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International Cultic Studies AssociationMon, Dec 11 at 2:00 AM
As part of our mission to support scholars, mental health professionals, and former cultic group members and their families, ICSA Reviews publishes, via email, social media, and in print, reviews of new and recent books and other media dealing with cults and coercive control.
Narrated by Peter Dinklage, produced by Citizen Jones/Estuary Films. Netflix release July 28, 2023.
Reviewed by Joseph Szimhart
I binge-watched the new, six-part Netflix series, “How to Become a Cult Leader,” deftly narrated by actor Peter Dinklage, after someone at ICSA Reviews asked if I was interested. Until that request, I’d avoided seeing it despite many social media notices from peers and participants in the series. Yes, I scanned some reviews, a couple indicating that the approach may have been too cheeky for such a dire topic. But if you know me, you will understand why I am not inclined to digest another cult exposé: Too much of anything can make one sick of it. Well, I gulped this one down easily enough which speaks to how well it was prepared and paced—despite the liberal spicing with cartoon commentary and old media footage mocking the content.
In my opinion it is cheeky, and it is a freakishly dire documentary that ends with the ominous warning that we are all either predators or prey in the ongoing cult game. I mean, the six episodes featured mostly dead cult leaders, all males, and all notoriously bad social actors who have had their stories told too often already: Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Jaimie1 (sic) Gomez of Buddhafield who still operates in Hawaii, Marshall Applewhite, Shoko Asahara, and Sun Myung Moon. Other cult leaders were named, perhaps a dozen, to fill in salient points about manipulation techniques and characterological disorders, but I will not mention them here. With a title like that, the series had to be cheeky in the sense of signaling potential cult leaders to think again: Only your deluded followers and kindred grifters will not be laughing at your transparently self-serving and ultimately disgusting behaviors.
Cult experts and ex-members filled in the narrative with personal comments stemming from extensive research and intimate knowledge of the cult leaders after years of cult participation. The ex-member testimonies provide the best insights for viewers who should note that cult members are no different than people viewing the documentary—yes, it can happen to you too. If the viewer does not get that message, they miss the point of the entire documentary: Cults tend to see from an us/them world view. By not seeing yourself in a former cult member, you are doing the same exclusive dance as someone in a cult. That old saying, ‘There but for the grace of God go I,’ applies here, too. That is better than thinking how stupid that person was to spend 20years of their life believing in that nonsense.
The series does not mention it, but a 1991 book, Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion2 by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson includes a chapter (35) with the same title: “How to Become a Cult Leader.” The themes discussed in Age of Propaganda can be understood as the steps to becoming a cult leader in the Netflix series. They include:
- Create your own social reality.
- Create a granfalloon3 technique that splits a follower from reality.
- Create commitment through dissonance reduction.
- Establish the leader’s credibility and attractiveness.
- Send members out to proselytize the unredeemed.
- Distract members from thinking “undesirable” thoughts.
- Fixate member’s vision on a phantom like heaven, a promised land, enlightenment, utter success, or salvation.
Age of Propaganda reminds us that cults use common propaganda tactics but with a more thorough and complete agenda: total control over your life. Age of Propaganda also cautions about something that the Netflix series misses: To be forewarned is not to be forearmed. Watching this series will likely do little or nothing to prevent the viewer from falling prey to a cult or becoming a cult leader. And why is that?
Think about it. As with most life events, vicarious experience has some value, but it is no substitute for actual experience to thoroughly grasp the event. Nevertheless, actual experience could be harmful. It is better to learn vicariously that the cults named in the series can harm you, but there is no guarantee that you will see what is coming after encountering an interesting teacher or leader. Cult leaders are not all consciously lying. Many believe in their fantastic ideas and techniques—so much so that they sound very convincing. That utter confidence in the message, whether connived or authentic, can fool most anyone not already informed about the history of the leader.
