CultNEWS101 Articles 3/27/2025 (Term Cult, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Book Review, Fountaingrove, Jehovah's Witnesses, Canada, Legal)

Term Cult, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Book Review, Fountaingrove, Jehovah's Witnesses, Canada, Legal

NY Post: Cults like us': Why cults are as American as apple pie

" ... 'The word cult conjures a mental picture: a group of beautiful young people dancing trancelike in the sun, probably aspiring actors in Los Angeles who took a wrong turn at the beach and landed in an orgy.'

But that image couldn't be further from the truth and in "Cults Like Us" Borden charts not just the murky history of cult ideologies in America, but how the country remains a breeding ground for cult-like thinking.

"It informs our suppositions about American identity and our very understanding of the immutable self," she writes. "It undergirds every vote, purchase, prejudice, and social-media post. Like fish that don't know water, we swim through it without recognition."

Ever since the Pilgrim Fathers arrived on the Mayflower in 1620 with almost cultish puritanical beliefs, the nation has been susceptible to cult ideologies.

"But their Puritan doomsday beliefs didn't go away; they became American culture," she says."

People: Teen Escaped a Cult After a Forced Marriage to a Stranger. Her Husband Did Too — Then They Fell in Love

"Angela and Cade Johnson were married at a laundromat in 2003 when she was 16 and he was 19.

They exchanged vows not by choice, but because the notorious polygamist cult they grew up in — the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — forced them to do so.

The cult Angela and Cade were born into made headlines when its infamous "prophet" and leader Warren Jeffs was accused by numerous young victims — including his own children — of molesting them.

Named one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted after fleeing the cult to avoid arrest, Jeffs, now 69, was finally taken into custody in Las Vegas in 2006. He was convicted five years later of two counts of child sex abuse and sentenced to life in prison.

Because of the tumult in the church at the time, "We didn't have too much to do with him," Angela says. "But if you've ever met him, he's just a creep. Full of arrogance."

She didn't like how girls and teens in the cult were forced to wed men they didn't know. One man she knew had 24 wives."

Oxford Academic: Unholy Sensations: A Story of Sex, Scandal, and California's First Cult Scare

"Unholy Sensations tells the forgotten but fascinating story of a sex scandal that erupted in the 1890s around a multiracial spiritualist colony called Fountaingrove in northern California. Out of the scandal came a new kind of public menace—what newspapers called the "cult." The Fountaingrove sex scandal helped establish for the first time popular ideas of "cults": groups or movements that violated religious, familial, and sexual norms to such an extent that they seemed dangerous to the dominant moral order. Thomas Lake Harris, the leader of Fountaingrove, became the archetype of the villainous "cult leader," supposedly brainwashing and manipulating his followers through his powerful charisma. The Fountaingrove scandal also established California as a breeding ground for cults, a reputation that remains strong today. Throughout the 1890s, the scandal's twists and turns captivated the public with a volatile mix of sex, religion, and racial exoticism due to the presence of Japanese immigrant men at Fountaingrove. From the Fountaingrove scandal onward, calling a group a cult was to mark it as outside religious, racial, sexual, and gender norms, all at the same time. Unholy Sensations tracks the emergence of the "cult" as a cultural concept while exploring the lived day-to-day realities of the Fountaingrove colonists, their beliefs, and their sexual practices, as well as considering the motives of those who attacked Harris and the colony."

Oak Bay News: Grand Forks Jehovah's Witnesses lose privacy law appeal

Court rules against Jehovah's Witness appeal to withhold former congregants' personal information.

"An appeal by the Jehovah's Witnesses in Grand Forks over holding the personal information of two former congregation members has been dismissed and is being hailed as a victory for the privacy rights of individuals.

The B.C. Court of Appeal ruled unanimously on March 21, that B.C.'s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) did not infringe on the religious freedom rights of two congregations of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

The case started in June 2022, when two former Jehovah's Witnesses requested access to their personal information under the control of the Grand Forks and Coldstream congregations. The congregations and their elders have fought to keep certain information, arguing disclosing these records would violate their Charter right of religious freedom.

An appeal by the Jehovah's Witnesses in Grand Forks over holding the personal information of two former congregation members has been dismissed and is being hailed as a victory for the privacy rights of individuals.

