Since Jonestown, public concern over the cults has revolved around a single theme: their potential for violent, criminal, or self-destructive behavior. This was an issue we barely touched upon in Snapping because of its obvious sensationalism, the difficulties we encountered trying to verify reports, and on the unyielding advice of our lawyers. In recent months, however, a mass of new information has come to light, and the climate of discussion has changed enough to permit, if not demand, a full public airing of all evidence suggesting that other religious cults have a capacity for violence similar to that demonstrated by the People's Temple.
Our immediate concern is aroused by those cults that have expanded their operations into other countries and continents. In recent years, this tactic seems to have been chosen by a number of groups as a way to minimize the risk of exposure in the American media and to escape the scrutiny and jurisdiction of local, state, and federal government agencies. By 1973, after a number of legal clashes, Hannah Lowe's New Testament Missionary Fellowship, one of the first cults to proselytize on college campuses in the East, had moved most of its operations to Colombia. In 1974, following the publication of an unfavorable report by New York State's Charity Frauds Bureau, the Children of God moved about 90 percent of its nationwide membership overseas, where they have since touched down in England, Italy, France, Spain, the Canary Islands, Morocco, and Libya. In 1978, the cult changed its name to the Family of Love -- an apt reflection of its recent turn to prostitution as a means of soliciting money and new members -- and it now claims to have 829 colonies around the world.
All the major cults we investigated -- the Unification Church, the Hare Krishna, the Divine Light Mission, and the Church of Scientology -- have headquarters or primary operations in the United States, while maintaining active bases in other countries. Many may have branched out internationally to keep tabs on the large sums of cash they are reported to have deposited in foreign banks, just as the People's Temple stashed secret funds said to approach $10 million in secret bank accounts in Switzerland and Panama. Other cults undoubtedly find foreign outposts useful places to hide members who are being sought by their parents or law enforcement officials, and, like Jim Jones, some groups appear to be setting up remote hideouts in preparation for a mass exodus from the United States.
A number of controversial cults, shunning public attention, have withdrawn to the relative security of rural communes in the United States. Since 1975, several hundred members of the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation, which began in Hollywood in the late sixties, have lived in near-total seclusion in Dyer, Arkansas (Pop. 609). The Unification Church, which in addition to its vast religious and business operations in South Korea is reported to be expanding its operations in Europe and South America, maintains a number of farms and rural retreats in the United States to which it brings many new recruits in the initial stages of their conversion and indoctrination. Within the last few years, the Unification Church has also begun large-scale commercial fishing operations in the United States and has transferred significant resources in wealth and membership to out-of-the-way towns such as Gloucester, Massachusetts; Norfolk, Virginia; and Bayeu Le Batre, Alabama.
But perhaps the most lavish retreat of any major cult is that of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness near Moundsville, West Virginia. The retreat of more than two hundred acres, known as New Vrindaban, is home to nearly three hundred Krishna members. Many of them have been laboring since 1973 on the construction of the cult's ornate "Prabhupada Palace" -- named after their late founder. Soon to be completed, the palace, which would cost millions if built commercially, will have a twenty-two karat gold-leaf dome, two terraces, moats, gardens, marble from forty countries, and gold and copper leaf everywhere.
New Vrindaban may also be the site of one of the largest stockpiles of weapons known to have been acquired by any domestic religious cult. Since 1973, the Krishnas have collected an arsenal that includes M-14 military-surplus semiautomatic rifles, handguns, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Cult leader Kirtanananda Swami has claimed that the weapons are only for self-defense, citing instances when local vigilantes invaded the Krishna farm; and Krishnas declare themselves to be nonviolent, pointing out that their simple vegetarian diet shows their reluctance to kill another living thing. Their own teachings and codes, however, tend to undermine this argument.
As it turns out, many cults, while professing to be peace-loving and nonviolent, have doctrines sanctioning criminal or violent acts, and collections of weapons that might be used to carry them out. The seemingly passive Krishnas present cult researchers with what may be the most vivid ironies: former members have reported receiving identical instructions from their temple leaders on how to deal with deprogrammers and other "demons" -- their word for outsiders who are being "blasphemous." "The Krishna teachings offer three choices to devotees when they face blasphemy," said one. "The first is to leave the place, the second is to kill the person being blasphemous, and, if all else fails, the third is to kill yourself."
Although all profess simply to be taking defense precautions, other cults appear to be gearing up for armed confrontations. Investigators probing the operations of Synanon since that group's alleged rattlesnake attack on Paul Morantz report that the organization has purchased a total of 152 pistols, rifles, and shotguns and more than 660,000 rounds of ammunition. The Way International, a Christian cult that has a college in Emporia, Kansas, enrolled students and faculty members in marksmanship and weapons-safety classes at a local National Guard Armory. An eyewitness reported that more than five hundred people artended the course with .22-caliber rifles, yet cult spokesmen say they were only seeking hunters' safety training.
