A Gaggle of Cult Materials

A few years ago, my husband, Hoyt, and I went to Spain. The photo here is one I took of a gaggle of geese in a church courtyard. I just loved them and their curiosity. So, I figured I’d use this picture as a metaphor for the gaggle of links to my posts containing cult information. Curious as geese? Read on.

Finding Charlene’s cult posts

Navigate to any page of my website. Notice the links across the top; click Blog Categories. Click that and a drop-down list appears. Click Cults. Ta-dah!

Some of my favorite cult posts

To read them, click the pink links.

1. What Is a Cult?
2. What Do You Know About Cults?
3. TED Ed: Why join a cult?
4. Cults & Identity Theft
5. Cults and Critical Thinking
6. Intervening in Cultic Situations: ICSA and My Presentations

Bonus: screens from my PowerPoint presentations

Screen 1. What’s a Cult?

“First, a shift in worship from broad spiritual ideas to the person of a charismatic guru;

second, the active pursuit of a thought reform-like process that frequently stresses some kind of merger with the guru; and

third, extensive exploitation from above (by the guru and leading disciples)—whether economic, sexual, or psychological—of the idealism of ordinary followers from below.”

♦ Source: Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and The Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry by Robert Jay Lifton. The New Press. 2019. (Pg. 4,5)

Screen 2. Cult or Religion?

Note: These traits vary across groups. This is a general guide only.

CULTS

• Rush you into joining
• Expect constant involvement
• Adore leader with “direct” line to God
• Control & monitor behavior
• Use shame to enforce obedience
• Claim bad things happen to you if you leave

RELIGIONS (I’m referring to long-established ones)

• Give you time to decide
• Don’t expect 100% attendance
• Worship spiritual higher power
• Don’t closely monitor followers
• Guide rather than control
• Respect freedom to leave church, freedom of religion

♦ Source: Janja Lalich, PhD, professor emeritus Sociology. Interview at: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/cult-vs-religion-difference

Screen 3. Cult Warning Signs

1. Charismatic/Authoritarian leader with ideology
2. Starry-eyed recruiting, “love bombing”
3. Critical inquiry is considered “persecution”
4. Belief that bad things happen to you if you leave
5. Disrespect for people’s autonomy
6. Exploitation: intellectual, emotional, sexual, financial

♦ Sources: ICSA, Michael Langone, Janja Lalich, Stephen Hassen.

Screen 4. What Is Fishy About The Way International? 

Note: I use The Way as the example in my presentations because that’s the group I was in.

Hint about why The Way is fishy: The claim that The Way teaches “the accuracy of God’s Word.”

Screen 5. Can You Challenge VPW’s Claim?

“He [God] said He would teach me The Word as it had not been known since the first century if I would teach it to others.”

~ Victor Paul Wierwille, Founder of The Way International

♦ Source: Elena Scott Whiteside, author, The Way: Living in Love. (Pg. 178)

Screen 6. Challenging Wierwille’s Claim

What does “The Word” refer to?

1. If “The Word” means The Bible, then which Bible? Which canon (accepted books)?
2. Did “The Word” exist in the 1st century?
3. Does God make such bargains?
4. Why might Wierwille make this claim?

♦ Questions prepared by Charlene Edge, author, Undertow.

Screen 7. A – B – C – D: Talking with Recruiters

Ask open-ended questions: not answerable with  “Yes” or “No.”

Be an attentive listener. Notice what recruiter does not say.

Challenge appealing promises.

Don’t tolerate deception, even from a friend.

♦ List created by Charlene Edge, author, Undertow.

—–The End—–

Thanks for reading!

Your writer on the wing,

Charlene