The B.C. Court of Appeal ruled unanimously on March 21, that B.C.'s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) did not infringe on the religious freedom rights of two congregations of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

The case started in June 2022, when two former Jehovah's Witnesses requested access to their personal information under the control of the Grand Forks and Coldstream congregations. The congregations and their elders have fought to keep certain information, arguing disclosing these records would violate their Charter right of religious freedom. "

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CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/15/2022 (Conspiracy Theorist, Definitions of term "Cult", Anthroposophy, Familia Spiritualis Opus, Abuse)

Conspiracy Theorist, Definitions of term "Cult", Anthroposophy, Familia Spiritualis Opus, Abuse

HuffPost: My Gentle, Intelligent Brother Is Now A Conspiracy Theorist And His Beliefs Are Shocking

" ... My brother is a modern conspiracy theorist.

He calls himself an "Evolutionary Linguist-Spiritual Warrior Fighting for Human Free Will on Earth" on his TikTok account, which has 12,500 followers. He uses hashtags like #zombe #apocolypse #weare #freedom and #1111. The latter, as far as I can tell from doing a little Googling, is a symbol that often represents interconnectedness and synchronicity, and that inspires individuals to attempt to manifest their intentions and take action to turn their visions into reality. On the surface, this sounds sedate, even inspiring — especially as we come out of COVID isolation. None of us seem to want to "go back to normal" because normal didn't serve us.

Last April, my sister-in-law texted me to warn me that my brother was heading, unannounced, to my doorstep in Idaho, where I care for our elderly father. I knew he believed "everyone on the planet who received the vaccine will be dead in a few years," but I had no idea of the depth of his fantastical beliefs.

Our evening together started with him mansplaining why cryptocurrencies are our only hope and how he had the idea for Amazon before Jeff Bezos did and how he would be the richest man in the world if not for some bad breaks along the way. Although he wasn't physically at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., he referred to the Jan. 6 rioters as "we."

Later that night, my brother announced, "The real reason I'm here is I've come to warn you that over the next two weeks, a lot of shit is going to come out about what's been going on for the past 50 years, 100 years, 4,000 years. It is going to shock you to your core. All the conspiracy theories ― everyone you ever heard from politics to Big Oil to wars in Afghanistan to Biden not being president ― this pulls it all together." At this point, I excused myself to go to the restroom, turned on the Voice Memos app on my iPhone, and tucked it in my back pocket in case he divulged any plans for violence, which, thankfully, he did not. The following is a transcribed summary of the main points he "knows with certainty" that 'the media won't tell us about.'"

ICSA Today: What Is a Cult?: Definitional Preface

"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."  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."

The Guardian: Ginger root and meteorite dust: the Steiner 'Covid cures' offered in Germany

" ... Best known outside Germany for the left-leaning schools focused on self-directed play with wooden toys, Steinerism started out as a multi-disciplinary spiritualist philosophy in the late 19th century.

Born in 1861 as a citizen of the Austrian empire, Steiner claimed to have access to higher spiritual planes that gave him insights into reincarnation, links between cosmic bodies and plant growth, and evolutionary history, including the years of Jesus's life not covered by the Bible and the sunken continent of Atlantis.

By the time of his death in 1925, Steiner had applied his philosophy to a wide array of subjects, including education, architecture, agriculture, dance and medicine.

In the 21st century, anthroposophy remains a minority movement, albeit one that enjoys a high level of social acceptance and institutional support in German-speaking countries. In Germany, there are more than 200 schools, more than 500 nurseries and 263 institutions for people with mental disabilities that follow Steiner's philosophy. The country's highest grossing drugstore chain, dm-drogerie markt, and second-largest chain of organic supermarkets, Alnatura, are both run by self-professed anthroposophists, and cosmetic products made by Steiner-devoted brands like Weleda and Dr Hauschka are not only for sale in German pharmacies but are also enjoying a global boom.

While the number of employees working at these institutions and businesses who take Steiner's philosophy at face value is likely to be low and dwindling, the movement has carved out a steady presence in German public life.

"In some ways anthroposophy is a German success story", said Helmut Zander, a historian of religion who has written books critical of the Steiner movement. "It hits a nerve that our society has for a long time ignored. Organic farming has gone mainstream over the last decade – Steinerists have done it since the 1960s."

Steiner's belief in illnesses as rites of passage that are necessary to purge spiritual imbalances is starkly at odds with the basic foundations of modern science. And yet anthroposophy has made considerable inroads into a public-private healthcare system that puts stress on consumer choice.

There are no fewer than 10 Steiner hospitals in Germany, and anthroposophic medicine is tolerated by German law as a "special therapeutic form", meaning remedies can be approved for use without external proof of their effectiveness. As recently as 2019, the conservative health minister Jens Spahn chose not to remove homeopathic remedies prescribed by Steiner clinics from the list of treatments covered by public health insurers.

But the pandemic is testing the German tolerance of Steiner esotericism in more ways than one. "Anthroposophy claims to have access to secret, higher knowledge," said Zander. 'There's a proximity to the mindset of conspiracy theorists, even if the number of Steinerists who are that way inclined is probably small'."

