Changing the c-word: Cult survivors on sensationalism and stigma

By Anke Richter

Opinion – Cults are a hot topic – from Netflix to the High Court – but the stereotypes that come with them can hurt their victims. Survivor-focused reporting will be addressed at the [https://decult.net/ upcoming Decult Conference in Christchurch].

The Press recently ran the headline ‘Burger joint with cult-like following closes’. It took me a second to comprehend the correct meaning – this was no exposé of another food business with a suspicious guru, like Bernie Prior from She Chocolate in Governors Bay. Nor an investigation of a meditation cult with a shopfront eatery, like Sri Chinmoy’s Lotus Heart restaurant in Christchurch.

The news article was standard local fare. Nothing sinister was lurking behind the patty flippers in Riccarton, despite one customer reporting that she ordered from Big Gary’s 77 times during lockdown in 2021 and “became hooked”. Staff wrote “wee notes” on her orders. Another fan took his graduation photo in his regalia outside the store. Bless.

Having recently written a book about cults, it’s been a while since I’ve read the c-word in such an innocent context. Because in my world, after reporting on Gloriavale, Centrepoint and similar communities over 10 years, the word “cult” is, at its worst, associated with abuse and trauma. Or at least with manipulation, deception and exploitation.

It’s a contentious term with an ambiguous meaning in pop culture: loyalists of brands like Apple on one side, Charles Manson on the other. And that’s only part of the problem.

Cults are a hot topic and big entertainment. Wild Wild Country gave millions of uninitiated viewers a fascinating view of what the fanatical followers of Indian guru Osho did back in Oregon in the 1980s, but it failed to paint an accurate picture beyond the crime saga. The doco series didn’t centre the survivors or mention the impact their human experiment had on their children. The Sannyasin teenagers who suffered emotional neglect and sexual abuse have seen no accountability or justice yet.

Even in academia, although cultic studies have been around for decades, the research is still considered niche and there is no widely agreed upon definition for cults. What many correctly refer to as ‘high-control groups’, other experts – including some New Zealand lecturers – describe more neutrally as ‘new religious movements’ (NRM).

At this stage, a warning: more acronyms will follow.

Across the ‘cultiverse’

The definition doesn’t grasp the full picture, because not all cultic groups are faith-based. Some are multi-level marketing companies (MLMs), life coaching programs or yoga schools. Those who grew up in religious offshoots like ISKCON (Hare Krishna) or the Children of God (now The Family International) find such a neutral classification of an organisation that harmed them or separated them from their families especially problematic.

NRM scholars have been labelled ‘cult apologists’, and other experts have boycotted their conferences – all part of the so-called ‘cult studies wars’ which erupted in the 1970s. Welcome to the cultiverse, where emotions run high because the pain runs so deep.

An estimated 50,000 Kiwis are former or present members of high-control groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs), Exclusive Brethren (PBCC) or The Truth (2x2s). The majority are second- or multi-generation adults (SGA or MGA) who were born into them. But the public perception of cult members and leavers is rife with voyeurism and judgement. It’s time to redefine the c-word because this ambiguity leaves many survivors stuck between being trivialised, sensationalised or stigmatised.

‘The word evokes horror’

For writer and sociology student Rachel Lees from Tauranga, “cult” is a loaded word.

“It evokes images of secrecy, and people are intrigued”, she says. “For somebody like myself who is a survivor of a cult, the word evokes horror because it represents my loss of freedom.” When she was 20, Rachel was hand-selected and groomed by Bill Gothard, leader of the fundamentalist American Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) with a branch in New Zealand.

Lees sued the influential Christo-fascist in 2015. If she hadn’t taken this brave step, she might have ended up as a ‘tradwife’, coerced into a life of subservient domesticity.

Not only is the c-word complex and controversial, but it comes with false stereotypes about the kind of people caught up in cults.

“There’s still the attitude that somehow it’s the person’s fault,” says Sarah Steel, Australian cult expert and author of Do As I Say. She tackles the cliches and misconceptions on her podcast Let’s Talk About Sects. Along with US shows like IndoctriNation or A Little Bit Culty, it’s a resource for understanding the psychological factors that can entrap people.

Studies show it’s not a lack of intelligence or education that makes people susceptible to undue influence, but rather higher levels of empathy and idealism. Combined with a sudden life change – from starting university to battling cancer or losing a partner – these qualities can open them up to seeking more meaning, whether it’s from a bible study class or a spiritual workshop. No one joins a cult but always the chance of new promise and personal growth.

More and more survivors-turned-activists are beginning to tell their stories and shift the discourse in their own words and style. Micki McAllen from Auckland, now based in London, is a former Jehovah’s Witness who deconstructs oppressive Christianity on TikTok as the pink-haired ‘Apostate Barbie’.

