------------------------------------------------------------------- F.A.C.T.Net, Inc. (Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network, Incorporated) a non-profit computer bulletin board and electronic library 601 16th St. #C-217 Golden, Colorado 80401 USA BBS 303 530-1942 FAX 303 530-2950 Office 303 473-0111 This document is part of an electronic lending library and preservational electronic archive. F.A.C.T.Net does not sell documents, it only lends them according to the terms of your library cardholder agreement with F.A.C.T.Net, Inc. ===================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 How Many Jonestowns Will it Take? [Waco, Davidians, Koresh] Herbert L. Rosedale. Esq. , President Michael D. Langone, Ph. D., Executive Director American Family Foundation The tragedy at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco has focused attention on the Justice Department's effectiveness in dealing with David Koresh and his followers. Lacking all the information pertaining to the ATF's and FBI's decision-making, we hesitate to join the "blame chorus." Perhaps the authorities made serious mistakes. Perhaps not. Their job was exceedingly difficult. The personal responsibility they must have felt and continue to feel ought to elicit sympathy in all of us. We doubt that any level-headed person would have been eager to step into their shoes. In our work with the American Family Foundation, we have conducted research studies and organized educational programs for professionals from many disciplines. What is clear to us as cult experts is that, despite Jonestown and a host of mini-tragedies, society, including the FBI, still does not understand the special features that set cults apart from other groups. Cults are not merely weird groups that crazy people find attractive. Cults are massive, enduring cons. Although individuals may join cults during periods of stress and demoralization, most cult joiners are more or less within the normal range phychologically. They do not join groups because they have made a rational and informed decision that these groups will benefit them. They join because they are seduced through a gradual, step-by-step process of deceit and manipulation designed to advance the leader's objectives, regardless of the harm caused to members. The centrality of sustained, exploitative manipulation distinguishes cults from benign new movements and mainstream religions. All cult leaders are charismatic, persuasive personalities. Those that are at the top of their trade gain virtually absolute control over their followers. Some cult leaders are con men who are very much aware that their main goal is to make money. Others are psychopathic personalities whose primary motivation may be the pleasure of wielding power over others or the satisfaction of endowing their idiosyncratic delusions with the pseudo-reality of their followers' manipulated adulation. Such leaders may often come to believe in their own convoluted "theologies," the underlying purpose of which is to enhance their power and sustain their delusional systems. If David Koresh had been a mere "con man" who was in it for the money, the FBI probably would have been able to work out a deal because Koresh would have been rational enough to save his own skin. It is now obvious that Koresh became intoxicated by his own charisma and enslaved by his private voices of doom. There were many signs pointing to this conclusion before the Waco fire. However, because David Koresh was a mercurial egomaniac, it is quite possible that no matter what the FBI did, he would have led his group into tragedy of one sort or another. He apparently preferred death to surrender. His followers "followed" his lead. We may never know how many people may have sought to escape during the final moments, just as many refused to take the poison at Jonestown. Nevertheless, enough people were willing to follow Koresh into a fire storm to prevent the others from leaving. If the FBI can be faulted, it is for what they did and didn't do, not for the results, which may have been unavoidable. The ultimate responsibility for this conflagration lies with David Koresh. The FBI, however, apparently did not appreciate the uniqueness of the cult mindset, and opted to consult experts on terrorists and hostage taking, rather than eminent cult experts, such as Dr. Margaret Singer of the University of California at Berkeley and Dr. Louis J. West of UCLA. If they had, they might have reconsidered their tactics of pressure, harassment, and psychological warfare. In a terrorist hostage-taking situation, authorities confront a small group of fanatics who are usually surprisingly rational, given their assumptions, and a group of hostages who definitely don't want to be there. In Waco, the authorities confronted an astoundingly persuasive, but fundamentally irrational man, whose "hostages," for the most part, wanted to be with him-even to the death. These differences make for markedly different group dynamics. Cultists often depend upon psychological dissociation, a kind of splitting of the mind, to adapt to the pressures and contradictions of the cult environment. Koresh clearly had delusional tendencies. Consequently, standard psychological warfare tactics, such as depriving members of sleep by playing Buddhist chants in the middle of the night, probably made Koresh and his followers even more irrational and less open to constructive outside influences. The primary enemy of the cult mindset is truth-information from outside the closed, psychological walls of the group. Research on defection from cults suggests that those who become