Family Dynamics During a Cult Crisis

ICSA Today, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2011, 2-5
Douglas Agustin

There is a great deal of information and material about the problems that affect individuals who are recruited or indoctrinated into, or who exit cultic or other undue-influence groups. There is considerably less information available regarding the difficulties and reactions of, and options for families in relation to the problems created by a loved one’s involvement in such groups. This paper attempts to give affected families and professionals to whom they may turn for help insight into the problems and, hopefully, assistance in dealing with those challenges.

Stage One: Introduction

Initial family reactions to a loved one’s involvement in cultic or other undue-influence groups are usually mild. If no information about the group is readily available for the family, rationalization is often their first response:

“It is good that he has found something to believe in.”

“It’s just different from what I am used to, and better than having nothing to believe in.”

Often, some denial is mixed in:

“It’s a campus organization, so there cannot be anything wrong with it.”

“(The loved one) would never get caught in anything controlling or abusive.”

“His company would not get him involved in anything unethical.”

If the loved one is living out of the area, or schedules keep the family from having regular interaction, this stage may last for some time. Indeed, rather than the family, a friend who is in regular contact with the individual may be the first to recognize that something is wrong, and the friend may contact the family.

Stage Two: Awareness

The loved one begins to exhibit different behavior (from past behavior) and talks about views that are entirely new and usually in conflict with views she formerly held.

New terms and phrases show up.

Alarms begin going off within the family:

“There is something wrong, (The loved one) always enjoyed a good steak—this sudden change to being a vegan is weird.”

“(The loved one) is telling us we are not Christians because we don’t go to that church. …doesn’t make any sense.”

“(The loved one) is cutting off old friends, just because they don’t belong to the group.”

The loved one has no time for family and old activities. It appears all of her time is being monopolized by the group. She has possibly broken off personal relationships because her partner will not join the group.

The loved one is using new jargon—insider dialect that means little to those on the outside. Some words seem to have new meanings.

Family and friends note that it almost seems there is someone else inside their loved one because of her new and different way of talking and looking at the world.

Panic or a high level of anxiety begins to grow within the family and close friends. Often the term cult comes up, which is not helpful because almost no one has an understanding of what it means and knows even less about what to do about it.

Should the family react in a typical fashion, and tell the loved one she is being stupid and used, and that the group is a cult and abusive, the victim may sever contact with family for reasons dictated by the group. This can plunge parents/spouses into despair and feelings of helplessness.

In some instances, there can be relationship implosion. Parents may begin blaming themselves or each other for the loved one’s involvement in the group, and this process sometimes has led to divorce.

Sibling children may begin to feel neglected as all of the parents’ attention becomes focused on the person with the cult problem. The siblings may develop bitterness toward the victim. In most families, however, this difficulty tends to pull families closer together, as they set aside differences and work toward helping the affected member, with the goal of helping her out of the group and back to a regular lifestyle.

Stage Three: Education

The search for information begins. Some families go to their clergy for help; and while they get some empathy and support, they seldom find much assistance in the form of good information. Some clergy may say, “It is a mental health problem.”

Some families go to mental health practitioners and, except for a relative handful of cult specialists, find little help there either. If the cult is religious in nature, the professional may say, “It is a religious problem.”

We are fortunate at this time to have the Internet as a research tool. If the group/leader is known, there may be a wealth of information available, both pro and con. However, if the group is new or obscure, the family may be left with little information to work with. Given some luck, they may find sites, such as www.icsahome.com, that have good information about how the process of undue influence is implemented, what the effect is on the victims, and how a family might deal with it. This way, the education of the family can be brought to a level from which they can make informed, positive choices about how to deal with this problem and get their loved one out of the group and back to a regular lifestyle. The better educated the family is, the more stabilized the situation will be.

Just understanding what they are dealing with is empowering and gives most families hope to replace their confusion and despair. They may contact a consultant, who is likely to be a former cult member, or a knowledgeable professional or family member. These individuals can be invaluable in providing deeper insight into how the process of undue influence works and how it has affected the group member and his family.

Stage Four: Strategy

Most parents just want their loved one out and away from the group. They want him to return to pursuing life on his own terms. When the family’s education gives them the insight needed to make informed decisions, they often hold a family meeting to discuss what they have learned and to then try to figure out what to do.

A knowledgeable consultant can assist the family in evaluating various options and identifying what strengths/weaknesses they have in relation to those options.

Families attempt to develop action plans. Some plans are passive, an approach that requires patience and trust that the victim will eventually leave the group and return to a normal life. It is very helpful if the families can find ways to improve or reestablish communication with their loved one. This not only helps them manage stress but also sends the message they still care about the individual even though they may disagree with him.

Some plans are more interactive; for example, the family tries to create a dialogue with their loved one to share what they have learned about the group and similar groups.

Then there are assertive plans, in which the family attempts to gain an agreement with their loved one that he will listen to information about undue influence and how it is used by other groups and by his group. This approach is known as exit counseling and requires hiring exit counselors, who are usually former members.

Stage 5: Action

Families may take one of four different action approaches:
They may take a passive role, preferring to wait (and hope) that their loved one will decide to leave the group and the family will be there, waiting to help him return to normal life. This approach may take an ever-increasing toll on their emotions over time. There is little closure, and if they have been cut off from the loved one, the experience is similar to the loved one’s having passed away; but there is no funeral and the situation does not end. Increasing communication, educating themselves about the group and its differences (from their beliefs), finding points of agreement, and attempting to find a level of tolerance are very helpful steps toward reestablishing the strained relationship.

