Meera Atkinson 

The phenomenon of cults is a prime example of the call to community gone wrong. Author and cult-expert, Raphael Aron, says cults develop through the human need to belong; and the way to prevent them is to create strong families and strong communities.

Unpack the issues...

It’s human nature to want to belong, to wonder about the meaning of life, to seek some form of spiritual solace. It could be argued that even card-carrying atheists and cynics do this. But there are ways in which these essential needs can be distorted into destructive experience and the phenomenon of cults is a prime example of the call to community gone wrong.

Raphael Aron, director of Cult Counselling Australia and author of Cults: Too Good to be True, says the interest in cults took root in the 70s, following a series of high profile cases. Stories including that of Patty Hearst, the Charles Manson murders and the Jonestown massacre shook the world and demonstrated just how extreme the damage could be.

Further, Raphael says the secular nature of Australian society makes us particularly vulnerable to cult involvement.

“In Australia we’re dealing with a spiritual vacuum,” he says. “People’s interests lie in sports and leisure. The churches are having difficulty maintaining their following, which is a concern. A lot of people look towards other means to satisfy their quest.”

There are those who view any kind of organised spiritual path as a cult and, indeed, many cults are aligned with the teachings of mainstream religions. But Raphael says one of the key differences is that cults often portray their (human) leader as God and members believe that person is exempt from the law. Cults are generally anti–family, seeking to replace the influence of family with the influence of the group. Cults are commonly apocalyptic, e.g. in Russia cult members of the so-called True Russian Orthodox Church recently went underground to await the end of the world (apparently due this month).

The issue of control and accountability is paramount. Cults demand control of a person’s thinking and life, often resulting in a personality change. They thwart questioning and challenges. A religion, or genuine spiritual path, expects individuals to ask questions and ideally gives people hope and promise.

Amanda can attest to the strategy of control and manipulation, having been involved with the International Churches of Christ movement, a breakaway group from the Boston Church of Christ. Following the recruitment of her sister to the cult, Amanda joined the group as a teenager, attracted by the feeling of completeness, acceptance and unconditional friendship.

“There were a lot of hugs and smiles and people were always complimenting each other on how “fruitful” [in their recruitment drives] they were,” Amanda says.

Amanda had been a practising Christian with a church community and Christian friends before her cult involvement. She confirms that the cult employed bullying tactics, using verses to “break” her until she accepted their view, checking up daily on what sins she’d committed or impure thoughts she’d had, what she’d spent money on, and naming her concerned friends as the work of Satan. 

Raphael says that a true cult is unique in the way it totally dominates a person’s life. “You can compare it with addictions,” says Raphael. “There are similarities. They both seem to provide an answer and a way out but in the end bring you down. They’re both expensive and often involve legalities.”

Amanda was technically only a properly baptised member of the International Churches of Christ movement for a few weeks, but she says the long term effects still haunt her ten years on. The experience rocked her faith but, while she remains wary of religious groups, ceremonies and religious advice, she maintains a “faith of sorts”.

Raphael says the way to prevent cults is to create strong families and strong communities. “At the heart of it all is the notion of belonging,” he says. 

Amanda says there is “a really fine line between religion and cult”, but it’s a critical one. “Perhaps the difference is in the type of community and the ability to have your own identity and freedom of choice within the group,” she says, “To be accepted for who you are, not who you need to become.”

Unpack the issues...

Further reading

• Cult Counselling Australia
• The Cult Awareness and Information Centre  
  A recovering Jehovah’s Witnesses site that has an interesting discussion on the difference between “healthy faith” and “unhealthy faith”.
• Russian cult members await apocalypse underground
• Cult information service
• Profile of Raphael Aron

Discussion point

• Is there such a thing as an unhealthy faith?
• To what extent to cults have a right to exist, as another form of faith, religion or spirituality?

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