Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, Nos. 2 &3, 2004, Page 176
International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON)/Hare Krishna
Conversions in India
Scores of young Indian men have left the comforts of home and family to join the
International Society for Krishna Consciousness. An ISKCON ashram in Delhi has 45
initiates: one of them is a postgraduate in sociology from Lucknow University another is a
postgraduate in commerce from Meerut and a third is a software engineer. Some are
married and have children. They all proselytize. The chairman of the Delhi group says
people join because they are unhappy, and seek peace, and also in order to finish the
service to God they could not complete in their previous lives. He added that some also join
for material reasons— they have been in the movement for a long time and are allowed to
go to overseas branches in Dallas, London, and elsewhere. (IANS (India), Internet,
9/19/04)
King of Kings
Members Leave Prosperity Gospel Church
Sixty members of Mary Sheridan’s King of King’s Church, in County Galway, Ireland,
have left, accusing the ―prosperity gospel‖ preacher of psychological abuse and breaking up
families. The former financial controller of the organization says Sheridan and her husband
got members to give them thousands of dollars by saying she could exorcise their Demons.
(Ireland on Sunday, 7/18/04 from FAIR News, Britain, 2/2004, p. 7)
Lyndon LaRouche
Running Again for President and Recruiting Youth
Perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche’s organization has come under greater
scrutiny following the death last year of 22-year-old law student Jeremiah Duggan, who had
become involved briefly with LaRouche supporters in Germany.
Chip Berlet, of Political Research Associates, which monitors right-wing groups, says it is
wrong to treat LaRouche as a ―fringe eccentric,‖ because ―the truth is he recruits a lot of
talented young people ...and attempts to turn them into followers who will mindlessly
celebrate a cause that‘s going nowhere.‖
Scotland Yard says the LaRouche organization appears to be ―a political cult with sinister
and dangerous connections,‖ and anti-Semitic. (Duggan was Jewish.) The eccentric
LaRouche, who embraces a host of conspiracy theories about world affairs, calls the Duggan
case a hoax contrived by ―admirers of Dick Cheney and Tony Blair.‖
Berlet asserts that the organization ―combines totalitarian forms of social control, fascist
forms of political ideology, and dualistic apocalyptic style, which encourages followers to
fear that time is running out and that they must act immediately to stave off some
cataclysmic event.‖
Linda Ray, a Jewish former follower from Chicago, says many Jews become involved with
LaRouche perhaps because ―the members get so hypnotized by the simplistic ‗good guys‘
and ‗bad guys‘ approach to history that they do not hear what LaRouche is really saying.‖
According to many former members and relatives of current members, recruits leave school
and even professions to work for the LaRouche organization, and reject former social links.
The relatives of one current member, who gave up a master‘s degree in astrophysics to join
LaRouche, said: ―When we do get to talk to him, all he does is try and convert us, which is
when he acts like a missionary and comes out with all this conspiracy stuff. He‘s very
suspicious of other people now. Our parents are very concerned and scared he‘s almost
destroyed our family.‖ (Terry Kirby, The Independent, UK, Internet, 7/21/04)

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, Nos. 2 &3, 2004, Page 177
Peninsula Village
Woman Recalls Experience
Abigail Vona, daughter of a well-to-do but broken Connecticut family, tells of her experience
at Peninsula Village, a behavior modification facility in Tennessee. Her first three months
were spent entirely indoors with bunkmates who included a teenage prostitute, drug users,
self-mutilators, bulimics, a girl who had molested her three-year-old cousin, and a devil
worshipper.
―Silent Time‖ was spent ―sitting on your bed without uttering a word,‖ for hours. Telephone
calls to the outside world were not allowed, bathroom visits were timed. ―It was like being in
your mother‘s womb. You felt safe but you wanted to get the f--- out of the place.‖ Vona
later moved to a slightly more relaxed lifestyle, in a cabin. She was allowed outside, to
work. The sexes were still segregated. Groups of boys and girls had to bow their heads in
each others‘ presence to avoid eye contact.
Vona says of the experience: ―I‘m grateful that, somehow, I got my head screwed on. But I
learned more at the village than from my parents. That‘s a sad part of my life.‖ She now
lives in New York City and is writing a book entitled, ―Bad Girl, Confessions of a Teenage
Delinquent.‖ The book, and her breakup with her literary agent-boyfriend, have provided
copy for the tabloid press. (The Telegraph [UK], Internet, 8/24/04)
Polygamy
Green Admits Guilt
Tom Green, a polygamist convicted of first-degree felony rape for marrying his wife when
she was 13, has told the Utah parole board that he now realizes, after long reflection, that
what he did was wrong, and that he would certainly not let his young daughters enter into
such marriages. His wife, now 32, and the mother of seven children, previously maintained
that she had not been victimized by her early marriage. Now, she says Green‘s
imprisonment made him a better person and that she forgives him and wants to continue to
raise their family with him. (AP, Internet, 8/13/04)
Repressed Memories
Prosecutors Want Repressed Memories Recognized as Evidence
New Hampshire prosecutors are presenting testimony before a superior court judge and
arguing that a 1996 State Supreme Court decision finding repressed memories unreliable
as evidence of sexual abuse does not apply. They say the evidence they have in their
current case against an Exeter defendant meets the criteria stipulated in the state‘s
―Hungerford Law‖ — as the 1996 decision is termed — for such memories to be admissible.
The Supreme Court said in 1996 that evidence regarding repressed memories should be
evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The state then established criteria for admissibility.
Several criteria relate to the reliability of the science involved and several to the nature of
the person whose memories are in question: age at the time of the alleged abuse, the time
lapse before recovery of the memories, and the context of the recovery.
Massachusetts psychologist Dan Brown, an educator who served as an expert for repressed
trauma memories on the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, told the court that recent studies
show ―there‘s no significant decrease in accuracy because (a memory) was repressed.‖
Having reviewed the case at hand — a daughter accuses a father of long-ago sexual abuse
— Brown said her recall is the result of memory-retrieval therapy, a specialized and still
controversial mode that focuses especially on repressed memories. Equally credentialed
experts are expected to refute Brown‘s claims that memory recovery is measurably reliable,