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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

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1997, page 99
differences between the two sexes are acknowledged, along with the concept of equality.
Such groups often have a dual or androgynous godhead. Sex unity entails the notion of
letting go of sex identification to release power and reach infinite potential. In this category
are groups that often devalue the body and believe in a sort of rebirthing or even gender
change. These three categories at times seemed overlapping, but are perhaps a useful
means of trying to make sense out of some unusual practices. As a woman and former cult
member, I couldn‟t help but wonder about a fourth category: that is, sexual exploitation and
abuse. But in reading this book it became evident that what many of us (women, feminists,
former cult members, or cult-watchers) might regard as a sexist and exploitative milieu
kept in place by social and psychosexual control mechanisms, Palmer regards as exciting
new concepts of gender and sexuality that allow women to redefine their traditional social
roles through “playful and gratifying” reinterpretations of their sexual roles. As far as I‟m
concerned, no, thank you.
Palmer proposes that some women‟s involvement in NRMs and spiritual groups is merely a
creative approach to “facilitate the difficult metamorphosis from girlhood to womanhood.”
While in these groups, women can experiment, find empowerment and clear-cut roles, and
get away from either the confines or mixed messages of the dominant culture. Eventually,
most members reject the authority of the group, Palmer tells us, and they interpret the
experience as one of intensive self-reconstruction. She reassures us that these former
devotees are not “cult escapees” who “warrant the pity and attentions of „exit counselors.‟”
Yet, apparently without realizing it, throughout the book, Palmer describes group
requirements, rituals, and patterns of learned behavior that some might consider quite
startling in their suppression and repression of the individual female member. Ultimately, I
suppose we can thank Palmer for giving us more ammunition in the academic (and
sociocultural) battle between those of us who believe that such groups are potentially
harmful (both to women and to men) and those who line up with the cult apologists. Moon
Sisters, Krishna Mothers, Rajneesh Lovers is a fast-paced, well-written, and nerve-wracking
book with a wealth of information and a particular point of view --I recommend it.
Janja Lalich
Community Resources on Influence &Control
Alameda, California
Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam. Sonsyrea Tate. Harper San
Francisco, San Francisco, 1997, 230 pages.
Sonsyrea Tate, an award-winning journalist, chronicles her childhood growing up in the
Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam was very active in the 1960s and 1970s in America and
brought us such familiar figures as Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. Although Tate doesn‟t
seem to be in the circuit of informed ex-cult members, she nonetheless details the various
aspects of the group in her narration, where one can quite easily identify Robert Lifton‟s
eight criteria for thought reform.
Tate‟s account begins in 1969, when she is 3 years old and already at school, mouthing
words she doesn‟t understand. She describes the separate schools the children attended,
and the indoctrination techniques. School was all memorization, where no questions were
allowed the teachers ruled by fear and were strict disciplinarians. Followers were taught
that lack of discipline was one of the problems with their downtrodden race. (From Tate‟s
description, they had no idea of the gains that Black Americans were making during the
same era.)
Tate‟s book also becomes an interesting account of reverse racism. Elijah Muhammad, the
Nation‟s self-appointed prophet, taught that White men are the enemy and the devil.
Followers had to submit to body searches before Temple services (because the devil was