aware of the leader's hypocrisy and those who are able to share private doubts with others are much more likely to leave. This is why cult leaders so often control even the most mundane aspects of their followers' lives and why cult experts advise parents always to try to keep the lines of communication open. The leader's hold on members is powerful yet, paradoxically, fragile. Before pushing Koresh into a corner, the FBI should have permitted the families of the Branch Davidian members to talk at length to their loved ones in order to try to connect them psychologically to the outside world and find holes with which to pry open the psychological cap that made the people in the compound followers rather than hostages. However, given Koresh's psychopathology, this probably wouldn't have worked either. Nevertheless, it should have been tried. The lesson to be learned from the Waco tragedy is that the way to handle such problems is not through technical psychowizardry. There simply may not have been a "solution" to the Waco standoff. The best way to deal with these problems is to avoid them. We must as a society stop pretending that only "weak" people can be led down destructive paths. The Nazis didn't take over Germany because millions of "weak" people happened to have been born around the same time in history. We must teach the public, especially youth, how manipulators of all kinds work-the grand manipulators such as David Koresh and the run-of-the-mill manipulators who are all around us. Cult tragedies help us see the ultimate consequences of treating people as objects, rather than persons. The cult path is merely another road leading to human degradation. As Rabbi Maurice Davis [Emeritus Director of the American Family Foundation] said more than ten years ago: We know, and we must never forget, that every path leads somewhere. The path of segregation leads to lynching. The path of anti-Semitism leads to Auschwitz. The path of cults leads to Jonestown. We ignore this fact at our peril. How many Jonestowns will it take before we understand? 2 AFF Advisors Brief the Media Cult Observer Report Louis Jolyon West: "A Totalist Cult" Louis Jolyon West, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and formerly head of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, is a member of the American Family Foundation's Research Advisory Committee and serves on the editorial board of AFF's Cultic Studies Journal. The following transcription of excerpts, made by The Cult Observer, comes from the April 19, 1993 "MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour," and is printed by permission. Q "We now go to Dr. Louis West, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor West has studied cults and cult members for 40 years . . . Based on what you know, did it have to come to this?" A "It's always easy to second-guess somebody. I was surprised that they [the FBI] moved the way they did . . . They knew they were dealing with a psychopath. Nobody is more dangerous or unpredictable than a psychopath in a trap. When you can't predict what someone will do, you're sort of reduced to go by the book-play the odds. And in hostage situations of this kind, the odds are that the longer you wait, the better your chances are of a peaceful solution. Now, what the pressures were on the leaders of the FBI at the scene, from above, from without, to resolve the situation, for other reasons, I don't know. But I felt myself that if they could have just waited and waited and waited, in the end, whatever transpired, their chances would be better for saving of life. And then at least, you wouldn't have to second-guess yourself as they're going to have to do now." Q "We heard the attorney general say at a news conference a little while ago that one of the pressures driving this was that the hostage release team on the scene there needed to be relieved or broken, I guess, for other duty, but I think I hear you suggesting that even that might not have been sufficient cause for this." A "It was expensive - it was aggravating and frustrating - but I think if one went by the book, and played the odds, one would have waited it out." Q "We heard, on the one hand, that Mr. Ricks, who was in charge of the FBI there in Waco, said that they didn't think that David Koresh had suicide in mind, and then we also just heard him describe how there was an earlier date when they knew he had rigged himself with grenades and was perhaps going to commit suicide and then backed out at the last minute. You called him a psychopath. I mean, what kind of person were they dealing with here?" A "Well, they know his history, how impulsive and how erratic he was, and how ultimately selfish and ruthless he is-or was. You can't tell from one minute to the next what such a person might do, nor, probably, could he. One minute he's planning to commit suicide, then he changes his mind. One minute he's maybe honestly planning to surrender, then he changes his mind. If you force the issue, and close the trap, and allow no alternatives, then any outcome is possible-homicide, suicide-with such a person." Q "What kind of control did he have, do you believe, over the people in there with him?" A "He had the kind of control that makes the definition of a totalist cult-total. The devotion of the followers is such that the cult leader is looked upon . . . as more than a parent-indeed, in his case, as a divine figure. If the belief is strong enough, the followers, very often decent and honorable people themselves, commit themselves then to an action which is dictated by someone who's totally in control of them." Q "But to what extent is this