You might be a struggling actor in Los Angeles or New York with street smarts who attends a free workshop on how to improve your audition skills. I have done workshops for former members of two acting school cults in which the teachers managed to gain control over every aspect of more than a dozen young people through instructions like having sex with the teacher to improve their “openness” to new roles and techniques. Their first free sessions were a lot of fun, they said, and they felt they learned something. The sex, of course, came much later because a clever leader will observe how committed a student is to each new step. The inner core that is already initiated to secret teachings will keep the deeper teachings secret until the leader indicates that a newer student is ready.
The series is worth a look. I learned a few things about familiar cults that I was not aware of. With so much crammed in, the series left a lot out about all the groups and leaders. So expect to be entertained more than informed, though knowing something about how cult leaders operate is still a plus. There is a slim chance it will help some viewers to stop, think, and do more research after they have had fun at a free, self-improvement workshop. It might also inspire someone to do an exposé on a new manipulative cult that has not yet had media fame.
Notes
[1] FYI: Both Netflix and IMDB have misspelled Jaime Gomez’s name as Jaimie online and in their Series notes.
[2] A granfalloon, in the fictional religion of Bokonism (created by Kurt Vonnegut in his 1963 novel Cat’s Cradle), is defined as a “false karass.” That is, it is a group of people who affect a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is meaningless. This definition is attributed to a footnote referencing a review, by Alison Carpenter, of the Pratkansis & Aronson book, Age of Propaganda in the Wikipedia entry on granfalloon.
[3] Age of Propaganda, originally published in 1991, was updated and reissued in paperback by a different publisher in 2001. Please see below for detailed references.
References
Granfalloon. (2022, December 26). In Wikipedia.
Dinklage, P., Pasht, J. B., Bekhor, J., Ginsberg, D., & Laufer, J. (Executive Producers). (2023-present). How to become a cult leader [TV series]. Citizen Jones/Estuary Films. Streaming on Netflix. Released July 28, 2023.
IMDB Episode Guide for “How to become a cult leader”
Pratkanis, A. & Aronson, E., (1991). Age of propaganda: The everyday use and abuse of persuasion. W. H. Freeman & Co.
Pratkanis, A. & Aronson, E., (2001). Age of propaganda: The everyday use and abuse of persuasion. Updated paperback edition. Henry Holt & Company, Inc.
About the Reviewer:
Joseph Szimhart, ICSA Today’s Book Review Consultant, began research into cultic influence in 1980, after ending his two-year devotion to a New Age sect. He worked professionally as an intervention specialist from 1986 through 1988. He continues to assist people with cult-related problems including consultations via phone and Internet. In 2016 he received an ICSA Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual conference in Dallas, Texas. From 1998 to 2023 he worked for an emergency psychiatric hospital as a crisis caseworker, retiring in May of this year. He maintains an art studio and exhibits professionally. His novel, Mushroom Satori: The cult diary, was published in 2013, and his memoir, Santa Fe, Bill Tate, and me: How an artist became a cult interventionist, was published in 2020.
Reviews published online by ICSA Reviews may also appear in our publications ICSA Today and the International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation.
The views expressed in ICSA Reviews are solely those of the reviewers and do not necessarily reflect the views of ICSA’s directors, advisers, or staff. Groups analyzed or mentioned in this column are not necessarily cults, nor are they necessarily harmful.
Founded in 1979, ICSA’s mission is to provide information, education, and help to those adversely affected by or interested in cultic and other high-control groups and relationships. More Info.
International Cultic Studies Association, Inc. 100 Bull Street, Suite 200
Savannah, GA 31401mail@icsamail.c
Tag: Cult
CONFERENCIA EN BARCELONA JULIO 2024 DE LA INTERNATIONAL CULTIC STUDIES ASSOCIATION E INFO-SECTE
Undiscerned Sexuality and Vocation in the Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi: Recent Testimony
Boys being recruited into the Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi Federation 2023.
