The Barriers of Belief
part 2
© Brian Allan 2003
Destructive Cults
The groups already mentioned, although strictly hierarchical and control oriented, are not necessarily dangerous, this however is not the case with other organisations whose leadership claims to directly represent the word of God, they are the destructive cults. Among the better known of these are ‘The Branch Davidians’, ‘Heavens Gate’ the ‘Peoples Temple’ and the ‘The Order of the Solar Temple’. They all share one thing in common, a powerful, charismatic and often paranoid leader who controls them emotionally, physically and in some cases sexually.
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Brian Allan
The Branch Davidians, a schism of ‘The Seventh Day Adventists’ (SDA) formerly led by Vernon Howell (better known as David Koresh), achieved their final, fiery apocalypse at Waco, Texas in 1993. Although the general public seemed to believe that the Waco compound sprang into being fully formed in 1993 when the stand off literally exploded onto TV screens around the world, this was far from the truth. Following a scriptural disagreement with the SDA in 1935, although still maintaining links with the parent church, Victor Houteff broke away and with eleven followers founded the first Mt. Carmel Centre near Waco; he called the group ‘The Shepherds Rod’. In his view, their mission involved purifying a small group of Christians to trigger the Second Coming of
David Koresh and the Branch Davidians
Christ to Jerusalem. This in turn would cause the downfall of Babylon (i.e. the end of the world) and the Kingdom of David would be established on earth.
Finally, in 1942, Houteff severed all links with the SDA following their refusal to confer conscientious objector status on its members during the Second World War, shortly after this he selected the name ‘Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists’ for his group. Following his death in 1955, Houteff’s wife Florence announced that ‘The 1260 days mentioned in Revelation 11:3 would end and David’s Kingdom will be established on April 22nd 1959’. [San Diego Union Tribune, 1 March 1993). After this announcement she relocated the compound further from Waco to its final home. Her statement resulted in the membership swelling to around 1400 souls, many of whom sold their homes and businesses to join. When, predictably, the prophecy failed to materialise, many of the believers drifted away, but surprisingly, a few dozen stayed with their faith even more resolute. Those who left formed yet another faction, ‘The Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist Association,’ who remain active to this day. The remaining group was eventually united under the leadership of Benjamin Roden, who renamed it the ‘General Association of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists’, unwittingly precipitating a downward spiral into chaos and violence.
In 1981, David Koresh then plain Vernon Howell joined the movement as a handyman and in 1984 married 14-year-old Rachael Jones, daughter of a prominent community member. This resulted in a series of power struggles and Howell was thrown out of the community. Roden then devised s bizarre and gruesome plan to circumvent any further trouble and dug up the remains of a 25-year-old corpse, which he placed in the chapel, declaring that whoever restored it to life was the next leader of the group. Howell and a few followers broke into the compound to photograph the coffin, they were discovered and gun battle between Howell and Roden ensued. In the gunfight, Roden was wounded and later imprisoned for violating a restraining order and for contempt of court. In 1987, while Roden was imprisoned, Howell and his followers took control. They found an illegal amphetamine drug laboratory and a large collection of pornography on the premises and to their credit they removed both. The original gunfight eventually resulted in Howell’s trial for attempted murder but the jury could not reach a verdict.
After a major recruitment drive among disenfranchised SDA members in 1985, the community swelled to a multi-racial, population of 130 including Australians, Britons and Canadians. Businesses were begun in the compound allowing the legal purchase and resale of guns. By this time the group called itself ‘Students of the Seven Seals’ after one the tenets of their faith, stating that the ‘Lamb of God’, (which the group assumed to be Howell), would open the seven seals mentioned in Revelations, triggering Armageddon. By this time Howell had come to believe, like so many others before him, that he was the‘
‘chosen one’ and in 1990 changed his name to David, after King David, and Koresh after King Cyrus of Babylon. Finally, in 1992 he renamed the enclave at Mt. Carmel ‘Ranch Apocalypse’, thereby confirming his belief in the final confrontation between good and evil. Interestingly, the term ‘Branch Davidian’ (BD) was not normally used within the compound, rather, it was a term coined by the media and based on one of Roden’s exhortations, ‘Get off the dead Rod and move on to the living Branch’. The reason for the stand off between the BD’s and the ‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’, (the ATF) along with the FBI was a direct result of the groups’ dealings in firearms. In true apocalyptic fashion, they had amassed a huge stock of weapons on the compound including anti-tank rifles. This alone was not the cause of the standoff; instead the reason was the group’s
attempts to convert semi-automatic weapons to fully automatic. When some BD’s observed a group of armed ATF agents approaching the compound to check reports of the illegal conversions, they interpreted this as the prophesied Armageddon. It is not clear who fired the first shot or even why with each side blaming the other although now it is probably academic, but whoever started it, dozens died in the resulting gunfight and blaze.
