Sinead Gill
The Post
October 19, 2024
The word ‘cult’ needs to be less sensationalised, better understood, and spark more action, the attendees of Australasia’s first cult awareness conference heard yesterday.
Over 200 people - with 270 watching online - gathered in Christchurch for the Decult conference on Saturday, including cult survivors and experts who wanted to share their experiences and ideas, in hopes of finding solutions.
Keynote speaker Janja Lalich, an internationally renowned cult expert - who herself was a cult member in the United States in the 70s - said not every cult turned deadly, but some had, and it was worth understanding how and why people ended up in them.
Janja Lalich said cults weren’t as ‘mysterious’ as they seemed in documentaries.
Cults weren’t as “mysterious” as they seemed in documentaries, she said, nor were they only religious. She said while they were also described as high control or highly coercive groups, she thought that was just shying away from the word ‘cult’, and that word should be as well known as the word ‘gang’.
Joyce Alberts, a clinical psychologist from North Canterbury, said the speakers validated the experiences of her clients who had been involved in a cult, and reinforced her belief that more government funding was needed.
That funding needed to go towards clinicians and peer support groups who felt safe to leavers, she said. She said many cult leavers she worked with would qualify for ACC funding, but their mistrust of the government was so high they refused it.
“Their development has been so hindered by living in this [cult] community ... it’s not just about Gloriavale or Centrepoint, whatever it is, when people are restricted from growing their critical thinking skills and are not fact checking ... leaving is so difficult,” she said.
Other speakers and attendees who spoke to the Sunday Star-Times also referred to ‘cult hopping’, where some people who leave a high control group end up joining another in order to meet their social, spiritual or other needs.
Over 200 people gathered in Christchurch, including cult survivors and experts who want share their experiences and ideas, in hopes of finding solutions.
Rhys Walker, who travelled to the conference from Manawatū, said it was important for everyone to become more aware of what a cult was, and what purpose it served, in order to become “safe people” that followers could turn to when they want to leave.
Walker was in a high control fundamentalist group as a teenager and young adult, and underwent gay conversion therapy. After he left, he cult hopped multiple times.
The group - which Walker doesn’t want to name - had the characteristics of a cult. Walker saw an extreme side of it, but John Jones, a fellow ex-member and conference attendee, had a different experience.
He knew the group was controlling, but despite being Walker’s room mate, he never witnessed the conversion therapy or saw obvious danger.
It made it hard to see the group as a cult, because it didn’t “feel” like one at the time, he said.
Sarah Ozanne grew up in a cult in Waikato, but said childhood friends she reconnected with wouldn’t describe it as such.
“Every cult has a niche ... it attracts a need in people. In mine, it was that we’re all home schoolers,” she said.
By the time her family left the group, the leader was talking about boys from out of town or overseas Ozanne might like to meet and marry.
“For me, not a day goes by that I don’t challenge my values. If they come from me or someone else,” she said.
The conference continues today.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360457213/hundreds-turn-out-better-understand-cult-behaviour
