Thus, his delusion is enhanced - fed, even - by his disciples.
Such similarities between delusions and normal thought processes have led Storr to conclude: ‘the dividing line between sanity and mental illness has been drawn in the wrong place; the sane are madder than we think, the mad saner.’
Such a view reminds us of Sigmund Freud’s assertion that society itself ls not as sane as we would like to think. He asked: ‘May we not be justified in reaching the diagnosis that, under the influence of cultural urges, some civilisations or some epochs of civilisation - possibly the whole of mankind - have become neurotic.’
Psychotherapist R D Laing had similar intuitions when he said that our collusive madness is what we call sanity.

IN CONCLUSION

Looking at modern life and its failure to cater for our religious instinct suggests that, in the modern world, the above may be true. If life is not self-fulfilling, it is natural that psychological imbalance in some form will naturally occur.
Hence, it could be argued that it is modern life itself that is responsible for throwing people into cult lifestyles. And, according to Storr, it is the gurus themselves who suffer this lacking the most.
The similarities between a cult and society thus become increasingly obvious. A cult is not some aberration, but simply a more extreme variation of normal social behaviour. An urge towards, say, Armageddon is not some paranoid influence, but simply an extension of frustrations and idiosyncracies within us all.

(c) Anthony North, January 2008

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DOOMSTERS

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One well known theme of cult activity is that of apocalypse – that the world is about to come to an end. I’ve dealt with the most well known cases in Cult Suicides, but the ‘tradition’ is far more widespread.
Sometimes the process can appear almost comical, rather than tragic, as we shall see. And we shall also attempt, here, to come to an understanding of what impulses may be behind this idea of mass destruction. Well, it isn’t exactly destruction.

NOT AN END BUT A BEGINNING

This is the essence of the End Times - not destruction per se, but renewal; the removal of problems in the world, to be replaced by Paradise. The Hebrews first devised such a concept in the 6th century BC, when they were first exiled from their Promised Land.
They developed the idea of a Messiah, or Saviour, who would come to save them. To Christians, Jesus was this person, but when his death didn’t provide Paradise, the idea of the Second Coming of Christ was born.
Many End Times predictions have been made, one of the earliest being that of 12th century Bishop of Armagh, St Malachy.
On a visit to Jerusalem he had a vision in which he saw all 112 popes from 1143 to the Second Coming. To put this in perspective, following the death of John Paul II, there are only a couple left before the end of the world.

NOSTRADAMUS AND ASTROLOGY

French ‘seer’ Nostradamus made a famous prediction - supposedly - which clearly didn’t come true. He wrote of the end of the world in the year 1999 and seven months However, Nostradamus wrote many of his predictions in astrological terms.
The use of the number ‘seven’ is deeply mystical - at the time, seven ‘planets’ formed the astrological clock. As for the year 1999, this is a final year symbolically - of an astrological cycle.
The history of the world does, infact, revolve in 2,000 year astrological cycles. Six thousand years ago we were in the cycle of Taurus, represented by the Bull. Civilisations of the time were known to venerate bull cults as their major deities.
The Bull finally came to a sticky end when the Bull-god Minotaur was destroyed in the labyrinth of ancient Knossos on Crete, signalling the rise of the cycle of Aries. The popular deity of the time was the Ram, remembered today as the goat-headed symbol of the Devil.
The Ram became the Devil as we entered the cycle of Pisces 2,000 years ago, and Christianity replaced the previous pagan deities. Pisces is represented by the fish, which is also the symbol of Jesus. With the year 2000 we entered a new cycle of Aquarius.

THIRD SECRET OF FATIMA

Another famous prediction is the Third Secret of Fatima, known only to the pope. In 1917 three children witnessed a globe of light that spoke with a woman’s voice near Fatima Portugal.
Venerated as the lady of the rosary, she supposedly gave the children secrets of the world. One of the children, Lucia, became famous and claimed to have further visions, finally writing the Third Secret in 1943.
Popes who have read it are appalled by our future. However, it is interesting that both the vision and final ‘secret’ happened at crucial times in both world wars. Prediction? Or an expression of fears for the future?

MILLERITES

Some prophets have taken action concerning Apocalypse in the past without violence or suicide. Massachusetts farmer, William Miller - born in 1782 - became convinced that the Book of Daniel predicted the Second Coming between March 1843-44.
In the 1830s he began preaching, gaining a following of thousands. As the date arrived, thousands gathered to be taken up to heaven in the rapture. When it didn’t come, he recalculated, and again thousands gathered.
Failing once more, many of them went hungry after getting rid of their belongings or ignoring their farms. Remnants of the Millerites did, however, form the later Seventh Day Adventist movement.

