"
Destructive cult" is a term used to refer to religions and other groups which have caused harm to their own members or to others. Some researchers define "harm" in this case with a narrow focus, specifically groups which have deliberately physically injured or killed other individuals, while others define the term more broadly and include emotional abuse among the types of harm inflicted. Use of the term has been criticized by some researchers, who assert that it is used to discredit the groups it is applied to, and unfairly compare them with historically more harmful groups and movements. Authors have also compared destructive cults with
terrorismTerrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.At present, there is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism...
, and have used the term to characterize
Osama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden is a member of the prominent Saudi bin Laden family and one of the founders of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, best known for the September 11 attacks on the United States and its associations with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against...
as a destructive cult leader.
Physical harm
"Destructive cult" as applied to
physical abusePhysical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, pain, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
has generally referred to groups which have, through deliberate action, physically injured or killed members of their own group or other individuals. The
Ontario Consultants on Religious ToleranceThe Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance are a small group in Kingston, Ontario dedicated to the promotion of religious tolerance through their website, ReligiousTolerance.org.-History of the group and its website:Bruce A...
limit use of the term to specifically refer to religious groups that "have caused or are liable to cause loss of life among their membership or the general public."
Emotional harm
Some researchers describe the term "destructive cult" more broadly, and include emotional abuse along with
physical abusePhysical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, pain, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
as a defining characteristic.
Steven HassanSteven Alan Hassan is a licensed mental health counselor and an exit counselor. Hassan was an early advocate of exit counseling, and is the author of two books on the subject of "cults", and what he describes as their use of mind control, thought reform, and the psychology of influence in order...
, author of the book
Combatting Cult Mind ControlCombatting Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults is a non-fiction work by Steven Hassan. The author describes theories of mind control and cults based on the research of Margaret Singer and Robert Lifton as well as the cognitive...
, defines the term as such: "A destructive cult is a pyramid-shaped authoritarian regime with a person or group of people that have dictatorial control. It uses deception in recruiting new members (e.g. people are NOT told up front what the group is, what the group actually believes and what will be expected of them if they become members)."
PsychologistA psychologist is someone who studies the human mind and behavior. Research psychologists study human perception, cognition, attention, emotion, motivation, personality, behavior and interpersonal relationships...
Michael LangoneMichael D. Langone, is an American counseling psychologist who specialises in research about "cultic groups" and alleged psychological manipulation. He is executive director of the International Cultic Studies Association, editor of the journal Cultic Studies Review.Langone is author and co-author...
, executive director of the
International Cultic Studies AssociationThe International Cultic Studies Association , formerly the American Family Foundation describes itself as an "interdisciplinary network of academicians, professionals, former group members, and families who study and educate the public about social-psychological influence and control,...
, defines a destructive cult as "a highly manipulative group which
exploits and sometimes physically and/or psychologically damages members and recruits." In the book
Into the Rabbit Hole contributor Randall Waters cites
psychiatristA psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry and is certified in treating mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
Robert Lifton's
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, specifically Lifton's "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform", as criteria to identify a destructive cult. In
Perfected Mind Control - The Unauthorized Black Book of Hypnotic Mind Control author J. K. Ellis also cites Lifton's criteria, writing: "If most of Robert Lifton's eight point model of thought reform is being used in a cult organization, it is most likely a dangerous and destructive cult." In a statement which
Congressman Leo J. RyanLeo Joseph Ryan, Jr. was an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served as a U.S. Representative from the 11th Congressional District of California from 1973 until he was murdered in Guyana by members of the Peoples Temple shortly before the Jonestown Massacre in 1978.After the Watts...
later read into the
Congressional RecordThe Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published by the United States Government Printing Office, and is issued daily when the United States Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks...
, Dr.
John Gordon ClarkJohn Gordon Clark was a Harvard psychiatrist and authority in research on the alleged damaging effects of cults.He was the target of harassment from Scientologists after he testified against them to the Vermont congress in 1976....
cited
totalitarianTotalitarianism is a political system where the state, usually under the control of a single party or faction, recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
systems of governance and an emphasis on money making as characteristics of a destructive cult. Dr. Clark later authored the work
Destructive Cult Conversion: Theory, Research and Practice.
In
Cults and the Family the authors cite Shapiro, who defines a "destructive cultism" as a
sociopathicPsychopathy is a psychological construct that describes chronic disregard for ethical principles and antisocial behavior.The term is often used interchangeably with sociopathy. This is a commonly made mistake. Sociopathy is no longer a correct term to use, and when it is used it actually refers to...
syndromeIn medicine and psychology, the term syndrome refers to the association of several clinically recognizable features, signs , symptoms , phenomena or characteristics that often occur together, so that the presence of one feature alerts the physician to the presence of the others...
