68 International Journal of Cultic Studies Vol. 4, 2013
reference to my public statement even though I
was an eyewitness after the abduction.
Contrary to Shupe’s characterization, Laverne C.
was yet married to a military man who was at
home with their four sons at the time of the
abduction—he was downstairs watching
television and had no idea that his mother-in-law
and sister-in-law had planned to abduct his wife.
A security person and not a “deprogrammer”
(Shupe, p. 406) posed as a pizza delivery man,
and he pulled LaVerne C. from the doorway.
The sister-in-law immediately ran into the house
to explain to the husband and the children what
had happened. The husband had no idea where
they took his wife. He had no responsibility for
the abduction, as he testified in court. There
were no deprogrammers in Idaho during the first
days of this desperate effort by a worried
mother. Laverne C. knew very well that her
children were safe the entire time. However, her
marriage was not going well—her husband was
against her reengagement with cult members
while he was away for a 6-month training tour in
1991. And, after he returned, Laverne C. was
already involved with a cult member whom she
would marry later. The mother and sister were
hoping not only to save a marriage, but also to
curtail harm (social, intellectual, financial, and
spiritual if not physical) from a radical, New
Age sect that was armed for protection and
predicting imminent doom. Shupe minimizes
the radical, even crazy behaviors of this large
sect, CUT.
Shupe (p. 406) mentions the case of Karen L.,
who was abducted by a security team (not
deprogrammers) hired by her parents for an
intervention in 1990. We realize that the
distinction between security and deprogrammer
is uninteresting under the eyes of the law
because all are “accessories” to the alleged
crime but a scholar should maintain more
precision when describing actors in an event.
Shupe does not: “Her parents, who were afraid
she was falling under the influence of the late
Dr. Frederick Lenz’s Rama seminars (sic), hired
deprogrammers to abduct her in the parking lot
of Seattle’s SeaPac airport…” Again, I was a
deprogrammer on that case (I appeared on a
Philadelphia television show in 1992 with Karen
L. after the fact, so this is public knowledge).
Karen was not “falling under the influence” of
Rama, as all his “students” called Lenz rather,
she was a hard-core devotee for many years at
the time and had totally cut off her family to
comply with Lenz’s paranoid teachings. The
parents had to go through considerable effort to
detect where she was living and working that
year.
Also, Lenz was alive at the time of the failed
intervention—he committed ritual suicide in
1998 by a massive overdose and attempted to
take his girlfriend and two Scottie dogs with
him. Happily, the girlfriend and the dogs
survived after treatment after a massive
overdose, Lenz apparently fell face first into a
bay behind his home and drowned despite a
desperate attempt by his heavily drugged and
frantic girlfriend (he had her take around 50 or
more barbiturate or benzodiazepine tabs in what
she described as a suicide pact) to haul him out.
Shupe says nothing about the “back-stage”
activity170 of Rama Seminars that alarmed the
parents of Karen L. Shupe thus ignores the
sexual, psychological, and drug violence Lenz
perpetrated on many of his students—I
interviewed and counseled at least ten male and
eight female students of Lenz in the late 1980s
after they defected. Of course, none of this
harmful behavior by Lenz justifies violence
against any of his followers but the effort to
prevent harm is at issue here. Violence becomes
a relative term when the intent is to prevent
ongoing harm.
To avoid belaboring errors and biases (I noted
many dozens throughout this book)—I think we
get the point—let us move on. We all get the
general idea of NRMs and violence if it is mass
suicide and abuse of any kind under the
direction of a cult leader, or the result of an
assault by a reactive force or an unethical
deprogrammer on cult members. And we can
easily grasp why some ex-members emphasize
atrocities much as recent divorcees might rant
about their lying ex-spouses, seeing only the
negative, or why an anticult group uses atrocity
tales to further an agenda to put an end to cults.
If anything, there is a sober end to this book.