ELSPETH BUCHAN

A previous episode had occurred in the UK. Elspeth Buchan was a Scottish preacher in the Tayside area during the late 18th century. Teaming up with the Rev Hugh Whyte, he preached God would make himself known to Miss Buchan, and any followers would be taken up to Heaven without having to die.
Gaining a large following, on the appointed day the Buchanites cut their hair, leaving only a tuft by which to be caught up, and assembled on a hill. Miss Buchan waited amongst them, on a raised platform.
However, instead of going up to heaven, the platform collapsed. By the time of her death in 1791, she told followers that she may seem to die, but would really be going to heaven to prepare the way for them, returning in six months time. Despite her failure to attend, Buchanites continued to exist for fifty years.

CARGO CULTS

A related phenomenon broke out on a number of South Sea islands. In 1871 a Russian Count arrived on a Melanesian island in the Pacific and gave western gifts to the inhabitants to pacify them.
Soon, he was being treated as a god, and the strange phenomenon of the Cargo Cult had begun in the region. As westerners arrived on the islands, the natives took more gifts; a process increased as Christian missionaries arrived.
So besotted were they that when a US base appeared in 1940 on Tanna, locals improvised uniforms and spoke into empty tins, mimicking radio communication.
A definite morality arose in which foreigners who gave gifts were good, whilst those who didn’t were evil. However, it was all for a cause. They believed that such gifts and adoration would increase their lot.
When this failed to happen, disaffection broke out, and the islanders realised western presence was wrong. At this point, hopes of a Messiah they called Jonfrum arose, who would sweep away the invaders.
A distinct form of liberation theology, his name came from the hope of the arrival of ‘John from America’, who would give all western possessions to them and take the westerners away.

IN CONCLUSION

We can see, in the Cargo Cults, the entire process in microcosm. A culture develops of a form of ‘outside’ spirituality which guides, but also offers a form of salvation.
For a time, the hope of salvation satisfies, but eventually people begin to ask when this salvation will actually come. And when it doesn’t, questioning begins, and within this questioning the idea of a ‘Messiah’ arises who will take the people out of their present society and provide a new ‘paradise’.
It is in this process that extreme cult activity can be the result, not so much of a form of death, but of transition.

© Anthony North, December 2007

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FEMALE GURUS

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Cults continue to fascinate the western psyche, nurturing suspicions of their intentions. Whether there is a reality to these concerns is hard to tell, but most cults have proved to be peaceful and innocuous.
The vast majority of cult gurus tend to be male. But this is not exclusively so. There have been a handful of female gurus, most being totally peaceful, but even here there is an exception.

MARGARET PETER

This exception was Margaret Peter, and her activities in the German border town of Wildisbuch in 1823. Her group included most of her family, but things came to a head when Margaret was convinced the Devil lived in her loft and they needed a sacrifice.
A sister immediately hit herself with a mallet. Six members then battered her to death. The Devil still there, Margaret decided to be crucified, to be resurrected in three days.
The group crucified her and battered her to death.
Margaret didn’t come back to life, but the police did come to the house and throw them all in prison. However, other than Margaret, female cult gurus tend to be different in many respects to their male counterparts.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT

Consider the 19th century British Christian sect that grew around Joanna Southcott. A deeply religious woman, she had a vision that she would give birth to the new Messiah, whom she named Shiloh.
Dying in 1814, disciples waited for days by her dead body for the birth. When the smell became too bad, a doctor opened her up but found no child. Hence, it must have been spiritually born in heaven.
The Panacea Society was then formed, still waiting for Shiloh, and also keeping a box containing Southcott’s wisdom. This box can only be opened in the presence of twenty four Anglican bishops. So far, the bishops have declined to attend the opening of the box.

ANN LEE

Ann Lee from Manchester, England, was another female cult leader. She was a Quaker who, after all four of her children died whilst young, rejected sex. Forming the Shakers, so named for their ecstatic dancing which led to hysteria and hallucination, she became known as Mother Ann for reflecting the feminine aspects of God.
Moving to America in 1774, the Shakers grew to six thousand, but her rejection of sex led to persecution, Ann being branded a witch. Dying in 1784, she began to appear in Shaker meetings and headed a number of spiritual entities who appeared to the sect. Today, only one tiny Shaker community remains.