Some will take a semi-active role, both questioning and providing information to their loved one whenever they are in contact, but making sure their approach is a passive one so as not to drive him away. This level of action can be productive, but it requires the family to exercise considerable self-control and to constantly be aware of the tone of communication so they can back off or down before a situation can escalate and cause a disconnect or cause their loved one to retreat from interaction.

Some will try to get their loved one to look at a video or read written materials with the hope he will absorb the data and leave. Unless there is good evidence showing that the loved one is in an accepting frame of mind, this method is often explosively counterproductive. The loved one is likely to share the information with the leader/group, who will neutralize, devalue, or demonize it; and then, because the family was the source, they share the same fate as the information.

Some will engage an exit counselor (usually a former member of a group) to talk with their loved one after they have gained a verbal contract with him to stay and hear the data. Part of the agreement is that the loved one can do what he will with the information. If the family and friends have become well educated about what they are dealing with, and they have located a knowledgeable exit counselor, they may succeed in helping the loved one choose to exit the group and its environment. Key to preparing for this event is the family re-establishing communication and gaining trust with the loved one.
Stage 6: Family Reconciliation or Ongoing Vigil

If the family is successful in bringing their loved one out of the group, there is a great deal of initial joy and celebrating. As that phase passes and normality returns, if everyone has solid information and understanding of the reintegration/rehabilitation/healing process, the family can be a major key to the loved one’s eventual return to normalcy.

Over time, if the family is not successful, they may give up. Or, they may disown the loved one. Or, they may fall into perpetual despair. Or, they may work out a compromise that enables them to maintain a relationship, even if it is not all that they might want.

Some families will continue to hold vigil without overt action, waiting and hoping the loved one will leave the group for any reason. Time and the hypocrisy of the group’s actions and words often cause the member to become disaffected and to walk away. Or she may become dysfunctional and therefore nonproductive to the group and be kicked out.

If the disconnection from family has not been overly hostile and hurtful, the loved one will most likely return, in most instances looking for answers about what happened to her. She may search for a similar organization, without understanding she is doing it. She is looking for a feeling similar to that which her former group could generate.

All former members need information about undue influence and how various groups—including their group—use it.

Successful families learn and understand that it is counterproductive to push the loved one toward any particular path, such as what church she should now attend, or what job or school should be in her future. Being supportive but not directive works and is the opposite of how the group operated.

Understanding the typical process after the loved one leaves the group helps family members to be supportive: for example, that it often takes up to 2 years or longer for the individual to feel she has returned to being herself; and that former members often exhibit post-traumatic stress symptoms—panic attacks, indecisiveness, inability to concentrate, nightmares, insomnia, voices, and relationship difficulties during the healing time. It is helpful to keep in mind that there are no clear “winners,” that returning from a cult or cult-like situation is a process, and that families also may need to do some changing in order to allow the survivor space to heal.

http://www.icsahome.com/articles/family-dynamics-during-a-cult-crisis-agustin-it-4-3

For Families Who Suspect That a Loved One May Be Involved With a High-Demand Group (Cult)

Steve K. D. Eichel, Ph.D.
ICSA Today
Vol. 6, No. 3, 2015, 11-12

How can I tell if my loved one is in a high-demand group (HDG) or cultic relationship? Deception is the key to whether a group or person is cultic, or just more dedicated than the rest of us. Historically, groups and persons who have had a beneficial effect on the world have done so without disguising their beliefs or misrepresenting their practices. Every member of a mainline religious community is given lengthy exposure to the beliefs and practices of the community before the member is permitted to make a commitment. Legitimate groups and individuals can do this because they are capable of delivering what they promise.

HDGs and cultic persons, in contrast, promise what no one can deliver. Naturally, because they promise what can be had nowhere else, they can make extraordinary demands on their followers or partners, since the expected reward is also extraordinary. If these persons or groups could deliver on what they promise, we should all be members. Since they cannot, they have to build systems that trick people into joining and staying in the system. This goal is usually accomplished with a kind of bait-and-switch technique.

For example, a group promises eternal inner peace and then trains new recruits in relaxation techniques. The techniques, available in any library, are presented as the secret “wisdom of the ages.” The new recruits are actually able to relax using the technique. Their new ability is ascribed to the uniqueness of the group and proves that the group can deliver on its promises. When the new technique fails, the members can be blamed for not doing it right or can be commended for rising to a new level and needing more training in other techniques. Either way, guilt or praise, the group keeps its devoted without delivering anything else it promised.

Just believing strongly in or committing deeply to a cause, a group, or a person does not mean that one is in a HDG. Through history, countless devoted individuals, groups, and intense belief systems have served to bring societies back from barbarism to respect for human life and liberty. All these groups have accomplished their lofty goals without indulging in the practices below:

The group, its leader, or the partner expects unusual commitment of time and resources to the group. For example: Full-time college students are expected to spend in excess of 20 to 30 hours each week on group-related activities.The group, its leader, or the partner expects more or less exclusive devotion or focus on the leader or partner, or on the group’s practices or beliefs. Other relationships are discouraged, other honorable persons are overtly or subtly dismissed, and other ideas and lifestyles are ridiculed. The promise is that extreme devotion yields extreme rewards. Members are special, part of an elite; nonmembers are subnormal, and former members are dangerous. Doubts are suppressed by enforcing the practices of the group, in excess: chanting, meditation, speaking in tongues, singing repetitive lyrics, following repetitive work regimens, spending time in endless study (looking up words, etc.).The group, its leader, or the partner acts as if right and wrong are defined by what furthers or inhibits the interests of the group. The world is defined in sharp, black-or-white categories.The group, its leader, or the partner emphasizes attracting new members, collection of money, or participation in the group’s practices to the exclusion of other activities necessary for normal emotional growth.However minor they might be, thoughts, feelings, and actions of members are expected to be under the benevolent care and direction of the leader or partner.

