Australia’s cults crisis: why more people are falling prey to insidious high-control groups
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during a psychology placement with a crisis hotline. It was the “old days” of cults, he says, when headlines were dominated by Charles Manson, Jonestown and the abduction of Patty Hearst. Closer to home, the Children of God and the Family, led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne, were also gaining notoriety.
But Aron says Australia’s cults problem is now “more real than it’s ever been”, telling a Victorian parliamentary inquiry this week that there have been several “tragic outcomes” in recent years. These include the death of eight-year-old Elizabeth Struhs in Queensland in 2022.
Elizabeth, a diabetic, died an agonising death after being denied insulin by a small conservative Christian sect known as the Saints. Fourteen members of the Saints, including Elizabeth’s parents, her brother, and the group’s leader, were found guilty of her manslaughter in January.
Aron says it’s time for “something to be done” about cults as “the situation continues to spiral” and he is not alone in his concerns. Survivors and experts painted a disturbing picture of “high-control” groups operating in Victoria over two days of hearings at the inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organised fringe groups this week.
For many people, the inquiry is “the first opportunity to speak out about their experiences with coercive high-control groups – be it reflecting on their own involvement or sharing the experiences of someone close to them”, says Ella George, a state MP and chair of the committee overseeing the inquiry.
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The committee says it is not targeting religious groups or their beliefs, but rather the methods they use to attract and retain members – and whether those practices amount to coercion that should be criminalised.
So far, the answer to this question has been anything but straightforward.
‘Simple answers to complex problems’
Aron, the director of Cult Consulting Australia, has been working with cult survivors and their family members for decades.
He told the inquiry they were receiving an increase in calls about Christian-based “fundamentalist cults”, although he is also concerned about multi-level marketing schemes and “cults of one”: therapists, healers or psychics who exert harmful control over others under the guise of helping them.
A key difference between modern cults and those of the past, Aron says, is that they’re better disguised: “They don’t look so ‘cult-y’”.
Tore Klevjer, who leads Cult Information and Family Support (CIFS), shares this view.
“It has changed over the years from the Jonestown days and the mega-cults. In some ways, cultic groups work through society and eventually become acceptable to the point where we think we’re just an organised religion, which is a danger,” Klevjer told the inquiry.
“They tend to have gotten a lot smaller and more insidious.”
Klevjer founded CIFS, which receives hundreds of requests for support a year, in 1996, a decade after he left the Children of God. He says people are turning to cults as the world grows more complex: “Cults provide simple answers to complex problems.”
The inquiry heard Covid-19 created a perfect storm of fear, uncertainty and isolation that led to a boom in cult activity.
“Cults created a sort of a safe haven for people who didn’t know what was going to happen next,” Aron says. Cults that prophesied that the world was soon coming to an end also “suddenly had some credibility” amid pandemic panic, he says.
A survey of more than 300 cult survivors, conducted by the inquiry, found most (63.4%) were drawn in through family connections, while others were approached at schools, train stations, church services, yoga classes or retreats.
“No one joins a cult – you’re recruited or join a community that turns out [to be] something more,” one respondent wrote.
The survey found 95% of respondents had suffered psychological harm while 52.4% had experienced physical harm. More than half were surveilled, financially controlled or restricted from accessing education or medical care. Nearly a third had experienced violence or sexual abuse.
‘People learn to monitor every thought’
One group repeatedly raised by witnesses was the Shincheonji church.
“We’ve never received as many inquiries as we have about any group as we have in relation to Shincheonji,” Aron told the inquiry.
Originating in South Korea, the group operates in cities across Australia, including on university campuses, which Aron described as a “fertile recruiting ground”. He claims the group used rooms at RMIT University in Melbourne to create “an air of legitimacy”.
An RMIT spokesperson told Guardian Australia the university “counsels and cautions students about unsolicited groups recruiting near campus” and that support services are available for students year-round.
Klevjer called Shincheonji “an exception” among today’s cults, as they openly and aggressively recruit students at “every Australian university in every major city”.
Content retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/23/australia-cults-crisis-people-falling-prey-control-ntwnfb.