Catholic News Service: Safer spaces: Protecting the dignity of consecrated people

" ... Reisinger, a survivor of abuse inflicted when she was a consecrated member of Familia Spiritualis Opus, also known as The Spiritual Family "The Work," is one of several people highlighting the need to protect the rights and dignity of consecrated women and men.

"People who live together, who promise poverty, chastity and obedience under the guidance of one superior or founder have no enforceable rights," she said. "This is so dangerous" because it is a situation "where cult-like communities can grow."

All members of every Catholic community must know their rights — that "you don't have to put up with everything" — and those rights must be enforceable, she said from Germany, where she is a research assistant at Goethe University in Frankfurt. She and others spoke to Catholic News Service by phone Feb. 1.

A Catholic expert in the psychology of religion and "deviations in the Catholic world" said it is easier for warped teachings or practices to develop in communities that are smaller and have an "excessive veneration" of the founder.

Raffaella Di Marzio is the director of the Center for Studies on the Freedom of Religion, Belief and Conscience and has taught at pontifical universities in Rome. She said it is natural members would feel different from other Catholics because of their more radical, evangelical way of life and committed vows to be more Christ-like.

But when this leads to a sense of superiority and "being closer to Jesus than others, then the charism becomes a charism of power, that is, the human temptation to be able to make others do what you want now takes over," she said.

This dynamic between a strong charismatic leader and faithful follower is "a two-way street" in that the leader wields a power that a follower is searching for and willingly submits to, and, if left unchecked, it can lead to even stronger ties to the leader, a fear of persecution and a rejection of dialogue or cooperation with "the outside," Di Marzio said.

"In this situation, anything can happen in that community," she said."

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What is a cult?

The Conversation
August 5, 2021

Author Mathew Schmalz
Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross

Disclosure statement
Mathew Schmalz is a political independent.

Partners
College of the Holy Cross provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.



The word “cult” is used a lot nowadays.

Former President Donald Trump has been likened to a cult leader. Democratic California congresswoman Jackie Speier recently compared Trump to Jim Jones, the infamous leader of Peoples Temple, an American religious group of which nearly 1,000 members died by mass murder-suicide in Guyana in 1978. A congressional staffer at the time, Speier was seriously wounded by temple members during an ambush that killed Congressman Leo Ryan of San Francisco.

Then there’s NXIVM, a “sex cult” based in Albany, New York. Media reports and evidence at trial revealed that NXIVM’s female members recruited “slaves,” who were branded with the initials of the group’s leader, Keith Raniere. Raniere, also called the “Vanguard,” was sentenced to 120 years in prison for sex trafficking.

One of the defenses put forward by NXIVM’s lawyers has been that media “hit-pieces” on the group led to an unfair trial.

It’s certainly true that the word cult grabs our attention. But what exactly does it mean when we use words like cult or “cult leader”?

Scholars sometimes use the term “cult” to describe groups that have distinctive beliefs and high levels of commitment. The problem is the popular use of the word is often used to describe authoritarian groups that practice mind control or brainwashing.

As an academic who teaches and writes about religion, I believe that the label “cult” gets in the way of understanding new religions and political movements.

Early Christians and cult

First, cult is a vague category.

Authoritarian leaders and structures can usually be found in groups that have a clear mission and identity. From the Catholic Church to the U.S. Marine Corps, many organizations rely on strict discipline and obedience. Using the word cult is an easy way to criticize a group, but a poor way to describe one.

Second, mind control or brainwashing theories have problems.

In popular understanding, the leaders of cults use mind control or brainwashing to remake the personalities of recruits by forcing them to do and believe things that they normally wouldn’t accept.

Brainwashing was associated with the Unification Church, or “The Moonies,” founded by South Korean Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The Moonies would isolate new recruits and shower them with attention, a process called “love bombing.”

But, as sociologist Eileen Barker showed in her research on the Unification Church, recruitment rates were still very low. If a sure mark of a cult is using love bombing, mind control or brainwashing, the results weren’t very impressive.

Third, the label “cult” is negative.

As British sociologist James Beckford has observed, cults are usually associated with beliefs and practices considered to be “unhealthy.” But what is seen as healthy in one culture may be seen as unhealthy in another.

In fact, early Christianity could be called a cult because Christian beliefs and practices – such as not sacrificing for the emperor – were considered strange and dangerous in ancient Rome.

Fourth, the term “cult” does not engage with key parts of a group’s belief system.

For example, religion scholars James Tabor and Eugene Gallagher argue that the 1993 Waco siege ended in tragedy, in part, because the FBI ignored the Bible-based beliefs of the Branch Davidians, a millenarian Christian sect.