I think my loved one is in a HDG, or a cultic or abusive relationship; what do I do now?

Keep the lines of communication open. If initial concerns and doubts are not effective in helping the member to leave, it is not necessary to label the group or partner as cultic or abusive. Remember, this is a cherished belief or person; your loved one may not be capable of rejecting the connection on first or second hearing. Instead, try to keep pregroup or prerelationship memories alive; emphasize the care and love that exists in the relationship now.Educate yourself. The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) website contains a wealth of information useful to families, along with links to several other organizations and individuals who can provide guidance on specific groups and beliefs. Knowing what you are talking about can prevent miscommunication and promote real understanding in your loved one. Knowledge also prevents you from playing into the hands of the group. Most groups have been incorrectly blamed for things in the past. They will use the media’s misinformation and your misconceptions to make the group seem legitimate.Create for the loved one a real place to go. More than a job or a place to live, important as these things are, your loved one needs an atmosphere of emotional safety. Extended family and friends also need to be educated in HDG/cult dynamics to minimize awkwardness.Consult with a cult-aware professional when necessary. This person can assist you with support, understanding, and concrete suggestions to help yourself as well as your loved ones. Please do not take any drastic actions without first consulting a cult-aware professional or consultant. ISCA may be able to help you find appropriate professionals, consultants, or organizations in your area, such as RETIRN, which I cofounded, or Wellspring.

My loved one just left a HDG, how can I help them? The concepts above apply: Educate yourself, keep the lines of communication open, and try to create a real place to go. Here is where professional resources fit into the whole process. Once your loved one has decided it would not be in her best interest to return to the group or relationship, there is a growing network of mental-health professionals with expertise in cultic dynamics to whom you can turn for assistance.

Most importantly, your loved one may have questions and emotional needs you feel ill-equipped to handle. Not resolving these issues can result in much longer recovery periods; worse, some individuals will not be able to recover on their own at all. There is an old saying: “Time does not heal the wounds of betrayal.” Your loved one may not be able to “get over” the experience the way she might overcome some other obstacle in life.

Many mental-health professionals and clergy feel ill-equipped to meet the needs of former cult members. Our experience is they are better equipped than they think. A background in the social psychology of undue influence and the impact of traumatic experiences—which many professionals have—along with a willingness to listen before judging and “pathologizing” either former members or families, often provides a firm foundation for effective helping. Consultation with professionals and paraprofessionals (including cultic scholars and former members experienced with helping other former members) is available and often extremely useful.

About the Author

Steve K. D. Eichel, PhD, ABPP, ICSA President, is Past-President of the American Academy of Counseling Psychology and the Greater Philadelphia Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He is a licensed and Board-certified counseling psychologist whose involvement in cultic studies began with a participant-observation study of Unification Church training in its Eastern seminary (in Barrytown, NY) in the spring of 1975. His doctoral dissertation to date remains the only intensive, quantified observation of a deprogramming. He was honored with AFF’s 1990 John G. Clark Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Cultic Studies for this study, which was published as a special issue of theCultic Studies Journal and has been translated into several foreign languages. In 1983, along with Dr. Linda Dubrow-Marshall and clinical social worker Roberta Eisenberg, Dr. Eichel founded the Re-Entry Therapy, Information & Referral Network (RETIRN), one of the field’s oldest continuing private providers of psychological services to families and individuals harmed by cultic practices. RETIRN currently has offices in Newark, DE, Lansdowne, PA, Pontypridd, Wales, and Buxton, England (UK). In addition to his psychology practice and his involvement with ICSA, Dr. Eichel is active in a range of professional associations. He has coauthored several articles and book reviews on cult-related topics for the CSJ/CSR.

http://www.icsahome.com/articles/for-families-who-suspect-that-a-loved-one-may-be-involved-with-a-high-demand-group--cult

What Is a Cult Definitional Preface

Russell Bradshaw
ICSA Today
Vol. 6, No. 3, 2015, 8-9

There are many definitions of cult, but for our purpose ICSA utilizes this one: “an ideological organization held together by charismatic relations and demanding total commitment.”1 This definition is compatible with some definitions of new religious movements (NRMs), but cult can also refer to nonreligious organizations. As defined here, cults (on the high-demand/high-control end of the social influence spectrum—see below) are at risk of abusing members, but do not necessarily do so.

Although cultic groups vary a great deal, a huge body of clinical evidence and a growing body of empirical research indicate that some groups harm some people sometimes, and that some groups may be more likely to harm people than other groups.2

HOWEVER, the research focus today of ICSA is NOT on cults per se, but rather on the degree of intensity of the psychosocial influence within groups. After many years of international research on cultic groups, ICSA finds there are often too many variables to produce accurate lists of so-called dangerous cults. In addition, history has documented that sometimes “one man’s religion is another man’s cult”—occasionally with tragic consequences.3 Nevertheless, it is possible to discern when the normal processes of social influence become extreme or harmful in a group; this shift can lead to observable psychological trauma in some individuals.4 The cause of this harm is often the above-normal level of demand and social control in the group; this intense process is sometimes called the cultic dynamic.