Heavens Gate
This was fundamentally a UFO based cult whose members were convinced that their eventual spiritual fulfilment lay in an
alleged ‘spaceship’ hidden in the tail of the ‘Hale Bop’ comet. The man responsible for preaching this unlikely gospel was ex-music teacher and psychiatric patient, Marshall Herf Applewhite. With the aid of his former nurse, Bonnie Nettles, he managed to convince 39 people to surrender their property, freewill and eventually their lives in pursuit of his philosophy. At first sight, the group appeared to earn its keep by designing Internet web sites, which to some extent they did, but in reality as with all groups like this, Applewhite also appropriated whatever income and property his disciples possessed.
The foundations of Applewhite’s beliefs apparently lie within the tenets of Theosophy, a mystical belief system created in the late 19th century by Madame Helena Blavatsky. When Heavens Gate
first began in the early 1970’s, his soulmate, Nettles, styled herself ‘Shakti Devi’ because it sounded suitably mystical and eastern, but later she and Applewhite changed to plain Ti and Do. Although the pair was able to convince a few dozen people of the validity of their philosophy, the group never became very large for two reasons. One, they were not particularly skilled at managing large numbers and two, Nettles and Applewhite predicted the arrival of the spaceship so many times to no avail that many followers became extremely disillusioned and left.
Eventually, in 1995, the entire group travelled to California where they purchased a luxurious villa at Rancho Santa Fe near San Diego, and it was here on the 26th March 1997, that Applewhite’s delusions reached their tragic conclusion. The choice of California as the home for Applewhite’s extended ‘family’ appears to be a theme common to many cult groups, the reason may lead back once again to Madame Blavatsky. In a peculiar mixture of either (depending on your point of view) mysticism and revelation or sheer fantasy, Blavatsky had decided that a ‘new race’ would arise there. This was founded in part on other ideas extant at that time, particularly those of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton whose novel, ‘The Coming Race’ a tale of subterranean ‘super beings,’ gained currency among esoteric groups who regarded it as veiled truth. Another reason for choosing California may lie in the emotional roller coaster created by both the whims of the film industry and the boom and bust economics of industries like those in Silicon Valley. In a recent interview, the actor John Travolta revealed that he joined the Scientology movement for this very reason. The need for a stable emotional and spiritual focus in an unsettled world is an important tool in the armoury of cult recruitment techniques. To present an apparently infallible, omniscient and accessible messiah set within the framework of a supporting group provides such a focus. Crucially, it has been shown that the majority of Applewhite’s ‘flock’ had a history of dysfunctional emotional and psychiatric problems There also appear to have been some extremely negative ideas regarding sex within the group; post-mortems revealed that some of the members were castrated as was Applewhite himself.
Following the death of Bonnie Nettles from cancer, the final component leading to the mass suicide of the entire group stems from Applewhite’s belief that he too had contracted incurable cancer. He stated that by casting off their ‘husks’ i.e. their bodies, they would all join him on the UFO and enjoy spiritual fulfilment on another planet. To this end the mass suicide was orchestrated, they all donned new, uniform clothes, lay on their beds, drank the poison, covered themselves with purple shrouds and died, Heavens Gate apparently died with them. The idea being that physical bodily functions like sex, have for centuries been seen by certain dualistic faiths, in particular the Bogomils and the Cathars, as obstacles in the quest for spiritual perfection. These beliefs hold that there are two Gods, one a perfect being of pure spirit and the other more corporeal, the ‘Rex Mundi’ or ‘King of the World’. This belief also found expression in the thinking of a 16th century Russian cult, the Bogomil inspired ‘Khlysty,’ and a later development called the ‘Skoptsy’. The Khlysty ’faith’ forbade normal conjugal relation between husband and wife, (wives were called ‘gifts of the devil’), any children produced were called ‘sins’, treated with indifference and forbidden to call their parents mother or father. The Khlysty also eschewed meat on the grounds that it was the product of copulation. An early 18th century development of the Khlysty, the ‘Skoptsy’ were even more extreme and developed a two-tier hierarchy of mutilation within their church; the ‘Greater Seal’, which involved complete emasculation, and the ‘Lesser Seal’ where only castration was required. Reflecting the mores of some mystical and esoteric groups, their religious ceremonies were conducted in strict secrecy and anyone found divulging the secrets was hunted down and killed. Predictably, both of these beliefs did not find favour with the traditionalist Tsarist monarchy and were ruthlessly suppressed. It is clear therefore that sexual mutilation and secrecy in the name of religion is neither new nor unique.