governed by the scripture? I mean, we know that this is supposedly a Christian cult, and he kept referring time and again to scriptures. He was guided by it - at the end he was talking about explaining the seven seals in the Book of Revelations [sic]." A "I've always thought that most of David Koresh's representations about his own religious beliefs were nonsense. He was a con man, he knew his Bible and could spout it endlessly, but obviously his life was not dictated by any biblical or religious criteria. And the way that he exploited, used, manipulated, and mistreated other people-having sex with young girls, breaking up marriages, all sorts of things that he did without a qualm, hardly bespeaks a spiritual person." Q "Now, are these things that have been documented, or. . ." A "Oh, yes. And of course the FBI knew all about this, and I think they quite correctly had him pegged as a con man and ruthless, self-seeking person, who was now trapped. In a famous book about psychopaths by Kleckly, called The Mask of Sanity, it's clear that these people-charming, manipulative, plausible, extremely adept at getting other people to believe in them and trust them-behind that mask, are perfectly capable of being irrational and doing things that are quite self-defeating, and not learning by experience and doing it again. And in his case, unfortunately, he had followers. And so, it might have evolved in a different way if the trap wasn't closed so tightly so that there were no alternatives as the FBI chief . . . he [Koresh] had in the end either to commit suicide or emerge . . . " Q "And you're saying, you're putting the responsibility clearly on the shoulders of the FBI-closing his options." A "Well, I can't say that, because I don't know just how high in the command structure the decisions were made-sometimes the man on the scene gets his orders-you've let this thing go on long enough, bring it to a close-when if he were left to his own devices, he might have been willing to play it out longer." 3 Margaret Thaler Singer - "They're Able to Get People to Obey" Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph. D., Emeritus Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, is a director of the American Family Foundation (publisher of The Cult Observer) and a member of the editorial Board of AFF's Cultic Studies Journal. The following transcription of excerpts, made by The Cult Observer, comes from "CBS News Special Report," April 19, 1993, printed by permission. Dan Rather: "Psychologist Margaret Singer is a scholar, a student of cults -- she's studied them for a long time, and the people who belong to the cults. Over the past quarter century, Dr. Singer has interviewed many thousands of cult members, and she joins us tonight live from Berkeley, California. Doctor, thank you for being with us. One or two moments ago cult leaders were described as ego- power-mad maniacs. Does that about say it?" Margaret Singer: "That just about summarizes it, because most cult leaders have to be tremendously self-centered, willing to live off the lives and labors of other people, and totally dedicated that their views are right. And pretty soon they're able to get people to obey them, a step at a time, till their wishes can carry people to the ending at Jonestown, or the ending today at Waco." Dan Rather: "What motivates people to blindly follow such leaders literally to their death?" Margaret Singer: "It has to be done a step at a time. It's that the cult leader sets out to get a following, and he has to at the start -- or she -- has to, at the beginning, literally seduce people, verbally woo them to join the group. And then a step at a time, in small, incremental steps, get control over all of their decision-making, so that -- as with David Koresh -- he even tually had control of where they lived. He even got to the stage of controlling their bodies, and with whom people could have sex. And it's a step at a time, leading people to give over their power, their decision-making, to the cult leader." Dan Rather: "Are these cults increasing or decreasing in the United States?" Margaret Singer: "I find from my work that they're increasing. Most people thought that when Jonestown happened, that was the turning point, that no one would ever join one of these, quote, strange groups, but small groups have sprung up. And all across the nation rather venal people have come to see how easily all of us can be persuaded. And with a certain determination, some of these self-appointed gurus, self-appointed messiahs, have done the usual, centuries-old methods of seducing someone a step at a time to believe that they have a special mission, a special power, a special knowledge, and that if people will just follow they'll show them the way to Nirvana, to total mental health, to happiness-whatever the cult leader is selling, they sell it to some followers." Dan Rather: "Dr. Margaret Singer, thank you very much . . ." 