The Cultic Dynamic

It is well known that all groups use social-influence processes to create and maintain norms of belief and behavior.5 This strategy is necessary to maintain a group identity, to distinguishing an in-group from others (outsiders). In fact, it is a fundamental requirement for all groups and cultures.

However, it has been found that groups tend to align themselves along a social-influence continuum that runs from low control/low demand at one end to high demand/high control at the other. Those groups at the high end of the spectrum run a greater risk of being cultic in their social-influence processes. This higher risk is particularly true if there is deceptive advertising, misinformation, and censoring of information in these groups; if there are inner circles that have secret and different beliefs and behaviors from the publicly affirmed norms; if there is an extremely narcissistic leader without a functioning system of checks and balances; if outside oversight is not in place; if the group has a lack of transparency in economic matters; and so on. It should be noted, however, that even perceived “strangeness” or “dangerous beliefs” do not automatically create a cultic dynamic—even though these elements may increase the possibility of such a dynamic eventually coming into play. No matter how much we may dislike or disapprove of a particular group’s beliefs, this does not make the group a cult.
Are All Members of Cultic Groups Damaged by Those Groups?

Even in cultic groups that score at the high end of the control/demand continuum, however, not all members are abused or equally affected.6 Members who are totally invested in a particular group or movement are more likely to suffer severe negative psychological consequences than more peripheral members. Also, developmental psychologists such as Erik Erikson and Mary Ainsworth7 describe how individual differences in personality (i.e., trust-versus-mistrust or secure-versus-insecure attachment issues) influence how the core of the individual is more or less vulnerable later in life. This complex situation may create potential social-influence vulnerabilities, perhaps “setting one up” for later cultic group involvement. Differences in ego defense mechanisms also render some individuals more susceptible to unethical psychosocial demands and control practices.8 Basic personality issues may also predispose some people to be more vulnerable than others to charismatic and prophetic leaders and groups. For example, since many cultic leaders have narcissistic personality traits, followers often may have codependency character traits (as described in the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus and Echo, on which Freud based his theory).9 Nevertheless, these individual variables do not determine, in themselves, who becomes involved in cults; that circumstance might be just bad luck: an individual being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And everyone has weaknesses, so individual vulnerabilities cannot be the only cause for cultic involvement. However, once one is in a cultic group, these personality variables, in combination with the intense cultic dynamic, do impact the nature and extent of one’s suffering and trauma when one leaves.10

In Conclusion

In general, some people in the same cultic group will be hurt more than others, some may not be affected at all, and some may actually benefit. Groups change over time and from one branch or subgroup to another; leaders’ personalities change, as do the personalities of various members.11 Even persons with secure and intelligent personalities may encounter problems at times, especially during times of transition and crisis—and they may become vulnerable to unethical psychosocial influence and control.

As a result of all these interwoven variables, it is very difficult to say that a particular group, in all branches, at all times, affects all members in a particular way. Nevertheless, trained social workers and therapists know a dangerous cultic group environment when they encounter it—and so treat former members in various degrees of suffering.12 These helping professionals know it is the intense psychosocial dynamic of these high-demand/high-control cultic groups and their charismatic (and often narcissistic) leaders that are at the core of their clients’ sense of abuse and trauma.

Notes

[1] B. Zablocki, Cults: Theory and Treatment Issues (paper presented to a conference, May 31, 1997, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

[2] B. Zablocki, Cults: Theory and Treatment Issues (paper presented to a conference, May 31, 1997, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

[3] In our Christian history, for example, tens of thousands were killed for belonging to “heretic” sects/cults such as the Cathars, a Gnostic branch (Albigensian Crusades, 1209–1220). And more recently (1993), there were many killings in Waco, Texas at the siege of the Branch Davidians (led by David Koresh, whose branch had broken away from the Seventh Day Adventists).

[4] There are many case studies—e.g., Robert Lifton, Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo (1999); Jim Guerra, From Dean’s List to Dumpster: Why I Left Harvard to Join a Cult (2000); Mark Laxer, Take Me for A Ride: Coming of Age in a Destructive Cult (1993); Margaret Singer and Janja Lalich, Cults in Our Midst (1996); Jayanti Tamm, Cartwheels in a Sari (2009); and more.

[5] See, for example, Robert Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice (2009), for the six common social influence processes: reciprocity, consistency, social proof, authority, liking and scarcity, which use social influence and peer pressure to control and modify member behavior. These processes are often subtle and gradual, reducing followers’ ability to use conscious cognitive functions such as independent and critical thinking. Processes such as cognitive dissonance change our thinking and action to be congruent with each other at a precognitive level. See especially Leon Festinger, When Prophecy Fails (1956). There is also an emerging field of evolutionary psychology, which looks at genetic and epigenetic changes and the hundred thousands of years of primate social inheritance.

[6] Janja Lalich, Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults (2004). See also Steven Hassan, Freedom of Mind (2013), for an overview of these and other cultic dynamics.

[7] Erik Erikson’s stages of psycho-social development are trust vs. mistrust (infancy), autonomy vs. shame and doubt (toddler years), initiative vs. guilt (preschool), industry vs. inferiority (elementary school), identity vs. role confusion (adolescence), intimacy vs. isolation (early adulthood), generativity vs. stagnation (middle adulthood), and integrity vs. despair (late adulthood) (in The Life Cycle Completed, 1997). John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, Vol. I (1982), and Mary Ainsworth, ”Infant-Mother Attachment,” American Psychologist, 34(10), 932–937 (1979), both find that early caregiver-child attachment problems can lead to insecure or anxious personality formation. Erikson’s trust vs. mistrust stage seems to dovetail nicely with Bowlby-Ainsworth’s attachment theory. In terms of potential cultic-group involvement, the transition from each of these life-crisis-stages to the next is a stressful time, and a time when individuals are vulnerable to the intense and seductive influence processes of cultic groups.

