Note from Perry Bulwer: The first line of the article below states: "CULT LEADERS are the pied-pipers of America..." How true. I wonder if the writer is aware that one of the more notorious cult leaders, David Berg, who founded the Children of God, now called The Family International, boasted of that very thing. In the early days of his cult, in the 1970s, he claimed to receive a prophecy indicating that the Pied Piper was one of his 'spirit helpers'. Yes, you read that right, Berg claimed a fictional character was talking to him and helping him lead his cult. At the following link you can read Berg's original 'prophecy' http://www.exfamily.org/pubs/ml/b4/ml0102.shtml After that, Berg continued to write and speak of himself as a modern day Pied Piper who boasted of manipulating children to leave their families, which is what his cult did all over the world. See the Related Articles links at the end of this post for more articles on that deceptive cult.
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Philly.com - March 12, 2011
Cults are Jersey man's bread and butter
By JASON NARK
CULT LEADERS are the pied-pipers of America, leading the outcast, the despondent, and sometimes the highly intelligent off into the dark, isolated fringes of society.
And then there's Rick Alan Ross, poking around in that darkness with a flashlight.
From his eclectic office in a former cracker factory in Trenton, Ross, 58, runs the Rick A. Ross Institute, a nonprofit Internet archive on "destructive cults" and "controversial groups and movements."
Attorneys, universities and the media often go to Ross for explanations when seemingly benign groups go off the rails, and parents turn to him when their children fall under a cult's spell.
Ross got interested in cults when a group tried to recruit at his grandmother's nursing home.
"I've been quite active in China in recent years," said Ross, who launched his Web archive in 1996 and makes a living as a consultant, expert witness and speaker.
Next month, a computer hacker who unleashed a virus on Ross' website and several media websites will be sentenced in federal court in Camden. Ross will soon be traveling back to Arizona to testify in a case involving three people who died in a sweat lodge during a "spiritual warrior" event.
On a recent afternoon, Ross was on the phone with a reporter from an Oklahoma news station, after a member of the General Assembly Church of the First Born was arrested for failing to seek medical attention for her son before he died.
"There have been many children who have died, needlessly, in groups like this because a creator who leads the group demands that every member adhere to their belief system," Ross said.
It's not uncommon for someone with a television to get sucked in by cults and bizarre movements, at least for an hour or two, but Ross has been researching them since 1982, when someone messed with his grandmother. Ross said the Jewish Voice Broadcast, a fundamentalist group, had infiltrated his grandmother's nursing home looking to recruit elderly residents.
"They targeted Jews to convert them to Pentecostalism," he said.
Ross helped expose the group members working at the nursing home, and his life hasn't been the same since.
"It made me realize that there was a problem in my community," he said.
From there, Ross began appearing on panels and committees, mostly in the Jewish community in Arizona, but his involvement expanded in the late 1980s, when he became a private consultant and intervention specialist/deprogrammer.
He worked with some of David Koresh's Branch Davidian followers before the Waco, Texas, incident and says he has conducted approximately 500 interventions to clean out all the muck shoveled into brainwashed heads. Ross and other intervention specialists used to take part in forced interventions or deprogramming, but they no longer hold people against their will.
Exposing cults, hate groups and frauds has made Ross a target, too, and there's a whole website aimed at "exposing" him.
"There's not a month that goes by where I don't get some kind of physical threat," he said. "Every week, I receive legal threats."
The Church of Scientology has kept a close watch on Ross, he said, amassing nearly 200 pages on him in their files.
Lauded by celebrity adherents like Tom Cruise and John Travolta for its supposed healing ways, Scientology is routinely derided by critics like Ross and former members as being fraudulent, expensive, and possibly even dangerous.
Scientology, Ross said, has publicized his arrests for burglary and conspiracy to commit grand theft in the mid-1970s and his lack of any academic credentials. They even discovered he was medicated for a few months when he was 10.
"I've had Scientology attack me many times over the years," he said. "Did I make mistakes that I regret when I was 22 and 21 years old? Yes. I paid for them. I resolved them and I went on with my life. Whatever exists in your life they will dig up."
