Cult News

Arthur Allen and two of his followers from the “House of Prayer” have a deadline to meet today. They must appear in an Atlanta court at 1:00 PM or warrants will be issued for their arrest, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Allen and a married couple from his church were convicted of criminal “child cruelty,” due to the beatings children endured within the controversial Georgia group. They received jail time and probation.

Conditions of that probation include attending anger management classes and signing a written agreement not strike children with objects.

The parents refused to sign the document. Now they must come to court and comply or their probation will be violated.

In recent years there has been a crackdown on religious groups that abuse children.

Children were removed from a group in Canada called “The Church of God Restoration,” as a result of beatings. Parents from a branch of that church in California were arrested for medical neglect.

Dwight York, the leader of another group in Georgia named the “Nuwaubians,” was arrested and prosecuted for more than 200 counts of sexually abusing minor children in his group. York signed a plea agreement and is now serving a prison sentence.

Polygamist groups in Canada and the United States are being scrutinized for their treatment of children and some of their members have also been prosecuted for abuse.

Increasingly in North America authorities seem to be determining a boundary between legitimate religious practice and criminal child abuse.

Today with tension mounting between the United States and North Korea, what can be done to promote better relations?

How about children called “Little Angels” performing precision drills to John Phillip Souza? And what if they did a rendition of “Amazing Grace” woven into a medley of Korean songs?

These are some of the routines a troop founded and still funded by Rev. Moon of the Unification Church can do. They recently went to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital as “ambassadors of peace,” reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The general director of “Little Angels” is the daughter of an old follower of Rev. Moon, but claims, “There’s nothing religious.”

However, given the history of the Unification Church and its hundreds of front organizations used for recruitment and to advance the personal agenda of its “messiah,” it is difficult to believe these “little angels” are totally innocent.

The children might be earnest, but Moon has used sincere people in the past to advance his purposes, which don’t appear angelic at all.

Landmark Education, which runs a controversial large group awareness training (LGAT) program called the Forum, is encouraging its graduates to devote time to community service projects.

In the past the private for-profit company has generated many negative news stories, serious complaints and lawsuits, but now it seems to be looking for some good press.

Some Forum participants have linked breakdowns to the intense pressure, catharsis and stress within the long weekend seminars.

But despite that history the organization is reaching out within communities, perhaps to burnish its image or maybe to stimulate interest and enrollment in its courses.

Two such efforts recently popped up in local newspapers.

A Landmark devotee is staging community dances for seniors. She says it’s “one of her assignments from the Forum,” reports the New Jersey Express-Times.

Another Forum graduate started a quilting project. She said it is “a requirement for a self-expression and leadership class she is taking through the Landmark Education Corporation,” reports the Pioneer Press.

So the lucrative San Francisco based business founded by Werner Erhard and once called “EST” has apparently decided to become known for good deeds instead of controversy.

Well, maybe.

But it looks a bit contrived to be an expression of genuine altruism.

Why not help out community charities with much needed cash during these difficult times?

Landmark certainly seems to have plenty to spare, it takes in more than $50 million annually.

In New Jersey a woman is accused of leading a “cult” based upon “Palo Mayombe,” a religion with roots in West Africa, reports The New York Post.

The alleged “high priestess” was arrested in connection with human remains stolen from cemeteries, which are then supposedly used for rituals and incantations.

Sounds strange, but the courts are now involved. The “priestess” plead innocent and is now being held in jail pending $500,000.00 bail.

Certainly families of the deceased and the public want to be assured that the dead rest in peace. But let’s hope this doesn’t degenerate into a modern day witch-hunt and/or sensational Salem-like trial.

If the excessive bail set is any indicator, the matter may have already drawn a disproportionate amount of attention.

Certainly the alleged crime is distasteful and offensive, but no one has been charged with murder or a violent crime.

The largest settlement ever paid in the history of Jehovah’s Witnesses occurred this past October, but no news outlet has yet reported it.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, which is the umbrella organization over 6 million Witnesses worldwide, paid the estate of Frances Coughlin $1.55 million dollars rather than let a jury decide the wrongful death lawsuit.

Frances Coughlin’s surviving family sued Jehovah’s Witnesses, also known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, in State of Connecticut Superior Court at Milford (CV-00-0072183 S).

The principle defendant was a “Bethelite,” or full-time ministry worker, who drove recklessly in bad weather and killed Ms. Coughlin, a mother and grandmother, on October 8, 1998.

