Information that
Scientology does not want you to read
A Short Review of Academic Research into Cults
copyright 1993 by Jeff Jacobsen
I. PREDISPOSITIONS OF CULT CONVERSION
1. Tension: A discrepency between how one finds oneself
and how one wants to be.
2. Type of Problem-solving Perspective: psychiatric, po-
litical, and religious perspectives are available, but most
choose the religious.
3. Seekership: Conventional religious institutions seem
inadequate, so a person sees himself as a religious seeker.
4. The Turning Point: One feels himself to be at a
critical stage in his life, thus enhancing the feeling that
an important step or change is in order.
5. Cult Affective Bonds: A friendship or some type of
bond with a current cult member must be established for con-
version to take place. 84.7% of the cult members in one
study were first introduced to their cult by a friend or ac-
quaintance in a group.
6. Extra-Cult Affective Bonds: affiliation with people
who have negative opinions of the cult must be weak or at
least weaker than the cult bond.
7. Intensive Interaction: this seperates "verbal" con-
verts from "total" converts. The interaction with "verbal"
converts is generally to get them to become "total" converts
through greater interaction with the "total" converts.
( from Lofland and Stark (1965) American Sociological Review
30:865-875)
II. TYPES OF CONVERSION
1. Intellectual: a person studies the organization without
any participation in the organization. He is basically a be-
liever by the time he begins to participate.
2. Mystical: St. Paul's conversion is the prototype of
this. This conversion comes from a power outside the indi-
vidual with little or no social pressure involved.
3. Experimental: a person participates in the organization
to see if he likes it or it is what he is looking for.
4. Affectional: a relationship with a cult member is the
main motivation for this conversion.
5. Revivalist: a profound experience occurs within an emo-
tionally aroused crowd sufficient to cause a conversion.
6. Coercive: the individual is forced either knowingly or
not into a conversion. Seven steps are used:
a. total control of the person's environment.
b. uncertainty- for example, being praised and punished
for doing the same thing at different times.
c. isolation from the outside world.
d. mental and/or physical torture.
e. physical debilitation and exhaustion.
f. personal humiliation.
g. certainty of the individual's guilt.
(from Lofland-Skonovd (1981 Journal for the Scientific Study
of Religion 20(4):373-385)
III. PASSIVE VS. ACTIVE CONVERSION
The major point of discussion currently in the field of
cult research is whether a convert has an active role in his
conversion, or whether he is influenced from without toward a
conversion. But from part II we can see that both are cor-
rect- it just depends on which TYPE of conversion we are
talking about. Mystical, revivalist, affectional, and coer-
cive conversions all have large degrees of influence on a
mostly passive convert, whereas the intellectual and ex-
perimental conversions are mostly active events performed by
the convert himself.
IV. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
An important point to keep in mind is that the academician
gets his information on cults almost exclusively from inter-
views with current and former members of cults. While this
is beginning to change today, almost no researcher had direct
personal experience within a cult. Second hand information
is often open to misinterpretation, and this is quite notice-
able in the academic research being done. For example, on
article sought to find out whether Hare Krishna members had
any psychological harm from involvement with the cult. Un-
fortunately, the sample of members chosen was influenced by
the Hare Krishna movement itself, which greatly weakens the
results. The Hare Krishnas could hide those members who were
psychologically unstable, and in fact there is evidence that
most cults simply kick out people who develop any mental dif-
ficulties. So, while the study found no harm to the sample,
it does not prove anything except about those few people
studied.
Researchers, then, must be willing to either become a par-
ticipant observer or admit that their evidence cannot confi-
dently explain what happens inside a cult. Even a par-
ticipant observer has difficulties in that he most likely
will not be convincing in trying to show his commitment,
since he actually has none. Using ex-members is also prob-
lematic because they may try to put a worse light on the
group than is actually the case.
8 METHODS OF THOUGHT REFORM *
1. MILIEU (ENVIRONMENTAL) CONTROL.
Involves "control of human communication."
a. controls communication from without- news, who you speak
with.
b. controls what you think about internally (i.e. rejection
of doubts, inducing fear when thoughts of doing "wrong" oc-
cur).
"He is deprived of the combination of external information
and inner reflection which anyone requires to test the re-
alities of his environment and to maintain a measure of iden-
tity seperate from it. Instead, he is called upon to make an
absolute polarization of the real (the prevailing ideology)
and the unreal (everything else)" (p.421).
2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION.
Designed to produce "planned spontaneity". The followers
create a mystique around the group and its goals- it is por-
trayed as an ultimate truth that comes directly from God, or
some such claim. The group and its goals are seen as more
important than anything else. "any thought or action which
questions the higher purpose is considered to be stimulated
by a lower purpose" (p.422).
3. DEMAND FOR PURITY.
The world is sharply divided between the pure and the im-
pure. Pure things are those which conform to or are included
in group policy. All impurity must be eliminated. "the un-
derlying assumption is that absolute purity is attainable,
and anything done to anyone in the name of this purity is ul-
timately moral" (p.423). Of course, no one can actually
acheive absolute purity, so shame and guilt result. The
group is where you gain "forgiveness" from this guilt. Guilt
comes from contact with the impure world, so one withdraws
more and more into the group exclusively.
4. CULT OF CONFESSION.
Confession is the method used to get rid of impurity.
a. you must go to the group for cleansing.
b. you must open your mind to the group to get cleansed.
c. your mind becomes the property of the group.
d. confession becomes a skill after a time.
e. one learns how to keep secrets in order to maintain some
identity. but this leads to tension and guilt.
5. THE "SACRED SCIENCE".
Group ideals claim absolute scientific precision- there is
no doubt that its claims are True. To doubt is to be "unsci-
entific" or crazy. There is no need for a search for truth,
and in fact such a search is a straying from the Truth and a
denial of it (one can see here why there is little regard for
education).
6. LOADING THE LANGUAGE.
"The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are
compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding
phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed" (p.429).
a. used to mark membership in the group- you "know the
lingo".
b. constricts thought by dismissing problems through cli-
ches. For example, "John is a `lukey'" (meaning a lukewarm
christian) answers all necessary questions about why John
doesn't pay tithes, even though he prayed fervently to God
about his terminally ill daughter and believed that God al-
lowed him to use all his resources for a hopeful operation.
7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON.
Personal history becomes reworked in light of group doc-
trine. Everyone must fit the doctrinal mode. If some human
experience seems to contradict the doctrine an elaborate ra-
tionalization will explain the discrepancy and prove that the
doctrine is right and the experience wrong. An excellent ex-
ample of this comes from 1844. William Miller had convinced
thousands that Christ would return on October 22. The be-
lievers donned white robes and ascended hills to await His
coming. When Christ did not return, Miller admitted he was
in error, apologized, and never preached again. But Ellen G.
White, a Miller follower, declared that Christ had indeed
made a great move- He had gone on that day into the Heavenly
library to begin the judicial inquiry into the fate of the
dead. From this rationalization sprang the 7th Day Adventist
Church.
8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE.
Outsiders are somehow not wholely people. They are miss-
ing some aspect in their life that the group people have. So
there is hope for outsiders if they will come to the group,
unless they have already come and rejected the message. The
group decides who is a real person and who is not.
"Ideological totalism... evokes destructive emotions, pro-
duces intellectual and psychological constrictions, and de-
prives men of all that is most subtle and imaginative- under
tha false promise of eliminating those very imperfections and
ambivalences which help to define the human condition" (p.
436).
* from THOUGHT REFORM AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTALISM, by
Robert J. Lifton (New York: W. W. Norton & Co. 1969).