Common Properties of Potentially Destructive and Dangerous Cults

The late psychologist, Margaret Singer, was a cult expert. Here are her signs of a potentially destructive and dangerous cult.

The cult is authoritarian in its power structure. The leader is regarded as the supreme authority. He or she may delegate certain power to a few subordinates for the purpose of seeing that members adhere to the leader's wishes and roles. There is no appeal outside of his or her system to greater systems of justice. For example, if a school teacher feels unjustly treated by a principal, appeals can be made. In a cult, the leader claims to have the only and final ruling on all matters.

The cult's leaders tend to be charismatic, determined, and domineering. They persuade followers to drop their families, jobs, careers, and friends to follow them. They (not the individual) then take over control of their followers' possessions, money, lives.

The cult's leaders are self-appointed, messianic persons who claim to have a special mission in life. For example, the flying saucer cult leaders claim that people from outer space have commissioned them to lead people to special places to await a space ship.

The cult's leaders center the veneration of members upon themselves. Priests, rabbis, ministers, democratic leaders, and leaders of genuinely altruistic movements keep the veneration of adherents focused on God, abstract principles, and group purposes. Cult leaders, in contrast, keep the focus of love, devotion, and allegiance on themselves.

The cult tends to be totalitarian in its control of the behavior of its members. Cults are likely to dictate in great detail what members wear, eat, when and where they work, sleep, and bathe-as well as what to believe, think, and say.

The cult tends to have a double set of ethics. Members are urged to be open and honest within the group, and confess all to the leaders. On the other hand, they are encouraged to deceive and manipulate outsiders or nonmembers. Established religions teach members to be honest and truthful to all, and to abide by one set of ethics.

The cult has basically only two purposes, recruiting new members and fund-raising. Established religions and altruistic movements may also recruit and raise funds. However, their sole purpose is not to grow larger; such groups have the goals to better the lives of their members
and mankind in general. The cults may claim to make social contributions, but in actuality these remain mere claims, or gestures. Their focus is always dominated by recruiting new members and fund-raising.

The cult appears to be innovative and exclusive. The leader claims to be breaking with tradition, offering something novel, and instituting the only viable system for change that will solve life's problems or the world's ills. While claiming this, the cult then surreptitiously uses systems of psychological coercion on its members to inhibit their ability to examine the actual validity of the claims of the leader and the cult.

Remember the Past

It seems Mike Peters' influence has reached South Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Arizona. I don't believe he has very large congregations in these states, but from what I have been able to learn, they are very loyal.

One of the reasons I wrote and have revised The Ghosts of November was to warn people about the proliferation of dangerous doomsday cults and alternative religions, like the Peoples Temple. Jim Jones had a sign over his throne in the Jonestown pavilion from which he directed the deaths of 913 of his followers and their children. It read "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it."

I believe it is imperative the members of Mike Peters' Churches around the country are made aware of what happened in Jonestown Guyana 29 years ago. Please make this your priority as well. You may be saving lives.

Rogue Messiahs

I have just finished reading Rogue Messiahs, a book by Colin Wilson. Leaders like David Koresh, Jim Jones and Mike Peters, all have several traits in common. A major one is the use of sex as salvation. Jones was known for his sexual proclivities, sharing himself with men as well as women. Interestingly, he only chose people of his own race to have sex with. Is that a sign of some subtle racism in this man who claimed to champion the poor and down trodden?

Koresh had sex with many of the women in his sect. He often complained that it was a real chore and sacrifice for him. Some of his wives were 16 years of age and younger.

Mike Peters obviously has some sexual issues, especially when it comes to intimate relations between the husbands and wives of his group. Like Koresh and Jones before him, one of Peters' main games is to have the wives degrade their husbands. Often Peters takes trips accompanied by some of the wives, never by their husbands, apparently.

Messiahs are nothing new. The Christian church was hardly a few hundred years old before they began coming out of the woodwork. Mike Peters appears to be only the latest version of these frequently mentally disturbed men, and sometimes women, who have become self-proclaimed representatives for God, and often say they are God himself.

I have received some emails and comments from former members of Peters' Church in Indianapolis. Most fear him and many feel he may be the next cult leader to order his followers into oblivion a la the drinking of Flavor-Ade as they did in Jonestown 29 years ago.

Anyone contemplating being led by or following Mike Peters to their own deaths really should read Rogue Messiahs. It may just pop their cult bubble and make them realize how foolish they have been.

One last note to the Peterites who may be reading this post. Although I am not a Christian, at one time, I was a BTC (if you are one you will know what it means). Consider Mike's order that his followers not associate with non Peterites because they are pagans. Is this what Jesus did? Did he only associate with those who believed in him? Of course not. He went where the sinners were so they could be saved. Mike Peters doesn't want his followers to do the same because then he will be exposed for the fraud he is.

