Table of Contents
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.
ICSA Today, Volume 4, No. 2, 2013
Editor-in-Chief
Michael D. Langone, PhD
Associate Editor
Ann Stamler, MA, MPhil
Arts Editor
Diana Pletts, MA
Book Review Editor
Livia Bardin, MSW
Family Editor
Lois Svoboda, MD, LMFT
Member Profiles Editor
Mary O’Connell
Mental Health Editor
Gillie Jenkinson, MA
News Desk Editor
Joseph F. Kelly
Research Coeditors
Linda Dubrow-Marshall, PhD
Rod Dubrow-Marshall, PhD
Point of View -Q&A
William Goldberg, MSW, LCSW
Correspondents
Australia
Helen Pomery
Austria/Germany
Friedrich Griess
Eastern Europe
Piotr T. Nowakowski, PhD
French-Speaking Countries
Guillaume Garih, BA, LLL, JD
Italy
Dr. Cristina Caparesi
Dr. Raffaella Di Marzio
Scandinavia
Arthur Buchman, MA
Spain and Latin America
Luis Santamaria, SThL
Erika Toren
Writing Consultants
Sharon Hamm
Robert E. Schecter, PhD
Bios of ICSA Today editors can be found at
http://icsahome.com/infoserv_respond/
by_profile.asp
International Cultic Studies Association
P.O. Box 2265 • Bonita Springs, FL 34133
Web: 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.
Dear Friends,
“No person steps into the same river twice,” said the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “for it is not the same water and you are not the
same person.”The world around us is full of change, sometimes predictable, like night to day, but often unexpected. We change,
and our institutions, since they are made up of people, also change—even those isolated, authoritarian groups often called cults.
For many years, ICSA researchers on cults and cult involvement have studied the changes people—and their relationships—
undergo as they enter and leave cults. In this issue of ICSA Today, Lorna Goldberg, in “Marriage After the Cult,” writes about the
shifting challenges faced by couples who are married within a group and then leave as a couple.
Kristen DeVoe's “On Breaking the Code of Silence” is about the importance to recovery of speaking out about sexual abuse. And
K. Gordon Neufeld's story “The Marriage of the Lamb” conveys a young woman’s hopes and fears in the moments before, during,
and after a group wedding ceremony in the Unification Church.
While it acknowledges that changes in cults are often for the worse, ICSA has consistently accepted the possibility that groups
can change for the better—a position that says much about our organization’s thoughtfulness and integrity. Lawrence Pile
describes this kind of change in his article “Back from the Brink,” about how an abusive organization (Great Commission Churches)
has reformed its practices—unusual in the world of cultic movements.
”A 30-Year Odyssey” tells the profoundly inspiring story of a woman who was raised, and who raised more than twelve children, in a
polygamous, sexually abusive fundamentalist Christian movement how she broke free of that environment and how the art she
began creating as part of her recovery helped her to find herself and build a new life.
Sincerely,
Livia Bardin, MSW
Book Review Editor
About ICSA Today
ICSA Today (IT) serves ICSA members by providing information
that enhances understanding of all aspects of the cult
phenomenon, including how groups function, how they affect
members, techniques of influence, dealing with harmful
effects, educational and legal implications, and other subjects.
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helping professionals, researchers, and others
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International Cultic Studies Association
P.O. Box 2265 • Bonita Springs, FL 34133
239.514.3081 mail@icsamail.com
icsahome.com
2
Marriage After the Cult
Lorna Goldberg
6
On Breaking the Code of
Silence
Kristen Skedgell DeVoe
8
Back From the Brink
Lawrence A. Pile
12
The Marriage of the Lamb
K. Gordon Neufeld
16
Arts: A 30-Year Odyssey
Ava Lynn Williams
24
Profile On...
Marie-Andree Pelland
25
Point of View -Q&A
26
Correspondents’ Reports
27
News Desk
ICSA_volume4Issue2_Final 8/9/13 8:31 PM Page 2

VOLUME 4 |NUMBER 2 |2013 3 2 ICSA TODAY
any authors have noted that often during the cult-
recruitment process a new cult personality is created that
overlays the recruit’s precult personality (Hassan, 1988 Lifton,
1961 Singer &Lalich, 2004 West &Martin, 1998). Along with
most other cult members, married couples are induced to
suppress their own wishes and needs for the “greater good” as the
leader defines it. After couples’ departure from the group, the
gradual unfreezing of their cult personalities and the simultaneous
recovery of suppressed aspects of their precult personalities can
lead to new conflicts within their marriage. Furthermore, even
though married former cultists might share similar postcult
difficulties, each spouse will be dealing with these difficulties in a
unique way depending on, among other factors, their respective
precult personality structures, the degree of support they receive
from others, and the influence of their individual cult experiences.
As the couples’ precult personalities emerge, the
complementariness of a marriage based on cult values can erode
as both partners begin to reestablish their characteristic and
unique ways of viewing the world. Needless to say, this dynamic
places a strain on postcult marriages. Once the need to serve the
cult is no longer paramount, some partners become aware that
they have little in common with their spouses. Divorce might
occur, and this increases the amount of stress newly single
former cult members and their families experience. However, a
large number of former cult members do remain together, even
many of those who were matched by their leaders. Sometimes
there is a bond and a mutuality that exist independent of the cult
overlay. Some couples choose to enter therapy to see whether
they can work out some of their present struggles.
While they are in the cult, members usually begin to identify with
some of their leader’s personality characteristics and attitudes.
These identifications tend to supplant previous aspects of their
character and previous identifications they have made with and in
reaction to parental figures early in life. Because cult leaders
generally are paranoid individuals, they tend to indoctrinate
members into a paranoid vision of the world (Tobias &Lalich,
1994). Leaders can display their paranoia through a tendency to
ascribe the worst possible motives to the behavior of others. When
they leave the cult, some individuals who have incorporated this
attitude may continue to see their world through a paranoid lens
because their cult leader’s influence doesn’t evaporate the minute
they leave. For most, “losing” the influence of their cult leader’s
personality can take a great deal of time. Former members might
be aware that their trusting nature prior to their cult experience
increased their vulnerability to recruitment. Additionally, during
times in which they might feel concern about the influence of
others (because they are aware of their fragile sense of identity and
of uncertainty about their own point of view), a paranoid attitude
can serve to protect them from being unduly influenced by others.
However, in marital relationships, this paranoia has the
potential of becoming destructive. When individuals who have
been in a cult begin a relationship with someone with no prior
cult involvement, the former cultists might have a tendency to
interpret their partner’s behavior suspiciously or to see negative
motives behind the partner’s behavior. When two former cultists
have a relationship, this situation can intensify.
In 2003, I wrote an article for the Cultic Studies Review titled
“Reflections on Marriage After the Cult.” In this essay, I will
highlight some concepts that I originally articulated in that article.
M
the
Marriage
C u lt A fter
By Lorna Goldberg
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