Scientology played a big part in a civil case that bankrupted him briefly in 1995, Ross said.
That case stems from the 1991 failed deprogramming of Jason Scott, 18, a member of the Life Tabernacle Church in Washington state. Scott, represented by a prominent Scientology attorney, sued Ross and was awarded millions. He and Scott eventually settled for a few thousand dollars, he said, and are now friends.
Ross' website details all the cults that shocked the world, the leaders who rode into the headlines on a wave of death like Charles Manson, Jim Jones and Koresh. The Westboro Baptist Church, of Topeka, Kan. - the folks who step on the hearts of the broken-hearted with their funeral protests - sits at the top of his most popular subsections. His archives on the church date from 1993, long before it was in the national spotlight.
Cults and religion are not the same, Ross stressed, but the lines between them aren't always clear. The followers of Osama bin Laden, for example, could certainly be described as cult-like, Ross said, but not Islam itself.
Cults are defined by one charismatic totalitarian who seeks to brainwash his followers, Ross said. It could be for sex, free labor, or money, but it could also be for some higher calling that requires everyone to commit suicide. There's usually no easy way out.
"What we see as crazy, they see as perfectly normal," he said.
Ross believes the Internet is the most powerful tool to drag charismatic and dangerous cult leaders into the light, but they'll always be able to fill their ranks, gathering in compounds, strip malls or one of the many nondescript churchs along any given roadway.
"The reality is the human mind is much more fragile than any of us would readily admit," he said. "It's unsettling to us to think how easily we could be had."
This article was found at:
The main difference between a religion and a cult is secrecy and total control of members lives
Video interview by Steve Hassan of top ex-Scientologist at international cult conference in New York
Video of former 30 year Scientologist discussing Jett Travolta based on her personal experiences of medical abuse
Cult exit counsellor gives speech, "Psychology of Mind Control Over Abducted Children", at Amber Alert symposium
Cult Recovery
Cult researcher reveals emotional cost of separation
Interview with psychologist Jill Mytton about religious abuse [VIDEO]
Cult Survivors: Was Membership Your Choice? [video]
How Cults Rewire The Brain [video]
Conquering coercion: Wellspring Retreat helps former cult members recover
Recovery workshop for people born or raised in cults
Apocalypticism is a simplistic but dangerous world view spreading rapidly like a toxic virus
Sects and sex abuse: battle of the apocalyptic sex cults
Their targets used to be university students, but today fringe religious groups are believed to be recruiting school-aged children.
Cults on campus: how to spot recruiting techniques of predator conmen
Survivors in New Zealand documentary, How To Spot A Cult, reveal similar tactics used by cults with different belief systems
Intentional ignorance and willful blindness keep members trapped in cults like Scientology
Family Radio apocalyptic cult says the Bible guarantees Jesus will return on May 21, 2011
Cults are Jersey man's bread and butter
By JASON NARK
CULT LEADERS are the pied-pipers of America, leading the outcast, the despondent, and sometimes the highly intelligent off into the dark, isolated fringes of society.
And then there's Rick Alan Ross, poking around in that darkness with a flashlight.
From his eclectic office in a former cracker factory in Trenton, Ross, 58, runs the Rick A. Ross Institute, a nonprofit Internet archive on "destructive cults" and "controversial groups and movements."
Attorneys, universities and the media often go to Ross for explanations when seemingly benign groups go off the rails, and parents turn to him when their children fall under a cult's spell.
Ross got interested in cults when a group tried to recruit at his grandmother's nursing home.
"I've been quite active in China in recent years," said Ross, who launched his Web archive in 1996 and makes a living as a consultant, expert witness and speaker.
Next month, a computer hacker who unleashed a virus on Ross' website and several media websites will be sentenced in federal court in Camden. Ross will soon be traveling back to Arizona to testify in a case involving three people who died in a sweat lodge during a "spiritual warrior" event.
On a recent afternoon, Ross was on the phone with a reporter from an Oklahoma news station, after a member of the General Assembly Church of the First Born was arrested for failing to seek medical attention for her son before he died.
