Destructive cult
Encyclopedia
A destructive cult is a religion or other group which has caused or has a high probability of causing harm to its own members or to others. Some researchers define "harm" in this case with a narrow focus, specifically groups which have deliberately physically injured or killed other individuals, while others define the term more broadly and include emotional abuse among the types of harm inflicted.
Some researchers including John A. Saliba
, Julius H. Rubin, and Lorne L. Dawson
assert that the term is used to discredit the groups it is applied to, and to unfairly compare them with historically more harmful groups and movements. Authors including Peter A. Olsson, Steven Hassan, and Masoud Banisadr have linked destructive cults with terrorism
, and have used the term to characterize Osama bin Laden
as a destructive cult leader.
has generally referred to groups which have, through deliberate action, physically injured or killed members of their own group or other individuals. The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
limit use of the term to specifically refer to religious groups that "have caused or are liable to cause loss of life among their membership or the general public."
as a defining characteristic. Steven Hassan
, author of the book Combatting Cult Mind Control
, defines the term as such: "A destructive cult is a pyramid-shaped authoritarian regime with a person or group of people that have dictatorial control. It uses deception in recruiting new members (e.g. people are NOT told up front what the group is, what the group actually believes and what will be expected of them if they become members)." Psychologist
Michael Langone
, executive director of the International Cultic Studies Association
, defines a destructive cult as "a highly manipulative group which
exploits and sometimes physically and/or psychologically damages members and recruits." In the book Into the Rabbit Hole contributor Randall Waters cites psychiatrist
Robert Lifton's Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, specifically Lifton's "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform", as criteria to identify a destructive cult. In Perfected Mind Control - The Unauthorized Black Book of Hypnotic Mind Control author J. K. Ellis also cites Lifton's criteria, writing: "If most of Robert Lifton's eight point model of thought reform is being used in a cult organization, it is most likely a dangerous and destructive cult." In a statement which Congressman Leo J. Ryan
later read into the Congressional Record
, Dr. John Gordon Clark
cited totalitarian
systems of governance and an emphasis on money making as characteristics of a destructive cult. Dr. Clark later authored the work Destructive Cult Conversion: Theory, Research and Practice.
In Cults and the Family the authors cite Shapiro, who defines a "destructive cultism" as a sociopathic
syndrome
, whose distinctive qualities include: "behavioral and personality changes, loss of personal identity, cessation of scholastic activities, estrangement from family, disinterest in society and pronounced mental control and enslavement by cult leaders." In The Ethics of Touch: The Hands-on Practitioner's Guide To Creating a Professional, Safe and Enduring Practice, the authors describe their version of destructive cult characteristics in a section on "Cult Mind Control Abuse." In the book, a destructive cult is seen as being either "religious, political, 'therapeutic' or business" and they state that it can cause trauma-related symptoms such as dissociative disorder. In Dr. Susan Gregg's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Spiritual Healing, she cites three main signs of a destructive cult, including giving up one's individuality, having their relationships with friends and family threatened, and being asked to donate large sums of money to the group. In his work Lethal Violence, the criteria of a destructive cult environment is compared to that of battered woman defence
.
. Saliba sees this as the "paradigm of a destructive cult," where those that use the term are implying that other new religious movement
s will have similar outcomes to those of the Peoples Temple at Jonestown. Writing in the book Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field
, contributor Julius H. Rubin complains that the term has been used to discredit certain groups in the court of public opinion
. In his work Cults in Context author Lorne L. Dawson writes that though the Unification Church
"has not been shown to be violent or volatile," it has been described as a destructive cult by "anticult crusaders." In 2002, the German government was held by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court to have defamed the Osho movement by referring to it, among other things, as a "destructive cult". The court decided that "destructive cult" and other expressions employed by the government to describe the group had no factual basis to justify their use.