Kevin O’Sullivan spent seven years inside the most secretive Catholic organisation in living memory – The Legionaries of Christ. He thought he was going to spread love and compassion: he ended up among disinformation and lies. He fled to save his sanity.
RECENT (2023) PHOTO OF YOUNG BOYS JOINING THE LEGION OF CHRIST/REGNUM CHRISTI FEDERATION JUNIOR SEMINARY/APOSTOLIC SCHOOL IN MONTERREY, MEXICO
Note that they are receiving their “uniform” which they will wear during 4 years, even when they visit their homes; they are being set aside to “discern” (cultivate) their religious and priestly vocation” beginning at age 11.
If you do not want to know your true self, by all means join the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi Federation.
They’ll just tell you you have a vocation and “carry on until we tell you otherwise.” But if you want to be brave, the Spirit will take you in another directions and tear down your sandcastles in the sun.
Here is a very well written and very insightful testimony for those you want to be honest with themselves. It takes a lot of guts to write this; but it is worth the pain and the effort to find you true self, the self that God created, the self the Legion of Christ does not want you to discover – because you will no longer be useful to it.
From Amazon:
<Kevin O’Sullivan spent seven years inside the most secretive Catholic organisation in living memory – The Legionaries of Christ. He thought he was going to spread love and compassion: he ended up among disinformation and lies. He fled to save his sanity.
This is the story of how Kevin found, and then lost, his religion, and how he lost, and then found, his sexuality. On the way, the young teenager clings to what his mother has taught him: to be a good boy. The journey brings him face to face with difficult truths, and ultimately to a far deeper knowledge of himself, as he finds out who he doesn’t want to be.
It’s a story full of hope about discovering what matters to each of us, even if we don’t like some of what we find.>
Abusos en el Movimiento Regnum Christi, Sept 2023
CARTA ABIERTA DE 32 EXMIEMBROS DE LA RAMA FEMENINA DEL MOVIMIENTO REGNUM CHRISTI/LEGIONARIOS DE CRISTO
Querido(a)s Lectores,
Les saludamos como siempre en plan de Verdad,
Muy recientemente ha llegado a nuestras manos el siguiente documento, firmado por un buen número de exmiembros consagradas del Movimiento Católico REGNUM CHRISTI donde se denuncian varios abusos.
(Como saben, el Movimiento Seglar Regnum Christi fue fundado por el Padre Marcial Maciel fundador de los Legionarios de Cristo hacia el 1960. Debido a los escándalos del pedófilo psicópata Maciel que salieron a luz en 1990-2000 , los Legionarios han querido distanciarse de su fundador y aplicaron el nombre Regnum Christi a toda la obra de Maciel, a modo de camaleón.)
Encontrarán los nombres de varias mujeres muy honorables y conocidas que avalan lo dicho en esta CARTA ABIERTA.
______________
<Santiago, (Chile) septiembre de 2023
Carta abierta de un grupo de ex consagradas
A raíz de la demanda filtrada en agosto en contra de los Legionarios de Cristo y
Consagradas del movimiento Regnum Christi, queremos levantar la voz y aportar información
que contribuya a comprender dicha demanda a la luz del conocimiento, circunstancias y
situaciones vividas por nosotras mientras fuimos consagradas o integrantes del centro
estudiantil. En nuestra experiencia dentro de esas comunidades, el relato sobre el “contexto
de la congregación Legionarios de Cristo y las consagradas del Regnum Christi”, no sólo es
verosímil, sino además, propicio a generar las condiciones para un entorno en donde
pudiesen suceder actos atentatorios, incluso aquellos de la más alta gravedad, en contra de
las personas. Fuimos sometidas a un ambiente en el que el abuso de poder y conciencia eran
lo común, y en donde las agresiones sexuales, que se describen en la demanda, sí se
pudieron haber dado.
Entendemos que es difícil, para quienes no han vivido una realidad como ésta,
dimensionar el efecto que este modo de vida tiene en el pensamiento, el sentir y en la
conducta de una persona. Para nosotras, que lo vivimos desde dentro, aún hay aspectos
difíciles de interpretar de nuestra propia historia.