Four agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were killed trying to arrest “cult leader” David Koresh. After a 51-day standoff, the FBI injected tear gas into the group’s compound. Seventy-five people, including children, lost their lives in the fire that followed. The cause of the fire remains disputed to this day – some argue that the tear gas ignited, and others claim that the Branch Davidians set the fire themselves.

It has been suggested, however, by some scholars that if the FBI had taken the belief system of the Branch Davidians more seriously – instead of seeing members as brainwashed followers of a mad cult leader – deaths might have been avoided.

Cult politics

The term “cult” also gets in the way of understanding American politics. There are real differences between isolated religious groups that live together communally and political movements that attract millions of people.

Calling Trump a cult leader is rhetorically powerful. But that language can simplify how and why MAGA and other slogans appeal to many Americans. And Rep. Speier’s fully reported comments about Donald Trump and Jim Jones did recognize that the issue was complex.

To be clear, religious and political movements can be dangerous and criminal beyond simply being strange. It’s also important to carefully examine the relationship between a leader and their followers.

Still, it is tempting to use words like cult or cult leader when talking about a group or a person we don’t like or can’t understand. The problem is that when people hear the word “cult,” discussion often ends before any study has begun.

This is an updated version of an article first published on April 10, 2018.

https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-cult-165512

CultNEWS101 Articles: 8/3/2021 (Webinar, QAnon, KKK, Podcast, Acting Classes, Terms, Cult Definition)

Webinar, QAnon, KKK, Podcast, Acting Classes, Terms, Cult Definition

CFI: The QAnon Storm is Upon Us: Mike Rothschild on Skeptical Inquirer Presents, Aug 5

"Once dismissed as just another set of wacky conspiracy theories from the internet, the phenomenon known as QAnon has grown into a malignant force, infecting minds with dangerous fictions and amassing real power. What is this movement trying to achieve, and what happens next?

Thursday, August 5 at 7pm ET, on the next Skeptical Inquirer Presents live online event, journalist Mike Rothschild will untangle the many threads of myth and misinformation that make up QAnon ideology and why it's outrageous beliefs are no laughing matter."

AP: Inside a KKK murder plot: Grab him up, take him to the river

"Joseph Moore breathed heavily, his face slick with nervous sweat. He held a cellphone with a photo of a man splayed on the floor."

" ... It was 11:30 a.m. on March 19, 2015, and the klansmen were celebrating what they thought was a successful murder in Florida.

But the FBI had gotten wind of the murder plot. A confidential informant had infiltrated the group, and his recordings provide a rare, detailed look at the inner workings of a modern klan cell and a domestic terrorism probe.

That investigation would unearth another secret: An unknown number of klansmen were working inside the Florida Department of Corrections, with significant power over inmates, Black and white."

Indoctrination: Playhouse Abuses w/ Andrea Geones and Michael Laskin

"Andrea and Michael teamed up to create a code of ethics for acting classes with one goal in mind: to create a safe and healthy environment for actors and acting students. After experiencing the unhealthy and cult-like culture fostered within many acting classes where sexual, financial, and psychological abuse were the norm, they created Find Your Acting Class and wrote a code of conduct for acting teachers to agree to and endorse, as well as guidelines to help teachers ensure that they are running their classes ethically."

Lewiston Tribune: What makes a cult

"New religious movements or cults are found around the world and throughout history. The word cult conjures images of brainwashing, abuse and violence, although many of these groups can be fairly benign. What is a cult?

"Defining 'cult' is a tough one because the word has so many different definitions," said Rob Balch, a retired sociology professor from the University of Montana in Missoula.

Balch began researching cults in the 1970s and has done in-depth case studies of groups like Heaven's Gate." 

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Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.

Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

What makes a cult

Lewiston Tribune
Norma Staaf for Inland 360
July 29, 2021

New religious movements or cults are found around the world and throughout history. The word cult conjures images of brainwashing, abuse and violence, although many of these groups can be fairly benign. What is a cult?

“Defining ‘cult’ is a tough one because the word has so many different definitions,” said Rob Balch, a retired sociology professor from the University of Montana in Missoula.

Balch began researching cults in the 1970s and has done in-depth case studies of groups like Heaven’s Gate. He outlined four common definitions of cults.

1. A group based on shared devotion to a person, place, object or belief. This could be the Children of God, devotees of the Virgin Mary or fans of Britney Spears.

2. A small group characterized by unconventional beliefs, charismatic leadership, extreme demands for commitment and strict separation from nonbelievers.

