Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 28, 1993 TAG: 9303280281
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Long
Not since the Jonestown suicides of 1978 have Americans been so enthralled, upset and mystified by a religious cult as they have by David Koresh and the Branch Davidians.
Yet while the first reaction may be "They're crazy," the attachment of otherwise rational people to a cult often can be explained, says a Radford University professor.
"Nobody walks in and has cult members tell them `We're going to stockpile weapons, kill people and spank your children,' " Rick Slavings said.
Slavings, who teaches a course on cults and terrorism in the sociology and anthropology department, explained that new members are gradually brought into full fellowship with a cult.
It's an experience he understands better than many scholars, because he and a partner allowed themselves to be recruited into a cult while they were graduate students as part of a research project.
The group, known as The Way, targeted loners on big college campuses, Slavings said. They were enticed with friendship, free food, tutors and what was, at first, "very standard Protestant doctrine" of salvation through Jesus Christ.
It was a classic approach pattern, Slavings said.
Members are recruited when they are suffering; when they are facing "social deficits" - a lack of something in their lives. They might be people who have divorced or broken up with a lover, people who have lost faith in religion, who are stuck in an unhappy job or school situation.
The recruiters tell the prospects, "We love you, we'll take care of you." It can be a powerful attraction, Slavings said.
While it may be easy to see how vulnerable people are pulled in by promises of spiritual or emotional healing, it is "more difficult to understand why they stay in."
But even Slavings and his partner found it difficult to cut ties to the group after a six-month involvement. That was despite the fact they rejected its religious philosophy and knew going in that they were there only to study.
In fact, they were observing well-researched methods of building emotional attachments to a group.
"Leaders almost inevitably use a set of standard commitment-building techniques" on new members, Slavings said:
New members are asked to put "investments and sacrifice" into the organization in "increasingly significant" amounts. Members invest money, property and self-esteem before "the more bizarre behaviors" of the cult are revealed.
Cults tend to develop their own special rituals and practices to imitate a warm, family atmosphere and build community.
Leaders tend to link the movement to a "higher cause." If the actions of the group will lead to spiritual salvation or the liberation of the oppressed, it is more difficult to break ties to it.
Members are asked to give up most or all of their other relationships. Family and friends outside are portrayed as just that - outsiders. After the old family is abandoned, the new cult family becomes even more important and harder to leave.
Finally, after members become heavily committed to the cult, they may be subject to "mortification" - strong criticism and punishment for not conforming to the group. That may include verbal lashings for adults and spankings for children.
All those add up to powerful incentives for sticking with a cult even when a member becomes disillusioned.
Cult members are "constantly reminded how bad life was before they joined the group," Slavings said.
Jim Jones, the former Methodist minister who led the Jonestown cult, "did the most cunning thing," Slavings said. "He had the camp `nurses' administer the poison to the children" on the day of the mass suicide before the adults drank the arsenic-laced drink. Those parents really had "sacrificed all - even their children," Slavings said. Then it wasn't difficult for Jones to talk them into killing themselves.
"There is a point at which it's less painful to stay or even die with the group than to go back to something that may not even exist any more."
The extremes of the commitment, and the fact that it is to an individual, are keys to defining the organization a cult, Slavings said.
"A commitment to religious principles is very different from commitment to a leader," Slavings said.
Individuals may be very devoted to their religion, to the point that it influences virtually every aspect of their lives, he said. Yet they do not withdraw completely from society or live or die according to the whims of a religious leader.
Still, the boundary between cult and legitimate religion can be fuzzy, Slavings said. "It's very difficult to pin down a definition" of a cult. Religious groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are considered cults or cultish by some Christians, for instance.
Sometimes, a group starts off legitimately enough, then becomes more cultish over time. That was true of the followers of Jim Jones and is particularly true of terrorist organizations, which Slavings says operate much like cults.
The Red Brigade terrorist group in Italy, for example, began simply as a "social activist movement lobbying for mass transit for the poor," Slavings said. Members worked for years and years without appreciable result and became more and more extremist.
Finally, members came to see their purpose as providing "retribution for working-class injustices," which they believed justified violence.
Some environmental groups have decided they are justified in booby-trapping trees so that loggers may be injured or killed when they try to cut them. "They get to the point that they are convinced the only way to achieve their goals is through negative attention," Slavings said.
Like cults, terrorist groups tend to attract people looking for a cause, a purpose in life, Slavings said. Members often have a record of moving from one group to another.
But for many, as has been demonstrated at the Branch Davidian compound in Texas, getting out and moving on is difficult and painful.
"The time to help [cult members] is before they are too committed to turn back," Slavings said.
De-programmers may be called in to help persuade established cult members to leave their groups, but that is often a long, difficult task, Slavings said.
Parents, in particular, should be aware of whether their children are receiving the "social nurturing and support" they need. That may mean "re-establishing values that commit children to the family."
"When they feel they don't count, they will start to look for a group where they can count."
by CNB