MADAME BLAVATSKY

Perhaps the most famous female guru was Russian eccentric and Spiritualist medium, Helena Blavatsky. Becoming famous in America, this obese lady began receiving letters from Koot Hoomi, an immortal master, or Mahatma, who existed in Tibet with others.
In 1875 she formed the Theosophical Society with Col HS Olcott, espousing her spiritual philosophy that all religions were versions of the one truth. This truth was that we existed on many ‘planes’, reincarnation was a reality, and the cosmos underwent spiritual development.
In 1877 the society moved to Adyar, Madras, in India, and became fundamental to allowing eastern philosophies into the west. Derided by many, leadership passed to Annie Besant who declared the guru Krishnamurti as the coming World Teacher.
Krishnamurti later rejected this, which was a huge blow for the society. Fellow Theosophist Rudolf Steiner broke away, forming the Anthroposophical Society, which did pioneering work in the spiritual education of children, still practiced today as the Waldorf Schools Movement.

GENDER DIFFERENCES

With the exception of Margaret Peter, who we can reliably argue was not as sane as she might have been, we can see several different aspects to these female gurus above the male equivalent.
A male led cult tends to be a society based around the reverence of the guru himself. As well a certain level of violence, it can also include abuse of the sexual or psychological kind. However, this does not seem to happen with female gurus.
The obvious answer to this is that the female guru is not egotistical to the same extent as a man would be in this position. So many male led cults can be seen as a product of ego rather than a definite spiritual system.

A SPIRITUAL SYSTEM

With the female guru, spirituality seems to be the central key. And lack of ego can also be identified in the fact that, with Southcott, Lee and Blavatsky, they were not so much the centre of the spiritual system that manifested.
Rather, there was a wider purpose above the guru herself, Blavatsky even managing to birth a process that fundamentally changed the nature of spirituality in the west with the Theosophical Society.
Essential to female led cults seems, therefore, to be a definite spirituality other than the ego of the guru. And in understanding this, we can argue that there are far more female gurus than we at first believe.
But these gurus are so different that we do not see them as gurus in the classic cult sense. Such gurus are the multitude of Channelers around today, imparting wisdom to their groups through possessed entities – a process that can clearly be seen as beginning with Blavatsky.
An obvious advancement on the Spiritualist medium, Channeling can also, here, be seen to be an advancement on the cult, too. Does such an influence suggest a new stage in cult development, the notorious cults of the past becoming just that – of the past?

© Anthony North, November 2007

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CULT SUICIDES

Occasionally the most tragic of events can hit the headlines. When it happens, we all wonder why. But all too often a cult can explode into violence upon itself, the result being mass suicide.
Why does it happen? What social forces are involved in this will towards self-destruction? This essay is an attempt to understand. And we need to begin with a few examples.

ORDER OF THE SOLAR TEMPLE

For instance, on 22 December 1995, sixteen corpses were discovered on a plateau in the French Alps in the shape of a star. This was the second mass suicide of the Order of the Solar Temple, a cult formed by fraudster Joseph di Mambro and homeopath Luc Jouret. The first had been fourteen months earlier, involving infernos in two Swiss chalet complexes, proceeded by the suspicious deaths, by fire, of five members including a young mother and child in Canada.
The Solar Temple was based on a mix of Knights Templar mythology and new age mysticism, with a distinct apocalyptic nature that would lead to a new spiritual existence. But what brought their apocalypse so soon?
It is interesting that Di Mambro had a daughter called Emanuelle, known as a Cosmic Child. However, the child that died in Canada was a boy called Emmanuel. Di Mambro was known to be affronted by this boy being named after the Cosmic Child, branding him the antichrist. Whether out of revenge, or the naming being a signal for Armageddon, the suicides seem to be mixed up with the boy.

HEAVEN’S GATE

Such are the mad reasons for mass suicide. The Higher Source computer cult, better known as Heaven’s Gate, killed themselves over three nights in March 1997 in their ranch near San Diego. Made up of short-haired, zombie-like computer wizards, they went out for a final meal and then helped each other to take vodka and drugs aided by strangulation.
They were led by elderly, white haired Marshall Appplewhite and his wife, known together as Bo and Peep. He had met her in 1975 after she nursed him through mental illness, and they had set up many cults previously.
However, they did not see themselves as dying over those nights. Rather, they were simply shedding their bodies to go to a flying saucer that was hidden in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet, thus surviving the coming end of civilisation.

GREAT WHITE BROTHERHOOD

Another suicide cult of the time was the Great White Brotherhood, a term often used in the Occult, and originally thought to be an ancient, ethereal group of spiritual masters.
However, a Ukranian physicist called Yuri Krivonogov utilised the name when he began a cult in which he and his wife were the incarnations of Christ and the Virgin Mary.
The cult grew and spread into Russia as it was declared that the world would end by mass suicide on 24 November 1993. As the date approached, Yuri went into hiding as some five hundred disciples were taken to prison or hospital after showing signs of
brainwashing.
To prevent the remaining thousands committing mass suicide, Yuri and his wife were found and put in a cell, and some twenty thousand police patrolled the streets of Kiev, where the cult had its centre. They successfully stalled what could have been the largest mass suicide in cult history.