4 Michael D. Langone: "Koresh Called the Shots " Michael D. Langone, Ph. D., a psychologist, is Executive Director of the American Family Foundation (publisher of The Cult Observer) and Editor of AFF's Cultic Studies Journal. The following transcription of excerpts, made by The Cult Observer, comes from the April 20, 1993 "MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour," and is reprinted by permission. Judy Woodruff: "Dr. Michael Langone, did the FBI do the right thing, based on what they had?" Michael Langone: "I think, based on their understanding and what they know, they did the right thing. The question is whether or not they had some false assumptions guiding their decision-making. For example, was this really a hostage situation or was it something different? Those of us who have studied cults saw it more as a cult crisis, and a cult situation, rather than a classical hostage-taking situation." Judy Woodruff: "Can you explain what you mean -- what's the difference?" Michael Langone: "Well, I think in a hostage situation your hostages don't want to be there. They want to be rescued. And they're going to cošperate with rescuers. In a cult situation, at least a large number of them are dedicated to the leader and are going to follow him, and are going to resist any rescue attempt. So it seems to be right there you've got a major distinction. Whether or not there was a solution is questionable, and I think it's unfair to put the blame just on the FBI, because ultimately it was David Koresh who was calling the shots, and it's quite possible that no matter what they had done, there would have been a tragedy." Judy Woodruff: "But when you say if they had done what you suggested and treated it more as a cult situation, as you put it, what should they have done differently in the days preceding what happened yesterday?" Michael Langone: "Well, some of the things I had questions about, and do not know what are all the facts, and I don't want to come on too strong in my criticism, but -- the psychological warfare tactics -- the keeping them awake with lights and Tibetan monks chanting and so on, as a cult researcher, this made me wonder, because it seemed to me that the goal ought to be to try to enhance rationality. And this kind of harassment tactic would be more likely to make David Koresh hear voices, and his subjects-his followers-believe those voices. I also am inclined to think that they perhaps should have worked more closely with the families who in a sense have a more direct link to the psyches of the people involved. Whether or not Koresh would have allowed them, I don't know -- it's quite possible if they had tried that, he would have prevented it, because it might have been too threatening to his control." 5 Arnold Markowitz: They Feared Damnation New York Post, April 20, 1993 Arnold Markowitz, M.S.W., A.C.S.W., cited in this story, who directs the Cult Hot Line and Clinic, Jewish Board of Family and Childrens'Services, New York, is Chairman of the American Family Foundation Family Guidelines Study Group. It was their holy war. The Waco cult members were willing to die becuse they believed David Koresh was Jesus Christ-and thought they would be doomed if they abandoned him. "They believed he was Christ, or that there was a good possibility he was Christ," said Arnold Markowitz, director of the Cult Hotline and Clinic in Manhattan. "They felt that if they left him, they'd be damned." Experts also said Koresh's "Cult of personality" enabled him to gain support among his followers. At one point during the siege, three followers even ran into the compound to join the cult to find what Markowitz called a "charismatic religious experience." "They come to people like Koresh believing they are going to have this uplifting experience, and what happens is people like Koresh manupulate them further," Markowitz said. "They believed they were fighting a [holy war] and that the people on the outside were the evil forces." (From "Fanatics died believing Koresh was Christ," by Rocco Parascandola, New York Post, 4/20/93, 8) 6 Marcia R. Rudin: "It's the Recruiter Looking for People" [Jon Scott] Marcia R. Rudin, co-author of Prison or Paradise? The New Religious Cults, is Director of the American Family Foundation's International Cult Education Program (ICEP) and a member of the editorial board of AFF's Cult Observer. The following transcription of excerpts, made by The Cult Observer, is from "Dateline NBC," April 20, 1993. Reprinted by permission. Stone Phillips: "As people watched the David Koresh story unfold, many were both shocked and amazed, especially parents, at how people could be drawn into cults. Nobody knows exactly how many cults there are, but as Jon Scott reports, there is danger in their numbers." Jon Scott: "We see them chanting and dancing, call them cults or unconventional religions-there are far more in this country than you might suspect-at least 700, and the actual number could be closer to 3,000. Not all of them are stockpiling weapons like David Koresh did, but experts consider many of them dangerous." Marcia Rudin: "We've had former members come out of groups, even very innocent-looking groups, saying 'Yes, I was so faithful, I was under so much control by the leader, that I would have killed other people for him-I would have killed my parents; we've heard them say, and 'Yes, I would have killed myself.'" Jon Scott: "Marcia Rudin, the director of the International Cult Education Program, based in New York, says cult leaders actively target people they see as vulnerable." Marcia Rudin: "It's not a bunch of people looking for things falling into a group that happens to be there. It's the recruiter looking for people and having the skill to bring them in." Jon Scott: "College campuses are the most common recruiting grounds for cults . . . Experts say that this man [pictured], Frederick Lenz, is of grave concern to many parents. He recruits bright young college students, especially those with computer skills." Marcia Rudin: "They sort of get infiltrated into companies in computer positions, and I don't mean just data entry, but the whole design of the system. This is a very interesting new group that we're getting many complaints about." 