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Review for The Cult Around the Corner
ISBN: 1928575102The Cult Around the Corner: A Handbook on Dealing with Other People's Religions
by Nancy O'Meara and Stan KoehlerISBN: 1928575102
Format: Paperback, 88pp
Pub. Date: September 2002Publisher: Foundation for Religious Freedom
Buy it from Barnes & Noble.com
In a recent article, I reviewed Srila Prabhupada is Coming!, a book about a woman's life inside the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. ISKCON members chant the names of Krishna, eat only food that has been offered to God, and dress in a Hindu style. These practices are thousands of years old, and ISKCON belongs to the Caitanya Vaishnava tradition, which has a five hundred year history in India. Their main scriptures are the Bhagavad Gita and the Srimad Bhagavatam, exhaustive religious writings which pre-date the Christian Bible.
But some people call them a cult.
The label of "cult" has become a handy derogative moniker to hang on any organization or way of life which people simply don't agree with, and, usually, have made no effort to understand. This is more destructive than simply fostering close-mindedness, although that alone is certainly destructive enough. Families have been torn apart, civil liberties have been trampled, grown adults have been abducted and subjected to violence, and innocent people have had their lives ruined in the name of "fighting cults".
In the 1970's, distressed about young people joining such controversial groups as the Unification Church and ISKCON, parents hired so called "deprogrammers" to kidnap their grown children, take them to a remote location, and ridicule their new beliefs until they broke down. There are more than a few tales of deprogramming involving beatings and rape, but this was preferable to some parents that the thought of their children following a religion outside of mainstream Christianity.
There are few who don't remember the Satanic Panic of the 1980's and early 1990's, in which anyone could be accused of being a child-killing monster, and many people, under hypnosis by seriously misguided therapists, accused their own family members of being blood-drinking slaves of Satan. Apparently such a gauche thing as actual proof was not needed to convict people of these heinous crimes, until a spate of lawsuits of behalf of those unjustly accused stopped the movement in its tracks.
The Foundation for Religious Freedom has published an excellent look at dealing with people of differing faiths. Calm, sensible, and useful, it is packed with examples of how fear of a "cult" could have led to torn relationships and violence, but with reason and knowledge, those involved overcome their baser impulses. "The events of September 11, 2001, and subsequent reactions toward Muslims, Sikhs and others, brought home how small our planet has become; how actions in one part of the globe can affect everyone. Most frightening, how hate directed at a different ideology, festering to a boil, can erupt into violence that hurts us all," states writers Nancy O'Meara and Stan Koehler.
The down-to-earth advice offered is simple. Calm down. Stay in communication. Get more information. Different is not dangerous. Expand your horizons. Brainwashing and mind control are myths. Especially appreciated is the chapter on "Teens, Cults, and Illiteracy" that offers the premise that teens might not be so attracted to destructive groups if they were able to do something more constructive with their minds. In the "Special Categories" chapter, O'Meara and Koehler point out how literally any group (Brownies, doctors, nursery school) can be seen as a cult if you decide to view it that way. Rounding off the slim volume are three things everyone needs to be reminded of in these dark days of Rumsfeld - the First Amendment, Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and excerpts from United States Code Title 18 - Crimes and Criminal Procedures.
The Cult Around the Corner is a very welcome and sorely needed volume.