Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2009, Page 3
Razor’s Edge Indeed: A Deprogrammer’s View of Harmful
Cult Activity
Joseph Szimhart
Abstract
This paper is an effort to describe a model of cult behavior that helps the
author, a cult interventionist or deprogrammer, to assess a cult as well as to
help a client assess what he means by harmful cult activity. The author
based his observations on more than two decades of working with ex-
members and helping with many hundreds of interventions that addressed a
wide variety of cult behaviors. Four facets of cult formation are at the core
of the model: Transpersonal attraction, Exclusive leadership, Circular
tension, and Exit perils. The paper also offers a model of a closed cult
system with more potential for harm contrasted to a more open cult system
that incorporates more reasonable and democratic elements and practically
eliminates totalist control of leaders and doctrines. In conclusion, the paper
argues that a deprogrammer‘s goal is to assist the cult member to arrive at
eye-level with reality and the leader, thus creating a rational possibility for
criticism and choice.
Deprogrammer
Never use that term to me again.... I am an exit counselor for victims of mind control...
A character named Diamond (actor James Earl Jones) spoke those words in a British film
called Signs and Wonders, released in 1994. The film was significant because it was the first
time, to my knowledge, that a major film production about cults and deprogramming made
the distinction between deprogrammer and exit counselor. Deprogramming, as it appeared
in the English language in the 1970s, referred to actions taken to persuade a person to
abandon allegiance to a controversial group or cult.1 The neologism exit counseling
appeared in the early 1980s to distinguish coercive and oppositional deprogramming models
of cult intervention from that of a non-coercive, educational approach.
In the film, a middle-aged housewife and mother, Elizabeth (actor Prunella Scales), comes
to America from England to meet Diamond. Elizabeth hired Diamond to convince her
estranged daughter to leave a controversial group led by an Asian messiah. While Diamond
drives Elizabeth to a hotel, he questions her perception of what he does and asks her who is
likely to join a cult. The perplexed mother says that Diamond is a deprogrammer and she
blames herself and her husband for not raising their daughter well enough.
The car screeches to a halt as Diamond pulls over to park it by a curb. He orders his client
to get out of the vehicle. He stands up to the bewildered woman, inches from her face, to
ask her what her people told her that he does. She says that he is a ―deprogrammer who
gets people out of cults.‖ Not so clear to her is whether he will resort to kidnapping.
Diamond berates her for implying that he is a deprogrammer: ―Never use that term to me. I
am an exit counselor,‖ he insists. Then he aggressively explains how he educates people
using highly ethical standards. Utter irony prevails here because Diamond‘s team has
already kidnapped Elizabeth‘s daughter, whom they have in a secret location, and he knows
it.
You will have to see the film to appreciate the intricate subplots that intertwine Elizabeth‘s
other concerns for her frustrated Anglican minister husband who drinks too much and her
adult son who is infatuated with an egotistical philosopher of deconstruction. My concern
Razor’s Edge Indeed: A Deprogrammer’s View of Harmful
Cult Activity
Joseph Szimhart
Abstract
This paper is an effort to describe a model of cult behavior that helps the
author, a cult interventionist or deprogrammer, to assess a cult as well as to
help a client assess what he means by harmful cult activity. The author
based his observations on more than two decades of working with ex-
members and helping with many hundreds of interventions that addressed a
wide variety of cult behaviors. Four facets of cult formation are at the core
of the model: Transpersonal attraction, Exclusive leadership, Circular
tension, and Exit perils. The paper also offers a model of a closed cult
system with more potential for harm contrasted to a more open cult system
that incorporates more reasonable and democratic elements and practically
eliminates totalist control of leaders and doctrines. In conclusion, the paper
argues that a deprogrammer‘s goal is to assist the cult member to arrive at
eye-level with reality and the leader, thus creating a rational possibility for
criticism and choice.
Deprogrammer
Never use that term to me again.... I am an exit counselor for victims of mind control...
A character named Diamond (actor James Earl Jones) spoke those words in a British film
called Signs and Wonders, released in 1994. The film was significant because it was the first
time, to my knowledge, that a major film production about cults and deprogramming made
the distinction between deprogrammer and exit counselor. Deprogramming, as it appeared
in the English language in the 1970s, referred to actions taken to persuade a person to
abandon allegiance to a controversial group or cult.1 The neologism exit counseling
appeared in the early 1980s to distinguish coercive and oppositional deprogramming models
of cult intervention from that of a non-coercive, educational approach.
In the film, a middle-aged housewife and mother, Elizabeth (actor Prunella Scales), comes
to America from England to meet Diamond. Elizabeth hired Diamond to convince her
estranged daughter to leave a controversial group led by an Asian messiah. While Diamond
drives Elizabeth to a hotel, he questions her perception of what he does and asks her who is
likely to join a cult. The perplexed mother says that Diamond is a deprogrammer and she
blames herself and her husband for not raising their daughter well enough.
The car screeches to a halt as Diamond pulls over to park it by a curb. He orders his client
to get out of the vehicle. He stands up to the bewildered woman, inches from her face, to
ask her what her people told her that he does. She says that he is a ―deprogrammer who
gets people out of cults.‖ Not so clear to her is whether he will resort to kidnapping.
Diamond berates her for implying that he is a deprogrammer: ―Never use that term to me. I
am an exit counselor,‖ he insists. Then he aggressively explains how he educates people
using highly ethical standards. Utter irony prevails here because Diamond‘s team has
already kidnapped Elizabeth‘s daughter, whom they have in a secret location, and he knows
it.
You will have to see the film to appreciate the intricate subplots that intertwine Elizabeth‘s
other concerns for her frustrated Anglican minister husband who drinks too much and her
adult son who is infatuated with an egotistical philosopher of deconstruction. My concern
