Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1 1988 Page 89
address of the mother and child. We maintained that confidentiality was needed because of the
risk of physically and psychologically dangerous reprisals from the Sullivanians.
Indeed, courts have held quite uniformly that the whereabouts of a spouse and children are
protected by the attorney-client privilege where one spouse fears the other's violent propensities
or where the marital situation appears to be potentially explosive. We argued that confidentiality
was even more necessary in a case, like the one in question, where the wife/mother fears not
merely an estranged husband, but the combined force of a cult group which operates through
physical violence and psychological terrorism.
When we refused to reveal the mother's address, the court held several days of evidentiary
hearings on the dangerous aspects of the Sullivanians -placing the destructiveness of the cult
environment into issue prior to any concerns about individual parental fitness.
Former Sullivanians testified about physical and psychological control within the group. Former
Sullivanian parents testified that they had been forced to surrender their children or required to
send them to boarding school at ages as young as three years. Testimony was given by young
adults who had been raised within the Sullivanians on the suffering they had experienced. (One
Sullivanian- raised young adult had become a teenage alcoholic. Another had committed suicide.)
Although never formally concluded because our case was happily resolved, these hearings set the
stage for all further proceedings. Most significantly through these hearings, a kind of ―longitudinal
evidence‖ was brought into the case by which the destructiveness of Sullivanian child-raising
patterns was demonstrated through testimony of the psychological injuries suffered by other
children raised in the group.
Focus on Control: The Cult Leader as the Real Parent
Bring the cult leaders into the case. Put them on the stand and let them expose themselves
through their own testimony. If procedurally possible (for example, as respondents on a habeas
corpus petition) join the cult leaders or significant members as parties in the case. Their
―parenting‖ role is a genuine and material factor in determining custody.
In child custody litigation, the issue of relative parental ―fitness‖ can be dispositive. A fit parent is
a parent capable of making independent, mature, autonomous, and rational decisions about the
raising of a child, and also capable of acting upon those decisions. Parents who must ―clear
everything‖ with their therapist or who must respond blindly to the dictates of the leadership do
not meet this standard.
Fortunately, during the course of extended litigation the authoritarian control of the cult leaders
will frequently make itself evident. For example, decisions to move all the cult children from one
school to another or from one summer camp to another or to permit or deny all cult children to
engage in a certain activity or to play with other children betray the absence of responsible,
independent parenting. Bring all such examples of controlled group action to the court's attention.
The fact of leadership control is related to the issue of parents' rights as well as parental fitness.
The right to decide how one's child shall be raised is not necessarily equivalent to the right to turn
over to someone else decisions about how one's child shall be raised. While both parents may be
assumed at the outset to have equal rights to their children, the same is not true of parental
surrogates whom the cult may appoint.
In the Sullivanian cases particularly, the practices of appointing perpetual babysitters, rotating
cult members in turn to care for the baby, and limiting the parent's own time with the child, were
arguments against cult parents' having primary custody.
The amount of time and the amount of quality time which a parent is able to spend with a child
are usually factors in deciding the ordinary custody case. Thus, the extraordinarily small amount
of private quality time a cult parent spends with a child may be of particular significance.
address of the mother and child. We maintained that confidentiality was needed because of the
risk of physically and psychologically dangerous reprisals from the Sullivanians.
Indeed, courts have held quite uniformly that the whereabouts of a spouse and children are
protected by the attorney-client privilege where one spouse fears the other's violent propensities
or where the marital situation appears to be potentially explosive. We argued that confidentiality
was even more necessary in a case, like the one in question, where the wife/mother fears not
merely an estranged husband, but the combined force of a cult group which operates through
physical violence and psychological terrorism.
When we refused to reveal the mother's address, the court held several days of evidentiary
hearings on the dangerous aspects of the Sullivanians -placing the destructiveness of the cult
environment into issue prior to any concerns about individual parental fitness.
Former Sullivanians testified about physical and psychological control within the group. Former
Sullivanian parents testified that they had been forced to surrender their children or required to
send them to boarding school at ages as young as three years. Testimony was given by young
adults who had been raised within the Sullivanians on the suffering they had experienced. (One
Sullivanian- raised young adult had become a teenage alcoholic. Another had committed suicide.)
Although never formally concluded because our case was happily resolved, these hearings set the
stage for all further proceedings. Most significantly through these hearings, a kind of ―longitudinal
evidence‖ was brought into the case by which the destructiveness of Sullivanian child-raising
patterns was demonstrated through testimony of the psychological injuries suffered by other
children raised in the group.
Focus on Control: The Cult Leader as the Real Parent
Bring the cult leaders into the case. Put them on the stand and let them expose themselves
through their own testimony. If procedurally possible (for example, as respondents on a habeas
corpus petition) join the cult leaders or significant members as parties in the case. Their
―parenting‖ role is a genuine and material factor in determining custody.
In child custody litigation, the issue of relative parental ―fitness‖ can be dispositive. A fit parent is
a parent capable of making independent, mature, autonomous, and rational decisions about the
raising of a child, and also capable of acting upon those decisions. Parents who must ―clear
everything‖ with their therapist or who must respond blindly to the dictates of the leadership do
not meet this standard.
Fortunately, during the course of extended litigation the authoritarian control of the cult leaders
will frequently make itself evident. For example, decisions to move all the cult children from one
school to another or from one summer camp to another or to permit or deny all cult children to
engage in a certain activity or to play with other children betray the absence of responsible,
independent parenting. Bring all such examples of controlled group action to the court's attention.
The fact of leadership control is related to the issue of parents' rights as well as parental fitness.
The right to decide how one's child shall be raised is not necessarily equivalent to the right to turn
over to someone else decisions about how one's child shall be raised. While both parents may be
assumed at the outset to have equal rights to their children, the same is not true of parental
surrogates whom the cult may appoint.
In the Sullivanian cases particularly, the practices of appointing perpetual babysitters, rotating
cult members in turn to care for the baby, and limiting the parent's own time with the child, were
arguments against cult parents' having primary custody.
The amount of time and the amount of quality time which a parent is able to spend with a child
are usually factors in deciding the ordinary custody case. Thus, the extraordinarily small amount
of private quality time a cult parent spends with a child may be of particular significance.
