Is Your Religious Organization Free From Cultic Tendencies?
Gillie Jenkinson
Gillie Jenkinson
- Are your leaders fully accountable to a board
- Is loyalty to yourself and your family placed second to loyalty to your R/S
- Are questions and suggestions encouraged
- Does your leader/s readily admit errors
- Does your leader/s imply they have special powers or are specially chosen
- Are the practices of your R/S deemed more important than the individual members
- Would outsiders understand the language or is it cliquey
- Are you expected to dissociate yourself from all your experience gained before joining your new R/S
- Do you feel that those outside your group are less valuable than members of your R/S
- Do you view those who have left negatively
- Does your R/S see itself as the most important R/S
- Are teenagers and young people respected and loved even if they decide to leave behind their parents R/S
- Are individuals encouraged to follow their own career path rather than one expected of them
- Are pleas for money rare and unemotional
- Are you expected to live in a communal house or specific area
- Do your children enjoy participating in your R/S
- Is there a diversity of class, race, dress styles, ages and occupations in your R/S
- Do individuals express different personality types or do all the members seem to have similar personalities
- Are people allowed to come to their own conclusions about R/S issues
- Is there a single behavioural standard for all members
- Are you free from fear
- Are you allowed to leave whenever you want and still be in contact
- Is there pressure to lend money to leaders for personal or business use
- Is there pressure to have sex with others
- Are you able to say no to practices you do not agree with
- Do you comply with practices that you do not agree with
- Do you have sex with people you do not want to have sex with
- Do you feel you have lost yourself
- Are you restricted in what you are allowed to read, watch on TV etc.
- Does your leader seem both brilliant and irrational
- Are ex-members harassed, stalked and threatened
- Is being emotional treated as weakness and neediness rather than respected
- Are you encouraged to ‘drink of the spirit and don’t think’
- Is your spiritual leader the only route to God or a higher spiritual plane
- Have you become dependent when you used to be independent
- Has your self esteem and confidence reduced since joining your R/S
- Do you feel you were pressured to join your R/S initially
- Were you recruited by being ‘love bombed’
- Were you offered free services only to discover you had to pay high prices later
Score 5 or less and you are ok
Score 5-15 – there are areas you should watch out for
Score 15-25 – serious problems get help fast
Score 25+ - leave now for your own sake and encourage others to leave too
Put together by Gillie Jenkinson – www.hopevalleycounselling.com with inspiration and thanks to Larry Pile, Wellspring Retreat and Resource Centre and Rosanne Henry and Sharon Colvin, www.cultrecover.com.