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International Cultic Studies Association
P.O. Box 2265 • Bonita Springs, FL 34133
Phone: 239.514.3081
Email: mail@icsamail.com
Website: icsahome.com
Rachel Bernstein, MSEd, LMFT, has been working with former cult members for 29 years. She
is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Educator who lives in Los Angeles, California.
She has been a member of ICSA for many years and has presented talks and moderated panels
at ICSA conferences. Rachel previously ran the Maynard Bernstein Resource Center on cults,
named after her father. She was the clinician at the former Cult Clinic in Los Angeles, as well as
the Cult Hotline and Clinic in Manhattan. She now treats former cult members and the families
and friends of those in cults in her private practice. Rachel has facilitated numerous support
groups for former cult members, for people who were in one-on-one cults, and for the families
of those in cults. Rachel has published many articles, made media appearances, consulted on
shows and movies about cults, and has been interviewed for podcasts and YouTube videos.
Rachel is the host of her weekly podcast, IndoctriNation. www.RachelBernsteinTherapy.com
bernsteinlmft@gmail.com@gmail.com 818-907-0036. n
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the first issue of ICSA Today of 2020! I am so pleased to be a part of the beginning
of a new year with you. It is beautifully symbolic because ICSA is devoted to helping people
begin anew.
In his article in this issue, “Why We Can’t Eliminate Cults and How We Are Drawn In,” Russell
Bradshaw explores the psychological and sociological reasons we gravitate toward cultic
groups. They seemingly satisfy basic human instincts to belong and to have greater knowledge
and understanding. The author, a former sociology professor, comes to this field through
having lived it himself. He understands how it feels to be swept into a cultic system, and how
powerfully intoxicating the process can be.
In his article “When the Walking Wounded Walk Into Church,” Ken Garrett, a pastor and former
member of a cultic church, writes about the disorienting conflict I hear about daily in my office:
Being in a cultic group promotes the development of a false self but while the false self can
seem to take the place of the true self, it is important to remember there is a core identity that
remains. This is vital and insightful information for those who are leaving abusive situations
and those of us who are helping those who have left.
Esther Friedman, a former member of a cultic group, reflects on the pivotal 2018 ICSA
conference she attended on domestic abuse and coercive control, and how she is finding what
is heartening to all of us—that the world is becoming more informed about the dangers of this
type of control. Esther’s contribution to this issue highlights the power of ICSA conferences.
I’ve known Alan Scheflin, the subject of the profile by Mary O’Connell, for many years. An
attorney, Professor Emeritus, author, and past president of ICSA, Alan has worked tirelessly for
decades educating the public about undue influence, and has been a powerful advocate for
those who have not had their experiences taken seriously by the law. Mary’s profile captures
the strength and the compassion of this courageous pioneer.
Joe Szimhart, the recipient of the 2016 ICSA Lifetime Achievement Award and a treasure trove
of information, with whom I have worked, reviews I Will Disentangle Myself… and Leave, by the
teacher and historian Bob Williston. Williston exited a fundamentalist style of Christianity after
40 years of devotion. His book explores his increasing internal conflicts and moral dilemmas
before he exited, and his important quest since then to ascertain whether the teachings he
formerly believed were true or false. And Doug Duncan reviews Leaving the Witness: Exiting
a Religion and Finding a Life, by Amber Scorah, who endured many traumas after leaving
Jehovah’s Witnesses before thankfully and bravely finding her way again.
I hope 2020 proves to be a year of healing and happiness for all of you!
Be well!
Rachel Bernstein
The views expressed in ICSA Today are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
the views of ICSA Today’s editors or editorial boards or of ICSA’s directors, advisors, or staff. Groups
analyzed or mentioned in ICSA Today are not necessarily cults, nor are they necessarily harmful.
Note to our readers regarding website addresses (URLs): For all http website addresses, such as
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address. Please keep this in mind when exploring sites mentioned in ICSA Today.
