All cults are alike; each cult is unhappy in its own way

I just finished reading Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology. I had never heard of Leah Remini, never seen her on TV. I was in a cult. We didn't watch TV. Then after leaving, I had no interest in television, as I had such a hunger to study and learn after years in the intellectual desert that was life in the Children of God. Like Leah, I needed to rewire my brain. But unlike Leah, I had no support system, no therapists, no friends nor family nearby, just my own large brood of children that needed care and attention and money.

Reading Leah's story, I marveled at the similarities. Groupthink, which I.L. Janis defined as “a deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgments as a result of group pressures," is an essential feature in all cults. Scientologists, just like their COG counterparts, are “the enlightened ones,” the ones with privileged insight into The Truth. This privilege obliges members to spend hours and hours “improving themselves” through daily reading, frequent counseling, self-criticism, and criticism from leaders, with its resultant required confessions and, in the COG, united prayer sessions. Voicing doubts or criticizing leaders was cause for censure and punishment, demotion, hard-labor, humiliation, silence restriction, and/or wearing headphones listening to group publications.

I was horrified to read of the extent of the abuse that was heaped upon adults in Scientology, and its accompanying psychological warping so that the victims believe they are deserving of such ill-treatment. In the Children of God, although adults were subject to various types of abuse and constant exploitation, the real victims were the children. Especially the first generation born in the COG were subject to physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse, coupled with educational and medical neglect. Like Leah explained about Scientology, the group's publications were deemed more important than mere academic education.

Scientology, with its courting of rich and famous celebrities, is wealthy, yet the rank-and-file members can find themselves bankrupt because of the amount of money the cult requires them to pay. Children of God members lived in poverty after giving up everything to the cult, being forbidden to hold regular jobs because they were too busy “doing the work of winning the world, that only they, as the chosen of God, could do,” and tithing at least 15% of the donations they raised. The very dedicated gave more.

I feel a kindred spirit to Leah, and I commend her strength and resolve in coming out of such a strong mindset as was instilled during her formative years growing up in Scientology.

SS Training

There are some disturbing parallels to life in the COG/TFI to be found in certain political movements and philosophies (and possibly true for other cults that I do not have firsthand experience with).

Karl Wolff, Schutzstaffel General, said of SS soldiers in the documentary series, The World at War, "They were subtly conditioned to see themselves as the sons of light, that they were engaged in a struggle against the powers of darkness. And that it was their duty to feel that they were at all times on duty for the nation, and in a wider sense, for the new order in Europe."

No subtle conditioning for us. It was direct. Berg wrote, "You are the children of God, the children of Light,"* and he told us that we were engaged in a war against the powers of darkness. We were serving God, and preparing to rule the world in the Millennium, when God's children would "run the world."

Hermann Göring wrote, "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country" - or cult.

I've written about the "them and us" mindset in the COG, and the stifling of dissent. We were under constant threat of outside attack from "persecutors" and were to always be vigilant and on guard. Paranoid, in other words. (See Lies and Sexual Coercion)

And, to top it off, in spite of all the talk of “love” in the group, true touches of human kindness were very rare. People were too “busy with the Lord's work” to bother with such frivolities. Besides, we were the Lord's Army, and "God and His Family came first." I was even once told by a top leader that "there is no such thing as human kindness."

* "Lovelight," David Berg —Sequel to "Look of Love"— June 24, 1974 NO.307

Chillingly Similar: Berg's "Family" and Manson's "Family"

I recently finished reading the excellent account of the Manson Family and the gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders, Helter Skelter, written by the prosecutor in the case. The parallels were chilling. So chilling, in fact, that one may wonder if Berg actually borrowed some of his ideas from Charles Manson.

The Manson Family:

• Delusional, charismatic leader with his own theory of an apocalypse where blacks destroy the whites, then step aside to allow the reincarnation of Jesus himself, Charles Manson, to come out of his refuge in the desert and rule the world along with his loyal followers.
• Using his female followers to flirt and entice men to join the group, with sex as their bait. Women's purpose was to take care of men.
• So-called "freedom" with unashamed nudity and unbridled sex and orgies.
• Delusional followers who would do whatever their leader told them, even brutally killing innocents to "set them free," while bringing "death to pigs." A bit of a conflicted message.
• They called themselves "The Family," a united, "loving" brotherhood.
• Jargon and anonymity — Members took new names, police were referred to as "Romans," outsiders were other-ized.
• No shame or guilt for their crimes.

The Family of Love:

• Delusional, charismatic leader who taught that the world was evil and would be destroyed in the apocalypse, before which God's children would be raptured to heaven and saved, soon to return to rule the world during the Millennium.
• Using female followers to entice men to join and/or support the group financially. "FFing [Flirty Fishing] is going out witnessing the love of Jesus with the serious intent to use sex or sex appeal as the bait." (From FF Report Questions & Answers!) Women were taught that their role in life was to care for men, specifically, the men's "physical needs." 
• Free sex — yes.
• Delusional followers who were to obey unquestioningly. "You must obey implicitly, quickly and without question your officers in the Lord, without murmuring [complaining]..."  (From The Revolutionary Rules, 1972) The disciples' job was to set the "Systemites" free, while overall condemning them for following "mammon" [material goods, i.e. working for money].
• The Family, a united brotherhood — yes.
• Jargon and anonymity — Members took new names when joining and after "breakthroughs in their spiritual lives." Indeed, police were referred to as "Romans," as in praying, "Lord, hide us from the eyes of the Romans," before distributing literature on the street, etc. (Truly, that was a common prayer back in the day.) The othering of "them and us" was elemental.
• No shame or guilt, absolutely. They do not feel their doctrines were wrong.