7 A. James Rudin: "The Deed, Not the Creed" Rabbi A. James Rudin is Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, Chairman of the American Family Foundation's Interreligious Affairs Committee, and a member of the editorial board of AFF's Cultic Studies Journal. His essay, reprinted here from a Religious News Service release of March 12, 1993, and published by numerous newspapers, was written before the final Waco conflagration. Reprinted by permission. When my wife Marcia Rudin, the director of the International Cult Education Program, first heard news reports of the Branch Davidian shootout near Waco, Texas, she was not surprised. Her research clearly shows that such groups are disasters waiting to happen. But many Americans believe that because charismatic cult leaders like Vernon Howell, a.k.a. David Koresh, can quote scripture and talk the talk of a preacher, they are merely weird and not dangerous. Unfortunately, they are very dangerous. There are many such paranoid groups within American society; cults that believe any means, including violent ones, are always justified by the "divine" ends. The Branch Davidians, like the deadly Peoples Temple of Jim Jones, perceive the world as a brutal "we vs. them" contest. Since only cult leaders have the truth, anything and everything is permissible, including the illegal stockpiling of heavy weapons. Cult adherents who are controlled by tyrannical people like Koresh are often victims of intense psychological and physical coercion. These mind-manipulated followers surrender their own decision-making abilities and offer their most precious possessions to cult leaders: their children, money, spouses, privacy, and ultimately their minds. The Texas shootout teaches another important lesson. The fact that a cult originated within an established religious community, in this case the Seventh-day Adventists, is no guarantee that it is not dangerous and destructive. After all, Jim Jones began as an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) before he established the cult that resulted in the deaths of 911 people in the South American jungle in 1978. Cult leaders are obsessed with power, sex, and money, and they demand total submission from their followers. Koresh can break up marriages and families, have sexual relationships with his devotees, and create his own laws for his group to follow. Horrible exploitation of children, women, and the elderly generally results from such tactics. Children especially suffer in cults. They are usually raised in isolation from non-cult youngsters and suffer physical and psychological abuse. Children are often deprived of adequate health care, including immunizations and vaccinations, and their education, when they are allowed to study at all, is totally controlled by the cult leader. What's going to happen to these physically and mentally battered children when they become adults? Unquestionably, society will pay a future high price for such abuse. When cult tragedies explode, the question is always, why do the followers obey demonic leaders like Koresh? The answer goes beyond the simplistic assertion that many people are in search of religious certainty. Cult recruitment tactics are highly aggressive, not passive, including the systematic coercion of prospective members leading to abject subservience and the destruction of self-esteem. Koresh employed a powerful message that predicted the imminent end of the evil society. He first captured people's attention and later captured their bodies and minds by using well known forms of mind control. He demanded a total commitment in a society that is filled with ambiguity. He promised sexual purity and morality and discouraged doubt and questioning. Only he possessed the keys of biblical truth. Believe in him and share the treasure; turn away from him and suffer spiritual desolation. While not everyone who heard Koresh joined the Davidians, research indicates there are many people who are susceptible to such seductive messages. Adoring followers usually bestow divine qualities upon their leaders. Once that happens, human laws are suspended, since heavenly leaders can promulgate their own "higher" laws. Despite the Jonestown and Waco tragedies, skeptics and critics still question whether "new religious movements" (their euphemistic term for cults) are really dangerous. Koresh has provided a frightening answer to their questions. But worse still are the apologists, many of them academics, who urge the public to "understand and appreciate" and even condone cults and their activities. These apologists consistently explain away the excesses, abuses, and crimes of destructive cults and warn that cults are somehow being persecuted by society for their strange theological beliefs. This is utter nonsense. In America, we have the religious freedom to believe whatever we wish, but we are not free to abuse or harm people. It is deeds, not creeds, that are at issue. I wonder how more tragedies like the Peoples Temple and the Branch Davidians are needed before we finally comprehend the grim reality that religious cults are destructive and injurious to our health. 