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sexual abuse, and having ―control‖ over their parents in the sense that they are
encouraged, ordered even, to report the parents for any infractions of cult rules. Getting
the child out of such an atmosphere is a difficult matter, however, as cult leaders will invoke
both ―freedom of religion‖ and ―separation of church and state‖ to justify any actions within
the group. The courts in some states have gained control over the lack of medical care
problem on the grounds that the children had not chosen the religion and the state has a
responsibility to intervene in terms of the welfare of its children.
Millennial Predictions and Preoccupations
Focus on Predictions
Whether we consider Jim Jones of the People‘s Temple, David Koresh of the Branch
Davidians at Waco, Marshall Applewhite of Heaven‘s Gate, or any of a number of other self-
styled leaders of doomsday-type cults, we find that each predicted the imminent end of the
world and was able to convince his psychologically dependent followers that he was not only
going to be able to save them from the calamity to be faced by non-believers, but would
help them find a better way to reach the better world. How neatly the members of
Heaven‘s Gate arranged themselves prior to death! They were packed and ready, literally,
even with a five-dollar bill in their ―flight bags,‖ to ascend to the ―Next Level‖ when the
Hale-Bopp comet – supposedly with a spaceship in its tail to transport them – came closest
to Earth in March 1997. Similarly, members of the Solar Temple in Canada and France
followed a precise pattern. (Schwartz &Kaslow, 2001) Apparently these self-described
omniscient leaders based much of their forecast on Matthew Ch. 24 in which Jesus is
credited with discussing the fall of Jerusalem and the coming of Armageddon (Fennell,
1997) or on the Book of Revelation (Lifton, 1999).
In 1984, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh ―began to predict the death of two-thirds of humanity
through the disease AIDS by the year 2000‖ (Palmer, 1994, p. 47). Happily, that has not
happened, although the deaths of tens of thousands of people from AIDS have been tragic.
Elizabeth Clare Prophet, former head of the Church Universal and Triumphant and self-
described as a victim of Alzheimer‘s disease, had predicted that the Apocalypse would occur
in 1989, while other cult leaders predicted ―the coming‖ in 1992 or 2007 (Weber, 1999).
The Unification Church is similarly concerned with salvation and the millennium, as noted
just a moment ago. The saffron-robed Hare Krishna devotees practiced a regime almost of
self-purification in anticipation of being saved when the world ends, living in ―temple
communes where gambling, intoxicants, meat, and illegitimate sexual activities were
banned pending the world‘s imminent collapse and the new era‘s advent‖ (Weber, 1999, p.
210). At least one group claimed that Biblical sources predicted the Y2K problems ...a bit
of a stretch of interpretation. Evangelical Christians anticipated the end of the world on
January 1st of 2000, with the Y2K bug being a major instrument in that collapse (Rosin,
1999). Their predictions did not come true.
Asahara, founder of Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that tried to kill thousands in the
Tokyo subway in 1995, focused on the millennium and the need for humanity either to
follow his teachings or be wiped out in the Armageddon predicted earlier by Nostradamus
(Lifton, 1999). In the Aum Shinrikyo cult, the concept called poa was derived from Tibetan
Buddhist theology, and distorted so that instead of helping the dying to elevate their
spiritual state, poa became a euphemism for murder. ―They claimed that people of higher
consciousness, in killing designated enemies or ordinary people, were actually helping them
on their journey toward Buddhahood‖ (Lifton, 1997, p. 25). The people of higher
consciousness were, of course, followers of Asahara, and only they would survive the
imminent Armageddon. [A side note: in January 2000, it was announced that Aum
Shinrikyo had changed its name to ―Aleph,‖ which as the writer of the article pointed out, ―is
the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and signifies renewal for many Japanese‖ (Sims,

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 18, 2001, Page 63
2000). As a symbol of renewal, the letter Aleph is used in Japan in the name of many
companies, a Japanese restaurant chain, even a prep school – all of which were thrown into
turmoil by this move on the part of the cult. Each of these legitimate enterprises felt very
threatened by any possible connection to Aum.]
Members of the small Concerned Christians cult, who went to Jerusalem in 1998, predicted
that the Second Coming of Christ, their reason for being in Israel, would be preceded by an
earthquake in Denver (their home base) in October 1998. Three months later, they were
expelled by the Israelis who claimed that members of the group were planning to cause
some catastrophe in Jerusalem to expedite that Second Coming (Kifner, 1999). There was
no such earthquake, and virtually nothing was heard of the group following its expulsion,
except for a report in February 1999 that a number of the group‘s members had leased
homes in Greece (Associated Press, 1999). They were expelled from Greece in December
1999 for overstaying their residence permits (Kifner, 1999). The leader of the group, Monte
Kim Miller, a former business executive who has claimed that he spoke with ―the voice of
God,‖ and who predicted that he would die in Jerusalem in 1999, was not in Jerusalem when
his followers were deported and he has not been heard from or seen since then.
Of course, if the world doesn‘t end as predicted, a variety of creative reasons may be
developed to explain the delay. Although a failed prophecy may have a negative impact on
some aspects of cultic groups, research has shown that, on the whole, the members remain
with the group. The theory of cognitive dissonance explains how they modify and adapt
contradictory information and their belief systems so that incongruence is resolved
(Stewart, 1999).
One of the major concerns in government here and abroad in the years immediately
preceding 2000 was the possibility of acts of international terrorism by politically-driven
cult-type groups (Medd &Goldstein, 1997). This concern may have contributed to some of
the more hotly criticized anti-cult actions such as those taken at Waco, Texas. On the other
hand, one cannot blame the authorities entirely when they are confronted with groups
predicting attacks, such as one series of press releases in the period August 1993 through
October 1994 by a spokesman for a religious cult based in Missoula, Montana. This group
claimed to have Biblical references that supported and predicted the bombing of the World
Trade Center, retributive acts by Saddam Hussein, and so on (Chase, 1995). Certainly the
World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and plans subsequently discovered for exploding the
Lincoln and Holland Tunnels between New Jersey and New York were enough to cause acute
anxiety in any government agency, and the well-known ―copycat‖ format of psychologically
disturbed people would elevate that anxiety significantly.
The more recent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11,
2001, are yet another example of terrorism by a politically-driven group led by a man with
many of the characteristics of a cult leader, Osama bin Laden. The magnitude of the
attacks in this instance, however, have been regarded as an act of war, with military action
undertaken against bin Laden and his group, the al-Queda, as well as heightened security at
airports and other locations, and concentrated searches for possible terrorists in both the
United States and a number of European countries.
Another very real cause for anxiety has been the proliferation of weapons, even nuclear
weapons, which can certainly create an apocalypse. Jim Jones began his ministry and
People‘s Temple in the late 1950s when a nuclear holocaust was indeed a sword hanging
over our heads, and his self-described effort was to protect his followers from a nuclear
holocaust. Asahara, four decades later, was willing to use nuclear weapons to wipe out his
enemies – most of the world, that is. With detailed instructions for making bombs of all
kinds available on the internet, the possibility that a deranged scientist, or any deranged
but reasonably intelligent person, could build a nuclear bomb with which to bring on