PEOPLE’S TEMPLE

Without doubt the most famous mass suicide was that of the People’s Temple in November 1978 at Jonestown, Guyana. Headed by the Rev Jim Jones, US Congressman Leo Ryan had gone there with journalists to investigate claims that the thousand strong congregation was being held in slavery.
On the fateful morning, whilst travelling to a local airstrip with a handful of members who had decided to leave, Jones’s henchmen gunned them down. Many died, including Ryan. Meanwhile, back at Jamestown, vats of poison were brought out and they killed themselves. Those who refused were gunned down.

JIM JONES

Jones was born in a small farming community in Indiana in 1931. A poor but deep thinking boy, he turned to the Bible at an early age, preaching to passers-by by the age of twelve.
Appalled to discover his father was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, he suffered much abuse by standing up for racial minorities. Gaining a small following, the People’s Temple began with good intentions in a ghetto in Indianapolis.
Determined to set up a socialist community based on the Bible, Jones’s growing power began to corrupt. Moving to California, and eventually Guyana, he became a fake healer and abuser. By the time Jonestown was set up in 1977, he had become a dictator.

THE RIGHT MAN

The Science fiction writer A E Van Vogt would have understood the impulses that drove Jim Jones and other cult gurus. Popularised by the writings of Colin Wilson, Van Vogt had a rather excellent, though unorthodox psychological theory known as the ‘Right Man’.
Having a fascination with authoritarian figures who used savagery to achieve their aims - particularly those involved in death camps and their like - he observed that a similar mentality existed in society as a whole. There are men, he argued, who are driven by a manic need for self-esteem.
Such people have an obsession with being ‘right’ to such an extent that they will never accept that they could ever be wrong, and would use violence to guarantee their rightness, often becoming high dominance individuals.
Such a person becomes the central figure in his life. He is the selfish, narcissistic person, full of love for himself. He cannot grasp any form of real meaning in the world other than his own meaning. However, Van Vogt noted that the Right Man had to be fuelled by a cause. He particularly noted this among some married couples.
Most people will know such a couple. The wife tends to be obedient and forever put down by the husband. He, on the other hand, will often be a violent philanderer, often beating his wife if she steps out of line or questions what he is getting up to.
In such a husband, the wife has become the focus of his self-esteem. The more he puts her down, the greater he feels, and the more powerful he thinks he becomes, the process often leading to the high murder rate of wives.

TOWARDS THE END TIMES

This relationship is directly analogous to the guru-disciple relationship. And in identifying it, we can begin to understand how it is so easy for such cults to end in mass suicide.
For the self-esteem of the Right Man husband is a delusion. Should the wife leave him, his focus of self-esteem deserts him, leaving him aware of what he really is - a vulnerable, insecure person. And this can destroy him.
Such a person heads towards psychosis, becoming an alcoholic, a depressive, or, quite often, suicidal. And this point is the key to the cult that self-destructs.
Joseph di Mambro had no reason to doubt his self-esteem until a cult member had the audacity to name her son Emmanuel. For in doing so she challenged his supernatural status and his insecurities flowed.
Jim Jones never doubted his self-esteem, until Ryan appeared and twenty of his followers were prepared to defect, showing his fallibility. And when the guru collapses, so do the followers.
Just as Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son to God, the followers were prepared to kill themselves too. Especially as for years they had been told that death was not the end, but a transition to a greater existence, as found in the tail of the comet Hale-Bopp.

© Anthony North, October 2007

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VIOLENT CULTS

Cults come in all shapes and sizes. They can be of any form of spirituality, from Christianity to the Occult, to Flying Saucer cults. They can appear strange and insular, while many do a great deal of charity work.
Then we have the more sinister form of cult. Some of these make the headlines through mass suicide, but perhaps the most dangerous is the cult that ends up using extreme violence or intimidation.

RAJNEESH FOUNDATION

Typical was the Rajneesh Foundation of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Born in India in 1931, he experienced a spiritual death and rebirth in 1953, going on to found his cult in Poona, near Bombay, in 1974.
A mixture of humanistic psychology, meditation and sex, in 1981 he bought a 64,000 acre ranch in Oregon, living a life-style which included 93 Rolls Royces, surrounded by his four thosand followers. However, he was soon outgrowing his ranch and decided to take over the near by town of Antelope, wanting to call it Rajneeshpuran.
This involved various conspiracies with his lieutenant Ma Anand Sheela, including an attempt to assassinate a prosecutor (two British women were eventually jailed for this).
Money was also ploughed in to buy up the businesses, even opening an airport to bring in his regular seven thousand festival visitors.
However, his cult collapsed in 1985 amid faction fights and he left America following immigration and fraud trials. Believing that you could only be spiritual if you were rich, Rajneesh died in 1990, his ideas continuing with Osho, an organisation that runs hundreds of small centres through the world.

