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interaction, social isolation, and a dynamic of powerful leaders and dependent followers all
provide the context for familial styles of coercion‖ (Cartwright and Kent 1992:351) and
violence associated with radicalized religions. Indeed, a leading expert on family violence,
David Finkelhor, used language to describe domestic violence that closely resembles what
‗cult-critics‘ say about abusive religions:
All forms of family abuse seem to occur in the context of psychological abuse
and exploitation, a process victims sometimes describe as ‗brainwashing.‘
Victims are not merely exploited or physically injured: their abusers use their
power and family connection to control and manipulate victims‘ perceptions of
reality as well (Finkelhor 1983:20).
While not wishing to ignore the exemplary work that many religions do for peace and life-
enhancement, we also must acknowledge that some religions have, at their core, an
intimate relationship between what Renee Girard called ―violence and the sacred‖ (Girard
1972).
The family violence literature is vast, with various models seeking to explain the use of force
and coercion in the home or between intimates. One theoretical formulation, however, that
seems especially apt when drawing analogies to violent religious danger appeared in 2000,
when Kenneth G. Roy proposed ―a set of conditions for the four levels of human behavior—
intrapsychic, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup—that are [sic] necessary, but not
sufficient in and of themselves, to determine the expression of violent behavior‖ (Roy
2000:389). Drawing from recent, prominent studies on violence, Roy showed how each of
these four levels (or domains, as I prefer to call them2) of human behavior often contains
conditions that enhanced the likelihood of violence. This likelihood escalates in a ‗value-
added‘ fashion (Smelser 1962:13-14) as circumstances develop from individual (i.e.,
intrapsychic) conditions to intergroup interactions. I propose that a refined and adapted
version of Roy‘s model is useful in evaluating the danger posed by religious groups of
whatever age or lineage. Although the four domains overlap to some degree as one
examines the complexities of conflict (Sapsford 1998:69, 71), this model allows me to draw
upon family-violence literature at crucial junctures. It also allows me to refer to other key
concepts from the social sciences (such as social-movements theory) when the issues
warrant.
Typically, social scientists have examined issues such as intergroup violence WITHOUT
looking at issues related to the leader. So, for example, sociologists have studied
intergroup violence by examining access to weapons, outside support, historical ideologies
of social change, etc. One can do such analyses within any of the four "domains" and not
necessarily trace how the biopsychosocial issues around the leader/founder come into play.
The model presented here adapts Roy's model to sociological concepts by drawing attention
to the vital role of the leader in all domains.
I. Intrapsychic or Biopsychosocial Contributors to Religious Dangers
Many predictions about subsequent danger in social settings begin with analyses of
psychiatric and psychosocial factors among key players—factors that Roy calls intrapsychic
but that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) calls
biopsychosocial (American Psychiatric Association, DSM-IV, 1994:25 see also Pilgrim
2002). These factors, especially ones related to childhood, can provide foundational
experiences whose lessons last a lifetime. Some of these experiences will stem from
interaction with the social environment others are complexly connected to biophysiological
conditions. These factors limit or frame what many people can experience or understand,
and the restrictions that they impose carry into adulthood. During any life stage, substance
abuse further complicates people‘s personalities, including their ability to express and cope
with feelings such as anger, disappointment, and shame. As Roy concluded about the

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importance of (what he called) intrapsychic factors and their potential contribution to
violence:
...regardless of the biological or psychological system to which one ascribes, it
is clear that a person must end up with a reasonably integrated sense of self
that allows for reasonable goal-directed thinking and acting. Most important,
one must have the intrapsychic mechanisms for resolving anger so that one is
not left with a pool of anger that does not dissipate. If not, the person always
has a pool of anger that can be tapped. This [pool of anger] is the first
favorable condition needed for the development of extremely violent behavior
(Roy 2000:395).
Central to the role that psychiatric and psychosocial dysfunction can contribute to violence
are factors that ―may further compromise an individual‘s ability to have an integrated sense
of self and effective mechanisms for resolving anger‖ (Roy 2000:394).
A. Mental Illnesses
Roy (2000:394) mentioned both ―genetic/biological conditions‖ and ―alcohol and drugs‖ as
culprits, which (separately or in combination) occasionally play crucial roles as either
disinhibiting or catalyzing factors in religious settings of violence. Despite some academic
attempts to minimize the connections between ―organizational outcomes‖ and ―the
personality of a single individual‖ in a leadership position (Melton and Bromley 2002:47),
scholarship has made those connections for several groups (Stark and Bainbridge
1985:174-176).
Sometimes that scholarship has linked theologically sanctioned violence in or by groups to
intrapyschic conditions of leaders, even to some conditions that first appeared in the
leaders‘ childhoods or adolescent periods. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, for example,
demonstrated narcissistic characteristics (beginning in childhood) that infused his group‘s
theology and facilitated some of its violence (Clarke 1988 Oakes 1997:53-54). The leader
of Heaven‘s Gate, Marshall Applewhite, demonstrated schizophrenic symptoms in
combination with deep sexual confusion (Hall with Schuyler and Trinh 2000:150 Raine In
Submission). Another leader, David Berg (of the Children of God/The Family), experienced
harsh corporal punishment, oral sex performed by a female adult, and childhood shame
over sex. Together, these experiences translated into group policies during Berg‘s adulthood
that fostered various forms of physical and sexual assaults against women and children
(Kent 1994a 1994b Kent 2001 Kent and Hall 2000). Indeed, Berg‘s adult sexual
behaviour strongly suggests that he was a nonexclusive heterosexual pedophile (American
Psychiatric Association 1994:527-528), as also likely was David Koresh (Breault and King
1993:62-64, 72-73, 78-81, 90-92 Thibodeau and Whiteson 1999:109, 113-114).
Several years before the tragedy at Jonestown, Guyana, a psychiatric examination of Jim
Jones determined that he was ―‗paranoid with delusions of grandeur‘‖ (Reiterman and
Jacobs 1982:262). Speculative diagnoses of Scientology‘s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, include
―anti-social personality‖ (Atack 1990: 371-372) and manic depressive with paranoid
tendencies (Atack 1990:371 Miller 1987:166, 175-176 Oakes 1997:67), but by my
reading he was most likely an individual with a combination of paranoia and narcissism (see
Atack, 1990: 372). Anne Hamilton-Byrne, the Australian leader of a group (called The
Family or the Great White Brotherhood) who brutally trained children whom she believed
―would continue her cult after the earth was consumed by a holocaust‖ (Hamilton-Byrne
1995:1), showed symptoms of psychosis (possibly some form of schizophrenia). According
to a medical doctor who had been the subject (as a child and teenager) of Hamilton-Byrne‘s
training, ―her thoughts skip and derail, she seldom finishes a sentence and she has fantastic
and grandiose delusions‖ (Hamilton-Byrne 1995:110). The doctor noted that her odd speech