3. A small, loose-knit group with unconventional beliefs, with no doctrine and few demands on its members.

4. A religious group based on ideas that are new and different in a society.

Although Balch didn’t specifically study the Children of God, he believes it fits the second definition, as did many other cults that began during the same time period. These groups asked people to join on short notice and give up families and possessions to be part of a community with a charismatic leader in a communal living situation.

“The Children of God had a whole different standard of sexual morality,” Balch said.

In the early 1970s, when Children of God and groups such as Heaven’s Gate, the Moonies and the Hare Krishnas formed, there were many young, uncommitted people looking for a different way of life.

“In those days, people identified themselves as spiritual seekers,” Balch said.

They were interested in anything outside the mainstream, on the fringe and outside established religions, he said. They were rejecting capitalism, investigating alternative living arrangements and living communally and simply.

Groups like Children of God often attracted people on drugs, he said. Giving up drugs was a condition of joining.

“They helped clean them up, to get high on Jesus,” he said.

Balch thinks that cults where people live communally are far less common today than they were in the 20th century, but that the prevalence of what he calls “audience cults” has increased in recent years.

“The communal living groups have been preempted by online groups,” he said. “(A group like QAnon) is definitely a cult, and not in a good sense.”

Balch describes this phenomena as, “disconnected people who have never met reading the same thing online. They become immersed in these ideas without meeting the other people.”

https://lmtribune.com/360/what-makes-a-cult/article_30e8e7f4-efdc-11eb-9ed0-0b983adb7c43.html

CultNEWS101 Articles: 7/27/2021 (Mother Teresa, Podcast, QAnon, Term Cult, QAnon, ICSA Event)

Mother Teresa, Podcast, QAnon, Term Cult, QAnon, ICSA Event

The Turning: Highway of Broken Glass (Part nine - Is this a cult? How do you leave?  Janja Lalich)

"Thousands of women gave up everything to follow Mother Teresa, joining her storied Catholic order, the Missionaries of Charity. But some found that life inside this fiercely private religious order was not what they'd imagined. Former sisters who worked closely with Mother Teresa describe her bold vision and devotion to charity and prayer. But they also share stories of suffering and forbidden love, abuse and betrayal. If you make a lifelong vow, what does it mean to break it? What is the line between devotion and brainwashing? Can you truly give yourself to God?"

Religion Dispatches: 'Cult' Is An Inaccurate, Unhelpful and Dangerous Label for Followers of Trump, QAnon, and 1/6

In the twentieth century the word "cult" (originally meaning "worship") became a pejorative word that people apply to a group or movement that they do not like and perhaps fear. The word "cult" implies a stereotype that involves what sociologist James T. Richardson has termed the "myth of the omnipotent leader" and a corresponding "myth of the passive, brainwashed follower." These are just that: myths. They're inaccurate assumptions about groups and movements with unconventional beliefs: no leader can become a dictator without complicit lieutenants who prop up his (or her) authority; the "brainwashing thesis" has been judged to be unscientific by the American Psychological Association and American judges and has been debunked by social scientists; in fact, people frequently change their minds and leave a group when they lose faith in its ideology.

In 2013 I wrote an essay titled "The Problem Is Totalism, Not Cults," which argues that instead of using the pejorative word "cult," which prevents unbiased research and dehumanizes believers, the term "totalism" better conveys what people were actually worried about: groups whose members live in isolated communities, where people are controlled and not permitted to leave when they choose. Such totalistic institutions range from some unconventional religious or political groups to prisons, concentration camps, and authoritarian governments of nations. Americans generally agree that they're abusive.

Currently it's fashionable to use the word "cult" to describe all sorts of groups and movements that people don't like. It's said that people who support former President Donald Trump constitute a "cult"; the diffuse QAnon movement is called a "cult"; and the January 6, 2021 insurrection against the United States Congress meeting in the Capitol has been alleged to be a "cult." However, these are diffuse movements, not insulated, totalistic communities. "Cult" used in this manner is constructed to refer to the worst characteristics that people can imagine, which is what Yale historian Joanne Freeman did in a June 22, 2021 podcast with Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson (no relation to James T. Richardson) when Freeman stated that members of a "cult" believe their side is righteous and that anyone opposed to them is evil and "must be defeated, executed."

A statement like this says more about what Freeman imagines a "cult" to be than it does about the research of scholars who have studied alternative and emergent religious movements, including millennial movements. Starting by imposing one's own constructed definition of "cult" on movements and groups inhibits careful investigation and analysis, as indicated by Freeman and Heather Cox Richardson comparing the QAnon movement to three different historical episodes in entirely different communal contexts: the Salem Witch Trials in 1692-1693, the Oneida Perfectionist community, and Jonestown.