, whose distinctive qualities include: "behavioral and personality changes, loss of personal identity, cessation of scholastic activities, estrangement from family, disinterest in society and pronounced mental control and enslavement by cult leaders." In
The Ethics of Touch: The Hands-on Practitioner's Guide To Creating a Professional, Safe and Enduring Practice, the authors describe their version of destructive cult characteristics in a section on "Cult Mind Control Abuse." In the book, a destructive cult is seen as being either "religious, political, 'therapeutic' or business" and they state that it can cause trauma-related symptoms such as dissociative disorder. In Dr. Susan Gregg's
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Spiritual Healing, she cites three main signs of a destructive cult, including giving up one's individuality, having their relationships with friends and family threatened, and being asked to donate large sums of money to the group. In his work
Lethal Violence, the criteria of a destructive cult environment is compared to that of
battered woman defenceThe battered woman defense is a legal defense representing that the person accused of an assault or murder was suffering from battered person syndrome at the material time. Because the defense is almost invariably invoked by women, it is usually characterised in court as battered woman syndrome or...
.
Criticism of the term
Some researchers have criticized the usage of the term "destructive cult", writing that it is used to describe groups which are not necessarily harmful in nature to themselves or others. In his book
Understanding New Religious Movements, John A. Saliba writes that the term is overgeneralized and equated with the deaths of members of Peoples Temple at
JonestownJonestown was the informal name for the "Peoples Temple Agricultural Project", an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple, an American cult led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well...
. Saliba sees this as the "paradigm of a destructive cult," where those that use the term are implying that other
new religious movementA new religious movement is a faith-based community, or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of recent origin. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, in which case they will be distinct from pre-existing denominations...
s will have similar outcomes to those of the Peoples Temple at Jonestown. Writing in the book
Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial FieldMisunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field was edited by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins. The book was published by University of Toronto Press, on December 1, 2001 and includes contributions from ten religious, sociological and psychological scholars.The book...
, contributor Julius H. Rubin complains that the term has been used to discredit certain groups in the
court of public opinionPublic opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views...
. In his work
Cults in Context author Lorne L. Dawson writes that though the
Unification ChurchThe Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity...
"has not been shown to be violent or volatile," it has been described as a destructive cult by "anticult crusaders." In 2002, the German government was held by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court to have defamed the Osho movement by referring to it, among other things, as a "destructive cult". The court decided that "destructive cult" and other expressions employed by the government to describe the group had no factual basis to justify their use.
Terrorism
In 1984, a group of followers of
OshoOshō is the Japanese reading of the Chinese he shang , meaning a high-ranking Buddhist monk or highly virtuous Buddhist monk. It is also a respectful designation for Buddhist monks in general and may be used with the suffix -san...
(then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) carried out what has come to be known as the first
bioterrorismBioterrorism is terrorism by intentional release or dissemination of biological agents ; these may be in a naturally-occurring or in a human-modified form.-Definition:...
attack in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Over seven hundred and fifty individuals became ill from
salmonellaSalmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria with diameters around 0.7 to 1.5 µm, lengths from 2 to 5 µm, and flagella which project in all directions...
poisoningPoisoning may mean:*For biological toxicity, see toxin and poison* Catalyst poisoning* Nuclear poison* Poisoning, a classification in Cantonese food* Secondary poisoning...
, after the group had deliberately contaminated the salad bars of ten restaurants. After
epidemiological researchEpidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine...
, law enforcement isolated the source of the contamination as a clinical laboratory operated by members of the Rajneesh movement. They had intended to influence voter turnout in an upcoming election. The March 1995
sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subwayThe Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the , was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995....
by the
Aum ShinrikyoAum Shinrikyo, now known as Aleph, is a Japanese new religious movement. The group was founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways....
movement, as well as their prior experiments with
anthraxAnthrax is an acute disease caused by Bacillus anthracis. It affects both humans and animals. Most forms of the disease are highly lethal...
, were also seen as bioterrorism events.
Since the
September 11, 2001 attacksThe September 11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners...
and the prevalence of the
War on TerrorismThe War on Terrorism is the common term for the military, political, legal and ideological conflict against what the effort's leaders describe as Islamic terrorism and Islamic militants, and was specifically used in reference to operations by the...
in society, researchers have begun to use the term "destructive cult" to compare and contrast certain characteristics of terrorist organizations with those of other religious groups previously characterized as such. In the book
Jihad and Sacred Vengeance: Psychological Undercurrents of History,
psychiatristA psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry and is certified in treating mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
Peter A. OlssonPeter A. Olsson is an American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and author. He is author of the book, Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time: A Psychological Study of Destructive Cult Leaders from Rev...
compares
Osama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden is a member of the prominent Saudi bin Laden family and one of the founders of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, best known for the September 11 attacks on the United States and its associations with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against...
to other religious leaders including
Jim JonesJames Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 death of more than 900 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the deaths of nine other people at a nearby airstrip and in Georgetown.Jones was born in Indiana and...