[8] See, for example, Daniel Goleman’s Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception (2005). Individual’s ego-defense mechanisms may keep them from acknowledging deeply disturbing contradictions, deceptions, or misdeeds (pp. 117–123). Freud describes the following mechanisms: repression (forgetting and forgetting one has forgotten); denial and reversal (reaction formation: what is so is not the case: the opposite is the case); projection (what is inside is cast outside); isolation (events without feelings); rationalization (I give myself a cover story); sublimation (replacing the threatening with the safe); selective inattention (I don’t see what I don’t like); and automatism (I don’t notice what I do).

[9] For example, Len Oakes, Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities (1997); see also Charles Lindholm, Charisma (2002, PDF version online). There is a whole literature on the congruence between narcissism and charisma (see Oakes). The classic On Charisma and Institution Building (1968) by Max Weber describes charisma as an energizing, galvanizing force and cults as the core of every religion. Another powerful aspect of social influence is described in the classic “obedience to authority” experiments by Prof. Stanley Milgram (1961). He described how a leader (i.e., “cultic” group leader), once he is perceived as having authority, tends to be followed blindly (Max Weber described three types of authority: rational-legal authority, traditional authority, and especially for our case, charismatic authority). Once a member is involved in a group, and the leader is perceived to have authority, there are powerful psychosocial pressures that come into play, sometimes overriding an individual’s own impulses or values. The prisoner’s dilemma, also called the Faustian bargain in game theory (Merrill, Flood, and Dresher, 1950), and Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) describe as well how readily people may conform, under the right conditions, to group and leader pressure and expectations.

[10] For example, Daniel Shaw, Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation (2014).

[11] See, for example, Dr. Eileen Barker, “Aging in New Religions: The Variations of Later Experiences” (2013). In K. Baier & F. Winter (Eds.), Altern in den religion (pp. 227-60). Vienna, Austria: LIT Verlag. [Also available in E. Barker, “Ageing in new Religions: The Varieties of Later Experiences” (2013), Diskus, The Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religions, 12(2011), 1–23 (online access via religiousstudiesproject.com/DISKUS/index.php/DISKUS/article/view/21/20).]

[12] Dr. Eileen Barker, “Aging in New Religions: The Variations of Later Experiences” (2013). In K. Baier & F. Winter (Eds.), Altern in den religion (pp. 227-60). Vienna, Austria: LIT Verlag. [Also available in E. Barker, “Ageing in new Religions: The Varieties of Later Experiences” (2013), Diskus, The Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religions, 12(2011), 1–23 (online access via religiousstudiesproject.com/DISKUS/index.php/DISKUS/article/view/21/20).]
About the Author

Russell H. Bradshaw, EdD [AB (Wesleyan University), EdM, EdD (Harvard University), Cand. Polit. (University of Oslo)] is Associate Professor at Lehman College, City University of New York. He has taught psychological and historical foundations of education and directed the MA program in Teaching Social Studies: 7–12. Dr. Bradshaw’s master’s and doctoral dissertations described alternative-living and child-care arrangements in Sweden (Samhem and Kollektivhus). During his undergraduate studies he received a stipendium to live in Samoa and wrote his honors thesis on religion’s effect on cultural stability and change in Western Samoan villages. Dr. Bradshaw’s continuing interest in alternative living and child-care solutions led him to an intensive experience of a Hindu-based religious cult in New York City. Dr. Bradshaw has received fellowships and grants from Wesleyan, Harvard, and Uppsala (Sweden) universities and from the City University of New York. He and his wife Gunilla currently live in Norrtälje, Sweden several months a year, where they are continuing their work for ICSA’s New York Educational Outreach Committee.

http://www.icsahome.com/articles/what-is-a-cult-definitional-preface

Patrick Ryan Profile from ICSA Today

Mary O’Connell
ICSA Today
Vol. 2, No. 3, 2011 (pg. 34)


Patrick Ryan has been a thought reform consultant since 1984. He is the founder and former head of TM-EX. He was the AFF News editor from 1995 until 1998. He has contributed to the Cult Observer and to the book Recovery from Cults. He co-authored Ethical Standards for Thought Reform Consultants. He has made many presentations at ICSA workshops and conferences. He designs and maintains the ICSA websites.

Patrick was awarded the ICSA Lifetime Achievement Award in Barcelona, 2011.

In his acceptance speech he said, “...as I learned more and became more active in this field, I realized that ICSA's emphasis on respect, dialogue, and exploration of diverse perspectives so as to HELP people was essential to the long-term survival of this broad and varied movement to counter the harm caused by cultic groups. That spirit of tolerance enables ICSA to bring into its broad tent people of very different religious, political, and philosophical perspectives.”

In conversation, he expands on this viewpoint when asked what advice he might give to people who are trying to help those involved in cults: “Groups are different from time to time and place to place. People are different from time to time and place to place. What matters most is how a person interacts with a group at a particular time, not merely being ‘anti-cult.’ We can become a source of information if we stay open.”

He encourages people who are considering exiting or in the process of exiting to “Find out why you want to leave. Why isn't the group working for you? What are your own particular reasons why you want to leave.”