ICSA Today, Volume 11, No. 1, 2020
Editor-in-Chief
Michael D. Langone, PhD
Associate Editor
Ann Stamler, MA, MPhil
Family Editor
Lois Svoboda, MD, LMFT
Member Profiles Editor
Mary O’Connell
Mental Health Editor
Gillie Jenkinson, PhD
Research Coeditors
Linda Dubrow-Marshall, PhD
Rod Dubrow-Marshall, PhD
Point of View -Q&A
William Goldberg, MSW, LCSW
Correspondents
Austria/Germany
Friedrich Griess
Eastern Europe
Piotr T. Nowakowski, PhD
French-Speaking Countries
Catherine Perry, PhD
Italy
Dr. Cristina Caparesi
Nordic Countries
Joni Valkila, PhD
Håkan Järvå, MSc Psych
Spain and Latin America
Luis Santamaria, SThL
Erika Toren, MSEd
Paul Lennon
News Desk
Ana Rodriguez
Patrick Ryan
Writing Consultant
Sharon Hamm
Bios of ICSA Today editors can be found at
icsahome.com/elibrary/people-profiles
International Cultic Studies Association
P.O. Box 2265 • Bonita Springs, FL 34133
Website: icsahome.com
Email: mail@icsamail.com
Phone: 239.514.3081
Fax: 305.393.8193
ISSN: 2154-820X
Printed in the USA
Artists and poets retain copyright
of their works and grant ICSA permission
to reproduce them. Unless otherwise
indicated, all other material copyright
International Cultic Studies Association.
Table of Contents
24
News Desk
21
Profile On...
Alan Scheflin
8
Why We Can’t Eliminate Cults,
and How We Are Drawn In
Russell Bradshaw
2
When the Walking Wounded
Walk Into Church
Ken Garrett
15
Reflections Upon Attending
ICSA’s 2018 Conference:
Domestic Abuse and
Coercive Control
Esther Ruth Friedman
18
Book Reviews
Doug Duncan and
Joseph Szimhart

4 ICSA TODAY 2
This article is based on a chapter from the author’s doctoral dissertation and forthcoming book, In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing From
Spiritual Abuse in the Church, about the recognition of spiritually abusive churches and recovery from the trauma they inflict on members.
When the Walking Wounded
Walk Into Church
By Ken Garrett
T
he members of healthy churches often have a
tough time understanding the concept of an
abusive, Christian church—a church that holds
to correct, orthodox theology, and yet functions
like a cult. Many believe that a church with
“good doctrine” is inoculated against spiritually abusive
conditions. Moreover, recent statistics suggest that only
about two percent of the congregation sitting in a church
on a Sunday morning have experienced spiritual abuse.1
That’s a lot of people, but it’s also few enough spread out
over the 350,000 churches in America to go unrecognized
and unappreciated.
As a result, very few Christians today understand the
experiences and trauma their fellow Christians who have
been spiritually abused have experienced. And because their
wounds are spiritual—invisible—they are not readily noticed.
What are these wounds survivors of spiritual abuse carry with
them when they walk through the doors of a healthy church?
I have asked friends who have shared my experience of
belonging to an abusive church to describe their experiences
of reentry into healthy churches. They speak of loneliness,
insecurity, and the prevailing fear that they are perceived
as spiritually damaged goods when they seek to worship in
healthy churches. I’m not sure if we spiritual-abuse survivors
5 VOLUME 11 |ISSUE 1 |2020
really stick out as prominently as we feel we do—but we do
share that sense of unhealed woundedness that we fear must
be obvious to others. Many of us are compelled to find a good,
healthy church as an issue of obedience to God, but we do so
with a vague, gnawing feeling that our very reason for finding
a good church might be a part of what led us into the abusive
church in the first place. Others among us simply step back,
take a break, and disengage from the whole organized worship
scene. These folks frequently do not receive much patience or
understanding from their fellow Christians, who often believe
that, until a survivor of an abusive church buckles down, bites
the bit, and joins another church—this time a good church—
God won’t have much to do with them.