The Peoples Temple
Another movement displaying all the hallmarks of a destructive cult was the Peoples Temple founded by James Warren (Jim) Jones during the early 1950’s in Indianapolis, Indiana. He does not appear to have displayed any fundamentalist tendencies
and was an ordained pastor of a mainstream Christian denomination, in this case the Disciples of Christ. The Peoples Temple was created as a mission for the poor, homeless and sick and run as an inter-racial, caring organisation. Jones preached a gospel based on love, equality and freedom that required members to help those on the lowest rungs of society. Later this became markedly and explicitly socialist where the hypocrisy of ‘White Christianity’ was ridiculed. This doctrine was clearly based on a literal and fearless interpretation of the teachings of Christ. As
far as his congregation was concerned, the rot set in when he began to claim cures for cancer and heart disease. This provoked a civil investigation resulting in the group moving to Ukaih in Northern California where Jones preached the usual sermon of impending world catastrophe, this time through a nuclear holocaust. Later the group migrated to San Francisco and Los Angeles; however, following allegations of illegal activities within the temple made by the magazine ‘New West’ they made their final, fateful journey to Guyana where Jonestown was constructed. It was here that Jones created a concept called ‘Translation’, which decreed that he and his followers would all die together and mirroring the Heavens gate cult, ascend to nirvana on another planet, in this case close to the star Sirius. To this end they actually practised mass suicides during which they pretended to drink poison, an eerie precursor of their eventual fate.
Around 1977, Jones began to abuse prescription drugs due to what he perceived as increasing stress, he also appears to have become paranoid, which is another common personality trait in cult leaders. Following increasing rumours about the groups’ activities US Congressman Leo Ryan visited Jonestown on November 1978 to conduct a personal inspection related to alleged human rights abuses. Initially the visit went well until on November the 18th, sixteen group members decided to leave the Temple with the inspectors. This disturbed Jones and indeed the rest of the group. While Ryan, his entourage and
the sixteen Temple members waited at the local airfield, heavily armed members of the temple’s security service arrived and incredibly, opened fire. This probably indicates the advanced state of Jones’s paranoia, the same condition that has initiated the Temple’s move from the USA. In the ensuing slaughter, five people including Congressman Ryan were killed outright and eleven were wounded. Terrified of the possible consequences of their actions, the group, encouraged by Jones, decided the only option was the mass suicide they had repeatedly practised, although when the final act was invoked, from the number of bullet wounds it is clear that many did not wish to proceed. With Ryan’s death, the cult members realised that this time they could not just walk away from their actions and after a group meeting they decided to enact their training for suicide in earnest which resulted in the deaths of 638 adults and 276 children. While some used soft drinks containing cyanide, others appear to have been injected with poison, some were shot and a few escaped into the jungle.
One of the contentious issues raised by the manner and scale of the deaths was the suggestion that the People’s Temple was acting as a cover for a CIA sponsored mind control experiment. This is not as wild an accusation as it first appears; it was at about this time that another CIA exercise, the notorious MK-ULTRA mind control project was officially abandoned although there is no hard link between the two. Although the anti-cult movement suggests that techniques used by Jones triggered the mass suicide, a view borne out by some survivors, other claimed the project was the best experience of their lives. Probably the fairest estimates of the real reasons behind the tragedy lie in Jones’s increasingly paranoid and precarious mental state. This coupled with the murders and the groups’ anxiety about the end of the world plus their extreme isolation could easily have provoked the final act of madness. Whatever the reasons, it is unlikely the whole truth will ever emerge, the report by the US Government’s ‘Committee on International Affairs’ who investigated Congressman Ryan’s murder was deemed classified and still remains so.
