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.

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?

Religious Freedom & Cults Writing Contest

While I continue trying to find a publisher for The Ghosts of November, I have decided to have a writing contest. The contest will run from today, June 7 and all entries must be emailed to the blog no later than 31 October 2008. The email address to be used is wordworks2001@gmail.com and the essay should be in the message off the email. The subject line of all entries should read "Writing Contest Entry."

The topic of the essays shall be "Cults and Religious Freedom." Essays must be no less than 500 words and no longer than 1000 words. Spelling and grammar do count and the winning entry will be judged by Rebecca Bibbs, author of The Nubian Codex and award winning professional journalist.

Other rules of the writing contest include:

1. The grand prizewinning entry will be published on this blog in November 2008.

2. You must be age 16 or over to enter.

3. Your entry must be an unpublished work by you, and be on the topic "Religious Freedom and Cults." All entries become the property of The Ghosts of November Blog and may be posted on the blog.

4. Entries must be typed and double-spaced. They are to be placed into the body of an email sent to wordworks2001@gmail.com. The subject of the email must be "Writing Contest Entry."

5. Please include the title of your piece on top of the piece.

6. Your essay should be no less than 500 and no more than 1000 words.

7. Send as many entries as you like.

8. Include the following on your entry email:

• Title of the entry
  
• Name
• Snail mail address
  
• Email address
  
• Biographical facts
  i.e. If you're a student: your birthdate; what grade you are going into; the school you attend; your major, if applicable; hobbies; a photo of yourself (no Polaroids or color copies).
  

The winner shall receive a copy of the first edition of The Ghosts of November, personally autographed by me.

The Next Jim Jones?

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, a 61-year-old Puerto Rican preacher
who or a few years has been creating himself for several years now, is quickly gaining notoriety as the cult leader most likely to succeed Rev. Jim Jones as the leader of the most dangerous doomsday cult in America.

The strange and apparently charismatic de Jesus Miranda, began his cult activities benignly enough by simply declaring himself "Jesus Christ." This pronouncement didn't exactly stop the presses. It's not like no one has ever done that before. But this time, Jesus Christ accompanied the announcement of his presence with the great news that with his return to earth, Satan has been defeated and for his followers, there is no such thing as sin.

Gullible Latino believers have come to this cult in droves, giving the man who calls himself Jesus money, jewelry, cars, boats, houses and even a multi million dollar business. There are now said to be some 300 congregations across the USA, Central and South America, who believe in de Jesus Miranda. With more Rolexes that one man can wear and his own private jet, the would-be Jesus decided to take his new religion to yet another unbelievable height -- he declared himself the anti Christ and had the number "666" tattooed on his body. That should have sobered up some of his followers drunk on the prospect of an end to sin, right? After all, the anti-Christ, he's muy mal, no?

No, his claim that he is both Christ and anti Christ only increased the fervor of his believers. They began getting "666" tattooed on their bodies.

de Jesus Miranda tells his followers that the Catholic Church, which a good many of them used to belong to, was evil. Proof of that was the fact that celibate priests participate in pedophilia and other sexual perversions. Perversions members of de Jesus Miranda's Growing in Grace cult movement are exempt from -- no more sin, remember.

He encourages his followers to picket and demonstrate outside traditional churches from other religions and they do. They even have been known to disrupt services. De Jesus's tactics are not unlike Jim Jones, who also used his temple members to protest as well as to support politicians, an activity de Jesus has yet to get involved in.

But he obviously exhibits control over his sheep much the same way as Jim Jones did over his Peoples Temple. Could Growing in Grace become the next Peoples Temple? There are many who believe it already has.

Three Central American countries have banned de Jesus from visiting their countries and having meetings there. However the thousands of followers de Jesus has in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras still can see their leader by satellite.

Growing in Grace bears watching. If a cult leader can convince his congregation to get the anti Christ's number tattooed on their bodies, what is keeping him from telling them to whip up some cyanide laced grape ade and partake? Or worse yet, what's stopping him from getting more physical with his actions against traditional churches?