Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1997, page 98
Johnsen is a good storyteller who engages the reader in her fascination with the people and
culture of India. What I found lacking is a healthy dose of skepticism and balance. Giving
oneself over to any “saint” --male or female --carries with it certain risks, and each group
should be thoroughly researched. Johnsen‟s work can be only a part of that research.
Joseph Kelly
Thought Reform Consultant
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Moon Sisters, Krishna Mothers, Rajneesh Lovers: Women’s Roles in New
Religions. Susan Jean Palmer. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, 1994, 287
pages.
A lecturer in the religion department at Dawson College in Quebec, Susan Palmer carried
out an investigation of women‟s roles in Anew religious movements” (NRMs). Her goal was
to examine feminine conversion and opportunities for leadership in contemporary communal
or millenarian groups. Using interviews with primarily current members, along with firsthand
data from her own attendance and participation in some of these movements, Palmer
concludes that female “spiritual seekers” are voluntarily embarking on
romantic/ascetic/erotic ordeals and taking part in “extravagant new forms of marriage and
sexuality,” through which these women astonishingly “find themselves” or claim new roles
for themselves, roles that are lacking in “normal” society.
Although the book contains some interesting details about the groups studied and some
rather revelatory insights into the thinking and rationale of the members, the author herself
focuses almost exclusively on her positive reframing and apologetic interpretations. Early in
the book‟s Introduction, Palmer makes her position clear when she writes that her approach
“self-consciously repudiates ...the tendency among anticultists to condemn the extreme
and often deviant patterns of sexuality found in „cults‟ as „brainwashing‟ or ...as social
control” (p. xii). True, women may be experiencing a sense of “rolelessness” caused by
enormous changes and shifts in our society‟s structure and, as a result, women may be
overly susceptible to the lure of certain psychological con men and cult recruiters (see, for
example, the article by Shelly Rosen in this issue). But, in my opinion, that reality does not
excuse the behavior of those who would take advantage of such a situation, nor does it
mean that women are not psychologically coerced into accepting less-than-healthy roles in
these so-called new religious movements under the guise of their own spiritual
advancement.
Palmer describes seven groups, some more known than others. They include the
International Society for the Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) the Rajneesh movement
the Unification Church the Institute of Applied Metaphysics (IAM, an eclectic, Canadian-
based group with a female founder named Winifred Barton) the Institute for the
Development of the Harmonious Human Being (founded by E. J. Gold, and based in Grass
Valley, California) Northeast Kingdom Community Church (led by Elbert Spriggs, and
sometimes known as Island Pond or The Community) and the Raelian movement (a group
of French origination, founded by a former race car driver, Claude Vorilhon). Palmer
provides a nutshell history of each group, and then examines each according to one of three
model typologies: sex polarity, sex complementarity, and sex unity.
Palmer‟s three types are meant to be labels defining the concepts governing the
woman/man and body/soul relationships in these groups. For example, the author puts
ISKCON and Rajneesh into the sex polarity category, where the reigning idea is that men
and women are not spiritually equal, and in most cases men are viewed as superior and
women need men to protect them. Sex complementarity as a category includes groups that
emphasize marriage to unite two souls to form one and as the means to salvation. Here
Johnsen is a good storyteller who engages the reader in her fascination with the people and
culture of India. What I found lacking is a healthy dose of skepticism and balance. Giving
oneself over to any “saint” --male or female --carries with it certain risks, and each group
should be thoroughly researched. Johnsen‟s work can be only a part of that research.
Joseph Kelly
Thought Reform Consultant
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Moon Sisters, Krishna Mothers, Rajneesh Lovers: Women’s Roles in New
Religions. Susan Jean Palmer. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, 1994, 287
pages.
A lecturer in the religion department at Dawson College in Quebec, Susan Palmer carried
out an investigation of women‟s roles in Anew religious movements” (NRMs). Her goal was
to examine feminine conversion and opportunities for leadership in contemporary communal
or millenarian groups. Using interviews with primarily current members, along with firsthand
data from her own attendance and participation in some of these movements, Palmer
concludes that female “spiritual seekers” are voluntarily embarking on
romantic/ascetic/erotic ordeals and taking part in “extravagant new forms of marriage and
sexuality,” through which these women astonishingly “find themselves” or claim new roles
for themselves, roles that are lacking in “normal” society.
Although the book contains some interesting details about the groups studied and some
rather revelatory insights into the thinking and rationale of the members, the author herself
focuses almost exclusively on her positive reframing and apologetic interpretations. Early in
the book‟s Introduction, Palmer makes her position clear when she writes that her approach
“self-consciously repudiates ...the tendency among anticultists to condemn the extreme
and often deviant patterns of sexuality found in „cults‟ as „brainwashing‟ or ...as social
control” (p. xii). True, women may be experiencing a sense of “rolelessness” caused by
enormous changes and shifts in our society‟s structure and, as a result, women may be
overly susceptible to the lure of certain psychological con men and cult recruiters (see, for
example, the article by Shelly Rosen in this issue). But, in my opinion, that reality does not
excuse the behavior of those who would take advantage of such a situation, nor does it
mean that women are not psychologically coerced into accepting less-than-healthy roles in
these so-called new religious movements under the guise of their own spiritual
advancement.
Palmer describes seven groups, some more known than others. They include the
International Society for the Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) the Rajneesh movement
the Unification Church the Institute of Applied Metaphysics (IAM, an eclectic, Canadian-
based group with a female founder named Winifred Barton) the Institute for the
Development of the Harmonious Human Being (founded by E. J. Gold, and based in Grass
Valley, California) Northeast Kingdom Community Church (led by Elbert Spriggs, and
sometimes known as Island Pond or The Community) and the Raelian movement (a group
of French origination, founded by a former race car driver, Claude Vorilhon). Palmer
provides a nutshell history of each group, and then examines each according to one of three
model typologies: sex polarity, sex complementarity, and sex unity.
Palmer‟s three types are meant to be labels defining the concepts governing the
woman/man and body/soul relationships in these groups. For example, the author puts
ISKCON and Rajneesh into the sex polarity category, where the reigning idea is that men
and women are not spiritually equal, and in most cases men are viewed as superior and
women need men to protect them. Sex complementarity as a category includes groups that
emphasize marriage to unite two souls to form one and as the means to salvation. Here