International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA): The Cult of Trump: How to Speak Respectfully & Strategically to Promote Re-Evaluation (Steve Hassan)

"I wrote my 4th book, The Cult of Trump for Simon and Schuster and it was published on October 15th, 2019. In it, I discuss the stereotypical profile of many cult leaders: that of malignant narcissism and compare Trump with Moon, Hubbard, LaRouche, Jones, and others. I discuss his childhood and influences, including his father Fred, Norman Vincent Peale, Roy Cohn and others and go into the history of propaganda and disinformation, then persuasive communication patterns of a cult leader's playbook. Then to influencers like Putin, The Family, Opus Dei, New Apostolic Reformation, Libertarians, the Alt-right, the NRA and other groups with agendas which include Dominionism as well as shrinking the government. I discuss the followers and then have a chapter on how to talk with true believers, using my Strategic Interactive Approach. It is clear that calling names only further polarization. So does saying the other side is brainwashed. Effective communication demands understanding how people are believing and how they are operating."

International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA): 2021 Conference is Still Available

The 2021 online annual conference was a great success, with more than 425 attendees!! If you missed it, no problem, because for the FIRST TIME EVER -- you have the opportunity to watch 65 conference session recordings until August 15, 2021!

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

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Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

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​'Cult' Is An Inaccurate, Unhelpful and Dangerous Label for Followers of Trump, QAnon, and 1/6

CATHERINE WESSINGER

Religion Dispatches

JULY 19, 2021

In the twentieth century the word “cult” (originally meaning “worship”) became a pejorative word that people apply to a group or movement that they do not like and perhaps fear. The word “cult” implies a stereotype that involves what sociologist James T. Richardson has termed the “myth of the omnipotent leader” and a corresponding “myth of the passive, brainwashed follower.” These are just that: myths. They’re inaccurate assumptions about groups and movements with unconventional beliefs: no leader can become a dictator without complicit lieutenants who prop up his (or her) authority; the “brainwashing thesis” has been judged to be unscientific by the American Psychological Association and American judges and has been debunked by social scientists; in fact, people frequently change their minds and leave a group when they lose faith in its ideology.

In 2013 I wrote an essay titled “The Problem Is Totalism, Not Cults,” which argues that instead of using the pejorative word “cult,” which prevents unbiased research and dehumanizes believers, the term “totalism” better conveys what people were actually worried about: groups whose members live in isolated communities, where people are controlled and not permitted to leave when they choose. Such totalistic institutions range from some unconventional religious or political groups to prisons, concentration camps, and authoritarian governments of nations. Americans generally agree that they’re abusive.

Currently it’s fashionable to use the word “cult” to describe all sorts of groups and movements that people don’t like. It’s said that people who support former President Donald Trump constitute a “cult”; the diffuse QAnon movement is called a “cult”; and the January 6, 2021 insurrection against the United States Congress meeting in the Capitol has been alleged to be a “cult.” However, these are diffuse movements, not insulated, totalistic communities. “Cult” used in this manner is constructed to refer to the worst characteristics that people can imagine, which is what Yale historian Joanne Freeman did in a June 22, 2021 podcast with Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson (no relation to James T. Richardson) when Freeman stated that members of a “cult” believe their side is righteous and that anyone opposed to them is evil and “must be defeated, executed.”

A statement like this says more about what Freeman imagines a “cult” to be than it does about the research of scholars who have studied alternative and emergent religious movements, including millennial movements. Starting by imposing one’s own constructed definition of “cult” on movements and groups inhibits careful investigation and analysis, as indicated by Freeman and Heather Cox Richardson comparing the QAnon movement to three different historical episodes in entirely different communal contexts: the Salem Witch Trials in 1692-1693, the Oneida Perfectionist community, and Jonestown.

As a scholar of the varieties of millennialism, I suggest that analysis of the QAnon movement and its relation to the January 6 insurrection is better understood as being a continuation of a Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement, which has existed since the twentieth century and whose believers have been anticipating a revolution against the federal government for decades. Participants’ aim is to set up a collective salvation on earth for white people who regard themselves as the true “natives” of the land that is now the United States.

In the 1990s, participants in this white supremacist movement that had no name, which I have termed the Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement, were waiting and preparing to carry out a “Second American Revolution.” When Timothy McVeigh carried out the Oklahoma City Bombing on April 19, 1995, he was hoping to spark the Second American Revolution. Instead, people were shocked at the loss of 168 innocent lives in the bombing. As a result, the militias that had formed, especially after the aggressive handling of the Branch Davidian community by ATF and FBI agents in 1993, became quiet until Barack Obama was elected president in 2008.