That Bethelite Jordon Johnson was traveling between “Bethel,” which has housing for its full-time workers in Patison, New Jersey and Brooklyn, New York, to a Witness Kingdom Hall he was assigned to in Derby, Connecticut.

Johnson was found guilty of vehicular manslaughter, but only served 30 days in jail and was sentenced to two years probation. Subsequently, he and Jehovah’s Witnesses faced a civil suit filed by Ms. Coughlin’s surviving family for damages.

Why was the Witness organization willing to pay more than $1.5 million dollars?

Apparently because a much larger issue of “agency” was at stake.

Agency is the word used to express a relationship between a principal party and its agent, through which the principal party projects its power and/or advances some purpose. And a principal party may be held liable for the actions of its agent.

Jehovah’s Witnesses contended that Jordan Johnson acted on his own and was not their agent at the time he caused the fatal car wreck.

But plaintiff’s counsel, Joel Faxon of Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder, claimed on his client’s behalf that Jordan Johnson was serving as a Bethelite and agent of the organization at the time and advancing their purpose, therefore Jehovah’s Witnesses was responsible for his actions.

Internal documents were obtained through the discovery process and testimony was given through depositions, which clarified and substantiated Faxon’s view.

I was retained as an expert witness and consultant for this case by the plaintiff’s counsel.

My role was to assist in the discovery process, provide research and generally help to form a basis for an understanding of how Jehovah’s Witnesses employ, use and control Bethelites and others within their organization. Ultimately, I would have also testified as an expert in court.

That testimony would have included explaining how the organizational dynamics, indoctrination and objectives of Jehovah’s Witnesses impact individual members and more specifically full-time workers such as Bethelite Jordan Johnson.

But on the first day of trial Jehovah’s Witnesses decided they didn’t want a jury to decide this case and instead $1.55 million was paid to the plaintiff.

The organization that claims it is waiting for the ever-eminent “end of the world” decided to settle in a pragmatic move to protect its long-term interests and more than $1 billion dollars of accumulated assets.

Again, why would the Witnesses do this if they actually believed they had no meaningful liability?

Certainly the cost to complete the case in court would be far less than $1.55 million dollars. Why not let the jury decide?

But the seemingly shrewd Witnesses realized that there was just too much at stake and didn’t want to risk a “guilty” verdict.

Currently the organization known as Jehovah’s Witnesses faces a growing number of lawsuits filed by former members who feel the organization has hurt them.

The personal injuries were allegedly caused by elders and others acting in accordance with the organization’s policies and doctrines, which include such matters as blood transfusions and sexual abuse.

Seemingly to protect its assets the Watchtower Society of Jehovah’s Witnesses and its many Kingdom Hall congregations have in recent years created a myriad of corporate entities to apparently contain liability.

That is, each corporation is seemingly only responsible for its own specific actions and not the action of others. Again, this appears to be a rather pragmatic legal approach to protect the assets amassed by Jehovah’s Witnesses over more than a century.

But what if Jehovah’s Witnesses are nevertheless responsible or liable for the actions of its agents, which would include elders and others throughout its vast network of districts and Kingdom Halls?

Well, now you can see why the check was likely cut for $1.55 million in the Coughlin case.

Jehovah’s Witnesses were apparently concerned about what legal precedent a jury might set that could ultimately affect other claims pending or potentially possible in the future against the organization.

Many people seem to think that Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is focused on the end of the world and a coming kingdom. At least that’s the impression many have when its members come knocking at the door.

But through the Coughlin case a different view of the organization emerges, which looks more like a business protecting its worldly assets and focused on the bottom line.

A puff piece was run about an old and now relatively obscure “cult” group called the “Love Israel Family,” within the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The reporter offers up virtually any apology the group and/or its leader use to explain its current status of financial ruin and Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

But the truth seems to be that leader “Love Israel,” who all the group members are named after–just blew it.

It looks like the guru, previously a salesman named Paul Erdman, is simply a bad businessman and failed thinker.

Love Family once had hundreds of members at its peak, but now has only 55 diehard followers left, living on land that may be foreclosed upon sometime soon. The group owes one bank more than a million dollars.

But maybe bankruptcy will finally bring members “salvation,” just not the kind they envision.

The final remnant still clinging to Love Israel after a mass walk out amidst allegations of corruption in 1983, may be forced to let go of their guru and get an independent life of their own.