"There have been many children who have died, needlessly, in groups like this because a creator who leads the group demands that every member adhere to their belief system," Ross said.
It's not uncommon for someone with a television to get sucked in by cults and bizarre movements, at least for an hour or two, but Ross has been researching them since 1982, when someone messed with his grandmother. Ross said the Jewish Voice Broadcast, a fundamentalist group, had infiltrated his grandmother's nursing home looking to recruit elderly residents.
"They targeted Jews to convert them to Pentecostalism," he said.
Ross helped expose the group members working at the nursing home, and his life hasn't been the same since.
"It made me realize that there was a problem in my community," he said.
From there, Ross began appearing on panels and committees, mostly in the Jewish community in Arizona, but his involvement expanded in the late 1980s, when he became a private consultant and intervention specialist/deprogrammer.
He worked with some of David Koresh's Branch Davidian followers before the Waco, Texas, incident and says he has conducted approximately 500 interventions to clean out all the muck shoveled into brainwashed heads. Ross and other intervention specialists used to take part in forced interventions or deprogramming, but they no longer hold people against their will.
Exposing cults, hate groups and frauds has made Ross a target, too, and there's a whole website aimed at "exposing" him.
"There's not a month that goes by where I don't get some kind of physical threat," he said. "Every week, I receive legal threats."
The Church of Scientology has kept a close watch on Ross, he said, amassing nearly 200 pages on him in their files.
Lauded by celebrity adherents like Tom Cruise and John Travolta for its supposed healing ways, Scientology is routinely derided by critics like Ross and former members as being fraudulent, expensive, and possibly even dangerous.
Scientology, Ross said, has publicized his arrests for burglary and conspiracy to commit grand theft in the mid-1970s and his lack of any academic credentials. They even discovered he was medicated for a few months when he was 10.
"I've had Scientology attack me many times over the years," he said. "Did I make mistakes that I regret when I was 22 and 21 years old? Yes. I paid for them. I resolved them and I went on with my life. Whatever exists in your life they will dig up."
Scientology played a big part in a civil case that bankrupted him briefly in 1995, Ross said.
That case stems from the 1991 failed deprogramming of Jason Scott, 18, a member of the Life Tabernacle Church in Washington state. Scott, represented by a prominent Scientology attorney, sued Ross and was awarded millions. He and Scott eventually settled for a few thousand dollars, he said, and are now friends.
Ross' website details all the cults that shocked the world, the leaders who rode into the headlines on a wave of death like Charles Manson, Jim Jones and Koresh. The Westboro Baptist Church, of Topeka, Kan. - the folks who step on the hearts of the broken-hearted with their funeral protests - sits at the top of his most popular subsections. His archives on the church date from 1993, long before it was in the national spotlight.
Cults and religion are not the same, Ross stressed, but the lines between them aren't always clear. The followers of Osama bin Laden, for example, could certainly be described as cult-like, Ross said, but not Islam itself.
Cults are defined by one charismatic totalitarian who seeks to brainwash his followers, Ross said. It could be for sex, free labor, or money, but it could also be for some higher calling that requires everyone to commit suicide. There's usually no easy way out.
"What we see as crazy, they see as perfectly normal," he said.
Ross believes the Internet is the most powerful tool to drag charismatic and dangerous cult leaders into the light, but they'll always be able to fill their ranks, gathering in compounds, strip malls or one of the many nondescript churchs along any given roadway.
"The reality is the human mind is much more fragile than any of us would readily admit," he said. "It's unsettling to us to think how easily we could be had."
This article was found at:
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Posts
Economic climate a breeding ground for cults
ReplyDeleteLeesha McKenny, Sydney Morning Herald
November 2, 2011
Global fears of economic or environmental upheaval feed the growth of gurus and damaging cults that prey on the weak, a visiting French government expert has warned.
Georges Fenech, president of France's Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cultic Deviances, said it was working for greater international co-operation in dealing with sectarian abuses – with one in five French, or 12million people, affected in some way by a cult.