Patrick was introduced and became a member of Transcendental Meditation when he was just 17. He had gone to write a story on TM and became
enthralled. Eventually, he attended and graduated from the Maharishi University with a degree in business. He remained fully involved for 10 years, not leaving until age 27.

Upon leaving he almost immediately began helping others exit. He became an exit counselor and has continued in that profession for more than 20 years.

In his work he emphasizes relationship building and conflict resolution. He finds it enjoyable to connect “with family – so much of what we do is to get families to understand the perspective their loved one has adopted, to fundamentally understand why the cult member loves what they love.”

In addition to his work as a counselor, Patrick has many other talents, as cited by Michael Langone at the Barcelona conference when he received his award. “He won a writing award for contributions to his high school newspaper. He ran a million dollar business. He has a passion for computers....He is a born entrepreneur....We salute him for the many years during which he has devoted his talents and time to ICSA and to helping others.”

Peace at Last

ICSA Today, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2014, pages 12-15
Gina Catena

“Whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collection of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else, made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by collapse of meaning under an inadequate or lying language—this will become, not merely unspoken, but unspeakable.” —Adrienne Rich, On Lies, Secrets, and Silence

Keyboards wet with tears messaged around the world when a group of quasi-siblings learned that another peer had passed away prematurely. Connections between Transcendental Meditation (TM) defectors remained strong into postcult adulthood. Their beloved “gentle grizzly” joined his younger sister, Lara, and mother, Susan, in eternal slumber in 2012. Compassion and love from far-flung community would sustain Dan no more.

Dan’s emotional family encompassed the world from his lifetime in Maharishi’s enlightened peace plan and global TM movement. Like most TM kids, Dan deeply loved his biologic family and his meditation family. He lived by his Facebook favorite quote, “be true.”

Dan was a kind, gentle, and forgiving soul. He strove to do right by himself and for others. At the end of his fourth decade, Dan strived to live his last few years with his patient and solidly stable non-TM father. During that time, his creativity blossomed through painting, music, and digital communication with loved ones.

Dan wisely distinguished between abiding love for the people in his life and the TM community’s deluded ideals. His youthful frustration from judgments that narrow-minded idealists directed toward him evolved to compassion for the manipulated devotees. Dan and I often discussed dysfunctions shared by generations of TM’s children.

Dan wanted me to share his story as a warning for others. His quiet activism supported healing and acceptance. His interview for David Sieveking’s exposé documentary David Wants to Fly was omitted from the film’s final cut. When he asked me to publish his story several years ago, Dan approved a manuscript that included the following tales.

***

TM kids were told they were enlightened and blessed by karmically elevated birthright. As adults, their ongoing bonds were forged through shared secrets of neglect and loss while their spiritually devoted parents pursued mystical goals. Like many idealized TM kids, Dan grew up alternately globe-trotting between his mother’s advanced teacher-training courses with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and family-values midwestern roots. He was equally at home in Wisconsin, France, Holland, San Diego, Switzerland, Kansas, India, Iowa, Arizona, Florida, and Massachusetts.

Dan’s mother, Susan, was one of my dearest friends. She and I met in 1979 when Maharishi called together several thousand followers for his first World Peace Assembly in Amherst, Massachusetts. At that time Susan had already divorced Dan’s father for a deemed better-than-normal life. She followed Maharishi’s directives and remarried a Governor of the Age of Enlightenment (title for a level of mystical achievement in TM). When we met, Dan was an adolescent, and his youngest sister, Lara, floated inside Susan’s womb. Later in Fairfield, Iowa, teenage Dan played for hours with my young sons. He called me his Mamma Catena after his own mother passed away.

“A gentle heart is tied with an easy thread.” —George Herbert (1593–1633)

During her life, Susan’s magnanimity graciously embraced everyone. Susan’s idealistic devotion to Maharishi guided the indoctrination of her children with Maharishi’s teachings. As a TM Initiator, and later a more advanced Governor of the Age of Enlightenment, Susan’s family was destined to bring heaven on earth. Maharishi promised our community would change the world.

In 1980 the TM community’s next exciting global vortex sucked us in. Susan and I traveled together to join with a few thousand other devotees from around the world in New Delhi, India for Maharishi’s month-long First International Vedic Science Course. Between bouts of dysentery from unsanitary food, she and I consoled ourselves while our hearts longed for our children in the United States of America. On an overcrowded, dirty bus amidst New Delhi’s diesel fumes, I vowed never again to leave my child for Maharishi’s dictates. Susan, however, did not make that vow.

In 1983 Susan and her children relocated to our TM community in Fairfield, Iowa for social support after another divorce. Her son, Dan, integrated as an adolescent into Maharishi International University’s (MIU’s) Prep School.1 Susan trusted that Maharishi’s enlightened education would salvage her family.

Dan later lived with my ex-husband and me for months when Susan attended Maharishi’s advanced programs in the Netherlands. It was common practice for the community to care for each other’s children when parents traveled abroad for extended time with Maharishi. Susan’s gift of Dutch delft dishes from one such trip hangs on my kitchen wall to commemorate altruistic loved ones who were lost to Maharishi’s whims.

In the private middle school Dan publicly questioned Maharishi’s promises that practicing TM for hours daily would bring happiness, wealth, health and world peace without action. Dan would not accept “Maharishi says…” to be an adequate answer for everything. MIU prep school evicted Dan because he dared to publicly question the guru, thus denying him further higher knowledge (TM’s term for mystical teachings). When transferred to Fairfield’s public schools in the mid-1980s, Dan was taunted with the derogatory nickname of ‘Ru, short for Guru, which Fairfield locals applied to the exotic outsiders who invaded their town.