(then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) carried out
what has come to be known as the first bioterrorism
attack in the United States
. Over seven hundred and fifty individuals became ill from salmonella
poison
ing, after the group had deliberately contaminated the salad bars of ten restaurants. After epidemiological research
, law enforcement isolated the source of the contamination as a clinical laboratory operated by members of the Rajneesh movement. They had intended to influence voter turnout in an upcoming election. The March 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
by the Aum Shinrikyo
movement, as well as their prior experiments with anthrax
, were also seen as chemical and bioterrorism events.
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks
and the prevalence of the War on Terrorism
in society, researchers have begun to use the term "destructive cult" to compare and contrast certain characteristics of terrorist organizations with those of other religious groups previously characterized as such. In the book Jihad and Sacred Vengeance: Psychological Undercurrents of History, psychiatrist
Peter A. Olsson
compares Osama bin Laden
to other religious leaders including Jim Jones
, David Koresh
, Shoko Asahara
, Marshall Applewhite
, Luc Jouret
and Joseph Di Mambro, in a section of the book called: "The Psychology of Destructive Cult Leaders". Olsson asserts that each of these individuals fit at least eight of the nine criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder
. Olsson goes into some of these issues in more depth in his work Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time: A Psychological Study of Destructive Cult Leaders from Rev. Jim Jones to Osama bin Laden. In the book Seeking the Compassionate Life: The Moral Crisis for Psychotherapy and Society authors Goldberg and Crespo also refer to Osama bin Laden as a "destructive cult leader."
At a 2002 meeting of the American Psychological Association
(APA), Steven Hassan asserted that Al Qaida fulfills the characteristics of a destructive cult. Panelists at the convention asked the APA to investigate mind control
among destructive cults. Hassan spoke of the commonalities between researching destructive cults, and the war on terrorism: "We need to apply what we know about destructive mind-control cults, and this should be a priority with the war on terrorism. We need to understand the psychological aspects of how people are recruited and indoctrinated so we can slow down recruitment. We need to help counsel former cult members and possibly use some of them in the war against terrorism."
In an article on Al Qaida published in The Times
, Mary Ann Sieghart
wrote that al-Qaida resembles a "classic cult", commenting: "Al-Qaida fits all the official definitions of a cult. It indoctrinates its members; it forms a closed, totalitarian society; it has a self-appointed, messianic and charismatic leader; and it believes that the ends justify the means." A similar comparison was made by former UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke
, as well as UK Home Secretary John Reid
, who stated that "..fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your children, for suicide bombings, grooming them to kill themselves in order to murder others."
Although not specifically mentioning al Qaeda, former Mujaheddin member and now author and academic Dr. Masoud Banisadr stated in a May 2005 speech in Spain :
Dr. Banisadr mentions al Qaeda several times in a talk entitled "The Use of the Philosophy of Martyrdom within Religious Cults for Acts of Terrorism" delivered at an INFORM seminar at the London School of Economics
in May 2007.
Some researchers including John A. Saliba
John A. Saliba
John A. Saliba is a Maltese-born Jesuit priest, a professor of religious studies at the University of Detroit Mercy and a noted writer and researcher in the field of new religious movements.Saliba has advocated a conciliatory approach towards new religions...
, Julius H. Rubin, and Lorne L. Dawson
Lorne L. Dawson
Lorne L. Dawson is a Canadian scholar of the sociology of religion who has written about new religious movements, the brainwashing controversy, and the role of the Internet in religious conflicts.-Academic career:...
assert that the term is used to discredit the groups it is applied to, and to unfairly compare them with historically more harmful groups and movements. Authors including Peter A. Olsson, Steven Hassan, and Masoud Banisadr have linked destructive cults with terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, and have used the term to characterize Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
as a destructive cult leader.
Physical harm
"Destructive cult" as applied to physical abusePhysical abuse
Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Belting*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
has generally referred to groups which have, through deliberate action, physically injured or killed members of their own group or other individuals. The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance are a small group in Kingston, Ontario dedicated to the promotion of religious tolerance through their website, ReligiousTolerance.org.-History of the group and its website:Bruce A...
limit use of the term to specifically refer to religious groups that "have caused or are liable to cause loss of life among their membership or the general public."