"We're going through an age where there are numerous crisis, whether it's financial, climatic, pandemic, and these create favourable basis where the gurus can work for their own benefit," he said.
The politician and former judge cited one instance where an Australian cult, the Order of St Charbel founded by the now-jailed "Little Pebble" William Kamm on the NSW South Coast, spread to France where members have since been imprisoned.
"So that proves there are no borders for that kind of group and that's why it's so important to have this kind of exchange and common vision between countries," he said.
The French government has a history of taking a strict line on monitoring what it considers negative “cultlike movements”. It has previously released a list of more than 170 groups deemed cults on the basis they met one or more of 10 characteristics.
"Some of these organisations anyway are huge organisations, like the Church of Scientology and Jehovah's Witnesses, and of course these people are here [in Australia] as well."
Mr Fenech said the French branch of the Church of Scientology, which the French government did not call a religion, will return to court this week to appeal its 2009 conviction on charges related to illegal pharmacology and organised fraud.
But Australia was part of the Anglo Saxon world that had a very different approach – more of "a laissez faire attitude of tolerance towards all religion," he said.
"In France we do respect all religions but at the same time we do not tolerate that under the aegis of some kind of church some types of behaviour take place, and we confront these."
Mr Fenech said all religions had the potential to foster cultic deviances. His organisation had examined sub-cults established within the Catholic church.
"We can't leave this problem to private initiative because the problem is too serious and too difficult. It's just too much for associations to deal with it," he said.
Mr Fenech, who said he will address the federal Senate today, was invited to deliver the keynote presentation at a conference entitled "Cults in Australia: Facing the Realities" co-hosted by Liberal senator Sue Boyce and independent senator Nick Xenophon.
Speakers also include 2010 Australian of the Year, Professor Patrick McGorry, and Tom Sackville, president of the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sects or Cults.
Mr Xenophon said it was vital that Australia look at laws similar to those of France that provide protection for victims of mental manipulation.
“Right now some cults and groups here in Australia are getting away with unacceptable conduct and this is partly because our laws have failed to recognise the way people are controlled and coerced," he said.
There were about 3000 cults operating in Australia, Cult Information and Family Support NSW president Ros Hodgins said.
"We are asking that parliamentarians support measures to address the abusive groups we know as cults that have no accountability and cause psychological harm," she said.
"Australia has not yet taken these issues as seriously as other countries, especially Europe."
http://www.smh.com.au/national/economic-climate-a-breeding-ground-for-cults-20111101-1mu6i.html
Create special laws for cults: DPP,
ReplyDeleteby Catherine Hockley, The Advertiser
November 03, 2011
SA's chief prosecutor Stephen Pallaras is calling for new laws to thwart the rise of cults across the nation.
Mr Pallaras says a new approach by law-makers needs to address the "mental damage and mental harm" caused by cults.
"Conventional laws have difficulty in coping with the injuries that are caused. What I'm interested in is finding a way to deal with the damage that the cults do," he said.
His calls are backed by South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon, who invited Mr Pallaras to Canberra yesterday to meet the chief of the French Government's cult-busting agency, Miviludes.
The DPP faced criticism earlier this year over its handling of the case involving those involved with the doomsday Adelaide-based cult, Agape Ministries.
Mr Pallaras would not comment on that case, but said Australia could learn from the French approach to cults.
"The sorts of mental damage and mental harm that we're hearing about from these people are not easily coped with by the laws we've got, not only in our state, but across Australia," he said.
"And it may be that we've got to look at something like the French are doing to help us cope with that evil which is a social evil." Senator Xenophon said "the Agape Ministries debacle is proof our current laws don't work".
"For the first time an Australian DPP has recognised the weaknesses in our laws when it comes to abuse within cults," he said.
Senator Xenophon said the French "cult-busting laws work; they give protection to victims".
Mr Pallaras says under Australian laws, prosecution is difficult.
"They're (cults) not any harder to prosecute than anyone else if they commit conventional offences," he said.
"The trouble is the evil they represent ... is much more difficult to address with conventional laws, so we've got to look at something a bit unconventional."
Attorney-General John Rau yesterday agreed: "This is a very difficult area for prosecutors".
