ISSN: 2710-4028 DOI: https://doi.org/10.54208/0003 21
Synergy Between Cults and Terror Groups:
A Systematic Review of Recruitment Processes
Darin J. Challacombe1
Abstract:Previous research has shown that religious organizations are more similar to terror or violent extremist
organizations than they are dissimilar (Banisadr, 2009 Centner, 2003 Levine, 1999). Individuals who join both
usually have similar characteristics. Because contemporary researchers have focused more on terror groups than on
cults, the archival knowledge from cult survivors and years of cult research has not been adequately illuminated as a
guide for terror studies. The current literature review attempts to remedy this gap. Using the PRISMA methodology
(Moher et al., 2009), I examine the literature of religious-cult recruitment, terror-organization recruitment, and
radicalization, to illuminate the multiple confluences between them. Just as cults and terror organizations are
similar in many other aspects, they also tend to follow similar recruitment patterns. Understanding cult recruitment
can be useful to terror researchers.
Keywords: Cult recruitment terrorism recruitment radicalization
1 Author note: I have no known conflict of interest to disclose. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed
to Darin J. Challacombe, Department of Psychology, Fort Hays State University, 600 Park St., Hays, KS 67601. Phone: 785-628-
4405. Email: djchallacombe@fhsu.edu
An Indian Bhagwan (guru), Shree Rajneesh, started a
collective in the 1960s (Carus, 2000). He was known
as an intelligent, “enlightened master” who was adept
at manipulating people. Rajneesh and his followers
immigrated to the United States in 1981 after facing
growing pressure and hostility from the Indian
government. The Rajneeshees, as they were called,
settled on a plot of land mostly located in Wasco
County, Oregon.
The Rajneeshees envisioned creating a self-contained
town in Oregon, which was named Rahneeshpuram.
The relationship between the community and the
Wasco County commission became contentious, and
in early 1984, the Rajneeshees desired to take over the
commission. They internally proposed several schemes
but eventually settled on using biological agents to
make Wasco County citizens sick, to prevent them
from voting in the November election. Rajneeshee cult
members contaminated salad bars of Dalles, Oregon
restaurants that were then in the county seat with the
Salmonella Typhimurium pathogen. From the first
reported illness on September 17, 1984, until the end
of the salmonellosis outbreaks a couple months later,
public health officials identified 751 people who had
become sick. The Rajneeshee incident is the single
largest bioterrorism attack on US soil (Novak, 2016).
Around the same time in 1984, and halfway around the
world in Beirut, Lebanon, a suicide bomber killed 23
people and injured approximately 60 others in a terror
attack. Hezbollah, a Shia Islamic terror organization
with connections to Iran, claimed responsibility for
this attack. The suicide bomber drove a van with 3,000
pounds of explosives to the front of the US Embassy
annex in Beirut (Kraus, 2013). This attack followed a
deadlier one in Beirut in April of 1983, in which 63
people were killed and 120 were injured. Both attacks
underscore how a militant Islamic organization caused
terror (Kraus, 2013).
Just a few years earlier, in November of 1978, a religious
group, the People’s Temple, evolved into a cult that
followed leader Jim Jones (Challacombe, 2004). This
cult committed an act of domestic terrorism in a
remote region in Guyana, South America—not only
killing each other but also US Congressman Leo Ryan
(Lalich, 2009).
DOI: doi.org/10.54208/1000/0003/005
Synergy Between Cults and Terror Groups:
A Systematic Review of Recruitment Processes
Darin J. Challacombe1
Abstract:Previous research has shown that religious organizations are more similar to terror or violent extremist
organizations than they are dissimilar (Banisadr, 2009 Centner, 2003 Levine, 1999). Individuals who join both
usually have similar characteristics. Because contemporary researchers have focused more on terror groups than on
cults, the archival knowledge from cult survivors and years of cult research has not been adequately illuminated as a
guide for terror studies. The current literature review attempts to remedy this gap. Using the PRISMA methodology
(Moher et al., 2009), I examine the literature of religious-cult recruitment, terror-organization recruitment, and
radicalization, to illuminate the multiple confluences between them. Just as cults and terror organizations are
similar in many other aspects, they also tend to follow similar recruitment patterns. Understanding cult recruitment
can be useful to terror researchers.
Keywords: Cult recruitment terrorism recruitment radicalization
1 Author note: I have no known conflict of interest to disclose. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed
to Darin J. Challacombe, Department of Psychology, Fort Hays State University, 600 Park St., Hays, KS 67601. Phone: 785-628-
4405. Email: djchallacombe@fhsu.edu
An Indian Bhagwan (guru), Shree Rajneesh, started a
collective in the 1960s (Carus, 2000). He was known
as an intelligent, “enlightened master” who was adept
at manipulating people. Rajneesh and his followers
immigrated to the United States in 1981 after facing
growing pressure and hostility from the Indian
government. The Rajneeshees, as they were called,
settled on a plot of land mostly located in Wasco
County, Oregon.
The Rajneeshees envisioned creating a self-contained
town in Oregon, which was named Rahneeshpuram.
The relationship between the community and the
Wasco County commission became contentious, and
in early 1984, the Rajneeshees desired to take over the
commission. They internally proposed several schemes
but eventually settled on using biological agents to
make Wasco County citizens sick, to prevent them
from voting in the November election. Rajneeshee cult
members contaminated salad bars of Dalles, Oregon
restaurants that were then in the county seat with the
Salmonella Typhimurium pathogen. From the first
reported illness on September 17, 1984, until the end
of the salmonellosis outbreaks a couple months later,
public health officials identified 751 people who had
become sick. The Rajneeshee incident is the single
largest bioterrorism attack on US soil (Novak, 2016).
Around the same time in 1984, and halfway around the
world in Beirut, Lebanon, a suicide bomber killed 23
people and injured approximately 60 others in a terror
attack. Hezbollah, a Shia Islamic terror organization
with connections to Iran, claimed responsibility for
this attack. The suicide bomber drove a van with 3,000
pounds of explosives to the front of the US Embassy
annex in Beirut (Kraus, 2013). This attack followed a
deadlier one in Beirut in April of 1983, in which 63
people were killed and 120 were injured. Both attacks
underscore how a militant Islamic organization caused
terror (Kraus, 2013).
Just a few years earlier, in November of 1978, a religious
group, the People’s Temple, evolved into a cult that
followed leader Jim Jones (Challacombe, 2004). This
cult committed an act of domestic terrorism in a
remote region in Guyana, South America—not only
killing each other but also US Congressman Leo Ryan
(Lalich, 2009).
DOI: doi.org/10.54208/1000/0003/005