Todas las normas, que hoy cualquiera es capaz de entender como inhumanas y dañinas,
las cumplimos en la creencia y confianza de que buscábamos vivir en lealtad y amor a Dios,
sin cuestionarlas, convencidas por nuestros superiores, de que procedían del mismísimo
Dios.
Por tanto, compartimos con la opinión pública, algunos antecedentes que aportarán
claridad sobre el contexto que se relata en la demanda. Antecedentes que han sido parte de
los cimientos de la vida en comunidad de las consagradas del Regnum Christi, tanto en Chile
como en otros países:
1. El fundador fue un líder venerado e incuestionable. Cualidades que se les atribuían a
todos los superiores y directoras.
2. Las consagradas debían ceder “el propio juicio en favor de ellos (autoridades y
superiores), como holocausto agradable a Dios”, es decir, como un acto de
abnegación total llevado a cabo por amor, según señalaban los Estatutos.
3. Control exigente del uso del tiempo, monitoreado al detalle y de forma rigurosa por
parte de los superiores, lo que le daba al director el dominio absoluto de la ubicación
y actividad de cada miembro de su comunidad.
4. Prohibición de cuestionar cualquier mandato o requerimiento de los superiores.
5. Prohibición de develar pensamientos, emociones y vivencias personales, ya sea al
interior de las comunidades como hacia afuera de ellas. Esto quiere decir que no
podíamos compartir nuestro fuero interno con nadie –ni con compañeras, ni con
familiares, ni amigos previos al ingreso-, salvo con nuestros directores. El tener
amistades, era considerado “ser infiel a Dios”. De esta manera nos mantenían aisladas
unas de otras, y en muchos casos, muy dependientes afectivamente de los directores.
6. Falta de acceso a prensa, medios de comunicación y publicaciones, salvo noticias
previamente seleccionadas.
7. Retención de nuestros documentos personales.
Y podríamos seguir enumerando.
Entregamos muchos años de nuestras vidas para servir en un movimiento fundado
por un sacerdote que, bajo apariencia de líder carismático, fue un reconocido pederasta y
drogadicto, que hacía uso de múltiples identidades mediante documentos falsos; con varias
mujeres e hijos, contrario a toda norma civil de cualquier país, y peor aún, contrario a la figura
sacerdotal profesada por la Iglesia Católica.
Este modo de vivir es conocido sólo por quienes han pertenecido a comunidades de
consagradas de este movimiento. Nadie fuera de las mismas tendría cómo saberlos y son
cruciales para entender por qué el contexto relatado en la denuncia nos parece verosímil.
Como ex consagradas e integrantes del centro estudiantil, esperamos que se haga
justicia, respetando la presunción de inocencia y los debidos procesos. Pero también,
esperamos que el poder no corrompa la justicia, y que la verdad – y sólo la verdad -, salga a
la luz.
Atentamente,
María Eliana Espinosa Méndez, 9 años consagrada, chilena.
Susana Barroilhet Costabal, 19 años consagrada, chilena.
Macarena Vargas Larraín, 9 años consagrada, 1 año y medio en centro estudiantil, chilena.
Francisca Ruiz Moreno Navarro, 18 años y medio consagrada, chilena.
Daniela Muñoz Hinrichsen, 12 años consagrada, chilena.
Rosario Correa, 14 años consagrada, chilena.
Lucía Ruiz Moreno Navarro, 20 años consagrada, chilena.
María José Portales Donoso, 6 años consagrada, 2 años en el centro estudiantil, chilena.
Aura Escudero, 20 años consagrada, chilena.
María José Peña, 2 años en el centro estudiantil, chilena.
Delfina Trossero, 9 años consagrada, argentina.
Lucía Huvelle, 7 años consagrada, 1 en el centro estudiantil, argentina.
Guadalupe Poitevin, 8 años consagrada, argentina.
