Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2005, Page 24
power of the conditioning itself, and what becomes surprising is not that most terrorist
group joiners become conditioned to actually become terrorists, but that apparently some
do not.31
What have we learned that will help responsible authorities eradicate terrorism? The first
and most important conclusion to draw is the importance of leaders to terrorist groups. The
conditioning process centers on and builds from the power of the charismatic leader. If the
leader is eliminated, the group is greatly weakened. Considering terrorist groups as cults
supports strategies that focus on ―cutting the head off the snake.‖ Second, the more
isolated the environment in which the conditioning process occurs, the deeper and longer
lasting the results on group members. Aggressively disrupting the training camps wherever
we find them not only hurts terrorist groups operationally, it should greatly diminish the
effects of the conditioning. A third conclusion is specifically directed at the Fundamentalist
Islamic groups. These groups take advantage of the fact that Fundamentalist religious
schools (madrasas) have preconditioned a significant portion of Islamic male youths of
recent generations. Products of these schools are more malleable to terrorist group values
and missions. The results here support the idea of aggressively pursuing and eliminating the
funding sources for these schools.
These recommendations could be put into effect quickly. This is important because the
circumstances that create individuals susceptible to joining terrorist groups are not going to
change quickly for a long time there will be plenty of potential terrorist group recruits. I
hope that this article has demonstrated how easily some of these cult-susceptible recruits
can be conditioned into remorseless, on-demand killers of innocents. If the conditioning is
this powerful, then it might be worthwhile to focus our limited counterterrorism resources
on disrupting and possibly eliminating terrorist-creating conditioning processes.
Notes
1. Andrew Silke, ―Cheshire-Cat Logic: The Recurring Theme of Terrorist Abnormality in Psychological
Research,‖ Psychology, Crime and Law, vol. 4, 1998, pp. 51–59.
2. Martha Crenshaw, ―The Psychology of Terrorism: An Agenda for the 21st Century,‖ Political
Psychology, vol. 21, no. 2, June 2000, pp. 405–420.
3. Jerrold M. Post, ―Terrorist Psycho-Logic: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Psychological Forces,‖ in
Walter Reich (ed.), Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind
(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 25–40.
4. Walter Reich, ―Understanding Terrorist Behavior: The Limits and Opportunities of Psychological
Inquiry,‖ in Origins of Terrorism (1998).
5. Herbert Jäger, Gerhard Schmidtchen, and Liselotte Süllwold, Analysen zum Terrorismus 2:
Lebenlaufanalysen (Darmstadt, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1981).
6. Franco Ferracuti, ―Psychiatric Aspects of Italian Left Wing and Right Wing Terrorism,‖ presented at
the VII World Congress of Psychiatry, Vienna, Austria, 1983.
7. Stephen J. Morgan, The Mind of a Terrorist Fundamentalist: The Psychology of Terror Cults (Awe-
Struck E-Books, 2001).
8. Salman Akhtar, ―The Psychodynamic Dimension of Terrorism,‖ Psychiatric Annals, vol. 29, no. 6,
June 1999, pp. 350–355.
9. Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich, Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday
Lives (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995).
10. Stephen J. Morgan.
11. Thomas Robbins, Cults, Converts, and Charisma: The Sociology of New Religious Movements
(Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1988).
12. Donelson R. Forsyth, Group Dynamics, 3rd edition (Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1999).
13. Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, and Robin M. Akert, Social Psychology: The Heart and the Mind
(New York: HarperCollins, 2002).
14. Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich.
15. Stephen J. Morgan.
16. Salman Akhtar.
17. Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, and Robin M. Akert.
power of the conditioning itself, and what becomes surprising is not that most terrorist
group joiners become conditioned to actually become terrorists, but that apparently some
do not.31
What have we learned that will help responsible authorities eradicate terrorism? The first
and most important conclusion to draw is the importance of leaders to terrorist groups. The
conditioning process centers on and builds from the power of the charismatic leader. If the
leader is eliminated, the group is greatly weakened. Considering terrorist groups as cults
supports strategies that focus on ―cutting the head off the snake.‖ Second, the more
isolated the environment in which the conditioning process occurs, the deeper and longer
lasting the results on group members. Aggressively disrupting the training camps wherever
we find them not only hurts terrorist groups operationally, it should greatly diminish the
effects of the conditioning. A third conclusion is specifically directed at the Fundamentalist
Islamic groups. These groups take advantage of the fact that Fundamentalist religious
schools (madrasas) have preconditioned a significant portion of Islamic male youths of
recent generations. Products of these schools are more malleable to terrorist group values
and missions. The results here support the idea of aggressively pursuing and eliminating the
funding sources for these schools.
These recommendations could be put into effect quickly. This is important because the
circumstances that create individuals susceptible to joining terrorist groups are not going to
change quickly for a long time there will be plenty of potential terrorist group recruits. I
hope that this article has demonstrated how easily some of these cult-susceptible recruits
can be conditioned into remorseless, on-demand killers of innocents. If the conditioning is
this powerful, then it might be worthwhile to focus our limited counterterrorism resources
on disrupting and possibly eliminating terrorist-creating conditioning processes.
Notes
1. Andrew Silke, ―Cheshire-Cat Logic: The Recurring Theme of Terrorist Abnormality in Psychological
Research,‖ Psychology, Crime and Law, vol. 4, 1998, pp. 51–59.
2. Martha Crenshaw, ―The Psychology of Terrorism: An Agenda for the 21st Century,‖ Political
Psychology, vol. 21, no. 2, June 2000, pp. 405–420.
3. Jerrold M. Post, ―Terrorist Psycho-Logic: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Psychological Forces,‖ in
Walter Reich (ed.), Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind
(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 25–40.
4. Walter Reich, ―Understanding Terrorist Behavior: The Limits and Opportunities of Psychological
Inquiry,‖ in Origins of Terrorism (1998).
5. Herbert Jäger, Gerhard Schmidtchen, and Liselotte Süllwold, Analysen zum Terrorismus 2:
Lebenlaufanalysen (Darmstadt, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1981).
6. Franco Ferracuti, ―Psychiatric Aspects of Italian Left Wing and Right Wing Terrorism,‖ presented at
the VII World Congress of Psychiatry, Vienna, Austria, 1983.
7. Stephen J. Morgan, The Mind of a Terrorist Fundamentalist: The Psychology of Terror Cults (Awe-
Struck E-Books, 2001).
8. Salman Akhtar, ―The Psychodynamic Dimension of Terrorism,‖ Psychiatric Annals, vol. 29, no. 6,
June 1999, pp. 350–355.
9. Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich, Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday
Lives (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995).
10. Stephen J. Morgan.
11. Thomas Robbins, Cults, Converts, and Charisma: The Sociology of New Religious Movements
(Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1988).
12. Donelson R. Forsyth, Group Dynamics, 3rd edition (Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1999).
13. Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, and Robin M. Akert, Social Psychology: The Heart and the Mind
(New York: HarperCollins, 2002).
14. Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich.
15. Stephen J. Morgan.
16. Salman Akhtar.
17. Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, and Robin M. Akert.