The controversial Church of Scientology has allegedly been linked to a number of criminal or violent acts, in addition to its recent charge of having infiltrated and burglarized agencies of the U.S. government. The FBI's 1977 raid on Scientology headquarters yielded some startling paraphernalia: two pistols, a blackjack, electronic eavesdropping equipment, a lock-picking kit, plus vials of knockout drops and something labeled "vampire blood." It also uncovered files that appeared to confirm allegations that, throughout the seventies and before, Scientology has engaged in a systematic campaign of harassing its critics by legal and illegal means. Paulette Cooper, author of The Scandal of Scientology, has filed a $20 million suit against the cult, claiming that following publication of her book in 1971, church members stole her stationery, sent themselves a bomb threat, and then had her indicted on criminal charges. Two years later, after she had spent more than $20,000 in legal fees and $6,000 for psychiatric treatment, Cooper was cleared of all charges when she submitted to a court-supervised truth serum test. It wasn't until 1977 that the FBI uncovered a Scientology file marked "Operation Freakout" containing documents that concerned "getting PC incarcerated in a mental institution or jail."
But perhaps the most comprehensive threat of large-scale criminal or violent action is posed by the Unification Church, many of whose members have been told to prepare to become "heavenly bullets" in Reverend Moon's worldwide crusade against Communism. Moon's own speeches reveal his master plan to create a world theocracy under his rule. In 1973, he vowed, "I will conquer and subjugate the world." Later that year he said, "The present United Nations must be annihilated by our power." And in 1974, he told his followers, "So from this time, every people and organization that goes against the Unification Church will gradually come down or drastically come down and die. Many people will die -- those who go against our movement." Moon's threats may sound idle or grandiose, but he has the materials and manpower to back them up. With his factories in Korea that manufacture ammunition and automatic rifles, his worldwide fleet of fishing boats, and his thousands of hard-core American followers and reported hundreds of thousands in South Korea, he has the means to initiate a major international skirmish; and he is said to be already drawing up plans for large-scale international campaigns -- both spiritual and otherwi
se.
We enter the eighties with ample evidence of the cult threat in America and around the world, not only in the flagrancies of mass violence and destruction like that which took place in Guyana, but in the subtleties of mind control that have altered the lives of an estimated three million young Americans in this decade. Beyond the immediate crisis of the cults, the issue of mind control is a broadening one. Almost daily, the panoply of techniques for altering human awareness and personality reaches new levels of sophistication and popular acceptance. Following the trail first blazed in the sixties by the pioneers of America's consciousness explosion, in all likelihood Americans in the eighties will continue to pursue adventures in personal growth and spiritual fulfillment. They will be solicited in ever-increasing numbers and with ever more accomplished marketing schemes by groups offering some form of revelation, ecstasy, or psychic superpowers.
Our concern in this cultural trend is that it has already become a free-for-all. Under current laws, neither the techniques nor the technicians are subject to any form of government regulation or consumer protection. Behind the blazing shield of the First Amendment, it appears that a new generation of con men and megalomanics has grown to frightening maturity, in many instances assuming near-total power over their followers and customers. And now, as each group endeavors to expand its activities and scatter its personnel and resources, the threat of unchecked mind-control technology is spreading out from its cradle in America to the rest of the world.
In recent months we have come upon a number of spurious international blueprints being drawn up or carried out by cultlike organizations so large, so professional in their organization, and so socially acceptable that they appear to have become invulnerable. These groups now permeate the mainstream of American society, and in the current outcry over "the cults," their activities are being largely ignored. Perhaps the best known of these grand designs is the Hunger Project, an independent nonprofit organization created and funded by Werner Erhard's est. Its stated goal is to bring about "the end of hunger and starvation on our planet by 1997," but it has been reported that of the more than $883,000 it had raised by late 1978, less than 1 percent had been given to organizations that actually provide food for hungry people. Instead, most of the money was being used to sell the idea of the Hunger Project to the public.
Further down the mainstream, a number of evangelical Christian sects have inaugurated large-scale mass media campaigns of awesome scope and technical sophistication. To cite one example, the Campus Crusade for Christ, among the most visible and enterprising evangelical organizations, has launched a $1 billion crusade aimed at placing inexpensive radio and television sets in more than two million villages around the world. In 1978, the movement announced its new "Here's Life, World" program, complete with a "special task force on technology" headed by a former president of McDonnell Douglas Astronautics. Already claiming two million converts in Hong Kong, Mexico, and India, "Here's Life, World" aims to "share the gospel with every person on earth by 1982."