AUM SHINRIKYO

Undoubtedly the most violent modern cult was Aum Shinrikyo, or ‘supreme truth’, the ten thousand strong cult headquartered on the slopes of Mount Fuji, Japan, and headed by Shoko Asahara.
Determined to bring about Armageddon so that he could rule everyone, Aum Shinrikyo became a mixture of Buddhism, occultism and fascism.
Fat, bearded and partially sighted, Asahara was born poor and was a bully, building up a huge stockpile of weapons and chemicals for his war. His cult was rounded up by armed police following a series of major crimes, the most infamous being his Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo underground on 20 March 1995, killing twelve and injuring thousands.
The Japanese authorities later discovered that his cult was based on his committing sexual and physical atrocities on his own members.

CHARLES MANSON

Sometimes such cult activity is seen as straight forward crime, such as the Manson Family killings. Charles Manson had had a lifetime of abuse, crime and imprisonment. In the height of the 1960s he moved to California, becoming guru to a number of drug abusing hippies in a ranch in Death Valley.
Believing himself to be Christ, he was convinced the Beatles song, Helter Skelter, was a coded reference to armageddon. One night in August 1969 he sent his followers out to brutally murder actress Sharon Tate, wife of Roman Polanski, and four others at their home.
The following night they murdered Leno La Bianca and his wife. The Family was eventually arrested when follower, Susan Atkins, confessed to the crimes in prison. Manson remains in prison, unrepentant.

NEGATIVITY

What causes such violence to arise in cults? Upbringing can be seen to have a great impression on behaviour of guru and disciple, and, as such, the incidence of aggression. One large school of thought believes that being the recipient of violence in childhood predisposes the adult towards violence.
This is feasible but fails to acknowledge an important element which usually goes alongside violence towards children - namely, a lack of affection. Basically, if a child does not receive affection, he will be unable to understand or recognise affection in others, resulting in an attitude to life based upon purely negative stimuli.
This idea can be seen in most gurus, who often come from broken homes, often devise theologies based on the negative impulse of Armageddon, and do not recognise friends, only acquaintances.
This anti-social tendency was noted in the mid-1950s by Dan MacDougald, an American penologist, who researched the behaviour of prison inmates.
MacDougald became interested in the fact that we screen out thousands of impulses from our consciousness, being interested only in stimuli we subjectively decide is important. He argued that the criminal cut himself off from all positive stimuli and lives his life through a series of negative responses.
The understanding of such notions as ‘love’, ‘hope’ or ‘responsibility’ was unknown to the hardened criminal. By giving inmates attention, MacDougald showed that an understanding of more positive feelings could be successfully encouraged.
The argument here is that a person who does not receive affection will learn only how to hate.

PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTANCING

Concentrating on negative impulses due to lack of affection can cause further personality traits to rise due to the effect of culture upon the individual. Seeking out only the negative values in life can lead to an unwarranted hatred of particular types, such as homosexuals or ethnic minorities.
People always realise the differences in such groups, but a stable upbringing allows positive stimuli to deter negative feelings towards them. Not so the person brought up without affection.
He is all too ready to hate, and all too ready to become aggressive towards them.
Such impulses are endemic in society and the phenomenon is known as aggression due to ‘distance’, the term used here to signify a lack of understanding.
Culture naturally imposes negative stereotypes upon ‘differentness’. The impulse is usually thought to be due to lack of understanding, but it is most likely lack of affection which pushes the individual away from acceptance and co-existence, to aggression towards those who are different.

INSULARITY

And so too with cults. Here, insularity from the prevalent culture causes distanced to rise, hence furthering the aggressive responses of a guru to the population at large. As for the follower, the abuse meted out by the guru takes away affection.
But as the guru is their god, their natural aggressive impulses back up that of the guru, being focused, also, against the outside population, resulting in gassing of the Tokyo underground system, or other atrocities. Such forces have become non-understandable and unimportant, so aggression towards them is natural.

SOCIAL HIERARCHY

Social hierarchy can also be seen to play its part in the control or use of cult aggression. Most animal societies are regulated by hierarchy and human society would devolve into chaos without rules and leaders.
In particular, rules tend to lead to co-operative impulses. However, subordination to the rules and standards of a particular society can lead to a suppression of personal identity. Certain actions which an individual feels acceptable may be deemed unacceptable by the majority. Hence, an individual looses an element of himself, and this lacking can lead to alienation and eventual aggression.