8 David Clark: Forecasting Apocalypse New York Post, April 20, 1993 David Clark, cited in this story, is a cult exit counselor and Chairman of the Exit Counseling Guidelines Study Group of the American Family Foundation. The bizarre genealogy of the Branch Davidians -- as twisted as the mind of its leader -- shows the cult to be a mutant offspring of staid ancestors, fixated on biblical prophecies of disaster and the end of the world. With its vision tightly focused on the doomsday-laden Book of Revelation, the cult began interpreting weather changes-such as the Blizzard of '93-as proof of the coming of Armageddon. One expert thinks the group's blind belief in its own infallability may have helped doom it. "I've been told not only that they take the blizzard as apocalyptic, but that they predicted a series of other natural disasters," said David Clark of the American Family Foundation, a group that studies cults. "When they didn't occur . . . well, it's one thing for them to reject the world, but it's another when you're the one making the predictions and they don't come through." Clark speculated that Koresh's failure as a prophet might have been a trigger of the Waco disaster. (From "Cult was fixated on prophecies of doom and disaster," by William T. Slattery, New York Post, 4/20/93, 7, 10) 9 Other Wacos? Louis Jolyon West: Freedom Obsession "There are many Jonestowns and Wacos potentially sitting out there . . . Lord Acton was right. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely" [said American Family Foundation associate, Professor Louis Jolyon West, of UCLA]. What really makes him mad, West added, is that law enforcement officials and community leaders are so obsessed with safeguarding freedoms of religion and speech that they do not respond to cults until it is too late. "The Founding Fathers," he said, "never quite intended such protection for scoundrels and exploitative enterprises." West and his colleagues insist that they are not trying to fan fears spawned by the fiery deaths of Koresh and more than 80 followers at Waco, and they say most cults have little interest in outsiders and present no risk to them. It's just that tragedies like Waco happen so often, they explain, and so little is done in response. (From "After Waco, the focus shifts to other cults," by Larry Tye, The Boston Globe, 4/30/93, 1, 22) 10 Other Waco? Ronald Enroth: Leader's Mental Health Nearly all cults aggressively insert themselves into members' lives, encouraging them to drop ties with outsiders and forge closer ones with fellow members, said Ronald Enroth, a sociology professor at Westmont College (in Santa Barbara, CA) who has been writing about cults for 20 years. But the "potential to explode," he added, "depends on the leader's mental health and whether or not the leader can be pushed over the cliff. . . ." Other tendencies to watch out for, Enroth said, are whether the leader "has made himself into God's mouthpiece, or God," whether and to what extent the group has armed itself. A classic example of such a group, Enroth said, is [Elizabeth Clare] Prophet's Church Universal [and Triumphant]. "They're very much into an armed status and have a very tightly controlled camp headed by a woman who's extremely controlling," he said. She's a sophisticated and articulate woman, very different from Koresh, and she of course distances herself as far as possible from Waco." (From "After Waco, the focus shifts to other cults," by Larry Tye, The Boston Globe, 4/30/93, 1, 22) [Ronald Enroth, author of several books on the cult phenomenon, serves on the editorial board of AFF's Cultic Studies Journal] 11 Other Wacos? Carl Raschke: From Peace to Violence Such violence [seen in sects which cut themselves off from the mainstream] may erupt from groups once considered peaceful. Jim Jones was seen as a social activist before he moved his Peoples Temple from San Francisco to the South American jungles, and even Charles Manson was known as a "flower child" before he became a mass murderer, said Carl Raschke, a professor at the University of Denver who specializes in religion and popular culture. Manson, he said, "flip-flopped from peace-and-love religious innovator into an apostle of violence . . . This phenomenon is not as uncommon as people believe. There is a point at which [some cult leaders] no longer think they can be saved and save the world by pure Christian meekness and surrender. (From "Cult's Isolation From Society Seen as Factor in Violence,"by Gustav Nieburg and William Hamilton, The Washington Post, 3/2/93, A4) [Carl Raschke, who heads the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Denver, is a member of the American Family Foundation Research Advisory Committee and a member of the editorial board of AFF's Cultic Studies Journal.] 12 Other Wacos? David Clark: Potentially Volatile David Clark, who is an exit counselor and a court-certified expert on cults . . . said that [Elizabeth Clare] Prophet [head of the Montana-based bomb-shelter-building Church Universal and Triumphant] practices mind control through high-speed chants that hypnotize members. Clark, a former member of a cultic Church of the Living Word, said he has counseled about 35 former Church Universal members."They definitely believe that [Prophet] had an authoritarian control over their thinking," Clark said. That control, combined with an "us versus them" attitude and weapons stockpiling, makes the group potentially volatile, he said. (From "Church Universal members blast Waco cult comparison," by Jay Tokasz, The Ithaca [NY] Journal 5/3/93, 3A) 13 "Calling AFF" [Media contacts about Waco] The following listing represents contacts initiated by various media from across the nation, and overseas, with the AFF office in New York City, from March 10 to May 13, 1993, seeking information and opinion about the Waco disaster. The comments and interviews were given by Marcia R. Rudin, Director of AFF's International Cult Education Program and member of the editorial board of the Cult Observer. The listing could be multiplied many times to account for the hundreds of interviews given by AFF-associated professionals during the same period. - Interview with Peter Steinfels, New York Times, March 1 - Interview with Larry Blunt, WDAFÐTV, March 1 - Interview