Aging Israel 62, may then be forced to get a day job.

40,000 to 50,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses are “disfellowshipped” annually, but half that number “repent” each year and return to the organization, reports Oregon’s Register-Guard.

The national spokesman for the Watchtower Society, the umbrella organization that dictates Witness policies, describes the purpose of the practice as “a discipline…to correct what is wrong…All spiritual relations and all social relationships are severed, and, by extension, business relationships.”

That is, an effective end of any meaningful communication and relations between practicing Witnesses and someone so disfellowshipped.

This can be a deeply painful experience for the person disfellowshipped, which can easily lead to isolation, estrangement from family members and depression.

It appears that this Witness practice may be cited in part as a defense, to explain why one man murdered his family in Oregon. It appears to have driven others to suicide.

A longtime apologist for cults and controversial religious groups Rodney Stark said, “It seems far more likely that, rather than disfellowshipping being a cause, it was just one more symptom of someone with serious problems.”

That may be so, but despite that apology disfellowshipping is also often a way Witnesses silence critics and suppress dissent, within the tightly controlled organization.

The discipline of disfellowshipping seems to be a tool employed by the Witness hierarchy to excise its troublesome members who raise critical questions about its doctrines and practices.

Witnesses have been disfellowshipped for questioning and/or somehow opposing the organization’s admonishment not to accept blood transfusions. And recently it appears to have been used to silence questions about the handling of sexual abuse complaints within congregations.

Obviously by cutting off and isolating critical members, the leaders of Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t have to deal with dissent and don’t need to worry about the subsequent effect it may have regarding other members.

This makes damage control within the organization comparatively easy.

Disfellowshipping essentially often replaces the need for leaders to have any meaningful dialog with members that don’t agree with them.

Jurors awarded the victims of a “cult” millions of dollars, reports the Associated Press.

Gordon Winrod, leader of “Our Savior’s Church,” was found guilty last May of “using mind-altering techniques” to “meld” a destructive mindset in the plaintiffs, which caused them personal injury.

Winrod’s victims were his grandchildren.

The property of the “cult” leader is now being liquidated to satisfy the judgement, while Winrod himself is serving a 30-year prison sentence for kidnapping.

It is likely that Winrod now 74, will die in prison.

It appears the “cult,” known for its anti-Semitic, anti-government rant and hate-filled newsletter, may have been effectively wiped out by the lawsuit–or at least let’s hope so.

A Scientologist has opened up a “mission” in a strip mall between a nail salon and hairdressing shop, reports the St. Petersburg Times.

Ardent adherents of Scientology often underwrite the group’s outreach through such missions established to recruit new members. This was done by TV stars Jenna Elfman and Kirstie Alley, who opened missions in their hometowns.

Now some rich Scientologists in Florida are following in Alley and Elfman’s footsteps. They have already opened up one storefront shop for this purpose and the plan is to continue with at least four more.

The person running the mission said, “Our purpose is to introduce new people to what Scientology can do for them.” She described what the organization provides as “hope for man.”

But what hope or help did Scientology ultimately afford Lisa McPhearson?

McPhearson is the long-term member that died in Florida while Sceintologists tried to help her. The surviving family later filed a wrongful death suit, which is still pending.

It seems potential patrons might be safer getting a manicure or a haircut at neighboring businesses then stopping in at the new mission. And those services would certainly be cheaper and perhaps more cost-effective in the long run.

In an unusual twist two cult members in California have requested “deprogramming,” reports the Marin News.

Both women were followers of Winifred Wright, a leader that once controlled four women and their twelve children in a type of family cult located in a house near San Francisco.

The women and children endured reportedly horrific abuse. One child died from complications brought about by rickets, an illness that is a direct result of malnutrition.

Wright and two of the mothers were found guilty of criminal charges in court. Sentencing will take place later this month.

But the two women convicted now want treatment at Wellspring Retreat, a noted rehabilitation center for former cult members.

Wellspring does not actually “deprogram” cult members, but rather offers a focused program for recovery in a residential setting. The retreat is a licensed mental health facility in Ohio.

It is sad that these women and/or their families did not seek help earlier. Perhaps intervention long ago might have effectively ended the abuse and avoided a needless death.

But like so many cults, the Wright Family only received meaningful attention and intervention after a terrible tragedy.

In a tacit acknowledgement that the women were “brainwashed” by Wright, the judge has already granted one mother temporary release to attend Wellspring.