Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, Nos. 2 &3, 2004, Page 14
Within days, some of the players become increasingly aggressive, violent, and sadistic.
Reflecting upon the findings of that study, two of its designers concluded that it
demonstrated the power of situations to overwhelm psychologically normal,
healthy people and to elicit from them unexpectedly cruel, yet ‗situationally
appropriate‘ behavior. In many instances during our study, the participants‘
behavior (and our own) directly contravened personal value systems and
deviated dramatically from past records of conduct. This behavior was elicited
by the social context and roles we created, and it had painful, even traumatic
consequences for the prisoners against whom it was directed (Haney and
Zimbardo 1998).
The analogy to what can happen when psychologically healthy and normal people become
involved in violent religions is obvious. After groups establish norms that condone violence,
and create social positions or roles to enact it (and often do so under their leaders‘
directions), many formerly nonviolent people will rise to the occasion and commit acts of
aggression or abuse. Although I do not wish to initiate a debate about the guilt or
vulnerability of persons involved in complex and often disturbing court cases, neither
Charles Manson‘s ‗girls‘ (Faith 2001:27-33, 88-90), Patty Hearst, nor the American Taliban
fighter, John Walker Lindh, had histories of violence until they became involved with violent
groups. For what it is worth, at Walker Lindh‘s sentencing hearing on October 4, 2001, he
reflected, ―‗...had I realized then what I know now ...I would never have joined them‘‖
(Cable News Network 2001).
Nothing better illustrates this ethic of learned, group-contextual violence than an
examination of key members of Aum Shinrikyo, who followed the orders of their guru,
Shoko Asahara, in a series of killings that culminated in the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo
subway in March 1995. Summing up the kinds of young people who became involved with
Aum and its murderous practices, journalists David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall
concluded:
...many were students of the sciences or technical fields like engineering.
More than a few were otaku, Japan‘s version of computer nerds—techno-
freaks who spent their free time logged onto electronic networks and
amassing data of every type. They were inevitably described as quiet kids,
with little apparent interest in the outside world. They spent what free time
they had absorbed in their comics and their computers (Kaplan and Marshall
1996:26-27).
Nothing in their backgrounds would suggest that some of them would become killers and
chemical terrorists. The best explanation for their participation in violence is that they
devoted themselves to a leader, Asahara, whose aggressive paranoia about an apocalypse
played itself out through the organization that he built (Brackett 1996:98).
C. Group Alienation from Disaffected, Former Members: Stalking
While it remains true that a person who is alienated from a group may lash out violently in
an act of revenge, and a group may do the same toward a schismatic competitor, evidence
indicates that often when radicalized group members strike out against targets, those
targets are former members. In other words, apostates who now feel alienation from the
groups to which they had belonged may become targets of violence by the remaining
members who feel threatened by their defections, concerned about the knowledge that the
defectors may have about group operations, and worried about the complaints to civil
authorities that the defectors may be making. Even though these persons have left the
immediate membership of their former groups, the groups themselves still consider these
Within days, some of the players become increasingly aggressive, violent, and sadistic.
Reflecting upon the findings of that study, two of its designers concluded that it
demonstrated the power of situations to overwhelm psychologically normal,
healthy people and to elicit from them unexpectedly cruel, yet ‗situationally
appropriate‘ behavior. In many instances during our study, the participants‘
behavior (and our own) directly contravened personal value systems and
deviated dramatically from past records of conduct. This behavior was elicited
by the social context and roles we created, and it had painful, even traumatic
consequences for the prisoners against whom it was directed (Haney and
Zimbardo 1998).
The analogy to what can happen when psychologically healthy and normal people become
involved in violent religions is obvious. After groups establish norms that condone violence,
and create social positions or roles to enact it (and often do so under their leaders‘
directions), many formerly nonviolent people will rise to the occasion and commit acts of
aggression or abuse. Although I do not wish to initiate a debate about the guilt or
vulnerability of persons involved in complex and often disturbing court cases, neither
Charles Manson‘s ‗girls‘ (Faith 2001:27-33, 88-90), Patty Hearst, nor the American Taliban
fighter, John Walker Lindh, had histories of violence until they became involved with violent
groups. For what it is worth, at Walker Lindh‘s sentencing hearing on October 4, 2001, he
reflected, ―‗...had I realized then what I know now ...I would never have joined them‘‖
(Cable News Network 2001).
Nothing better illustrates this ethic of learned, group-contextual violence than an
examination of key members of Aum Shinrikyo, who followed the orders of their guru,
Shoko Asahara, in a series of killings that culminated in the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo
subway in March 1995. Summing up the kinds of young people who became involved with
Aum and its murderous practices, journalists David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall
concluded:
...many were students of the sciences or technical fields like engineering.
More than a few were otaku, Japan‘s version of computer nerds—techno-
freaks who spent their free time logged onto electronic networks and
amassing data of every type. They were inevitably described as quiet kids,
with little apparent interest in the outside world. They spent what free time
they had absorbed in their comics and their computers (Kaplan and Marshall
1996:26-27).
Nothing in their backgrounds would suggest that some of them would become killers and
chemical terrorists. The best explanation for their participation in violence is that they
devoted themselves to a leader, Asahara, whose aggressive paranoia about an apocalypse
played itself out through the organization that he built (Brackett 1996:98).
C. Group Alienation from Disaffected, Former Members: Stalking
While it remains true that a person who is alienated from a group may lash out violently in
an act of revenge, and a group may do the same toward a schismatic competitor, evidence
indicates that often when radicalized group members strike out against targets, those
targets are former members. In other words, apostates who now feel alienation from the
groups to which they had belonged may become targets of violence by the remaining
members who feel threatened by their defections, concerned about the knowledge that the
defectors may have about group operations, and worried about the complaints to civil
authorities that the defectors may be making. Even though these persons have left the
immediate membership of their former groups, the groups themselves still consider these