Alison Benson, 10 años consagrada, canadiense.
Marta Halvová, 19 años consagrada, checa.
Fernanda Sarmet da Silva, 11 años consagrada, brasileña.
Cris Rosá, 19 años consagrada, brasileña.
Marcia Elisa Ameriot, 13 años consagrada, brasileña.
Mariana Lamberti, 10 años consagrada, venezolana.
Cristina Gaber, 18 años consagrada, mexicana.
Adriana Lozano González, 21 años consagrada, mexicana.
Marcela Rodríguez Anser, 16 años consagrada, mexicana.
Elena Sada Sada, 18 años consagrada, mexicana-estadounidense.
Lorena Sada, 10 años consagrada, mexicana.
Verónica Menéndez Preciat, 18 años consagrada, mexicana.
María José Martínez González, 10 años consagrada, mexicana.
Paulina Maria Mitrani Junco, 7 años consagrada, mexicana.
Susana Flores Verlon, 10 años consagrada, mexicana.
María Monroy Olea, 9 años consagrada, mexicana.
Brenda Elizalde, 1 año consagrada, 2 años en el centro estudiantil, mexicana.
Daniela Orozco Loza, 11 años consagrada, 4 años en el centro estudiantil, mexicana.
Luisa Ileana Estrada Loría, 13 años consagrada, mexicana.>
1) I Still Can’t Believe in the Legion of Christ- even with all their Priestly Ordinations
MORE LEGIONARY OF CHRIST PRIESTS ORDAINED, AND STILL I CAN’T BELIEVE!
Me, the dissident; one of many, so I am not totally alone.
But as I see the Legion of Christ grow
“Legionaries of Christ 29 Legionaries of Christ to be Ordained to the Priesthood in Rome by Cardinal Fernando Vérgez, LC – Legionaries of Christ”
, if not progress, I now have some serious soul searching to do.
What to make of my thirty-year crusade to reveal what I believe to be the true nature of the Legion of Christ? A prodigious business venture disguised as a religious order.
Have I been wrong to preach the spurious nature of the Legion of Christ Catholic Religious Order approved by popes and Vatican authorities?
Have all my efforts been in vain?
Has my unstinting support of Maciel’s sexually abused seminarians -now in their eighties- and their humiliation and abandonment- been worth nothing, as the Legion juggernaut goes triumphantly trundling along?
Have the successors/accomplices of Serial Pedophile Founder, conman, manipulator and consummate liar, Fr. Marcial Maciel, aided and abetted by unwitting popes and corrupt Vatican authorities – notice I do not say “The Catholic Church”, of which I am a faithful member- ultimately prevailed..
What to make of the 5,000 dissident former members on Facebook’s Spanish language “Legioleaks” page? Are they just more disgruntled old men like me?
What about the many counter testimonies and studies regarding the Legionaries of Christ, in Spanish, French and English, that have been written over recent decades?
(See appendix in: A Naïve and Sentimental Dubliner in the Legion of Christ: https://www.amazon.com/N%C3%A4ive-Sentimental-Dubliner-Legion-Christ-ebook/dp/B083GJP6RW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=328GJ19PE8MIP&keywords=A+Naive+and+Sentimental+Dubliner+in+the+Legion+of+Christi&qid=1682696073&s=books&sprefix=a+naive+and+sentimental+dubliner+in+the+legion+of+christi%2Cstripbooks%2C122&sr=1-1 )
There are thousands more like me, throw-aways and walk-aways of the Legionaries of Christ since the foundation in 1941. Many with broken faith, shipwrecked in the spirit, who do not know what to make of God, Jesus, Church after our harrowing experiences. Would that Holy Mother the Church caste an understanding glance in our direction. But, no matter, I believe Jesus does. The Carpenter’s son from Nazareth, the Rabbi who sang the Beatitudes, who eschewed the path to success, prosperity, and triumph, and doggedly stuck to his thankless mission, knowing that in the long run…