Strange Cults

Sometimes you think the world is full of weird cults. Ambitious individuals with a big ego latch on to an ideology or religious belief and promote it through some form of unusual activity until it gains a cult following. History is littered with the wreckage of such movements. Nor do we learn from experience or from the record of such experiences.

Two deaths in the past week made me reflect on this strange phenomena.

In Australia the controversial Ken Dyers took his own life rather than face a barrage of criminal charges brought against him by girls who had been child victims of his sexual attacks while members of his Kenja Communications organisation. 25 years ago Dyers founded a movement which used a form of meditation which he called “energy conversion”. It was well-promoted and hundreds of people parted with thousands of dollars to attend these sessions which allegedly sometimes included one-on-one nude sessions with women and children.
Many wealthy supporters gave public support to Dyers but in the end the inevitability of his conviction for child sex abuse drove him to shoot himself in the head ten days ago.

A second death last week, that of Tammy Faye Bakker will hopefully spell the end of one of those strange “christian” movements so popular in the United States. Known as PTL (Praise the Lord) and based on saturation TV it had a cult following and was the creation of the ambitious couple Jim and Tammy Bakker. Their network programme was so popular that at its peak in the 1980’s it reached 13 million households. Every session included a hard sell call for financial donations. Hugely wealthy the Bakkers did everything with extravagance. Tammy had a drug problem and Jim enjoyed sex with young people. When he drugged and raped a young girl called Jessica Hahn he tried to bribe her with a gift of over US$250,000. It didin't work and he ended up in prison where he died a broken man. Tammy divorced him and re-built the PTL empire. She died last week of a debilitating cancer.

There are dozens of stories similar to these two.
Why should we care about such gossipy nonsense?
We care because cult and cult-like movements leave a trail of victims behind.
In many such organisations the practice of child sex abuse is quite common. It represents a form of power and control which is often the dominant drive of cult leaders and helps to reinforce their rule. Of course all people have the right to form new organisations and explore new frontiers. But when such developments are controlled by autocratic rulers without proper checks and balances we do well to examine the movement with suspicion.