Over the past few years, as demands for the removal of Civil War monuments from public spaces have increased, people in the Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement began to speak more openly about their preparations for a “Second Civil War.” The fervent members of this diffuse movement containing many different small groups and associations to which the term “White Nationalism” is now applied, responded to President Trump’s call to attack Congress on January 6, with the intention of forcing Vice President Mike Pence to declare that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election, which he had definitively lost. This assault on Congress was simply an initial blow in the expected Second Civil War, in which other enthusiastic Trump supporters were caught up. According to the FBI, it’s possible that other extremists in this QAnon/White Nationalist movement will carry out violence in the future to further their aim of a Civil War against the United States government and people who support it.

“Millennialism” (or “millenarianism”) is a term used by scholars to refer to movements in which people believe there will be “an imminent transition to a collective salvation, in which the faithful will experience well-being and the unpleasant limitations of the human condition will be eliminated.” The collective salvation may be considered to take place on earth or in a heavenly realm. “The collective salvation will be accomplished either by a divine or superhuman agent alone, or with the assistance of humans working according to the divine or superhuman will and plan.” Millennial movements may or may not have “prophets,” persons believed to be speaking a message from God or some other higher being. Millennial movements may or may not have a “messiah,” someone who’s believed by followers to be empowered by an unseen source of authority to create the collective salvation for the “elect.”

A range of behaviors is associated with millennial belief. People may wait for divine intervention; an example is the saying in the QAnon movement, “Trust the plan.” People may engage in social service, or perhaps engage in politics by voting or running for elected office, to work to create the desired collective salvation; millennial political activism is presently seen in the Trumpist version of the Republican Party. Some people may carry out revolution, or, if lacking a critical mass of participants, take terrorist actions in their attempts to create their desired collective salvation. On January 6, 2021, it probably seemed to a number of participants and supporters in the Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement that they had finally achieved the critical mass of adherents to overthrow Congress.

There are many varieties of millennialism. As I wrote in The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism:

“A nativist millennial movement consists of people who feel under attack by a foreign colonizing government that is destroying their traditional way of life and is removing them from their land. Nativists long for a return to an idealized past golden age. Many nativists have identified themselves with the oppressions and deliverance of the Israelites as described in the Christian Old Testament.”

A range of behaviors may be found among nativist millennialists. Some resort to forms of prayer to request divine intervention. Some retreat to isolated communities to try to preserve and recreate their traditional way of life. Some are revolutionary and try to overthrow their oppressors. Scholars have reported on many nativist millennial movements among populations whose way of life has been disrupted by colonialists. Such movements include the Pai Marire movement among the Maori in New Zealand in the 1850s and 1860s, and the “Ghost Dance” movement among Native Americans in the Western United States in the late nineteenth century.

In the 1980s and 1990s in the United States, white people, especially farming families and people living in rural small towns, felt that their way of life and ownership of land and property were threatened by their inability to keep their farms and agriculture-related businesses due to government lending practices; their inability to repay loans and pay their taxes; and resulting seizures of their property. This provided impetus to the Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement, many of whose participants believed the federal government was controlled by ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government) intent on exterminating white Americans and their way of life, thereby expressing their anti-semitism based on the dangerous and debunked conspiracy theory.

The Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement has partial roots in a racist and anti-semitic form of Christianity called Christian Identity, which developed out of an earlier British Israelism movement from England. White people who believe in Christian Identity believe they are the true “Israelites.” They believe that people of color are animals and that Jews are children of Satan. Since the 1990s, participants in the Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement have called themselves “Patriots” or “Christian Patriots.” They may be Identity Christians, Neo-Nazis, or adhere to racist forms of Paganism; they may even be secular but still expect to participate in a revolution that will destroy the federal government and create a collective salvation for white Americans.

People who call themselves “Sovereign Citizens” or “Freemen” believe they have deciphered the secrets of the American Constitution and “Common Law,” so they can benefit themselves when they state the “magic” words in documents they file in lawsuits and when they appear in court. Today, younger generations participate in the Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement or White Nationalism in America, in groups such as the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys, while adherents to the older Christian Identity, Neo-Nazi, racist Pagan, and Sovereign Citizen groups and movements are still around. All of these make up the Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement, and what they have in common is their racism, frequent anti-semitism, and belief in white supremacy.

The Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement lacked a messiah figure until Donald Trump ran for president of the United States in 2016. Trump benefited from a convergence of two movements that regarded him as a messiah to create their respective ideas of a collective salvation. Self-described “apostles” and “prophets” in the Pentecostal movement called the New Apostolic Reformation described Trump as being anointed by God as a messiah modeled on Cyrus the Great of Persia mentioned in the book of Isaiah in chapter 45.