STANLEY MILGRAM

The authority instilled by a hierarchy can alternatively be used to channel aggression through obedience - an obvious cult trait. The researcher Stanley Milgram showed this in an infamous experiment in the 1960s.
An actor was strapped to a chair with fake electrodes attached to him. Subjects were told to ask him questions and if the response was wrong, they were to inflict an electric shock, rising in severity to the point that unconsciousness occurred.
The subjects were unaware that the shocks were nothing more than the actor screaming out in pain and eventually feigning unconsciousness. Yet only a minority refused to participate, and many were prepared to go on to induce severe pain and unconsciousness.

NEGATING MORALITY

Experiments such as this give insight into how a major element of a race could go on to construct death camps, and show genocide can so easily be instilled.
One interesting factor gleaned by Milgram’s experiment concerned how the subjects side-stepped personal morality. They frequently asked if they were responsible for the pain being inflicted. Told that they were not, they were able to proceed.
Responsibility had been passed to higher authority, such as a guru. Hence, a Nazi death camp guard can claim he was simply obeying orders.
When an aggressive action is demanded by a leader, a human being can be compelled to obey. And the same principle can be seen in action when a criminal absolves himself from blame, claiming that it was society that made him do it.
In his own mind, the stimuli was born from actions against HIM, rather than his actions against others; a point that can be seen in the life of Charles Manson, often referred to as a serial killer, but in actual fact, an archetypal cult guru.

© Anthony North, October 2007

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CULTS AND CONSPIRACY

When we talk of cults we talk of strange, secretive organizations that seem to live separate from society. However, perhaps the reality is that such cults are more an element of society than we think.
Yes, they are secretive, and perhaps strange, but the history of cultish behaviour offers the possibility that they are an actual reflection of what it is happening in mainstream society. The Freemasons and Rosicrucians show this process in action.

FREEMASONS

We have all heard of Freemasons, but what are they? Thought to be born out of the mystical building techniques of King Solomon, ritual is based on the murder of the Biblical architect, Hiram, by three of his workmen because he refused to reveal the Secret Word of God.
Thus enshrining silence in the Masonic code, the organisation was more likely an advancement of the craft Guilds that arose in the Middle Ages to protect building skills, particularly in the Gothic cathedrals.
Masonic lodges, complete with secret handshakes, arose in the 18th century, the Grand Lodge of England forming in 1717. Said to comprise 33 degrees of membership, three of the degrees are open, the remaining thirty descending Freemasonry into supposed darker regions.
The early major politicians of America were Masons, including George Washington, and the dollar bill includes their sign of a pyramid with the All Seeing Eye above it. This is symbolic of the Great Architect of the Universe.
Whether Freemasonry is a cult or simply an excuse for bored middleclass men to have pretend secrets will be forever debated.

THE CULTISH SHADOW

Freemasonry is one of the more interesting cults, in that it is seen as alternative, yet made up of what can best be described as the Establishment. Rumours constantly arise that the cult contains a network of fraternity, where Masons rise up the promotional ladder quicker than non-Masons.
Whether true or not is irrelevant to the fact that, in Freemasonry, we see an alternative reflection of the rise of the middleclass as prominent in society. A society - ANY society - seems to need a cultish reflection of itself.

ROSICRUCIANS

We can see this on-going reflection in the Rosicrucians, a secret occult order supposedly founded in the Middle Ages to turn back the tide of existing knowledge, as imposed on us by the likes of Aristotle.
The cult was, in other words, anti-science and, in particular, anti-Catholic, in that Catholicism had attempted to increase its hold on knowledge by amalgamating much of Aristotle’s theories into mainstream Christianity.
Named after its emblem, which combines a rose and a cross, its founder was said to be one Christian Rosenkreuz, supposedly born in 1378. Almost certainly an allegorical figure, he and his order caused quite a stir in Europe with the publication of three anonymous pamphlets in the early 17th century.
These were the ‘Fama Fraternitatis’ (Account of the Brotherhood, 1614), ‘Confessio Fraternitatis’ (Confession of the Brotherhood, 1615), and ‘The Third Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz’, 1616. In essence, the pamphlets are esoteric and alchemical, dealing with initiation into a new spirituality by embracing quasi-Christian and eastern elements.

PHILOSOPHICAL SHADOW

However, they are also revolutionary as they clearly promote Protestantism, a new ethics, and attempt social engineering to the point of a new politics to establish an ideal commonwealth throughout Europe.
This led to the establishment of a Rosicrucian order in Philadelphia in the mid-l7th century, with the migration to America of fundamentalist Protestants.
Throughout the 18th century further tracts appeared. Several groups claimed Rosicrucian roots from Germany to Russia. Creating much interest in occultism, the mixture of secret societies and political change also led to much paranoia, the Rosicrucians being at the heart of many conspiracy theories of the time.
Christian Rosenkreuz himself gained a biography. At age five he went to a convent to study the humanities, and at sixteen he continued his education in Arabia. Learning
Magic, he went to Spain, where he was greeted by the Moors, and eventually back to Germany.
Beginning the Rosicrucian Fraternity, they built a secret Spiritus Sanctum in 1409, his followers going on secret missions following his death in 1409 at the age of 106.