Another ex-JW, American filmmaker Scott Homan of Witness Underground, transmuted the pain of his shunned friends into a heartwarming rockumentary. Witness Underground will have an exclusive three-day run in Christchurch in October, with Homan present, as the opening night of the upcoming Decult Conference.

Dr Caroline Ansley, a Christchurch GP and former commune child who launched the Centrepoint Restoration Project, is in the programme too. She feels that it’s not safe to admit that you were in a cult.

“You get ridiculed, humiliated, mocked, shamed and even blamed. So that has to change.”

Ansley now co-hosts the award-winning podcast Cult Chat on community radio station PlainsFM and hopes that more nuanced shows will move viewers away from voyeurism.

“Once we stop being a caricature and become human, then people can start to feel compassion and understanding.”

In 2021, she participated in Heaven and Hell: The Centrepoint Story. Not only did the Warner Bros production offer her and other participants a counsellor, but they let them have a first viewing and their final say.

Heaven and Hell director Natalie Malcon also changed the public perception of Gloriavale with Escaping Utopia on TVNZ earlier this year. At Decult, she will join a cult media panel hosted by podcaster Steel, with UC media law professor Ursula Cheer, RNZ reporter Anusha Bradley and a woman who says she was sex-trafficked in the tantra yoga cult MISA.

Not all ‘trauma porn’

From TV series to memoirs and podcasts, cult education is a booming market and the narrative slowly changing. It’s not all trauma porn out there – except of my own genre. Cult journalism is still fringe, despite most people brushing up unknowingly against cults in their normal lives: from the Landmark-type workshop that your boss pushes on you to the alternative festival with a Starseeds stall next to the chai tent.

But cults usually only make the news when their members or leaders do something weird, or it ends in a tragedy. Shallow news stories only focus on the crazy guru or the strange rituals, without looking deeper into why it all happened.

Going public is often a double-edged sword that can change the trajectory of a whistleblower’s life with unforeseen consequences and legal risks – while they can bring down whole organisations. The FBI only started to investigate Keith Raniere’s self-help mega-cult NXIVM after the New York Times ran a frontpage story with a photo of a branded ex-member.

Dhyana Levey, host of the podcast Generation Cult, has a unique perspective from both sides as a Californian journalist who grew up in a theosophical commune. After writing her thesis ‘Cults and Media Stereotypes’ for a masters in psychology, she now offers her services as a consultant for cult victims before they collaborate in a documentary or media investigation.

She explains to them how reporters do their job because there are misconceptions on both sides.

“Understanding the media can help people with cult experiences feel more comfortable and prepared for their interviews, and less likely to be disappointed with the outcome,” she says. She urges them to tread carefully before coming forward and to take the downsides into consideration.

Levey gave a presentation about “cult media messaging” at the annual conference of the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) at the University of Barcelona in July. I wasn’t the only journalist in the audience. Georgia (not her real name), who has worked for Fairfax and the Guardian, was born into the notorious Children of God – hands down the cult with the worst track record of child abuse in the world. Their warped doctrine included teenage prison camps and led to child torture, human trafficking, serious medical neglect and suicides. Georgia always kept strict secrecy about it all.

Attending the ICSA conference in Barcelona was “a life-changing opportunity” for her to feel safe and openly discuss her past for the first time, in her 30s. Yet even in that space – where many of the expert speakers were former cult members – she struggled to be associated with a group synonymous with paedophilia and terms like ‘sex cult’ and ‘flirty fishing’.

“I don’t want to be defined by something where that’s the main language around it. Not personally, professionally or publicly”, she told me over lunch at the university canteen.

After decades of sensationalist coverage, the public only has an appetite for the simplistic and terrible, she says – while the multiple layers of abuse are so much more complex and still misunderstood. For her, the more defining factors as a kid were how her development as an individual was stumped, the betrayal of caregivers, the fear-inducing doomsday beliefs, and being completely unprepared for the world they were isolated from.

“There are thousands of us,” she told me. “We have to overcome monolithic obstacles every day just to contribute to society. It takes resilience and endurance, often without any support, and that is truly heroic. That’s how I want to be defined when people hear the word ‘cult survivor’.”

Our conversation over lunch inspired me to write this piece. Now I can’t find a clever ending that ties our tapas in Spain and a burger joint in New Zealand together. But I hope that one day, Georgia will use her voice when the public language and knowledge is there. Then we will not only learn her name, but so much more.

* Anke Richter is the author of Cult Trip (HarperCollins, 2022) and the convenor of the first Decult Conference in Christchurch (19 – 20 October and livestreamed). All info on decult.net.