with editor of Ann Landers column Ð March 1 - Interviews with Catherine Macklem and French reporter, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Ð March 1 - Interview with Arnaud Levi, Francois (Paris) Ð March 1 - Interview with Chuck Lindell, The Austin American State- sman Ð March 1 - Interview with Kenneth Woodward, Newsweek Ð March 1 - Radio Interview with Fred Bodimer, The World of Religion, KMOX (St. Louis) Ð March 1 - Interview with Kate Desmet, Detroit News Ð March 1 - Interview with Ed Golder, Booth News Services Ð March 2 - Consultation with Mary Jo Brooks, The McNeil/Lehrer ReportÐ March 2 - Interview with London Broadcasting Company and appearance on Robby Vincent's Nightline (London radio) Ð March 2 - Consultation with Leanne Wineck, Fox Chanel 5 TV (New York) Ð March 2 - Interview with Joan Connell, Newhouse News Service Ð March 2 - Interview with Melinda Liu, Newsweek Washington Bureau Ð March 2 - Interview with Elizabeth Leonard, Newsweek Ð March 3 - Consultation with Ed Culhane, The PostÐCrescent (Appleton, WI) Ð March 3 - Interview with Stebbins Jefferson, Palm Beach Post Ð March 3 - Interview with Meg Luther, producer, WNYC Radio (New York) Ð March 3 - Interview with Miriam Fuchs, Davar Daily, March 3 - Consultation with producer of "Informe Semanal," Television of Spain Ð March 3 - Appearance on "Informe Semanal," Television of Spain Ð March 4 - Interview on WNYC (radio, New York) show hosted by Bryan Lehrer Ð March 4 - Interview with Reid Kanaley, The Philadelphia Inquirer ÐMarch 4 - Interview with Sivia Tumarkin Ð People Magazine Ð March 4 - Interview with Melinda Henneberger of The New York Times Ð March 4 - Interview on national public radio program of Icelandic Broad- casting Service Ð March 5 - Interview with Melinda Liu, Newsweek Washington Bureau Ð March 5 - Interview with Zach Margulis, New York Daily News Ð March 5 - Interview with Theresa Bonick, KnightÐRidder Tribune News- wire Ð March 5 - Consultation with Pam Grant, producer, "48 Hours" (TV) Ð March 5 - Interview with Perry Ferraiulo, syndicated columnist, Religious News Service Ð March 8 - Consultation with Phil Fink, radio callÐin show, Cleveland Ð March 8 - Interview with Sarah Kellogg, Newshouse Newspapers Ð March 8 - Consultation with Jason Dorff, producer of "Rambling with Gambling," WOR (radio, New York) Ð March 8 - Interview with Jim Mallory, Rusting Publications Ð March 8 - Consultation with Alex Wallace, producer, "48 Hours" (TV) Ð March 8 - Radio interview on "Rambling with Gambling," WOR radio, NYC talkÐshow Ð March 10 - Consultation with Moira Luce, producer of On Target (radio show, Montreal) Ð March 9 - Interview (Herbert Rosedale) on On Target (radio show, Mont- real) Ð March 9 - Interview with Tracey Shryer, Los Angeles Times Ð March 10 - Consultation with Mark Miamo, producer of Channel 11 News (New York) Ð March 10 - Interview with Andrew Visconti, AGL News Syndication (Italy) Ð March 11 - Interview on Judy Jarvis radio show, Hartford, CT Ð March 11. - Interview with Tracey Shryer, Los Angeles Times Ð March 11. - Radio interview on Phil Fink radio callÐin show, Cleveland Ð March 11 - Consultation with Katherine Kim Ð CBS (Connie Chung news show) Ð March 11 - Interview with Kansas City, MO newspaper Ð March 11 - Interview with Metroland Ð March 11 - Consultation with Katherine Upin, producer, "48 Hours" (TV) Ð March 12 - Interview on CBS Evening News Ð March 12 - Interview on 11 News Closeup (Channel 11, New York) Ð March 13 - Consultation with Sydney Seward, Northeast Cable News Ð March 15 - Consultation with Jim Swimmer, NBC News Ð March 15 - Consultation with Ann Yamamota, TV Asahi (Japan) Ð March 15 - Interview with Michael Lopez, Albany TimesÐUnion Ð March 16 - Consultation with Dea Athon Ð Nippon TV (Japan) Ð March 16 - Consultation with producer of "Conversations with Jean Feraca" radio show, Wisconsin Public Radio Ð March 17 - Interview on "Conversations with Jean Feraca" radio show, Wisconsin Public Radio Ð March 18 - Consultation with Gretchen Eisell, NBC News Ð March 18 - Consultation with Noriko Toshihiro Ð Asahi (Japanese Broad-casting System Ð March 18 - Consultation with Charlie Clark, Congressional Quarterly Ð March 18 - Consultation with Suzanne Stone, freeÐlance writer - Consultation with Kate Desmet, Detroit News Ð March 23 - Consultation with Pat Toddy, Susan Bray Show, WWDB, Philadelphia Ð March 24 - Consultation with Ellen Wijnberg, Richard Bey Show, New York Ð March 24 - Interview with Ann Wallace, Redbook Magazine Ð March 26 - Consultation with RevPolani, Hinduism Today Ð March 29 - Interview with Charlie Clark, Congressional Quarterly Ð March 29 - Interview with Chuck Lindell, The Austin American Statesman Ð March 30 - Interview with Zach Margulis, New York Daily News Ð March 30 - Interview with Mike Hirsley, Chicago Tribune Ð March 30 - Two interviews with Lynda McCullough, writer for Guidepost (newsletter of the American Counseling Association) Ð March (monthly) - Consultation with Christopher Naughton, Station WDVR, Princeton, NJ Ð April 2 - Interview with Christine Reinhardt, McCall's Magazine Ð April 2 - Kristie Hastings, Columbia University Spectator Ð April 2 - Consultation with Jim Swimmer, NBC News Ð April 2 - Consultation with Donald O'Neill, Cable 25 TV, Long Island Ð April 5 - Interview with Ann O'Reilly, Indiana University newspaper Ð April 12 - Consultation with Eileen Brennan, KGTV, San Diego Ð April 12 - Interview with Bayla Jacobs, Jewish Parent Connection Ð April 16 - Appearance on "Good Day Street Talk," Fox Channel 5, New York City Ð April 19 - Guest on Fox Channel 5 Noon News Ð April 19 - Consultation with Jason Dorff, WOR