Berg, with his delusions and charisma set up a fool's paradise that became his followers' "normal," with a whole different set of mores from society at large. Most egregiously, he proclaimed that adult sex with kids was "godly." Bear with me through these loathsome quotes in which I have added bold type for emphasis:

"THE ONLY WAY TO GET FREE OF [Satan] AND HIS LIES AND HIS PROHIBITIONS AND GUILT COMPLEXES ABOUT SEX is to get rid of his lies and his lying propaganda, his anti-sex propaganda, and believe the Lord and His Word and His Creation and God's Love and His freedom! That there's nothing in the world at all wrong with sex as long as it's practiced in love, whatever it is or whoever it's with, no matter who or what age or what relative or what manner!

"I'M TALKING ABOUT NATURAL NORMAL GODLY LOVE AS MANIFESTED IN SEX, as far as I'm concerned for whomever! There are no relationship restrictions or age limitations in His law of love. But system laws make it all against the law, and if I'd tell you what I think, I'd probably break the law publishing it! Whew! Wow! The system really stinks! It is a pit of lies and deceit and fiendish propaganda against the laws of God and the love of God and the sex of God! It's almost totally against nature!" (From The Devil Hates Sex!—But God Loves It!, 5/20/1980)

What was satisfying about the Manson murder trials, was that the prosecution succeeded in convincing the jury that without Manson's role, influence, and philosophy, and of course, his orders, the murders would not have been committed. He was given the death penalty, which was changed to life imprisonment when California abolished capital punishment. At the time of this writing, he is still in prison, living at taxpayer expense, even making some money from the licensing of his songs and name. But, at least, a measure of justice was served.

Too few TFI members that followed through with Berg's advice that “unto the pure all things are pure,” including sex with kids, landed in jail. It is a shame that Berg and Zerby did not. Even though Charles Manson did not personally kill the victims of the Tate-LaBianca murders, he was judged to be the one that instigated his followers, and because of that and other crimes, he has spent his life in prison. Berg and Zerby not only created the atmosphere where their followers thought such behavior was “of God,” they themselves set the standard for this child-abuse. If anyone should have been jailed, it was Berg, and the current leader of the TFI, Zerby. 

No justice has been served.

Cults and Abusive Relations are Alike

The similarity of mental process that I demonstrated both in my cult subservience and in my abusive marriage lead me to believe that the psychology is one and the same. 

One important characteristic of cults, in order for them to continue and thrive, is isolationism—if not physical isolation (like Jonestown), then social isolation (like TFI, where we were taught that "you are in the world, but not of the world," and to "keep yourself unspotted from the world," as the Bible admonishes). Separation from outsiders, a "them and us" mentality, is a crucial part of the doctrine.  

This same condition applied to my nuclear family life. After leaving communal life, we remained in a country that, shall I say, is not particularly open to foreigners, nor is the language easy to pick up. We were looked on as "outsiders" by the community around us, which seemed to suit our mentality just fine, having been immersed in the isolation of cult life for all of my husband's and my adult lives. Isolation and "being separate" were second nature to us.

In this atmosphere of isolation, my loyalty to my family was strong, as had been my cult loyalty which fortunately, by this time, was beginning to wane. (This period coincided with the publication of remarkably bizarre new doctrines which the "Prophetess" had "received from the Lord," as I wrote about previously. See Finally.)

Both cults and abusive relationships rely on belief in delusions. 

The TFI has so many delusions that it has filled volumes, highlighted by the collective wish-fulfillment of being God's children with the promise of heaven. As for my marriage, my delusion was also a form of wish-fulfillment—believing that my husband was the good, loving husband and father as described by my internal narrative. As is the nature of beliefs, I wanted to believe them, and in so doing unwittingly suppressed the reality testing function of my brain.

Moreover, both cult-life and my married-life played on my human need for acceptance and belonging. I have a desire to be useful and needed, along with the rest of the human race, particularly mothers. Both situations—cult and marriage—played to that need as well.

Groupthink

By the requirement and pressure to "constantly" read and memorize the Bible (and the letters from Berg), the "them and us" mentality of the group, and the repudiation of dissent and dissenters, the structure for groupthink was in place.

Put very simply, groupthink is a psychological phenomena where group harmony and unity are encouraged to the degree that outside opinions or disagreement is disregarded. Originally coined in 1952 by William H. Whyte, Jr., it was researched and more thoroughly defined by psychologist Irving Janis in the 1970s. "The term refers to a deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgments as a result of group pressures."  (I.L. Janis, Psychology Today, Nov. 1971) (More on deterioration of mental efficiency in a later post.)

In general, when pressure to conform is strong, members don't even consider possible alternatives. In my case, any objections were kept to ourselves, as voicing any dissent was considered "doubting" or disloyalty, which were strongly discouraged. Ideas presented from outside sources were not taken seriously. Outsiders were stereotyped as "systemites" - members of society at large and subject to the "system" from which we deemed ourselves free. So of course, no alternative lifestyles were even considered.

We cultivated the belief in the rightness of our cause (the chosen and called of God), and "gave no thought to the morrow" nor to the eventual consequences of our choices and decisions. In came the delusions of the importance of our work. Membership in the group was thought to be more important than anything else. 

In short, groupthink led to a very distorted sense of reality.