HOAX AND THINGS

The reality of the Rosicrucians was, however, that it was initially a huge hoax, the writer of the initial pamphlets said to be Lutheran pastor Johan Valentin Andreae, who died in 1654.
But a myth, once established, continues to breed; particularly when there is a need in society for a cultish, if chilling, reflection. In 1604, the ‘brothers’ were said to find their founder’s tomb, surrounded by magical symbols, and his body perfectly preserved.
In 1909 Harvey Spencer Lewis founded the Ancient mystical Order Rosae Crucis, or AMORC, in San Jose, California. Claiming to have been initiated in France, Lewis began an international fraternity based on a system of lodges aimed at increasing human potential, esoteric knowledge and psychic powers.
The brother can rise through twelve ‘degrees’, the last three involving the psychical, raising consciousness. Lewis also devised a new history for the order, founded in Egypt in the 2nd Millennium BC and practiced secretly by the pharaohs. The fraternity survived in the Middle East through Solomon, and the Master Jesus was the last in the initial phase of the Rosicrucians.

IN CONCLUSION

In the Rosicrucians we can see a cultish reflection, born from a hoax, but nonetheless taking into itself the fears and hopes of a society on the change. Initially, it was fuelled by the rise of Protestantism, became the vehicle through which conspiracy theory thrived, and in its later incarnations, reflected the mysticism of the new spirituality of the 20th century which birthed New Age.
Society always needs an inner, cultish reflection of itself, and through it we can understand society better than any sociologist could do.

© Anthony North, September 2007

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SCIENCE AND NEUROSIS

The public believe that science is absolutely true in the ideas it offers. Scientists know this to be untrue – science can only give a probability of correctness – but in the main they are happy to allow this public misconception to remain. But are scientists now beginning to believe their own publicity?
Science has been in a constant battle with ideas that cannot be proved. Such ideas usually surround the paranormal and spirituality, best expressed in the modern world with New Age and alternative ideas. Indeed, they are becoming so influential nowadays scientists descend to mockery and other ‘debating’ forms to ridicule such stances.

MEDIA INFLUENCE

A side effect of this assault is that scientists adopt a far more fundamental stance to their own ideas than is permissible. And fuelled by beliefs in their own publicity, the scientific picture is distorted.
This process is helped by a media that swallows practically every report, survey and finding they make. In medical matters, for instance, hardly a day goes by without new advice from a scientific survey that does not deserve the media coverage it gets.
The result is the idea, among many scientists, that their work is above the norm. In terms of sociology, scientists are taking over the role once reserved for gods in Classical times, with ‘cults’ making decrees and defining the morality and action of a society.

A MATERIAL WORLD

The end product of this process is a society that is becoming increasingly more material in its lifestyles, spirituality seen as either crack pot or an alternative lifestyle used simply to ease the stresses of material living.
The idea of devotion to a deity is replaced by a self-centredness in all things spiritual, spirituality being a form of self-satisfaction.
As well as having an adverse effect on society, this mentality is dangerous for science itself. There has always been an idea that scientists tend to be eccentric and single-minded. This is an inevitability of working in the abstract. And intriguingly, the mentality has echoes in cultism proper.

ARE SCIENTISTS GURUS?

The defining psychology of a cult guru is an eccentric single-mindedness leading to an absolute belief in his rightness. Many psychologists have realized this link between the spiritual and scientific mind for some time. Living in a world of concepts will inevitability make the person blinkered to normal life, and eventually totally convinced of his rightness.
The divide between the guru and scientist has traditionally come from a peer group within science constantly questioning the scientist and his findings. Such questioning does not occur in cults, with the guru becoming so convinced of his ‘truth’ that a form of neurosis can occur if he is challenged. But with science now believing its own publicity, can we really be sure the sceptical peer group still does its job?
If we can doubt this, then there is little difference between the guru and scientist. And the mockery and ridicule they now vent upon any form of spirituality hints that the processes of neurosis are beginning to infect the scientific world.

© Anthony North, July 2007

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TONY ON TECH, CULT, HUSTLE …

THOUGHTS FROM A COMMON MAN
News and comment LATEST: Is tech taking away our freedoms? Should Scientology get real? Plus, Germany attacks Britain (verbally I mean), Europe may be going for a song, and much more …
READ THE ULTIMATE MAGAZINE POST … from a real voice of Britain and the world.

