Hundreds turn out to better understand cult behaviour
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The word ‘cult’ needs to be less sensationalised, better understood, and spark more action, the attendees of Australasia’s first cult awareness conference heard yesterday.
Over 200 people – with 270 watching online – gathered in Christchurch for the Decult conference on Saturday, including cult survivors and experts who wanted to share their experiences and ideas, in hopes of finding solutions.
Keynote speaker Janja Lalich, an internationally renowned cult expert – who herself was a cult member in the United States in the 70s – said not every cult turned deadly, but some had, and it was worth understanding how and why people ended up in them.
Cults weren’t as “mysterious” as they seemed in documentaries, she said, nor were they only religious. She said while they were also described as high control or highly coercive groups, she thought that was just shying away from the word ‘cult’, and that word should be as well known as the word ‘gang’.
Joyce Alberts, a clinical psychologist from North Canterbury, said the speakers validated the experiences of her clients who had been involved in a cult, and reinforced her belief that more government funding was needed.
That funding needed to go towards clinicians and peer support groups who felt safe to leavers, she said. She said many cult leavers she worked with would qualify for ACC funding, but their mistrust of the government was so high they refused it.
“Their development has been so hindered by living in this [cult] community … it’s not just about Gloriavale or Centrepoint, whatever it is, when people are restricted from growing their critical thinking skills and are not fact checking … leaving is so difficult,” she said.
Other speakers and attendees who spoke to the Sunday Star-Times also referred to ‘cult hopping’, where some people who leave a high control group end up joining another in order to meet their social, spiritual or other needs.
Content retrieved from: https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360457213/hundreds-turn-out-better-understand-cult-behaviour.