But undoubtedly the most ambitious international project of all is that of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation organization, which recently established a "World Government for the Age of Enlightenment" at its American headquarters in South Fallsburg, New York. From there, according to multiple reports, the Maharishi has sent out advanced TM teams to areas of social and political turmoil in 108 countries, to "resolve outbreaks of conflict and violence" and to "create a dramatic and soothing influence in the atmosphere" through the practice of his TM technique. His most recent announcement was a plan "to bring invincibility to Israel," a direct appeal to American Jews to travel to Israel for a special two-month TM "Sidhis" course in levitationtat $2,500 per person. Many Sidhis graduates told us that they have "gained mastery of the laws of nature," and that they now have the ability to rise off the ground and "fly."
It is the promotion of this type of delusion and vulnerability to suggestion that we consider most alarming about groups such as these and the techniques they use, along with the possibility that large numbers of people in other countries may soon be laid open to mind control at the direction of self-appointed religious, social, and political leaders. The tragedy in Guyana has served to alert the American people and people around the world to these potentially destructive developments, but the public's dawning awareness has yet to grasp the havoc that may lie in store.
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Seven months ago it was much easier to draw back from our work and take an objective look at the dangers we were foreshadowing. Our worst fears were largely hypothetical, based on long hours of travel, personal interviews, and poring over scholarly research and laboratory data. Back then, the only people who shared our concern were those whose lives had been touched by the phenomenon. On impact, Jonestown appears to have changed all that. The public seemed to sense some personal message in the photographs of 912 bloated bodies so peacefully laid out and colorfully clad.
In our initial inquiry, we confronted the emergence of a new software technology capable of producing, in our opinion, frightening new forms of mental illness. In Snapping, we described three forms of this new illness as varieties of 'information disease,' and since introducing that term, we have observed new classes of information disease that we believe to be more subtle, yet equally dangerous. Initially, we concluded that the effects of cult techniques could be counteracted by direct intervention in the form of skilled deprogramming and rehabilitation. We believed that any individual could recover from these effects regardless of how long he had been under their control. In the many miles we have traveled since then, after talking with hundreds more parents, former cult members, and mental health and legal professionals, our findings have been confirmed in the majority of instances, but we have also seen troubling signs that some cult techniques may damage the brain and nervous system in ways that are permanent and irreversible.
Our original hope and optimism have been dampened in other respects. Over the years, we have watched a gathering storm of what borders on religious fanaticism spread across the United States and the world. In some arenas, religion in this country has given rise to a new form of mental illness. In others, it has given way to terrorism. Yet, because the strength of our country is so intimately bound to noble principles that seem to defy any attempt to safeguard against their exploitation, the United States is currently helping, inadvertently, to foster a wave of chaos that has grown to international proportions.
The question in our minds is whether America's people and politicians have the desire -- and the nerve -- to halt the trend, for ultimately it will be the citizens of this country who determine what happens. Will America abandon the principles and ethics of science and the technology that we as a people have looked to discover and have so tirelessly created? Or, as the problems of the eighties roll toward us, will we simply throw up a smokescreen of religious rhetoric? Religion has played and will continue to play a vital role in America's social development, but we question whether it can continue to do so standing on worn-out myths and arbitrary principles that deny basic human freedoms. Today, every nation and every religion is being called upon to reevaluate its premises, its doctrines, and its sacred rites to weed out those that are destructive to individuals, to their relationships with other people, and to society. Without this chastening introspection of our most fundamental attitudes and beliefs, we face only the terror of unmovable minds snapped shut with absolute answers.
The human mind afflicted in this manner has been the subject of our inquiry. Through it all, we hold fast to the optimism that has kept our own spirits from faltering. We say that each new report of cult abuses and criminal offenses will stir a major advance in public opinion and await the moment when policymakers in government become aroused to action. But, on reflection, it seems to us that even the carnage of the People's Temple may fail as a warning. Beyond Jonestown, staring at us in the eighties is a tyranny that may move people and nations over a precipice.
&
nbsp; January 31, 1979
Acknowledgments
We express first our gratitude to the many mass-therapy participants,
former cult members, and concerned parents around the country who helped
us in our research for this book, with the understanding that we would
respect their privacy by not revealing their identities.
We also wish to thank William and Betty Rambur and James and Henrietta
Crampton of the Citizens Freedom Foundation, Dr. and Mrs. Marvin Galper,
Marjoe Gortner, Leslie Van Houten and Maxwell Keith, and Ted Patrick
and Sondra Sacks.
We are indebted to several distinguished scientists and professional
people who shared with us their thinking and, in many instances, their
latest research. Concerning the human potential movement, its sources
and outgrowths, and the position of American psychology and psychiatry
in general, we thank Paul Brenner, Russ Denea, Gilla Prizant, Betty
Meador, and Will Schutz; and we are especially grateful to Jack Gibb
and Carl Rogers.
The so-called "hard" scientists we interviewed -- the mathematicians
and physicists, the neurophysiologists and bio-information scientists,
and the interdisciplinary thinkers who fall at various points along
the communication spectrum -- have contributed immensely to both the
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