,
David KoreshDavid Koresh , born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, believing himself to be its final prophet. A 1993 raid by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the subsequent siege by the FBI ended with the burning of the Branch Davidian...
,
Shoko AsaharaShoko Asahara , born Chizuo Matsumoto on March 2, 1955 is a founder of the controversial Japanese new religious group Aum Shinrikyo. Asahara has been convicted of masterminding the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway and several other crimes, and has been sentenced to death...
,
Marshall ApplewhiteMarshall Herff Applewhite, Jr. , later known as Do, was the leader of Heaven's Gate group. He died in the group's mass suicide of 1997.-Early life:...
,
Luc JouretLuc Jouret , born in Kikwit, Belgian Congo, was a Belgian religious group leader in Switzerland. He co-founded the Parti Communautaire Européen with Jean Thiriart, a leading member of the neo-Nazi Jeune Europe Belgian group...
and Joseph Di Mambro, in a section of the book called: "The Psychology of Destructive Cult Leaders". Olsson asserts that each of these individuals fit at least eight of the nine criteria for
Narcissistic Personality DisorderSee also narcissism and malignant narcissism.Narcissistic personality disorder is a personality disorder defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnostic classification system used in the United States, as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for...
. Olsson goes into some of these issues in more depth in his work
Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time: A Psychological Study of Destructive Cult Leaders from Rev. Jim Jones to Osama bin Laden. In the book
Seeking the Compassionate Life: The Moral Crisis for Psychotherapy and Society authors Goldberg and Crespo also refer to Osama bin Laden as a "destructive cult leader."
At a 2002 meeting of the
American Psychological AssociationThe American Psychological Association is a professional organization representing psychologists in the U.S., with around 150,000 members and an annual budget of around $70m...
(APA), Steven Hassan asserted that Al Qaeda fulfills the characteristics of a destructive cult. Panelists at the convention asked the APA to investigate
mind controlMind control refers to a broad range of psychological tactics thought to subvert an individual's control of his or her own thinking, behavior, emotions, or decision making...
among destructive cults. Hassan spoke of the commonalities between researching destructive cults, and the war on terrorism: "We need to apply what we know about destructive mind-control cults, and this should be a priority with the war on terrorism. We need to understand the psychological aspects of how people are recruited and indoctrinated so we can slow down recruitment. We need to help counsel former cult members and possibly use some of them in the war against terrorism."
In an article on Al Qaeda published in
The TimesThe Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register....
,
Mary Ann SieghartMary Ann Sieghart is a former assistant editor of The Times, where she wrote columns about politics, social affairs and life generally. She also wrote leaders, features and analytical pieces both for the main paper and for Times2...
wrote that al-Qaeda resembles a "classic cult", commenting: "Al-Qaeda fits all the official definitions of a cult. It indoctrinates its members; it forms a closed, totalitarian society; it has a self-appointed, messianic and charismatic leader; and it believes that the ends justify the means." A similar comparison was made by former UK Home Secretary
Charles ClarkeCharles Rodway Clarke is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Norwich South since 1997, and served as Home Secretary from December 2004 until May 2006.-Early life:...
, as well as UK Home Secretary
John ReidJohn Reid is a British Labour politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Airdrie and Shotts since 2005, and has served in a number of Cabinet positions, including Home Secretary, Defence Secretary and Health Secretary...
, who stated that "..fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your children, for suicide bombings, grooming them to kill themselves in order to murder others."
Although not specifically mentioning al Qaeda, former Mujaheddin member and now author and academic Dr. Masoud Banisadr stated in a May 2005 speech in Spain :
If you ask me: are all cults a terrorist organisation? My answer is no as there are many peaceful cults at present around the world and in the history of mankind. But if you ask me are all terrorist organisations, some sort of cult? my answer is yes. Even if they start as ordinary modern political party or organisation, to prepare and force their members to act without asking any moral question and act selflessly for the cause of the group and ignore all the ethical, cultural, moral or religious code of the society and humanity, those organisations have to change into a cult. Therefore to understand an extremist or a terrorist organisation one has to learn about a Cult.
Dr. Banisadr mentions al Qaeda several times in a talk entitled "The Use of the Philosophy of Martyrdom within Religious Cults for Acts of Terrorism" delivered at an INFORM seminar at the
London School of EconomicsThe London School of Economics and Political Science, commonly referred to as the London School of Economics or LSE, is a specialist constituent college of the University of London in London, England....
in May 2007.
External links
- "Destructive Cults", A text by Panhellenic Parents Union for the Protection of the Greek-Orthodox Culture, the Family and the Individual, Orthodox Research Institute