As a marginalized teen, Dan sometimes appeared at my family’s doorstep rather than attend school. “What will I tell your mother about sheltering you as a truant?” I objected.

Dan answered with a smile, “She’d prefer me to be here with you, rather than getting stoned on the streets somewhere.” He earned entry to my home.

While other parents of our TM family attended Maharishi’s twice-daily Program (hours of meditation marathons in gender-divided dome buildings), Dan led a pack of enlightened truants who baked chocolate-chip cookies and played with my preschoolers in a quest for normalcy. The teens of the 1980s knew I avoided the hours of daily Program despite the objections of my then-husband and community. I refused to neglect children the way that my own enlightenment-seeking TM parents had done.

Spiritual idealism called young-adult Dan to visit ashrams and TM childhood buddies the world over, including several visits to my California home after I left The Movement. His lifelong quest to live God’s goodness sometimes clashed with harsher realities. Cognitive dissonance and psychosis bought him repeated admissions to mental hospitals.

Susan came to me crying on a cold winter day in the mid-1980s. Dan was a young adult. She sat in my kitchen and told me that Dan had called her collect from a roadside telephone booth. He stood in the phone booth wearing thin yoga clothes in the middle of winter. His bare feet were bleeding because he had bolted and run 2 miles away from Maharishi’s men’s celibate retreat center in upstate New York. He was desperate for help to cope with disturbing visions after months of prolonged daily meditations. From my home, Susan called for medical help to rescue her son, 1,000 miles away.

Dan had sought help from TM’s leadership. Trained leaders responded with “Something good is happening.” This is just “stress release” or “bad karma.” They encouraged him to meditate more, to turn within for even more “experiences of higher states of consciousness.” Unfortunately, TM teachers neither screen for meditation-induced psychosis nor acknowledge a devotee’s cognitive dissonance. While I dried Susan’s tears, a psychiatric hospital phoned to confirm Dan’s arrival.

In the 1980s Fairfield’s meditating community exalted Susan because she generously donated to Maharishi’s never-to-be-actualized programs. She funded many meditator businesses. Like others, Susan believed Maharishi’s promises that nature’s support (mystical blessings) would repay her family with perfect health, prosperity, and enlightenment. She depleted family trust funds to enrich the coffers of Maharishi’s Shrivastava family.

Dan’s adorable younger sister, Lara, died suddenly in 1997, at the beginning of her senior year in Maharishi’s high school. During weekly long-distance telephone conversations, Susan relayed her relief that, as a passenger, Lara died painlessly with a smile on her face when her neck snapped in a drug-related auto accident. Despite such drug-related tragedies among TM’s youth, a school official refused to honor concerned parents’ requests for drug-education programs, apparently clinging to the myth that there are not drugs at the Maharishi School.

Fast forward only a few years. Dan stabilized in Fairfield on disability funds because his psychotic bouts prevented him from holding a job. One evening Dan found his mother wandering aimlessly among the aisles of EveryBody’s Whole Foods, Fairfield’s meditator-owned natural food store and social hub. Susan was in a stupor and did not recognize her son. Dan brought his mother to Fairfield’s Jefferson County Hospital. A medical team airlifted her 60 miles north to the University hospital (now part of University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics). Studies found that advanced brain cancer squished her brain to half its normal size inside her skull.

Susan’s undiagnosed brain cancer had grown unchecked for years while she treated recurrent debilitating headaches according to directives from Maharishi’s Ayurvedic doctors, jyotishis (astrologers), yagyas (prayer ceremonies) to purify her karma, mystically prescribed gem stones, and more. Susan followed the guidance of her guru and her community. She did everything “right.”

Through all, Dan and his mother continued a cheerful, abiding love for their family and community. The community at large, however, ignored Susan after she depleted her wealth and became impoverished. Her closest friends and children helped as best they could, while government assistance funded treatment for brain cancer. Maharishi’s promises of perfect health and prosperity were for naught.

With my next visit in June 2000, Susan’s lovely auburn hair flowed only down her left shoulder from beneath a red silk scarf. In a dear friend’s dining room, I removed Susan’s headscarf. A pink caterpillar scar curved along the luminous bald right side of her scalp. I kissed the length of the scar. Tears trickled down Susan and Dan’s cheeks.

University of Iowa Medical Center’s treatments were too late. In spring 2001, Susan, surrounded by Dan and his other sisters, repeated her mystical mantra and joined her deceased daughter Lara.

In 2006, Dan encouraged me to tell stories of TM damage publicly at a conference for the International Cultic Studies Association. He repeatedly asked when I would publish his family story, ensconced within my own memoir. Dan encouraged me that autumn when I protested the David Lynch Foundation’s attempt to bring TM to my own children’s public high school in San Rafael, California.

After several hell rides, his term for psychotic bouts, Dan spent his last few years calmly settled with his father. Dan painted, composed music, and managed a few websites. He especially reveled as a doting uncle.

One afternoon in 2012, Dan’s father found Dan passed away in his sleep. Sweet Susan’s son joined his mother and younger sister in nirvana, eternal peace.

Dan’s remaining family and global peers remember his gentle heart, occasional confusion, and most importantly, his devotion to family and friends. We will miss Dan’s unbridled kindness and good intentions. The little boy grew into a sometimes-fearsome gentle giant. Dan encompassed Maharishi’s promise of 200% of life. His inner and outer experiences were greater than most of us can imagine.