Emotional harm
Some researchers describe the term "destructive cult" more broadly, and include emotional abuse along with physical abusePhysical abuse
Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Belting*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
as a defining characteristic. Steven Hassan
Steven Hassan
Steven Alan Hassan is a licensed mental health counselor and an exit counselor. Hassan was an early advocate of exit counseling, and is the author of two books on the subject of "cults", and what he describes as their use of mind control, thought reform, and the psychology of influence in order...
, author of the book Combatting Cult Mind Control
Combatting Cult Mind Control
Combatting Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults is a non-fiction work by Steven Hassan. The author describes theories of mind control and cults based on the research of Margaret Singer and Robert Lifton as well as the cognitive...
, defines the term as such: "A destructive cult is a pyramid-shaped authoritarian regime with a person or group of people that have dictatorial control. It uses deception in recruiting new members (e.g. people are NOT told up front what the group is, what the group actually believes and what will be expected of them if they become members)." Psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
Michael Langone
Michael Langone
Michael D. Langone, is an American counseling psychologist who specialises in research about "cultic groups" and alleged psychological manipulation. He is executive director of the International Cultic Studies Association, editor of the journal Cultic Studies Review.Langone is author and co-author...
, executive director of the International Cultic Studies Association
International Cultic Studies Association
The International Cultic Studies Association , formerly the American Family Foundation, describes itself as an "interdisciplinary network of academicians, professionals, former group members, and families who study and educate the public about social-psychological influence and control,...
, defines a destructive cult as "a highly manipulative group which
exploits and sometimes physically and/or psychologically damages members and recruits." In the book Into the Rabbit Hole contributor Randall Waters cites psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
Robert Lifton's Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, specifically Lifton's "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform", as criteria to identify a destructive cult. In Perfected Mind Control - The Unauthorized Black Book of Hypnotic Mind Control author J. K. Ellis also cites Lifton's criteria, writing: "If most of Robert Lifton's eight point model of thought reform is being used in a cult organization, it is most likely a dangerous and destructive cult." In a statement which Congressman Leo J. Ryan
Leo Ryan
Leo Joseph Ryan, Jr. was an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served as a U.S. Representative from California's 11th congressional district from 1973 until he was murdered in Guyana by members of the Peoples Temple shortly before the Jonestown Massacre in 1978.After the Watts Riots...
later read into the Congressional Record
Congressional Record
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published by the United States Government Printing Office, and is issued daily when the United States Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks...
, Dr. John Gordon Clark
John Gordon Clark
John 'Jack' Gordon Clark was a Harvard psychiatrist and authority in research on the alleged damaging effects of cults.He was the target of harassment from Scientologists after he testified against them to the Vermont congress in 1976....
cited totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
systems of governance and an emphasis on money making as characteristics of a destructive cult. Dr. Clark later authored the work Destructive Cult Conversion: Theory, Research and Practice.
In Cults and the Family the authors cite Shapiro, who defines a "destructive cultism" as a sociopathic
Psychopathy
Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...
syndrome
Syndrome
In medicine and psychology, a syndrome is the association of several clinically recognizable features, signs , symptoms , phenomena or characteristics that often occur together, so that the presence of one or more features alerts the physician to the possible presence of the others...
, whose distinctive qualities include: "behavioral and personality changes, loss of personal identity, cessation of scholastic activities, estrangement from family, disinterest in society and pronounced mental control and enslavement by cult leaders." In The Ethics of Touch: The Hands-on Practitioner's Guide To Creating a Professional, Safe and Enduring Practice, the authors describe their version of destructive cult characteristics in a section on "Cult Mind Control Abuse." In the book, a destructive cult is seen as being either "religious, political, 'therapeutic' or business" and they state that it can cause trauma-related symptoms such as dissociative disorder. In Dr. Susan Gregg's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Spiritual Healing, she cites three main signs of a destructive cult, including giving up one's individuality, having their relationships with friends and family threatened, and being asked to donate large sums of money to the group. In his work Lethal Violence, the criteria of a destructive cult environment is compared to that of battered woman defence
Battered woman defence
The battered woman defense is a defense used in court that the person accused of an assault / murder was suffering from battered person syndrome at the material time. Because the defense is most commonly used by women, it is usually characterised in court as battered woman syndrome or battered wife...
