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teen camps‖ for the most recalcitrant second-generation members. Initially, leaders called
these difficult young people ―delinquent teens‖ (see Sara, 1986:73) and put the boys on a
―Back to the Basics Boys‖ program (or BBB team), also called the group‘s ―Detention Teens
or Hard Labour Crew‖ (Family Services, 1989:6). Accounts that I have recorded from former
members also indicate that many teen girls did hard labour in various locations (such as in
Brazil, Macao, and Mexico [Kent and Hall, 2000:66-67]). In 1989, Children of God leaders
changed the name of these resistant teens from the ―Back to the Basic Boys‖ to the ―Rotten
Apples‖ (Family Services, 1989:7), a term that incorporated both sexes and that shifted
responsibility for their rebellion onto the shoulders of a few deviant individuals and away
from the organization, its policies, and its practices. According to dehumanizing labels, the
individuals were flawed, not the charismatically dysfunctional environment in which the
teens grew up and against which they now resisted. While Stahelski considered only that
cults and terrorists would dehumanize out-groups, it also is clear that ideological groups
sometimes will do the same thing to in-group deviants, including the young.
Demonization
As a final phase in social-psychological conditioning, claims by terrorist groups and violent
cults that ―the enemy is in league with the devil and cosmic evil‖ may prevent ―the
occurrence of after-action killing remorse‖ (Stahelski, 2204). Stahelski saw this process
occurring within terrorist groups, but a distressing example of demonization probably being
used to prevent remorse involved the 1995 murder of two recent defectors and their infant
son, by Order of the Solar Temple members. Apparently, one of the Solar Temple leaders,
Joseph Di Mambro, was ―outraged‖ that, without his permission, the couple had a child and
gave him a name (Christopher Emmanuel) that resembled one of the leader‘s daughters,
Emmanuelle. In retaliation, the leader identified the child as the Antichrist, and when the
two members of the group‘s assassination team killed the family, they ―used a wooden
stake in the ritual slaying, driving it though the infant‘s heart‖ (Farnsworth, 1995). This
form of murder was in accordance with Temple ritual instructions about how to kill the
Antichrist (Hall and Schuyler, 2000:139).
A less dramatic but still disturbing example of demonization occurring against rebellious
children took place in the Children of God organization. Although leaders were inclined to
see the devil behind all of the teens‘ rebellion (Berg, 1988), two particular attempts to
demonize them are especially noteworthy.
The first attempt targeted David Berg‘s granddaughter, Merry Berg, in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. Merry Berg had developed doubts about his leadership and reputedly divine
connections ―as she repeatedly saw him drunk, depressed, unable to eat properly (because
of throat and stomach damage from his alcohol consumption), contradicting himself, and
making unfulfilled prophecies, all the while assaulting her‖ (Kent, 2004a:63). Rather than
facing the wisdom of her perceptions, Berg and his inner circle declared that she was
afflicted with demonism (Davidito, 1987) and put her through ―six months of intense and
forceful efforts to dissuade these doubts, which included exorcisms, lengthy prayer sessions,
spankings, head-shakings, threats of severe beatings, and various humiliations‖ (Kent,
2004a:63, see 64).
These acts of violence failed to remove Merry‘s doubts about her grandfather, so he sent
her to an abusive delinquent-teen training camp in Macao where, ―for three and one half
years, Merry endured sexual and physical assaults, hard labour, constant humiliations, and
obligatory study of her grandfather‘s teachings until a nervous breakdown landed her in a
mental institution‖ (Kent, 2004a:63-64). In essence, Berg and his inner circle demonized his
own granddaughter, and through that demonization committed extraordinary acts of abuse
and violence against her.

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2005, Page 15
Several years later, reflecting upon his struggle with his granddaughter, Berg wrote to his
followers, ―And I got the most gruesome picture of [Merry], with her mouth all red &
dripping, drooling with blood like a vampire! Of course, she‘s just a little ignorant nobody,
but it shows you how the Devil is using her‖ (Berg, 1992:3). Because Merry questioned the
authority of her drunken, abusive grandfather, he dehumanized and demonized her. This
action set a precedent for what Children of God leadership would do a decade later when
adult children of first-generation members were in open revolt concerning the treatment
and abuse that they themselves had experienced.
Throughout the 1990s and into this century, these young adults became increasingly vocal
about what life was like as children in the cult. Through a Website, movingon.org, they
reconnected, wrote about their experiences, and even named alleged perpetrators. Amid
repeated calls for justice against the first-generation adults who had violated their second-
generation offspring, Children of God (now called The Family) leadership responded in much
the same way as had Berg to the challenges of someone he had abused—leadership
demonized the critics. In September 2002, current leaders Maria and Peter Amsterdam
published a missive that contained sections about demonic, blood-dripping, grotesque,
―agents of the netherworld‖ called the ―Vandari.‖ According to the text, ―The ‗van‘ is derived
from the word ‗vandals,‘ the ‗dar‘ from the word ‗dark,‘ [and] the ‗I‘ spelling of the last
syllable signifies ‗I,‘ denoting self or selfishness‖ (in Maria and Peter, 2002:para. 142).
Because of the age range of several of the demons in the text, no doubt existed that these
Vandari were second-generation critics.
In passages attributed to Jesus, these Vandari ―are let loose upon the Earth. Their mission
is to recruit those who will bow down and worship the son of perdition in the appointed day.
Likewise, they seek to oppose My truth‖ (in Maria and Peter, 2002:para. 145). Indeed, they
are vile creatures:
You‘ve seen rats, because they cohabitate with the Vandari. The Vandari
populate and dwell in the sewer systems of the world, a fitting place in the
physical world for such creatures. In the netherworld, they belong to some of
the lowest strata and levels of the spirit world, where they dwell with the
dregs of the spirit (in Maria and Peter, 2002:para. 146).
In summary, when faced with a crescendo of criticism against its charismatic leader, the
abusive policies that he implemented, and the consequences of those policies on young
people‘s lives, Children of God leaders attempted to discredit the critical adult children of
the first generation by demonizing and dehumanizing them to the group‘s remaining
members. The message to members was to avoid the criticisms at all costs because they
came from the Devil. This scenario is a remarkable example of how a cult attempts to
protect itself and its charismatic leader, even at the expense of its own children.
Conclusion
This study began with the assumption that the failure of so many sectarian groups to retain
their young into adulthood suggests systemic problems with charismatic leadership.
Charisma may not be so much based upon a leader‘s contact with the divine as it is an
indication of biopsychosocial dysfunction. Such dysfunction certainly seems to take its toll
on a number of the children who live under the pale of parents whom others consider to be
divine. Moreover, adults, who often are on spiritual quests of the highest motives, join other
devotees in encapsulated, depluralized worlds centered on reputedly divine or enlightened
charismatic figures. Their social networks weave tightly with other seekers, but often they
either neglect their children as they pursue what for them is a higher cause, or they involve
children in that pursuit in ways that do not have the children‘s needs as primary.