CULT OR RELIGION?

Scientology’s scramble to try to get the so obviously biased Panorama programme scrapped did them no good at all. They want to be taken seriously as a world religion rather than a cult, so they ought to get the confidence to be a world religion.
To many, Scientology is a ‘nutty’ cult. In a predominantly material, atheist world, this will not change. Yet if you look beyond the ‘culture’ of the religion, what you find is a modern interpretation of Buddhist principles mixed with psychotherapy.
At its inception, Scientology WAS a cult, but so was Christianity. The acid test is this: is Scientology dangerous or intolerant? I would suspect the former is no longer the case, but it must still work on our perception of the latter.
Religions will always face ridicule in today’s world. Get over it, and people may slowly begin to accept you as a valid world religion.

GERMAN ASSAULT

The German magazine, Spiegel, has painted a depressing picture of the average Brit. Gone, they say, are our traditional virtues of understatement, charm and stoicism, replaced by greedy, beer-swilling couch potatoes …
… read more …

THE SKY HAS EYES

There used to be an old term that ‘walls have ears.’ It suggested that you didn’t say too much because you may be overheard. We used to laugh at such things, but spying on us has now become refined …
… read more …

CRAZY TECH

There is currently a scare in Pakistan and Afghanistan that using a mobile phone will give you a virus, resulting in bleeding from facial orifices, and eventual death. The scare is thought to have been started by the Taliban.
More strange news came out of India this week, where passengers had to get out and push a train after an emergency cord stopped the train in a ‘neutral zone’ in the power line. The 12 foot push took half an hour.
More strange train news came out of Carmarthenshire, where a 20 year old female driver had to jump clear of her car one night after sat nav had directed her through a gate and onto a railway track … just as a train was coming. The car ended up half a mile down the track.
It just goes to show that trains move cars quicker than men move trains. But maybe we should start a rumour. Too much reliance on sat nav can cause blood to flow from orifices and everywhere else.

HAVE A DOODLE

A Poor Excuse – a philosophical tale of crime – Find more fiction on Fiction Page. See Blogroll.

HUSTLE

I wish I didn’t like Hustle. Last night’s episode (BBC1 UK – 10 May) featured the team of Grifters on a horse racing con. The usual nasty, greedy mark was identified – they always seem to go for the nasty guys, as if modern day Robin Hoods …
… read more …

EURO VISION

The recent Eurovision Song contest has been on my mind – not because of the songs, but the politics. My own UK entry, for instance, just survived last place. This is clearly ‘cos we’re not forgiven for Iraq, etc …
… read more …

A LITTLE EXTRA

‘Heaven sends us good meat, but the Devil sends cooks.’ (Garrick, 1777). Quite true. Have you noticed that convenience meals rose as TV chefs became popular? We obviously needed the time to watch them.
Find more Little Extras on North’s Encyclopedia. See Blogroll

© Anthony North, May 2007

Inde-Pol
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CULTS - PERSUASION

A term often used when describing cult activity is ‘brain-washing’. I’m not quite sure what this means. Maybe it’s nonsense. Certainly things happen with the mind of the disciple, but ‘brain-washing’ seems a pointless term.
To understand what really goes on between guru and disciple, we need to get to grips with the natural ability of the mind to be persuaded. And it is this that the cult guru is an expert at.

TRANSFERENCE

The first thing a guru needs to do when he has a new disciple under his influence is to become his counselor. The disciple feels he needs this, as he wouldn’t be there if he didn’t have searching questions or frustrations.
An old psycho-analyst’s trick then comes into play. The guru appears to be a blank receptor for any ‘issues’ the disciple wants to get off his chest. In no time at all the disciple is telling the guru everything, the latter becoming a conduit and soaking up these issues until the guru and disciple appear as one mind.
The disciple is now hooked, the guru becoming a sympathetic mirror of himself. And it is here that this psychological interplay becomes a two-way street. For now the guru can pass his ‘issues’ into the mind of the disciple, confirming his beliefs.

PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTANCING

This ‘trick’ is thought to be behind the phenomenon of False Memory, implanting thoughts and ideas the person thinks are real. And a vital factor in the interplay is to now convince the disciple that the guru has the only system worth following.
This is achieved by blaming the society ‘outside’ for all the disciple’s problems. These problems are usually down to the disciple himself, but by laying the ‘blame’ on society, the guru can confirm that he, and only he, is his saviour.
Known as ‘psychological distancing’, once complete, the disciple is more than happy to accept that only the guru is worth following, and in following him, he is protected from outside influences, which caused his problems in the first place.

© Anthony North, May 2007

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