But he warned: "Any government contemplating specific anti-cult legislation would need to tread carefully.
"I am interested in discussing this issue with the DPP and hearing his ideas about a better approach to tackling their damaging behaviour," he said.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/create-special-laws-for-cults-dpp/story-e6frea6u-1226184076536
Ohio Treatment Center Specializes In Spiritual Abuse From Cults
ReplyDeleteby by 10TV.com Ohio November 17, 2011
ALBANY, Ohio - The Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, hidden away in rural southeastern Ohio, is one of only two residential treatment centers in the U.S. that helps victims of emotional and spiritual abuse from relationships and cults.
Andie Redwine was born and raised in a doomsday cult. The Indiana woman wrote “Paradise Recovered,” a fictional movie based on her own experiences, 10TV’s Andrea Cambern reported.
After escaping the cult as a teenager, Redwine was counseled at Wellspring.
For 25 years, Wellspring has helped survivors of cults and abuse come to terms with what has happened to them.
She wrote the screenplay in 2009 and interviewed 100 other survivors from 18 cults, Cambern reported.
Although the messages among the cults were different, the control was the same.
She says the cult she was in controlled how members dressed, who they married, even the music they heard.
“We were allowed to listen to certain kinds of music but it had to be approved by headquarters,” Redwine said.
According to Redwine, in some years, 30 percent of cult members’ pre-tax income was going to the group.
“To this day, they were some of the finest people I’ve ever known,” Redwine said. “But they were duped by a swindler who really thought that he could make money.”
Redwine said that the cult’s leader made predictions that did not come true.
“He would make Jesus’ coming back on this date (and said) we all need to get ready,” Redwine said. “Jesus wouldn’t come back and then it would be our fault.”
Tara Pennock, another cult survivor, said that she was in a cult for 2 ¼ years. She said that she escaped the cult with the help of her family, even though it was difficult leaving.
“It’s even harder if you’re raised in the group because you’ve been isolated,” said Gregory Sammons, Wellspring’s interim executive director. “You’ve grown up in this group and you don’t know what normal is.”
Sammons said that cult leaders use natural disasters as a way to convince followers that God is angry with them and to guilt them into behaving.
“(They say) you’re going to hell. You’re going to get sick. You’re going to die,” Sammons said.
"The member is sort of dangling over this chasm of hell by a silk thread,” Redwine said. “The cult leader is standing there with a razor blade, just waiting for you to screw up."
At Wellspring, clients are not "deprogrammed." Instead, survivors voluntarily move in for two weeks of intensive counseling, Cambern reported.
According to Sammons, many suffer from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, as if they had been through combat.
“Before, I was really depressed and anxious,” Pennock said.
Clients learn that it was not their fault that they were controlled. The staff teaches them how the control worked and helps survivors re-frame the way they see the world.
"I feel emotionally so much better, really uplifted,” Pennock said. “I have hope for my future now."
Redwine wrote the film to shine light on a dark corner.
Treatment at Wellspring is expensive, Cambern reported. Redwine said that she is so grateful for what it did for her that she is donating a portion of the profits of her film to Wellspring so other survivors can get the help they need.
The film is expected to play at the Gateway Theater near The Ohio State University campus in early 2012, Cambern reported.
http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2011/11/17/albany-treatment-for-spiritual-abuse.html
Drinking the Kool-Aid: A Survivor Remembers Jim Jones
ReplyDeleteBy Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, The Atlantic
Nov 18 2011
Teri Buford O'Shea fled Jonestown three weeks before all its inhabitants committed suicide. Here, she explains why the tragedy should be a cautionary tale for everyday people.
On November 18, 1978, Jim Jones and more than 900 members of his People's Temple committed mass suicide in the jungle of Guyana. Since that time, the event has occupied a grotesque but fringy place in American history. Jones's followers are imagined as wide-eyed innocents, swallowing his outrageous teachings along with his cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Teri Buford O'Shea remembers things quite differently.