The Order of the Solar Temple
Unlike the rest of the organisations mentioned, this one appears to have been founded with the original and sole purpose of
making money, although that appears to have changed dramatically at some point. Another aspect of this cult is, once again, the surprising number of middle class, well-educated members it attracted. The leader and co-founder, Luc Jouret a Belgian, began what could have been a legitimate and rewarding career in healthcare after obtaining a medical degree from the Free University of Brussels in 1974. It appears however that he became disillusioned with orthodox medicine and spent several years travelling, seeking out alternative methods of healing including homeopathy. During this period he became involved with a variety of ‘mystery schools’, notably the ’Solar Tradition’ and ‘The Templar Renewed Order’.
Sometime between 1979 and 1981 Jouret met convicted fraudster and con man Joseph Di Mambro in Switzerland, evidently they got along well and in 1984 they jointly founded ‘The International Chivalric of Solar Tradition’ (later to become ‘The Order of the Solar Temple or ‘OTS’). Di Mambro was not a newcomer to unusual groups and had already founded ‘The Centre for the Preparation for the New Age.’ Attaining enlightenment in this group not surprisingly involved turning over such goods and cash as Di Mambro deemed necessary. By this time Jouret earned a living lecturing on such subjects as ‘Medicine and Conscience’ and ‘Love and Biology’, those among his audiences who found his ideas appealing were invited to join another of his organisations, ‘The Arcadia Club’. From those who joined, a select few were invited to become members of the OTS, which invariably involved parting with a considerable sum of money.
In 1986, Jouret moved to Quebec in Canada where he founded a chapter of the OTS and bought a chalet complex to serve as a headquarters for the organisation. Among Jouret’s wilder claims was that he had been one of the original Knights Templar and a sword used in the OTS rituals had been presented to him over 1,000 years previously. He also claimed that both he and another 32 members of the cult were actually the reincarnation of an ancient sect called ‘The Rose and Cross,’ who evidently revealed themselves to humanity using borrowed bodies in times of tribulation. Significantly, he also preached that ‘purification’ involved death and immolation. Shortly after this he began preaching the standard apocalyptic warnings of Armageddon and that the world would soon be locked in bloody warfare and famine, fortunately however, only Quebec would be spared, to this end the group constructed a concrete nuclear shelter.
By and large the OTS did not attract much attention and were described by people living close by the various chapters as model citizens, this changed when Armageddon was declared to be the 5th October 1994. When police officers arrived at the group of farmhouses near the Swiss village of Cheiry following reports of a fire, they found twenty-three corpses in underground chapels. The bodies were clothed in robes and arranged in a circle with the feet pointing inwards, some had plastic bags over their heads and some had been shot. Unknown to the police, at the same time in both Grange-sur-Salvan in the Alps and Morin Heights in Quebec, police were investigating similar fires and mass deaths. According to reports filed after the investigations both Jouret and Di Mambro perished with their followers.
The concept of groups aligning themselves with the Templars, (or Knights Templar) is not new; there are literally dozens of such organisations around the world. There is a range of traditions attached to each group and although each one claims legitimacy probably the best known of these is part of Masonic ritual, indeed, the Freemasons have a range of Templar, or Templar related degrees. One of the other quasi-Templar organisations here in Scotland is the ‘Militi Templi Scotia,’ who hold many of their ceremonies at Rosslyn Chapel in the village of Roslin near Edinburgh. Likewise, the use of the Rose and Cross symbolism is part of ancient esoteric tradition dating back for millennia and symbolises something secret or hidden. It is still in use with such semi-secret organisations as ‘The Rosicrucians’.
The Process Church of the Final Judgement
Before moving on to the conclusion, we will examine some cult ideas that fall somewhere between the cracks of convention yet still share the tenets of cult practise, such a cult was embodied in the Scientology spin-off ‘The Process Church of the Final Judgement’. This bizarre organisation emerged in 1963 from a therapy group called ‘Compulsions Analysis’ founded by Robert Moore and Mary Anne McLean. Both were from quite different backgrounds and only met when they became interested in Scientology. Perhaps it was these differences that drew them together when they entered training to become Scientology practitioners and underwent intense, mutual therapy sessions. Love blossomed and they married, then, becoming dissatisfied with Scientology, they left to found their own therapy group, shortly after which they changed their name to de Grimston. Their group quickly gained clients and it was from this core the ‘The Process’ was founded. The sessions created an atmosphere whereby the group became totally immersed in both the therapy and each other thereby creating distrust of those outside. In effect they were no longer restricted to behaviour acceptable to society in general and were also free to develop in any way they saw fit; this eventually encompassed the use of religion.
