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(Stahelski, 2004:36). Otherwise, both terrorists and cult recruits encounter ―powerful
dynamics that make the conditioning almost impossible to resist‖ (Stahelski, 2004:36).
Stahelski did not discuss issues that concern second-generation education, but I point out
that these phases translate into behaviours and attitudes among members that constrain
and confine their social relationships, including those relationships with children and the
young. Indeed, in several cases, group leaders prohibited children entirely from their
organizations, which are instances of extreme reeducation that the parents had undergone
as standard aspects of group membership. I will examine each of Stahelski‘s phases, along
with his brief discussion of charisma, make some modifications to his claims, and give
examples of how various groups exemplified the phases. At the same time, I will suggest
implications that the examples likely had on the second generation.
Charisma
Reputed access to unique, even godly, special powers and/or skills is the hallmark of
charisma as Max Weber defined it nearly a century ago. As Weber wrote, charisma is
a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he [or she] is
considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural,
superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are
such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of
divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual
concerned is treated as a ‗leader‘ (Weber, 1978:241).
Stahelski, in turn, mentioned numerous characteristics that charismatic leaders frequently
have: ―physical presence, intelligence, experience, education and expertise, the ability to
verbally and clearly articulate the vision and the mission, and, most important, a strong
emotional appeal‖ (Stahelski, 2004:32). This list, however, omits what really might be
charismatic leaders‘ major trait—at least for those who create new religions: varying
degrees of biopsychosocial dysfunction—that is, personality disorders and/or psychological
imbalances.
The term biopsychosocial dysfunction embodies the fact that some people have biological,
hormonal, or genetic abnormalities that may cause or combine with psychological disorders
that in turn have a negative impact upon their activities in the social world. Some of these
dysfunctions may stem from childhood others might occur later in life. Especially in
adulthood, these debilitating conditions might be exacerbated by drug and alcohol abuse,
along with violent or irrational ideas that exist within the religious and cultural domain in
which these people live (Kent, 2004:104-109 Roy, 2000:394-395 Whitsett and Kent,
2003:493-494). People encumbered by these conditions have flawed interactions with
others—their behaviour is out of the ordinary they have unusual senses of self-worth and
they demand deference from those around them. Although some seekers are repelled by
these odd characteristics, others see the constellations of unusual traits as signs of spiritual
charisma.
The history of alternative religions abounds with leaders whom followers consider
charismatic but whom outside observers consider to have dysfunctional personality
disorders if not mental illnesses (Storr, 1996). Moreover, researchers can speculate about
how difficult it was on their children to live with these extraordinary parents, since those
children bore the direct consequences of their mother‘s or father‘s dysfunctional charisma.
For example, the Children of God‘s founder, David Berg, portrayed himself to his adoring
followers as God‘s end-time prophet, but in reality he probably was a nonexclusive
heterosexual pedophile (meaning that he had sex with both women and children). He also
was an alcoholic. One son, Aaron Berg, died mysteriously from a fall off a Swiss mountain in
1972, and many people think that his death was a suicide (Davis [Linda Berg], 1984:128-

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129]. No mystery, however, exists around the death of Berg‘s stepson, Ricky Rodriquez,
who, hours before he killed his childhood nanny (and shortly thereafter, himself), left a
video discussing his rage over his sexualized upbringing [Goldstein, 2005]). Like Berg, the
Branch Davidian‘s leader, David Koresh, also seems to have been a nonexclusive
heterosexual pedophile. He refused to release his twelve biological children to authorities
during the siege of his compound, and they eventually were among the twenty-one children
who died in the fire (Tabor and Gallagher, 1995:231 n.22 255). Scientology‘s founder, L.
Ron Hubbard, likely was plagued by narcissism and paranoia, the latter accentuated though
drug abuse (Atack 1990: 119, 131, 171, 372 Kent 2004: 106). His son, Quentin,
committed suicide, ostensibly because of his homosexuality (a lifestyle that his father
abhorred [Miller 1987: 303]).
The Unification Church‘s founder, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, thinks of himself as the
messiah (Chambers 1982), yet one of his sons, Young Jin Moon, apparently jumped or fell
from the seventh floor of a Las Vegas hotel room in November 1999 MACROBUTTON
endnote+.cit (Schoenmann 1999). Peoples‘ Temple founder, Jim Jones, once received a
psychiatric diagnosis of ―paranoid with delusions of grandeur‖ (Reiterman with Jacobs,
1982:262), and his family watched him slip into increasingly destructive and deceitful
behaviour. The strain on his biological son, Stephan, worsened as family life deteriorated
amidst the father‘s philandering, hypocrisy, and drug abuse. These and other pressures
drove the young man to overdose on Quaaludes on two separate occasions (Rieterman with
Jacobs, 1982:125, 310).
Anecdotal as these accounts are, that several prominent sect leaders from the 1970s had
children who could not stand living under the shadow of their charismatic parents is
remarkable. The pressures of being a child of the ―godly‖ was simply too much to withstand.
Charisma, it seems, provided poor frameworks in which to rear the young, and we only can
speculate why this was so. A likely factor was the hypocrisy that these offspring witnessed
between the public figure and the private parent. A teenaged Donna Collins, for example,
started asking tough questions about what she saw in Moon‘s inner circle….
―He and his kids didn‘t live by the teachings. His sons would come in and
swear all the time. They were having steaks flown in from America [to Korea].
I‘d been eating rice and kimchi for three years and getting serious dysentery.
It was a joke. I started asking myself, ‗What is godly about all this?‘‖ (Collins
in Lattin, 2003:198).
Later, I will discuss the tragic case of David Berg‘s granddaughter, Merry Berg, who paid a
terrible price for expressing doubts about the godliness of her hypocritical grandfather.
Berg‘s household environment proved disastrous to Merry Berg, Ricky Rodriquez, and other
children reared in that inner circle, but the models of education and socialization that had
failed on Berg‘s own family were the foundation for equally disastrous and abusive programs
implemented on children throughout the Children of God organization. In varying degrees,
the failed patterns of socialization and education within the families of charismatic leaders
led to equally disastrous child-rearing and educational practices throughout entire
organizations (see Whitsett and Kent, 2003:493-495). Countless children were hurt by their
parents and other adults. The charisma at the foundation of these organizations was
dysfunctional if not at times pathological, but it became the basis upon which leaders and
their followers developed and imposed socialization and education programs upon the
young.
Depluralization
The term depluralization is not one readily found in social-psychological literature, yet it
conveys an important dimension of the reeducation process of many converts. Stahelski‘s
point is that the ―ideal type‖ of social person in a complex society has multiple social