Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 18, 2001, Page 54
Mind Control Research Center (Sapporo, Japan)
Pascal Zivi, Director.
Premier Ministre, Mission Interministérielle de Lutte Contre les Sectes (Prime
Minister, Interministerial Commission for Combating Cults, Paris, France)
Denis Barthélemy, Sécrétaire Général.
Research Center of the Mexican Christian Institute
Cesar Mascarenas, M.D., Director.
Swedish Governmental Commission on “New Religious Movements” (Stockholm,
Sweden)
Lars Grip is a freelance journalist and author. Mr. Grip has written several articles
and five books in the field of drug-abuse, psychiatry, family politics, motivation, and
creativity in the field of work. He was editor of the Pocketbook R, a periodical
publication in the field of social politics from 1981 to 1985. Mr. Grip also was Guest
Editor of the periodical book OTTAR from 1989-1997 and a Producer and Editor-In-
Chief at the Swedish Broadcasting Cooperation in a current-affairs program, working
with news (worldwide), analyses and long edited stories from 1987 to 1997. He was
one of two staff members heading the Swedish Governmental Commission on the
topic ―New Religious Movements.‖ 1997-1998.
Watchman Fellowship (Birmingham, Alabama)
Craig Branch is currently president of Apologetics Resource Center in Birmingham,
Alabama. At the time of the conference he was vice president of Watchman
Fellowship, one of the largest Christian counter-cult ministries. Mr. Branch is a board
member of Evangelical Ministries to New Religions (a consortium of a large number
of Christian ministries to cults and NRMs) and Wellspring Retreat and Resource
Center. He is chair of the Clergy Relations Committee for AFF. Currently, Mr.
Branch is completing a Masters of Divinity degree.
Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center (Albany, Ohio)
Paul Martin, Ph.D., a former member and a leader of The Great Commission, is a
psychologist and Director of the Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center in Albany,
Ohio, a residential rehabilitation center for ex-cult members. Dr. Martin is author of
Cult-Proofing Your Kid. He has written many articles on cults and has been
interviewed by many newspapers, radio and TV stations concerning cults.
**********
Michael D. Langone, Ph.D., a counseling psychologist, is AFF‘s Executive Director. He is
the editor of Cultic Studies Journal and Recovery From Cults. He is co-author of Cults: What
Parents Should Know and Satanism and Occult-Related Violence: What You Should Know.
Dr. Langone has spoken and written widely about cults. In 1995, he received the Leo J.
Ryan Award from the ―original‖ Cult Awareness network and was honored as the Albert V.
Danielsen visiting Scholar at Boston University.
This article is an electronic version of an article originally published in Cultic Studies Journal, 2001, Volume 18, Part
2, pages 69-81. Please keep in mind that the pagination of this electronic reprint differs from that of the bound
volume. This fact could affect how you enter bibliographic information in papers that you may write.

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 18, 2001, Page 55
The Millennium is Here – and So are the Cults
Lita Linzer Schwartz
Abington College, The Pennsylvania State University
Abstract
The beginning of a new century and a new Millennium seems to be an
appropriate time to re-examine those movements that claim to have
exclusive knowledge of what measures will save the world and who will be
saved. Special attention is paid to the role of women in the various cults, to
new targets for recruiters, millennial predictions, and to techniques that may
protect youths and others from those recruiters. Consideration of the tie
between cult group characteristics and the attacks of September 11, 2001 is
also included.
Visionaries, or those who advertise themselves as such, said for several years that the world
would self-destruct at the Millennium, that it would be the time of Armageddon, that
salvation only for the chosen fewled by said visionary, of coursewould be available at
the Millennium. This is not an original thought the ―modern‖ version began with
Nostradamus a few centuries ago, and there were similar predictions even 4,000 years ago.
A group leader often ambiguously sets the ―end time,‖ but, as occurred at the turn of the
Millennium, it sometimes coincides with a landmark date. The visionaries, of course, have
the path to salvation at their fingertips. With all of the warnings as well about the potential
disasters that Y2K was to have brought to the world of computers, it is a wonder that these
words are available for you to read and that you are here to read them. Given the
significance of the Millennium to some visionaries, this seems an appropriate time to look
anew at cults.
A Contemporary Orientation
Just so that we all start from the same place, let me share with you two definitions of a cult.
The first says that a ―totalist type‖ cult is
a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication
to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative
techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and
family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and
subservience, powerful group pressures, information management,
suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total
dependency on the group and fear of leaving it, etc.), designed to advance
the goals of the group‘s leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of
members, their families, or the community (West &Langone, 1986, pp.119-
120).
A briefer, but equally cogent, definition was given by Robert Lifton, a psychiatrist
particularly well-known for his work on thought reform of prisoners during the Korean War:
Cults can be identified by three characteristics: (1) a charismatic leader who
increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may
have originally sustained the group lose their power (2) a process I call
coercive persuasion or thought reform (3) economic, sexual, and other
exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie. (Lifton,
1991, p. 2)