Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, Nos. 2 &3, 2004, Page 18
V. Conclusion
In these and numerous other cases, groups‘ abilities to negotiate with competing
contenders for legitimacy and resources diminish significantly when founding figures have
translated their biopsychosocial dysfunctions into the cultural ethos of their respective
groups. Negotiation becomes exceedingly difficult paranoia increases dangerously, and
compromise become impossible. In such cases, the likelihood of violence increases as
members feel that they have few options when trying to protect their groups‘ messages. In
the domain of intergroup relations, as in the related domains of intragroup and
interpersonal relationships, biopsychosocial issues can have a profound impact upon the
quality, direction, and content of social discourse and conflict resolution.
Of course, a biopsychosocial model that discusses the potential for religious danger must
remain, at best, only partial in its explanatory power. So many items, for example, can
interact with religions, especially in the intergroup domain, that the ‗science‘ (or perhaps
the skill) of predicting danger becomes increasingly complex. Factors such as nationalism,
ethnicity, gender, resource availability, and class weave together in complex ways to affect
possibilities of religious danger. Also important are the reactions to these groups by agents
of social control, since groups and authorities can lock themselves in spirals of deviance
amplification and escalation that end tragically. Regardless, however, of what external,
socio-political factors may put pressure on groups, a significant aspect of members‘
responses to these factors likely will reflect their leaders‘ biopsychosocial issues. These
issues have infused the groups‘ theologies and impacted previous social interactions, all of
which influence groups‘ responses to perceived outside threats.
Into complex social situations that reflect national or even global issues, religion can ignite
dangerous social and political issues by adding powder to already explosive situations.
Often, it makes stakeholders less willing to compromise and combatants more willing to
inflict suffering and die in the process. By teaching that all extremist action gets forgiven (if
not rewarded) in heaven, religion can assist in people refusing to see their own
contributions to the creation of hell on earth.
When social scientists discuss the possibilities of religious danger, they should not forget to
consider the biopsychosocial factors of the founders and/or leaders at work in any if not all
domains of human behavior that are relevant to the issues at hand. Some academics,
however, have chosen to do so, and this article offers a corrective against their choices.
Complex, frequently troubled personalities interact amidst rapidly changing, globalized
societies, and sometimes those personalities help shape the actions of hundreds if not
thousands of both innocent and complicitous people caught in their influence. Yet even on
smaller scales, where family violence literature helps to prepare researchers for interpreting
religiously violent situations, victims may experience the less-noble dimensions of divinely
sanctioned human action. Overemphasizing the extent to which the biopsychosocial issues
of founders and/or leaders heighten the prospects of religious danger is alarmist, but
understating or ignoring their importance is exceedingly unwise.
Appendix: Sects, Cults, and New Religions Involved with Violent Deaths
During the Past Four Decades
On February 21, 1966, at least three members of the Nation of Islam in Philadelphia fatally
shot Malcolm X, who was critical of the then-current leader of the organization (Evanzz
1999:311, 320).
Charles Manson‘s ‗Family‘ killed at least nine people in California between July 27 and
August 26, 1969, although the actual number of murders may reach at least into the thirties
(Bugliosi with Gentry, 1974:474-481).

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, Nos. 2 &3, 2004, Page 19
Between 1975 and 1977, Ervil LeBarron, who was the leader of a fundamentalist Mormon
polygamous group, Church of the Firstborn, had his followers carry out a series of murders
against defectors and perceived rivals (Chynoweth with Shapiro 1990:145, 147-148, 207-
208).
In the Guyana compound named after Jim Jones, 913 members committed murder/suicides
on November 18, 1978, and five members of Congressman Leo J. Ryan‘s entourage were
murdered as they prepared to fly out of the local air strip (Reiterman with Jacobs 1982:529-
531, 571, 579).
On July 31, 1978, self-proclaimed prophet and leader of an anti-Mormon cult, Immanual
David, committed suicide in a canyon outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. Over a decade
earlier, the Mormon church had excommunicated him for ―proclaiming that he was God,
Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, that he had the original Book of Mormon gold plates in his
possession, and that he had received a revelation that he would someday take over
leadership of the church‖ (Fleisher and Freedman 1983: 133). Three days later, his wife and
seven children went over an eleventh floor balcony of the hotel in which they were living in
Salt Lake. (Some eyewitnesses said that the widow and mother had to throw the youngest
children over the balcony, but that the older ones and her jumped.) Only one child lived,
but suffered severe brain damage (Fleisher and Freedman 1983: 133-134).
On January 18, 1979, police killed fundamentalist Mormon John Singer on his property in
Marion, Utah, during a failed attempt to arrest him over the schooling of his children
(Fleisher and Freedman 1983: 178-184).
In Singapore, spirit medium Adrian Lim and two associates were executed for the 1981
ritual murders of two young children (Fong 1989 John 1992).
In the fall of 1983, Robert Mathews formed an Aryan terrorist group named the Order,
which subsequently murdered a Denver talk-radio host (Alan Berg) in June 1984 and a
police officer in Missouri in April 1985. Mathews died in a gun battle with police in early
December 1984 (Martinez with Guinther 1988).
Followers of Yahweh Ben Yahweh (in the Nation of Yahweh) murdered and decapitated a
member, whom they apparently believed was a stool pigeon, in mid-November 1981
(Freedberg 1994:128-133). In late 1983, members killed another suspicious adherent
(Freedberg 1994:156-160), and other murders followed throughout the mid-1980s
(Freedberg 1994:189-190, 202-203, 205, 207-208, 217-218).
On July 24, 1984, Mormon fundamentalist Daniel Lafferty killed his sister-in-law (Brenda
Lafferty) and fifteen-month-old niece (Erica Lafferty), allegedly after discerning God‘s will
that he was to do so (Krakauer 2003).
Two members of the Hare Krishna sect (based in New Vrindaban, West Virginia) murdered a
fringe member (in 1983), and one of them subsequently (in 1986) killed a former-member-
turned-critic (Hubner and Gruson 1988:17-20, 319).
In Philadelphia, the ―back-to-nature‖ and anti-technology group MOVE engaged in a gun
battle with police, which ended in the death of eleven members (on May 13, 1985) after
police dropped a bomb on the top of the row house (aiming for the group‘s bunker), which
burned down the entire block (Assefa and Wahrhaftig 1988).
Late in 1988, while he was drunk, Roch Theriault of Ontario and Quebec, Canada, killed a
follower (Kaihla and Laver 1993: 219-228).
In April 1989, Jeffrey Don Lundgren, who broke away from the Reformed Latter Day Saints
organization, murdered (with the assistance of his followers) five members of a family that