131
Lorna Goldberg |Intergenerational Transmission of Cult Trauma
cult groups as stemming from the cult’s influence that
led parents to subsume their cultural backgrounds to
the edicts of their leaders. Siskind theorizes that the
patriarchal and hierarchical way in which all the groups
she studied were structured put children at further risk.
Siskind (2001) states,
It was the parents’ willingness to subsume their
children’s interests to the ‘greater good’ that
led them to follow the directives of their
leadership even when these directives ran
counter to their natural perceptions and beliefs
regarding their children’s well-being. (p. 446)
Whitsett and Kent add,
A common observation about cults is that
leaders usually go to great lengths to destroy
dyadic bonds among members... Viewing many
high-demand cult leaders as narcissistic,
clinicians are likely to state that leaders have
insatiable needs for attention and admiration.
...Coming to similar conclusions, sociologists
emphasize the threat to group cohesion
generated by family attachments
(see Kanter, 1972, pp. 89–91, in Siskind, p. 494).
The Loosening of Cult Control
When David was four years old, and Anika was pregnant
with her second child, the family moved from the cult
facility but remained members. They immediately
experienced a sense of freedom. No one was watching
them to report on them, and they felt no longer bound
to the daily schedule and the cult’s pervasive, harsh
moral voice. They were free to decide how to live,
how they might spend their time, when and what they
would eat, and so on. Thus began a decades-long
process of leaving the cult. Over time, with the help
of therapy, Anika and her husband started to distance
themselves emotionally from the cult. Eventually, they
ended their financial support of the cult and refrained
from visiting the facility and cult community. Although
they experienced relief, they mourned the loss of their
belief system and community.
David’s behavior became aggressive, and he had
difficulty adjusting to his public-school kindergarten
environment, so his parents enrolled him in a private
school. David remembers the public-school culture
with “meaner” children. In contrast, he recalls a calmer
and more nurturing environment at the private school
with clear-cut rules, including no media, television, or
aggressive play. Today, David believes that growing boys
can be naturally aggressive, but in the cult, aggression
in children was unacceptable. At the private school,
David found comfort in a community aligned with the
cult’s moral voice, which defined right and wrong ways
to be. However, stemming from the place they had held
in the cult hierarchy, the family felt morally superior
to the school community. This belief alienated Anika,
her husband, and David from their new community,
making it harder for them to make friends, ask for help,
or express typical human vulnerabilities that permit
interpersonal connection.
During this time, Anika and her husband were having
marital issues and sought help from a therapist.
When Anika shared her account of being sexually
molested with the therapist, he challenged the leader’s
interpretation and reframed her experience as rape. As
a result, Anika understood for the first time that the
cult leader had sexually abused her. This was deeply
distressing to Anika and her husband. They felt rage,
sadness, and despair over the sexual abuse she endured
as a fifteen-year-old girl. As a result, Anika wrote a
letter to the current female cult leader stating that her
predecessor, the male cult leader, had sexually abused
her and that she was severing her relationship with
the cult. Despite a thirty-year personal relationship
between Anika and the current leader, the leader did
not respond to this letter or the letters her brother wrote
in her defense. Other victims also reported sending
letters about their sexual abuse to the current leader
and not getting a reply.
Anika experienced tremendous emotional pain
and turmoil as she struggled to understand this new
perspective on her sexual abuse she began to reevaluate
her life. To see her leader as a pedophile instead of a
perfect being required a complete paradigm shift.
Everything she had believed, put her faith in, and
trusted from age seven to her early forties was turned
on its head. Anika reminisces:
If the leader was not the perfect being I had
thought, but rather a toxic narcissist if this
person who I had loved more than any other
Lorna Goldberg |Intergenerational Transmission of Cult Trauma
cult groups as stemming from the cult’s influence that
led parents to subsume their cultural backgrounds to
the edicts of their leaders. Siskind theorizes that the
patriarchal and hierarchical way in which all the groups
she studied were structured put children at further risk.
Siskind (2001) states,
It was the parents’ willingness to subsume their
children’s interests to the ‘greater good’ that
led them to follow the directives of their
leadership even when these directives ran
counter to their natural perceptions and beliefs
regarding their children’s well-being. (p. 446)
Whitsett and Kent add,
A common observation about cults is that
leaders usually go to great lengths to destroy
dyadic bonds among members... Viewing many
high-demand cult leaders as narcissistic,
clinicians are likely to state that leaders have
insatiable needs for attention and admiration.
...Coming to similar conclusions, sociologists
emphasize the threat to group cohesion
generated by family attachments
(see Kanter, 1972, pp. 89–91, in Siskind, p. 494).
The Loosening of Cult Control
When David was four years old, and Anika was pregnant
with her second child, the family moved from the cult
facility but remained members. They immediately
experienced a sense of freedom. No one was watching
them to report on them, and they felt no longer bound
to the daily schedule and the cult’s pervasive, harsh
moral voice. They were free to decide how to live,
how they might spend their time, when and what they
would eat, and so on. Thus began a decades-long
process of leaving the cult. Over time, with the help
of therapy, Anika and her husband started to distance
themselves emotionally from the cult. Eventually, they
ended their financial support of the cult and refrained
from visiting the facility and cult community. Although
they experienced relief, they mourned the loss of their
belief system and community.
David’s behavior became aggressive, and he had
difficulty adjusting to his public-school kindergarten
environment, so his parents enrolled him in a private
school. David remembers the public-school culture
with “meaner” children. In contrast, he recalls a calmer
and more nurturing environment at the private school
with clear-cut rules, including no media, television, or
aggressive play. Today, David believes that growing boys
can be naturally aggressive, but in the cult, aggression
in children was unacceptable. At the private school,
David found comfort in a community aligned with the
cult’s moral voice, which defined right and wrong ways
to be. However, stemming from the place they had held
in the cult hierarchy, the family felt morally superior
to the school community. This belief alienated Anika,
her husband, and David from their new community,
making it harder for them to make friends, ask for help,
or express typical human vulnerabilities that permit
interpersonal connection.
During this time, Anika and her husband were having
marital issues and sought help from a therapist.
When Anika shared her account of being sexually
molested with the therapist, he challenged the leader’s
interpretation and reframed her experience as rape. As
a result, Anika understood for the first time that the
cult leader had sexually abused her. This was deeply
distressing to Anika and her husband. They felt rage,
sadness, and despair over the sexual abuse she endured
as a fifteen-year-old girl. As a result, Anika wrote a
letter to the current female cult leader stating that her
predecessor, the male cult leader, had sexually abused
her and that she was severing her relationship with
the cult. Despite a thirty-year personal relationship
between Anika and the current leader, the leader did
not respond to this letter or the letters her brother wrote
in her defense. Other victims also reported sending
letters about their sexual abuse to the current leader
and not getting a reply.
Anika experienced tremendous emotional pain
and turmoil as she struggled to understand this new
perspective on her sexual abuse she began to reevaluate
her life. To see her leader as a pedophile instead of a
perfect being required a complete paradigm shift.
Everything she had believed, put her faith in, and
trusted from age seven to her early forties was turned
on its head. Anika reminisces:
If the leader was not the perfect being I had
thought, but rather a toxic narcissist if this
person who I had loved more than any other