Radio, NYC Ð April 19 - Consultation with Rich Gardello, NBC News Ð April 19 - Interview with Chuck Lindell, AustinÐAmerican Statesman Ð April 19 - Consultation with Alix Wallace Ð "48 Hours" Ð April 19 - Interview with Bill Slattery Ð New York Post Ð April 19 - Consultation with Susan Adams "Dateline, NBC"ºÐ April 19 - Interview with Jim Owen Ð Hearst Newspapers in Washington Ð April 19 - Interview with Nicole Foy Ð Texas Christian University Student Newspaper Ð April 19 - Interview with Judith Gaines Ð The Boston Globe Ð April 19 - Guest on WOR Radio, NYC Ð April 20 - Appearance on "Dateline, NBC" Ð April 20 - Consultation with producer of "MacNeil/Lehrer Report" Ð April 19 - Appearance on "Good Morning New York," Fox Channel 5 Ð April 20 - Appearance on "MacNeil/Lehrer Report" Ð April 20 - Interview with James Bone, The London Times Ð April 20 - Interview with Pat Vance, New York Times Syndicate Ð April 20 - Consultation with Susan Haspel Ð NBC News Ð April 20 - Guest on Joan Hamburg radio show Ð April 20 - Consultation with Stephanie Cristopulos Ð Channel 9, New York Ð April 20 - Consultation with Channel 10, CBS, Philadelphia Ð April 20 - Three consultations with researcher on "Dateline" Ð April 20 - Consultation with producer on CJMC Radio, Ottowa Ð April 20 - Consultation with reporter on Italia (Italy) newsweekly Ð April 20 - Consultation with producer on CNN Ð April 20 - Consultation with Alexandra Penoras, producer on "Today Show" Ð April 20 - Interview with Ford Fessender, Newsday Ð April 2 - Consultation with Katherine Upin Ð ABC News Ð April 20 - Consultation with Dave Schiff, Channel 1, Los Angeles Ð April 20 - Interview with Gus Spahn, Religious News Service Ð April 21 - Interview with Wendy Cole, Time Magazine Ð April 21 - Consultation with producer of "All Things Considered," National Public Radio Ð April 21 - Interview on "All Things Considered," National Public Radio Ð April 21 - Consultation with Penny Price, Producer of "Geraldo" Ð April 21 - Interview with reporter from The New York Post Ð April 21 - Interview with Madelaine Amberger, Profil Ð April 21 - Consultation with Rachel Kahn, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Ð April 21 - Interview with Dan Magin, Stanford Advocate Ð April 21 - Interview with Rachel Kahn, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, current affairs/religion program Ð April 25 - Consultation with Kathleen Boland, "48 Hours" Ð April 29 - Consultation with Jeff Swimmer, NBC News Ð April 29 - Consultation with Susan Hasbel, NBC News Ð April 29 - Consultation with Eileen Crowley, "McLaughlin" TV show Ð April 30 - Interview with Heidi Reiss, freeÐlance writer Ð April 30 - Interview with Rosemary Dyson, Lutheran Magazine Ð April 30 - Interview with NBC News for followÐup programming to NBC TV movie on Branch Davidians Ð May 3 - Consultation with Bob Lanne, Lake Charles, LA TV station Ð May 3 - Consultation with Maggie Tapkis, freeÐlance writer for possible story for The Village Voice Ð May 3 - Interview with Raja Raghunath, Teen to Teen Magazine Ð May 4 - Interview with reporter from Times Herald Record, Middletown, New York Ð May 4 - Interview with Doug Riggs, The Providence Journal Ð May 10 - Consultation with Eve Nyland, Dutch TV Ð May 13 ================================================================= If this is a copyrighted work, you are acknowledging by receipt of this document from FACTNet that on the basis of reasonable investigation, you have not been to obtain a copy elsewhere at a fair price, and that you are and will abide by the following copyright warning. 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(Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network, Incorporated) a non-profit computer bulletin board and electronic library 601 16th St. #C-217 Golden, Colorado 80401 USA BBS 303 530-1942 FAX 303 530-2950 Office 303 473-0111 This document is part of an electronic lending library. F.A.C.T.Net does not sell documents, it only lends them according to the terms of your library cardholder agreement with F.A.C.T.Net, Inc. ------------------------------------------------------------------- CARD CATALOG ENTRY DOS FILENAME OF TEXT FILE: CO0493AE.TXT DOS FILENAME OF IMAGE FILES: none ADMINISTRATIVE CODE: OK SECURITY CODE: SCO DISTRIBUTION CODE: RO DESCRIPTION FOR BBS FILE LISTING: The Cult Observer March 1993 SORT TO: AFF CONTRIBUTOR: American Family Foundation (AFF) LOCATION OF ORIGINAL: American Family Foundation (AFF) NOTES: Back issues and selected reprints of the Cultic Studies Journal are available from the American Family Foundation, P.O. Box 2265, Bonita Springs, FL 33959-2265. THE EXPERTS WRITE (AND SPEAK) ON CULTS (These articles and addresses came forth after the Branch Davidian diaster at Waco. | 1 How Many Wacos Will It Take? | [Waco, Davidians, Koresh] | 2 AFF Advisors Brief the Media. Louis | Jolyon West: "A Totalist Cult" | 3 Margaret Thaler Singer - "They're | Able to Get People to Obey" [Talks | with Dan Rather] | 4 Michael D. Langone: "Koresh Called | the Shots " [Talks with Judy Woodruff] | 5 Arnold Markowitz: They Feared Damnation | 6 Marcia R. Rudin: "It's the Recruiter | Looking for People" [Jon Scott] | 7 A. James Rudin: "The Deed, Not the | Creed" | 8 David Clark: Forecasting Apocalypse | 9 Louis Jolyon West: Freedom Obsession | 10 Ronald Enroth: Leader's Mental Health | 11 Carl Raschke: From Peace to Violence | 12 David Clark: Potentially Volatile | 13 "Calling AFF" [Media contacts | about Waco] For additional verification see the contributor of the document. UPDATED ON: 8/22/94 UPDATED BY: FrJMc =================================================================