O'Shea was 19 years old when she joined the People's Temple in Redwood Valley, California. It was 1971, and O'Shea was homeless when a man pulled up alongside her in a van. He told her about the community where he lived -- a place, he said, where no one had to worry about food or housing. The leader was a visionary who was building a new future. O'Shea gladly took the ride. After all, she assumed, if she didn't like the People's Temple, she could always leave.
Forty years later, O'Shea is just beginning to speak openly about her seven years with Jim Jones, first in California and then at his compound in Guyana. Her memories of Jonestown are complex. Its inhabitants, she says, were warm people who worked hard to build a utopian community. Jones himself was passionately committed to civil rights -- during the 1960s, he helped integrate churches, hospitals, restaurants, and movie theaters, and he personally adopted several children of color. (His only biological child, Stephan, had the middle name Gandhi.) The majority of the followers who died with him were African-American, and one third were children.
As O'Shea tells it, Jones's idealism was a large part of what made him so lethal. He tapped into the zeitgeist of the late 1960s and 1970s, feeding on people's fears and promising to create a "rainbow family" where everyone would truly be equal. He was charismatic enough to lure hundreds of people to a South American jungle, where he cut off all their ties with the outside world.
O'Shea, who escaped just three weeks before the massacre, recently published a collection of poems and photographs called Jonestown Lullaby. I spoke to her this morning about her memories of Jim Jones, including the mass suicide rehearsals he called White Nights. She described her dawning realization that Jones was going to kill her. And she explained why Jonestown should be remembered not as an American curiosity but a cautionary tale for everyday people. ...
read the rest of the article at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/drinking-the-kool-aid-a-survivor-remembers-jim-jones/248723/
Cult information charity faces Charity Commission curb after Scientology complaint
ReplyDeleteAfter 25 years in operation, the Cult Information Centre fears it may no longer be able to work effectively
by Lynne Wallis, The Guardian UK Friday 13 January 2012
More than 160,000 charities in England and Wales are registered with the Charity Commission, thereby qualifying for charitable status and the tax relief and fundraising advantages that brings. So what happens when a registered charity is deemed to be in breach of the commission's stringent criteria? While the commission can't withdraw charitable status, it must investigate any alleged breach of the conditions of charitable status and ensure the charity is compliant.
The Cult Information Centre (CIC) was granted education charity status in 1992 but has recently run into difficulties with the commission after complaints were received in 2007 that it is in breach of the rules governing status. Specifically, it is alleged that the CIC isn't neutral concerning its educational work, which means it could be deemed to be a campaigning or political organisation. A commission spokeswoman explained: "The problem is that the CIC's education work seems to be coming from a pre-conceived standpoint whereas, when we granted charitable status, we specified that any educational work needs to be objective and factual. There has been ongoing correspondence, and the charity's trustees have offered to conduct a review into the charity's work and practices."
The CIC, set up 25 years ago, offers information on cults and new religious movements to the general public, including families who have lost relatives to such groups and former cult members trying make sense of what their experiences. Ian Haworth, who runs the charity, also gives talks to schools and other organisations on the psychological techniques cults use to recruit people and the threat that cults can pose to young lives; it is this educational element of the charity's work that has been under the spotlight.
The commission has not revealed who is behind complaints, but an official let slip at a meeting attended by Haworth and some CIC trustees that it was the Church of Scientology. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the commission has received complaints from numerous cults ever since the CIC was awarded charitable status, and Haworth is at a loss to understand why the commission is only now flexing its muscles. He likens the restrictions the commission is trying to impose to a drugs awareness charity being told it can still operate, as long as it never says drugs are bad.
Haworth said: "We were awarded charitable status 20 years ago in spite of complaints from the Moonies, Scientology and the Hare Krishnas, which the commission was prepared then to override. Meanwhile, the commission continues to award charitable status to some very sinister and suspect groups whose contribution to the public good is arguable, and now the CIC is being told it can't operate effectively.
"The commission has got it all so wrong, while the whole business has distracted us from our core work. Our website content is now problematic, and we can't fundraise properly or talk openly to the press about groups, which is particularly worrying given that the vast proportion of stories go untold because cults are so litigious.