170 http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072817186/
student_view0/chapter10/chapter_summary.html
reference to my public statement even though I
was an eyewitness after the abduction.
Contrary to Shupe’s characterization, Laverne C.
was yet married to a military man who was at
home with their four sons at the time of the
abduction—he was downstairs watching
television and had no idea that his mother-in-law
and sister-in-law had planned to abduct his wife.
A security person and not a “deprogrammer”
(Shupe, p. 406) posed as a pizza delivery man,
and he pulled LaVerne C. from the doorway.
The sister-in-law immediately ran into the house
to explain to the husband and the children what
had happened. The husband had no idea where
they took his wife. He had no responsibility for
the abduction, as he testified in court. There
were no deprogrammers in Idaho during the first
days of this desperate effort by a worried
mother. Laverne C. knew very well that her
children were safe the entire time. However, her
marriage was not going well—her husband was
against her reengagement with cult members
while he was away for a 6-month training tour in
1991. And, after he returned, Laverne C. was
already involved with a cult member whom she
would marry later. The mother and sister were
hoping not only to save a marriage, but also to
curtail harm (social, intellectual, financial, and
spiritual if not physical) from a radical, New
Age sect that was armed for protection and
predicting imminent doom. Shupe minimizes
the radical, even crazy behaviors of this large
sect, CUT.
Shupe (p. 406) mentions the case of Karen L.,
who was abducted by a security team (not
deprogrammers) hired by her parents for an
intervention in 1990. We realize that the
distinction between security and deprogrammer
is uninteresting under the eyes of the law
because all are “accessories” to the alleged
crime but a scholar should maintain more
precision when describing actors in an event.
Shupe does not: “Her parents, who were afraid
she was falling under the influence of the late
Dr. Frederick Lenz’s Rama seminars (sic), hired
deprogrammers to abduct her in the parking lot
of Seattle’s SeaPac airport…” Again, I was a
deprogrammer on that case (I appeared on a
Philadelphia television show in 1992 with Karen
L. after the fact, so this is public knowledge).
Karen was not “falling under the influence” of
Rama, as all his “students” called Lenz rather,
she was a hard-core devotee for many years at
the time and had totally cut off her family to
comply with Lenz’s paranoid teachings. The
parents had to go through considerable effort to
detect where she was living and working that
year.
Also, Lenz was alive at the time of the failed
intervention—he committed ritual suicide in
1998 by a massive overdose and attempted to
take his girlfriend and two Scottie dogs with
him. Happily, the girlfriend and the dogs
survived after treatment after a massive
overdose, Lenz apparently fell face first into a
bay behind his home and drowned despite a
desperate attempt by his heavily drugged and
frantic girlfriend (he had her take around 50 or
more barbiturate or benzodiazepine tabs in what
she described as a suicide pact) to haul him out.
Shupe says nothing about the “back-stage”
activity170 of Rama Seminars that alarmed the
parents of Karen L. Shupe thus ignores the
sexual, psychological, and drug violence Lenz
perpetrated on many of his students—I
interviewed and counseled at least ten male and
eight female students of Lenz in the late 1980s
after they defected. Of course, none of this
harmful behavior by Lenz justifies violence
against any of his followers but the effort to
prevent harm is at issue here. Violence becomes
a relative term when the intent is to prevent
ongoing harm.
To avoid belaboring errors and biases (I noted
many dozens throughout this book)—I think we
get the point—let us move on. We all get the
general idea of NRMs and violence if it is mass
suicide and abuse of any kind under the
direction of a cult leader, or the result of an
assault by a reactive force or an unethical
deprogrammer on cult members. And we can
easily grasp why some ex-members emphasize
atrocities much as recent divorcees might rant
about their lying ex-spouses, seeing only the
negative, or why an anticult group uses atrocity
tales to further an agenda to put an end to cults.
If anything, there is a sober end to this book.
170 http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072817186/
student_view0/chapter10/chapter_summary.html