Links

http://www.indianapoliscult.com/allatmikesfeet/welcome.aspx

http://obadiah1317.wordpress.com/tag/mike-peters/

http://tobysthoughts-jtc.blogspot.com/2006/07/regarding-peters-internet-and.html

http://wordpress.com/tag/mike-peters/


http://www.factnet.org/discus/messages/3/18551.html?1143572810

http://noahlot.blogspot.com/2006/08/2-tim-27-reflect-on-what-i-am-saying.html

Another Indianapolis-Based Cult?

Indianapolis Magazine has an interesting article in this month's edition. It is the story of Mike Peters and the Church in Indianapolis, a controversial and fairly secretive alternative religion that has been in the city for some time.

Some former members who have left the organization say the leader of the organization is dictatorial and controlling. They have a website that allows dissident members to give testimony to their experiences in the group. http://www.indianapoliscult.com/allatmikesfeet/welcome.aspx

This website warns visitors that home churches or house churches, traditional church meetings, fellowship groups, bible studies, and home schooling groups across the country are falling into cult-like teachings. The leaders in these cult are buying up domain names like housechurch.com and others to draw people to themselves.

I read the magazine article a couple of days ago as I sat in a dentist office waiting for my wife. It was an excellent piece of journalism that was made difficult to write due to the apparent phobia all the church's leadership and members have towards the media.

I hope everyone considering joining a nontraditional church or religious group will read the website listed above. To be fair, here is the Church in Indianapolis (CII) website: http://www.allathisfeet.com/index.html

What do you say, reader? Is CII a cult?

People's temple - The Play

Two years ago last month, the Berkeley Repertory Theater premiered "The People' Temple." The writer-director, Leigh Fondakowski, spent three years researching archives and interviewing surviving members of the Peoples Temple (note the absence of an apostrophe to differentiate the name of the play from the church).

The play begins in a library with a white-gloved archivist lifting a choir robe from a box. It ends in a jungle enclave in Guyana called Jonestown.

Fondakowski used interviews with survivors and copious amounts of audiotapes that were found in Jonestown as well as letters and other archival written materials as sources for the verbatim dialog of the play. This method of writing the play allowed the true feelings of those who lived the Jonestown trauma to come through.

Her writing methods are very similar to those of another play The People's Temple is sometimes compared with, "The Laramie Project." Moises Kauffman and his Tectonic Theater Project used interview transcripts to craft their powerful account of the reaction to the homophobic murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. The play has been performed in venues across the country and was turned into a well-received HBO movie.

The People's temple has only played to audiences in Berkeley and at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota as far as I can tell. However, the artistic director of the Denver Theater Company, coincidentally, where The Laramie Project premiered, has said he hopes his theater will perform it in 2008. Hopefully The People's Temple will play to many more theaters across the country in 2008 since it is the 30th anniversary year of the Jonestown Massacre.

Hi There

I consider myself very fortunate. Despite the fact I'm going on 60 years of age and have had my share of adversity, I am still standing. I have had Parkinson's disease for about 11 years, was told three years ago if I did not undergo a quintuple coronary artery bypass, I would have a heart attack, stroke or die within three months (I didn't have the surgery and still live) and have various and sundry aches and pains. I lived as a homeless derelict for almost six years, am a non-practicing compulsive gambler, and have been thrice married and twice divorced. I still haven't let life's lows get me down.

I do have some accomplishments I am very proud of, the biggest of which was the publication of THE GHOSTS OF NOVEMBER in 1998. Although it was self-published, the book was a success. Out-of-print, you can still find used copies offered on Amazon.com for many times the book's retail price. As much of a highlight this achievement was in my life, the two year rewrite and revision I just completed, adding fifty percent new material, including photos, maps and footnotes is one I am almost as proud of.

Last week, I went to the Pikes Peak Writers Conference in Colorado Springs, seeking representation from one of the literary agents who were there. I was fortunate enough to have a pitch session with one and she wanted to see my book proposal. I finally had my foot in the door!

This is the first step in a manuscript becoming a real book. As this process continues, you are invited to return to this blog on a regular basis to view progress from conception to birth. I will update the readers on problems with false labor and other setbacks and any doctoring (editing) that needs to be performed so the baby is born without any defects.

In the meantime, I'll post news and correspondence that will be related to the book and the Jonestown Massacre as we move closer to the 30th anniversary of the horrific event. I shall solicit your comments, contributions, critiques and questions. Any special events I have will be posted and I hope you will inform me of events you learn of. I hope you will join me.