People in the New Apostolic Reformation and many fellow evangelical Christians have regarded President Trump as being God’s instrument to make the United States into a Christian government. Consisting of people of various ethnicities, the movement is not necessarily white supremacist. More directly related to the Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movement is QAnon, designed to be an addictive Alternative Reality Game (ARG). It’s been attractive to white people who are secular as well as many evangelical Christians.

“Q,” alleging to be a person with a high-level security clearance in the government, is the unseen source of authority that believers have viewed as empowering President Trump to destroy the “Deep State” from within, and eliminate Democrats who are described as a Satan-worshipping cabal of pedophiles who kill children to obtain their life essence. The individual who was posting “Q drops” online hasn’t posted since Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, nevertheless the QAnon conspiracy outlook remains influential.

Subsequent to Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, members of the millennial movement(s) that view him as their savior have reacted in ways that believers in other failed prophecies have reacted. Some have given up their faith in Trump. Trump has rationalized the readily apparent loss of the election by promoting the view that he really did win but the election was stolen. Some have set later dates for Trump to become president. Sovereign Citizens, for example, provided March 4, 2021, the date originally stipulated by the Constitution for a presidential inauguration, as when he would be sworn in as president for a second term.

Lately, Trump and some supporters have begun to claim that he will be “reinstated” as president in August 2021, after there have been recounts in some states where, they believe, widespread voter fraud has taken place. (It shouldn’t be necessary, but sadly it is, to note here that there is no meaningful evidence of widespread voter fraud or that any recount would affect the result of the election.) This repeated setting of dates is reminiscent of the Millerite movement that expected the Second Coming of Christ in 1843-1844. Eventually the Millerite faithful had to concede a “Great Disappointment” on October 22, 1844, but believers channeled their reinterpreted apocalyptic expectations into creating subsequent Adventist movements and institutions, including the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Key to discussions of some new religions, including some millennial movements, is the role of the “charismatic leader.” When scholars of religions use the term “charisma” or “charismatic leader” they aren’t referring to an individual viewed as charming by followers. Based on my comparative study of religions and building on the relatively vague definition of “charisma” by sociologist Max Weber, I define “charisma” as when followers believe that the leader (or sacred book, or sacred place, or sacred object) has access to an unseen source of authority. Therefore followers attribute charisma to leaders whom they regard as being prophets or messiahs. The leader’s charisma is socially constructed, and followers can withdraw their faith at any time. Trump was seen by participants in the New Apostolic Reformation as being anointed by God to carry out a task. Followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory similarly have seen Trump as the instrument of the unseen “Q” to create their idea of a collective salvation.

Some charismatic leaders use the charisma attributed to them responsibly; they try to benefit their followers and others, and they frequently attempt to downplay or give away the charismatic authority granted to them by followers. However, sociologist of religion Lorne L. Dawson has pointed out that a charismatic leader may “mismanage” his or her charisma due to her or his own psychopathologies, and thereby cause harm. Frequently this involves clinging to the role of the charismatic leader, no matter whether the lives of followers and others are endangered.

Since losing the 2020 election, Donald Trump has consistently demonstrated that his narcissism, and likely his fear of prosecution, are prompting him to mismanage his charisma by clinging to the role of U.S. president, to the detriment of American democracy, individuals, and families. Additionally, his assertion that he didn’t lose the election is being supported and disseminated by powerful media representatives on Fox News and One American News Network (OANN), along with a not insignificant number of elected members of Congress. A great deal of the concern on the part of white people is over their potential loss of status in America. This concern is being expressed in current Trumpist Republican efforts to curb access to voting by people of color and the social panic being fomented about “Critical Race Theory,” which has been turned into a pejorative term by people who either don’t understand what it refers to, or who are deliberately distorting it for political gain.

In contemporary society, the word “cult” comes with a readymade explanation that is illogically and pejoratively applied to groups and movements with differing characteristics. People are using the term “cult” to stigmatize groups and movements that they simply do not like. On June 23, 2021, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a congressional hearing that he wants to understand “white rage,” what caused “thousands of people to assault” the Capitol and “try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America.” This important question deserves analysis from a variety of scholarly disciplines and areas of research, not a simplistic answer by applying a word that conveys an inaccurate stereotype. The study of the varieties of millennialism in the past—varieties that continue to animate wide segments of society today—can help General Milley and others who are seeking to understand the motivations of the coalition of citizens who attacked the United States Congress and the police officers defending it on January 6, 2021.



https://religiondispatches.org/cult-is-an-inaccurate-unhelpful-and-dangerous-label-for-followers-of-trump-qanon-and-1-6/