In June 1966 the group left London and moved to the Bahamas, but eventually steeled at Xtul on the Yucatan Peninsula. After some time here, the parents of three group members attempted to rescue them from the clutches of the de Grimstons causing the group to uproot and return to England, this time as a religion rather than a therapy group. During the next few years the group expanded and set up chapters in Paris, Amsterdam, New York, Rome and Munich. However, in 1968 financial difficulties arose and Robert de Grimston sent some of his followers to obtain money by, in effect, begging. He supported this decision by use of scripture, in this case Matthew Chapter 10: “Take no money, for the individual (the Prosessean) has no need of it for himself. For our spiritual needs will be met by those to whom we give spiritually”. In 1968 the group finally settled in America, establishing more chapters in Boston, Chicago and New Orleans. It is at this time that Robert and Mary Ann separated from the rest of the group and bestowed the title ‘The Omega’ upon themselves.
Although the methods of therapy became known as processes, hence the name of the church, their beliefs became ever more bizarre. Once again we see parallels with duallist belief systems. Process doctrine stated that four Gods were created at the beginning of time, Jehovah was a wrathful god of vengeance and retribution, Lucifer (the light bringer) was fun loving, kind and valued success and peace. Satan on the other hand instilled two qualities in his followers, one, the desire to attain transcendence above the human realm and ‘become all soul and no body’. The other, and equal, quality is a need to sink below the human realm and become obsessed with violence and excessive physical indulgence. The fourth element in this was Christ, who was seen as the link between the Gods and humanity.
The Gods were organised into sets of opposites, Jehovah and Lucifer, Christ and Satan, which characterised basic personality types; people desiring to learn their particular pattern could fill in a questionnaire. This, when used in conjunction with a device called a ‘P Scope,’ would uncover unconscious feelings and ideas as interpreted by a process counsellor. The ‘P-Scope,’ along with the individual degrees or ‘processes’ leading to enlightenment is a further example of the groups’ Scientology’ roots. The ‘P-Scope’ is an exact mirror of the ‘E-meter’ used in Scientology and served exactly the same function, i.e. it measured galvanic skin response. These concepts and methods are virtually identical to those employed by the Scientologists, presumably achieving the same variable and subjective rate of success. Although The Process church is no longer active under that name, there are three other groups that appear to have incorporated some of the original theology in their own beliefs. They are, ‘The Society of Processeans’, the ‘Foundation Faith of God’ and ‘The Terran Order’, although little is known about this last group.
Conclusion
Although the above collection is by no means exhaustive, it does give a flavour of the more extreme beliefs currently in existence. It is clear that cult members are a very special breed of person in search of something that conventional scripture or belief cannot supply. To the rational mind it seems incredible that anyone could believe the dire, doom laden, extreme sermons delivered by the misguided, mad and in many case unscrupulous leaders of these movements, but unfortunately, people are not rational beings. It is certain that small, intense, socially encapsulated and highly demanding groups like these develop internal support mechanisms out of necessity, in effect creating their own exclusive social reality. This is known as ‘Social Implosion’ and occurs when the groups’ own internal structure strengthens to the detriment and eventual replacement of external structures.
When these groups are isolated or enclosed and external news and opinions tightly controlled, or indeed completely absent, the group paradigm becomes the truth absolute. Once coupled to the charisma and teachings of a leader, usually a concoction of truth, lies and speculation it can become a heady and dangerous mixture. The exaggerated, unquestioning and distorted view of reality is vital to sustain them and their beliefs. Cult leaders all appear to have specific personality traits; they are charismatic, domineering, imposing and glib, see others as inferior, have a drive for power and authority, are hostile to criticism and tend to paranoia, a trait also common in despots and tyrants.
Ultimately, providing a specific belief system does not harm or abuse either its members or those outside it, it is relatively harmless. However, when the weak or vulnerable are coerced, gulled or browbeaten into accepting a harmful or dangerous doctrine, then it is fair and reasonable for external forces to intervene and save them from themselves. While this course of action may not please those who believe personal belief and choice should not be infringed for any reason, it is occasionally necessary to protect the innocent and sometimes the merely stupid.
© Brian Allan 2003
Brian Allan will be speaking at the PROBE conference in Blackpool held on 9th/10th October 2004.
and
the Autumn Signs of the Times conference in Oxford on 7th November