Dan, may your art, music and wonderful heart arise, freed at last. We Love you, Dan. Peace. Be True.

To Dan’s family: You are deeply loved and respected. You had more than your share of loss from circumstances beyond your control. May your lives continue to move forward. Everyone holds you with tenderness beyond expression.

Note: Names changed at the family’s request.

About the Author

Gina Catena, MS, was raised in the Transcendental Meditation (TM) group as an early “child of the Age of Enlightenment.” She married and was a parent in the group until the age of 30. After 22 years of childhood and young adulthood enmeshed in the TM culture, Ms. Catena left the group with three children and obtained an education and career while integrating into mainstream culture. She lives with ongoing cult influence through three generations of her immediate family. She contributed to Child of the Cult by Nori Muster. Ms. Catena is also working on several projects about family influence in cults. She obtained a Master of Science (MS) degree from the University of California at San Francisco, a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Art History, and a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Nursing, with a minor in psychology. She is now a certified nurse-midwife (CNM) and nurse practitioner (NP).

Note

[1] Maharishi International University (MIU) later reorganized as Maharishi University of Management (MUM). MIU Prep was the original children’s school for families associated with MIU. Today, the children’s school is called Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment (MSAE). In conversation, the schools are informally called Maharishi University or Maharishi School.

An Open Letter to Clergy Regarding Helping Former Members of Abusive Churches or Cults

ICSA Today, Vol. 03, No. 02. 

Carol Giambalvo

ICSA Director of Recovery Programs, ICSA Board of Directors

As both the Director of Recovery Programs for the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) and a cofounder of reFOCUS, a support and referral network for former members of closed, intense organizations or relationships, I’ve had inquiries from clergy about how to help former members when they come to them. I’ve also had remarks from former members that clergy don’t seem to know how to help them. As a former member myself, I’ve had my own personal struggles addressing spiritual and religious issues. Hopefully I can give you some useful information and suggestions.

First, some background information. People don’t join cults. They are deceived and purposefully recruited. The majority are in some sort of normal human transition stage in life, such as leaving high school for college, leaving college for the “real world,” experiencing the breakup of a relationship or marriage, losing a job, moving to a new location, retiring. And along comes a group of what seem like the most wonderful people from the most wonderful group with the most wonderful goals who show them love, acceptance, and a “higher purpose.” Many people have the mistaken idea that only troubled people from troubled families get involved in these groups. Cults don’t want troubled people. They want bright, dedicated, idealistic, energetic people to raise money, do the work of the group, and recruit new people.

So how do you help former members? Here are some suggestions:

1. Encourage them to get information to help them understand what appened to them in the group, and to help them recover from it (sources of information listed in the Resources at end).
2. Understand that you will need to earn their trust—they have had their trust violated so badly by a group that looked good.
3. At times they may be triggered by words that were “loaded” in the group: the use of some scriptures that the group twisted and emphasized, even some hymns that were sung in the group; dynamics—normal things that are used in healthy churches—can be a source of a trigger to them. Just understand, and make it okay if they need to leave the current setting should this happen.
4. Understand that they may not want to share their story—they need to build healthy personal boundaries. Respect their boundaries. The groups build unhealthy boundaries between members and the “outside” world, tear down their healthy boundaries, and encourage them to bare their souls and confess all to other group members and leaders. It takes time to reestablish their healthy boundaries after they have left.
5. When they need to talk, listen to them. They need a voice, on their own time.
6. Encourage them to ask questions, and let them know that it’s okay to disagree.
7. They need respect and love as they struggle through their recovery issues.

WHAT ARE THE RECOVERY ISSUES FACING FORMER MEMBERS?

1.    Identity Crisis

• Who am I now? For those born/raised in high-demand groups, who am I?
• What do I believe?

2.    Feelings of being disconnected; a sense of purposelessness

3.    Grief

• For the people I left behind
• Loss of a cause
• Loss of “belonging”
• Loss of what I had to give up in order to join group
• Loss of innocence
• Loss of career goals; finances; belongings
• Missing the “buzz”; looking for it elsewhere
• Anger

4.  Boundary issues

• Rebuilding healthy boundaries—creating a safe place to heal
• Learning it’s okay not to divulge everything to everyone
• Learning how the group tore down the boundaries between other group members/leaders and me
• Learning how the group built up unhealthy boundaries between the outside world and me
• Trust issues
• Testing the waters, building up a relationship before I trust someone—developing healthy boundaries

5.    “Magical thinking” of cultic group, spiritualizing everything

6.    Varying symptoms of post traumatic stress

• Panic attacks
• Floating/triggers
• Nightmares
•  Sleep disorders
• Inability to make decisions
• Inability to concentrate
• Fears not grounded in reality—fear the group was “right” when they told me something bad would happen to me if I left
• Hypervigilance

7. Difficulty with relationships and authority figures

8. Underemployment

RESOURCES

International Cultic Studies Association: http://www.icsahome.com/

reFOCUS: http://www.refocus.org  (many articles on recovery)

Recovery workshops: http://www.icsahome.com/

Books: Take Back Your Life by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias, Bay Tree 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carol Giambalvo is a cofounder of reFOCUS, a national support network for former cult members.  She is on ICSA’s Board of Directors, is Director of ICSA’s recovery programs, and is responsible for its Project Outreach. She is author ofExit Counseling: A Family Intervention, co-editor of The Boston Movement: Critical Perspectives on the International Churches of Christ, and co-author of “Ethical Standards for Thought Reform Consultants.” She received ICSA’s 2008 Margaret T. Singer Award.