Cult Hackers

Today Celine and Stephen decide to take a sober and even-handed approach to the question of how we should research and talk about High Control Groups or Cults, and then find themselves getting all worked up! The term 'New Religious Movements' is seen as a more appropriate and less prejudicial label than the word cult, should we be using it? Are anti-cult activists getting in the way of proper sociological research? Is brainwashing not really a thing? Are ex members unreliable sources of data and should they be sidelined in favour of more sober rational and objective opinions?

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References used on this episode

Barker, E. (2012). New religious movements: their incidence and significance (pp. 33-50). Routledge.

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/11887/1/__libfile_REPOSITORY_Content_Barker%2C%20E_New%20religious%20movements_Barker_New%20religious%20movements_2013.pdf

Zablocki, B. (1997). The blacklisting of a concept: The strange history of the brainwashing conjecture in the sociology of religion. Nova Religio, 1(1), 96-121.

https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.1997.1.1.96

Academics who ignore defectors as ‘apostates’ will never see Scientology for what it is by Chris Shelton.

https://tonyortega.org/2021/10/02/academics-who-ignore-defectors-as-apostates-will-never-see-scientology-for-what-it-is/

Daniel O'Brien is an educator, musician and ex Jehovah's Witness elder. He talks to Stephen about his experience being recruited into the organization and his tough journey out. He also talks about his upcoming lecture at the 2022 International Cultic Studies Association Conference. 

Daniel's Essay - Are Religious people happier?

As it's Stephen's birthday today , 'birthdays' is the theme of this week's chat. As a Jehovah's Witness child, birthday celebrations were something alien to Stephen and so Celine and her dad try to work out why JWs really don't celebrate them. Stephen finds a paper that provides some of the history and the sociological context and he then demonstrates his slow decent into grumpy old man by having a rant about Discord, mid life crises and MAMILs.

Paper discussed: Shoham, H. (2021). It is about time: Birthdays as modern rites of temporality. Time & Society, 30(1), 78-99.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0961463X20955094

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Ashlen talks about her experience as a born-in member of a small Christian Fundamentalist group called the Churches of Christ, and her work now as the Director of Events at the International Cultic Studies Association. Ashlen also discusses her own research and her studies with the University of Salford on the psychology of coercive control. Such an interesting discussion.

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Ashlen's recent presentation can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09fB4YGIlw&t=1145s

Riley from the Jexit YouTube channel joins Stephen today to analyse the 2002 movie Equilibrium, directed by Kurt Wimmer, starring Christian Bale, Take Diggs, Sean Bean and Emily Watson.

Giving the movie a cult reading reveals some spine-tingling and remarkable parallels with living in a dystopian state and being in a High Control Group. 

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Today Celine and Stephen are joined by Jordan Robertson from the Shunned Experience to talk about the history of atheism. Is atheism a new phenomenon, and is it predominantly a Western idea associated with the period of Enlightenment? Also did the reformation and protestantism pave the way for critical thinking about religion, giving birth to atheistic thought and is that paralleled in religions like Jehovah's Witnesses?

We manage risk every day but how we calculate it is often difficult to understand. Our attitude towards risk is influenced by our beliefs about what we think we know, as well as a balance of likelihood of something happening and the impact if it does. Leaving a cult is bound to impact upon this calculation as old beliefs about the world are replaced with new ways of making sense of what's going on.

Producer Bob joins us to talk about the use of signs and symbols in religions, cults and the social world in general.

Producer Bob thinks about some of the symbolism she was taught as a Jehovah's Witness and Celine talks about semiotics - how meaning is created through symbols and why cults are different in how this is done. Stephen delves into types and anti-types and takes a look at the psychology of how we use symbols to make sense of our world while a member of high control group and then how that changes when we leave.

As a member of totalistic group or cult, morals and ethics are to a large degree determined by the Group. Upon leaving, making decisions about right and wrong  can be difficult as we grapple with putting together our own moral code. 

Celine and Stephen also discuss the famous trolly problem and explore the question of consequentialism vs deontology as well as the psychological research around how people make moral choices.

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Paper used on the discussion today is currently available through Wiley Online Library - PDF available

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2010.01096.x

Daniel Schricker grew up in the Kwasizabantu Mission and since leaving has written a number of blogs about the psychological use of fear particularly on children. This is a follow-up to the discussion with Erica Bornman about this fundamentalist group with worrying cultic practices.

Daniel's essays are themed 'Scaring the hell out of you', where he documents how (i) fear of God, (ii) fear of authority, (iii) fear of self and (iv) fear of the world permeates the lives of the children within the group.

Although an analysis of Kwasizabantu cult watchers will recognise the familiar tactics.

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Daniel's Essays

Part 1

https://revivalreviewed.wordpress.com/2021/09/18/scaring-the-hell-out-of-you/

Part 2

https://revivalreviewed.wordpress.com/2021/09/19/scaring-the-hell-out-of-you-2/

Part 3

https://revivalreviewed.wordpress.com/2021/09/23/scaring-the-hell-out-of-you-part-3/

Part 4

https://revivalreviewed.wordpress.com/2021/09/29/scaring-the-hell-out-of-you-part-4/