.
Criticism of the term
Some researchers have criticized the usage of the term "destructive cult", writing that it is used to describe groups which are not necessarily harmful in nature to themselves or others. In his book Understanding New Religious Movements, John A. Saliba writes that the term is overgeneralized and equated with the deaths of members of Peoples Temple at JonestownJonestown
Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby...
. Saliba sees this as the "paradigm of a destructive cult," where those that use the term are implying that other new religious movement
New religious movement
A new religious movement is a religious community or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of modern origin, which has a peripheral place within the dominant religious culture. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, in...
s will have similar outcomes to those of the Peoples Temple at Jonestown. Writing in the book Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field
Misunderstanding Cults (book)
Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field was edited by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins. The book was published by University of Toronto Press, on December 1, 2001 and includes contributions from ten religious, sociological and psychological scholars.The book...
, contributor Julius H. Rubin complains that the term has been used to discredit certain groups in the court of public opinion
Public opinion
Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views....
. In his work Cults in Context author Lorne L. Dawson writes that though the Unification Church
Unification Church
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
"has not been shown to be violent or volatile," it has been described as a destructive cult by "anticult crusaders." In 2002, the German government was held by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court to have defamed the Osho movement by referring to it, among other things, as a "destructive cult". The court decided that "destructive cult" and other expressions employed by the government to describe the group had no factual basis to justify their use.
Terrorism
In 1984, a group of followers of OshoOsho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
Osho , born Chandra Mohan Jain , and also known as Acharya Rajneesh from the 1960s onwards, as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh during the 1970s and 1980s and as Osho from 1989, was an Indian mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher who garnered an international following.A professor of philosophy, he travelled...
(then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) carried out
1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack
The 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack was the food poisoning of 751 individuals in The Dalles, Oregon, United States, through the deliberate contamination of salad bars at ten local restaurants with salmonella...
what has come to be known as the first bioterrorism
Bioterrorism
Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the intentional release or dissemination of biological agents. These agents are bacteria, viruses, or toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form. For the use of this method in warfare, see biological warfare.-Definition:According to the...
attack in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Over seven hundred and fifty individuals became ill from salmonella
Salmonella
Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria with diameters around 0.7 to 1.5 µm, lengths from 2 to 5 µm, and flagella which grade in all directions . They are chemoorganotrophs, obtaining their energy from oxidation and reduction...
poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
ing, after the group had deliberately contaminated the salad bars of ten restaurants. After epidemiological research
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
, law enforcement isolated the source of the contamination as a clinical laboratory operated by members of the Rajneesh movement. They had intended to influence voter turnout in an upcoming election. The March 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
The Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the , was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995....
by the Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo was a Japanese new religious movement. The group was founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway....
movement, as well as their prior experiments with anthrax
Anthrax
Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Most forms of the disease are lethal, and it affects both humans and other animals...
, were also seen as chemical and bioterrorism events.
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
and the prevalence of the War on Terrorism
War on Terrorism
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
in society, researchers have begun to use the term "destructive cult" to compare and contrast certain characteristics of terrorist organizations with those of other religious groups previously characterized as such. In the book Jihad and Sacred Vengeance: Psychological Undercurrents of History, psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
Peter A. Olsson
Peter A. Olsson
Peter A. Olsson is an American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and author. He is author of the book, Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time: A Psychological Study of Destructive Cult Leaders from Rev...
compares Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
to other religious leaders including Jim Jones
Jim Jones
James Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip.Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in...
, David Koresh
David Koresh
David Koresh , born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, believing himself to be its final prophet. Howell legally changed his name to David Koresh on May 15, 1990. A 1993 raid by the U.S...