"An educational charity must, they say, be neutral, but how can we be neutral about the dangers of the coercive psychological techniques cults use to recruit?"
continued in next comment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/voluntary-sector-network/2012/jan/13/charity-fall-foul-commission-scientology
continued from previous comment:
ReplyDeleteThe commission suggests the CIC may have to "change its objects" which, in non-commission-speak, means it must maintain its status by using different qualifying criteria, ie, not claim to be an educational charity.
The CIC argues vigorously that its work is beneficial to the public, and the thousands of people Haworth has helped over the 25 years would, he says, undoubtedly agree, but the charity will get into hotter water still if it doesn't toe the line on neutrality. The Church of Scientology was famously refused charitable status in 1996 on the grounds that any organisation claiming public benefit under the banner of "advancement of religion" must believe in a supreme being and/or worship to express its religious belief, neither of which is the case for Scientology. Had it made its claim on other grounds, it might have been successful.
Since the 2006 Charities Act, the criteria under which organisations may apply has expanded hugely from the very narrow relief of poverty, advancement of education or religion, and a general "public-benefit" umbrella, to the advancement of anything from from amateur sports to human rights.
The irony for the CIC is that many of the sorts of groups the charity has been warning young people about before they go off to university have themselves achieved charitable status. The world famous Unification movement, for example, more commonly known as the Moonies, has enjoyed charitable status since 1974. If the CIC is prevented from raising awareness about the dangers of cult recruitment, there is precious little else out there for concerned parents or others needing to find out about cults. One thing is certain: any forthcoming information resulting from contacting a cult group directly to find out what they are about would very definitely not be neutral.
The CIC was the first port of call in 2003 for a teacher from Liverpool who can't be named for fear of reprisals from the group who recruited her son. She said: "The CIC are unique because they have a wealth of information and contacts at their fingertips. They put me in touch with an expert in the particular field our son was involved with, who swiftly identified the supposedly buddhist group our son had joined as fake. The CIC put us in touch with the charity Catalyst who gave us invaluable legal advice, and we used CIC literature to hand out to police and other concerned agencies – their book is brilliant, and it was the most efficient way to convey what had happened to our family. It was also very comforting to talk to someone who understood and didn't think we were crazy. The Charity Commission shouldn't stop the CIC doing this important work."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/voluntary-sector-network/2012/jan/13/charity-fall-foul-commission-scientology
The article in the previous comment was amended on 13 January 2012 after I placed it in this archive. The original article said that "an official [from the Charity Commission] let slip at a meeting attended by Haworth, and some CIC trustees that it was the Church of Scientology" which had made the complaint to the Charity Commission about the CIC. This is denied by the Charity Commission which has asked [The Guardian] to make clear that it is the commission's policy not to reveal the source of any complaint and that the complaint came from an individual who did not claim to be making the complaint on behalf of any one else or any other organisation.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/voluntary-sector-network/2012/jan/13/charity-fall-foul-commission
Cults watchdog faces danger of being shut down
ReplyDeleteA charity that warns people of the dangers of cults is set to have its funding withdrawn
Jamie Doward, The Observer UK Sunday 4 March 4, 2012
Since he escaped from a brainwashing cult 34 years ago, Ian Haworth has survived character assassination, lawsuits, bankruptcy and death threats.
But now the founder of the Cult Information Centre, which educates the public about the threats posed by pseudo-religious groups, finds himself under attack from an unexpected quarter. The Charity Commission is seeking to withdraw the centre's charitable status, a move that would in effect end its activities.
"If that happened, donations from trusts – which are our lifeline – would evaporate. We wouldn't be able to afford our office and we would no longer be able to operate," said Haworth, who established the centre as a response to his experiences in a Toronto-based cult and to the Jonestown massacre of 1978 that saw 918 people die in a mass suicide in Guyana, South America.
Set up as an educational charity, the centre – whose three trustees are anonymous owing to fear of reprisals – had an income of just over £40,000 last year. "Most people don't understand cults, so money is hard to come by," Haworth said. "We don't make any money. That's why there are not many people trying to get into this field. Now, if we don't know whether we are going to retain our charitable status, it makes life doubly hard."