Those survivors who do choose to enter a church again enter
a community that believes and does many of the very same
things those in the abusive church she left believed and did:
Good churches sing abusive churches sing. Good churches
have powerful, persuasive preachers abusive churches have
powerful, persuasive preachers. Good churches have programs
for the kids abusive churches have programs for the kids. Good
churches open the Bible for answers and direction abusive
churches open the Bible for answers and direction. Good
churches collect money for their support abusive churches
collect money for their support. Good churches notice and
affirm new people and visitors abusive churches notice and
affirm new people.
There are certainly many differences between a good church
and an abusive church. But to a survivor of spiritual abuse
suffered in a church, a whole lot of things may look and feel
the same in both. And now, as she comes into church, she
brings in a lot of pain, and hurt, and brokenness with her. She is
walking, but she is wounded. Let’s take a look at some of these
wounds....
Wounds of the Soul
The trauma inflicted by spiritually abusive churches reaches
deeply into the realms of the psychological, emotional, and
spiritual, and therefore has a profound effect on the self-image
of the survivor and on his most dear relationships. These are the
unseen wounds that ache in a person’s heart. They are wounds
of the soul.
The False Self
Abusive churches unwittingly demand that their members
create a false, church self—one that serves the demands and
expectations of the church about how to speak, act, think,
decide, and be compliant. To comply, the member often builds
a new, false self—one who does and says things that obey the
church, but that simply aren’t him. He’s not himself anymore,
but neither is he the false self. The false self gives more money
than the true self wants to give, spends more time at church
than the true self wants to spend, prioritizes involvement with
the church over time with family, friends, and the things he
used to like to do. The false self is on duty day and night to keep
him out of hot water with church leaders, and this false self
applies layer after layer of inauthentic living that he soon claims
as his true identity.
In fact, the member’s true identity has been highjacked by the
false self, and is hidden away deep in the dark, cold cellar of the
member’s mind. The visible personality, expressed in church-
friendly living, is the one leaders and fellow church members
see. The hidden personality, the one who has been relegated
to the basement and rarely is let out into public, wastes away
in its forced seclusion, but it never dies. The splitting, when the
member speaks and acts on the outside incongruently with
what he believes and desires on the inside, can do horrible
damage to his mental health. Such cognitive dissociation
makes him a type of walking civil war from an emotional-
psychiatric perspective. The battle between these two selves
may form a split personality the member carries with him when
he leaves the church.
But what of the core self, the true, God-given personality each
human being is born with—our souls? I believe that our souls
are a creation of God, and God never relinquishes ownership of
His creation. We can ruin our souls, neglect them, starve them,
ignore them, damage them beyond all recognition—but in the
end, they belong to God.
And as I reflect on my experience of being spiritually abused,
I believe my soul, the inner me, was always working to get
me out of my abusive, cultic church. It nagged me, itched my
conscience, gnawed at my thoughts, and, in the end, like a
whack-a-mole game, simply kept popping up. Finally, it won
out, and I shed the fake me like a snake shedding its skin.
So under such a weight of mental stress, what are some of the
wounds of the soul that members in the spiritually abusive
church may suffer and carry with them when they leave?
Survivors may experience flashbacks when later circumstances,
interactions, and conditions remind them of their experience
in the abusive church. Such episodes may trigger responses
that may seem inappropriate or extreme. An authoritative,
charismatic, talented preacher, for instance, can trigger
survivors into feeling the same emotions and tensions that
they experienced under the preaching of the abusive pastor,
if that pastor was such a preacher. A casual statement from
the new pastor affirming the positive, beneficial results of
regular attendance, financial support, or even the practice
of a healthy spiritual discipline, can trigger survivors into
...very few Christians
today understand the
experiences and trauma
their fellow Christians who
have been spiritually
abused have experienced.