, Shoko Asahara
Shoko Asahara
, born on March 2, 1955, is a founder of the controversial Japanese new religious group Aum Shinrikyo. He was convicted of masterminding the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway and several other crimes, for which he was sentenced to death...
, Marshall Applewhite
Marshall Applewhite
Marshall Herff Applewhite, Jr. , known among his followers as "Do", was the leader of the Heaven's Gate religious group. A self-proclaimed prophet and messiah, he died in the group's mass suicide of 1997.-Early life:...
, Luc Jouret
Luc Jouret
Luc Jouret , born in Kikwit, Belgian Congo, was a Belgian religious group leader in Switzerland. He co-founded the Parti Communautaire Européen with Jean Thiriart, a leading member of the neo-Nazi Jeune Europe Belgian group...
and Joseph Di Mambro, in a section of the book called: "The Psychology of Destructive Cult Leaders". Olsson asserts that each of these individuals fit at least eight of the nine criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder is a personality disorder in which the individual is described as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity...
. Olsson goes into some of these issues in more depth in his work Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time: A Psychological Study of Destructive Cult Leaders from Rev. Jim Jones to Osama bin Laden. In the book Seeking the Compassionate Life: The Moral Crisis for Psychotherapy and Society authors Goldberg and Crespo also refer to Osama bin Laden as a "destructive cult leader."
At a 2002 meeting of the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
(APA), Steven Hassan asserted that Al Qaida fulfills the characteristics of a destructive cult. Panelists at the convention asked the APA to investigate mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
among destructive cults. Hassan spoke of the commonalities between researching destructive cults, and the war on terrorism: "We need to apply what we know about destructive mind-control cults, and this should be a priority with the war on terrorism. We need to understand the psychological aspects of how people are recruited and indoctrinated so we can slow down recruitment. We need to help counsel former cult members and possibly use some of them in the war against terrorism."
In an article on Al Qaida published in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, Mary Ann Sieghart
Mary Ann Sieghart
Mary Ann Sieghart is a former assistant editor of The Times, where she wrote columns about politics, social affairs and life generally. She now writes a weekly political column in The Independent and presents Profile and Beyond Westminster on Radio 4...
wrote that al-Qaida resembles a "classic cult", commenting: "Al-Qaida fits all the official definitions of a cult. It indoctrinates its members; it forms a closed, totalitarian society; it has a self-appointed, messianic and charismatic leader; and it believes that the ends justify the means." A similar comparison was made by former UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke
Charles Clarke
Charles Rodway Clarke is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Norwich South from 1997 until 2010, and served as Home Secretary from December 2004 until May 2006.-Early life:...
, as well as UK Home Secretary John Reid
John Reid (politician)
John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan, PC is a British politician, who served as a Labour Party Member of Parliament and cabinet minister under Tony Blair, most notably as Defence Secretary and then Home Secretary...
, who stated that "..fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your children, for suicide bombings, grooming them to kill themselves in order to murder others."
Although not specifically mentioning al Qaeda, former Mujaheddin member and now author and academic Dr. Masoud Banisadr stated in a May 2005 speech in Spain :
If you ask me: are all cults a terrorist organisation? My answer is no as there are many peaceful cults at present around the world and in the history of mankind. But if you ask me are all terrorist organisations, some sort of cult? my answer is yes. Even if they start as ordinary modern political party or organisation, to prepare and force their members to act without asking any moral question and act selflessly for the cause of the group and ignore all the ethical, cultural, moral or religious code of the society and humanity, those organisations have to change into a cult. Therefore to understand an extremist or a terrorist organisation one has to learn about a Cult.
Dr. Banisadr mentions al Qaeda several times in a talk entitled "The Use of the Philosophy of Martyrdom within Religious Cults for Acts of Terrorism" delivered at an INFORM seminar at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
in May 2007.
External links
- "Destructive Cults", A text by Panhellenic Parents Union for the Protection of the Greek-Orthodox Culture, the Family and the Individual, Orthodox Research Institute
- Cults: Fierce Love, Violent Death - slideshow by Life magazine