The problems started when a complaint was made to the commission about the centre's educational remit. Concerns were raised that the centre was failing to observe neutrality. A suggestion, made by the commission, for the centre to become a mental health charity was accepted, only for a further complaint to be made that has left its future in the balance.
Haworth believes several cults have taken exception to the centre's website, which once carried links to other websites warning of the dangers of certain groups and which attracted visitors from around the world.
The centre's closure would mark the end of 25 years' work, which has seen Haworth lecture in hundreds of schools, act as an expert witness in high-profile criminal trials, advise the police and raise awareness of cult-related issues in the media. The centre estimates that it receives some 4,000 inquiries a year.
Haworth said the centre's work had attracted further interest after the 9/11 attacks, which prompted a focus on how religious leaders can radicalise followers into becoming terrorists. High-profile incidents involving cults – notably the sarin gas attack in Japan and the Waco siege in Texas – have also heightened awareness.
Haworth was summoned to a meeting at the Charity Commission in the autumn of 2010, when he was informed that his organisation might lose its charitable status. "I thought, 'How can that be?' They'd got one complaint. I was gobsmacked. Our lawyer was stunned. I felt like jumping in the Thames to cool off."
The centre has found itself under attack before. When it applied for charitable status, a number of cult-like organisations, some of which enjoyed charitable status, complained to the commission.
continued in next comment...
continued from previous comment:
ReplyDeleteIt is understood that this time the complaint has been made by an individual with close links to the Church of Scientology, the celebrity sect whose members include Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta and which strenuously denies it is a cult. A Scientology spokesman denied that the complaint had been made by the church.
Haworth was made bankrupt after he was pursued by a Canadian organisation in the mid-1990s. He has also been threatened verbally and via putative lawsuits from several cults. His organisation's address is kept secret for fear of being targeted by cult supporters.
Haworth expressed concern that the UK was lagging behind other European countries in raising awareness. France has introduced a law to protect its citizens from cults and has a government-funded unit monitoring them. German children are educated about cults from an early age, while Spain has several organisations that track their development.
A spokeswoman for the commission said its policy was not to discuss the identity of complainants and that it was in talks with the centre about its future. "The charity informed us in June 2011 that it would appoint an independent adviser to the trustees to review the charity's activities and suggested a framework for future activities to ensure these are exclusively educational and charitable," the spokeswoman said. "We await the results of this review."
Haworth said he feared the closure of the centre could be just the beginning. "What happens to my colleagues in the field? To the counsellors working with cult victims? Are they next? People in Britain have died because they have been involved in cults."
THE $1,500 LESSON
It was the blonde who did for Ian Haworth. "I was single and walking in downtown Toronto and she was beautiful," Haworth recalled of the fateful day in 1978 when he was approached by a cult. "She asked if I was prepared to help with a survey and I said yes."
Two minutes later the woman suggested that, judging by his answers, Haworth might be interested in joining a community group. "She said, 'Isn't it time you gave something back?'"
Originally from a farming community in Lancashire, Haworth (below) thought Toronto had been good to him, so he agreed to go to a meeting at a hotel a week later. The blonde rang him daily to ensure he was still coming. The meeting, which Haworth paid $2 to attend, was joined by more than 100 people and was addressed by a charismatic woman who claimed to have beaten drug and alcohol addictions. By the end of the day, after being plied with food and drink, Haworth was persuaded to hand over $225 for a four-day course that he was promised would help him to stop smoking.
The course started on a Thursday evening. "By Sunday, I had given them all the money I had – $1,500," Haworth said. "I went to work the next day and resigned. I considered myself one of the elite."
It was only when a national newspaper exposed the cult on its front page that Haworth realised he had been brainwashed. He learnt later that he had been hypnotised 16 times over a four-day period.
Haworth set up a group in Toronto, Council on Mind Abuse (Coma), to warn of the dangers of cults. Coma provided the model for the Cult Information Centre, which Haworth established when he returned to the UK.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/04/cult-information-centre-closure-threat