Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
28 April 2011
Cults Part Two
HIGHER SOURCE
They packed their bags, dressed in black, and swallowed sleeping pills washed down with vodka.
In March 1997, the 39 women and men of the Higher Source, sometimes called the Heaven's Gate cult, took their own lives.
The California-
Their mysterious leader, Father John, had convinced them the UFO was hiding behind
the comet Hale-
As with many cults of this type, followers believe that some sort of secret wisdom has been revealed to them.
Higher Source is one of many Doomsday groups that believe the end of the world is near and that they are the only ones who will be saved from the awful Apocalypse.
There is often violence associated with these sects. A group called Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth) released nerve gas into the Tokyo subway system in 1995; 12 people died and more than 5,000 were injured.
In 1978, Rev. Jim Jones led more than 900 members of his People’s Temple in Jonestown, Guyana in a suicide pact they had rehearsed more than 40 times.
And, in 1993, about 100 members of the Branch Davidians died in a shoot-
These mass suicides are not something new that just turned up at the end of the 20th century. In 73 CE, 960 Jews took their own lives in the fortress at Masada after a long siege by the Roman army.
ORDER OF THE SOLAR TEMPLE
Members of the Solar Temple are taught that in taking their own lives they will be instantly transported to a new world called Sirius.
Between 1994 and 1999, there were four separate mass suicides, two of them in Quebec,
among Solar Temple members. The Solar Temple members have set fire to their own dwellings
and died in them. In at least one case it’s clear some members may have had last-
The group was founded by Canadian Joseph di Mambro, and he died in the first incident in 1994. This points up one element of cults that experts say is often found; the leaders of some cults may believe deeply in the message they are spreading.
SCIENTOLOGY
Lafayette Ron Hubbard (1911-
Subjects pay to be trained by counsellors to increase the power of the analytical (conscious) mind. They are also told how to subdue the influence of “engrams” (painful impressions of past experiences) that confuse the “reactive,” or unconscious, mind.
Hubbard’s work took on a religious dimension with the publication of Science of Survival (1951), which explained the religious philosophy of Scientology.
The Church of Scientology was founded in 1954, and has an estimated eight million members in more than 70 countries. It teaches that human beings are immortal spirits called “thetans” and practices a ritual known as “auditing.” The purpose of this is to free the “thetan” from past painful experiences, making possible increased spiritual awareness and abilities.
The Church of Scientology has been the subject of much controversy. Some say it is
a religion, others that it is just a commercial self-
From the 1960s, the church has faced government prosecutions as well as private lawsuits on charges of fraud, tax evasion, financial mismanagement, and conspiring to steal government documents.
THE UNIFICATION CHURCH
Reverend Sun Myung Moon (shown at right with his wife) organized the Unification
Church in 1954 in South Korea.
When he was 15 years old, Jesus Christ appeared to him in a vision, charging him with the responsibility of finishing the work in the world that Jesus had started.
The theology unites Christian and Taoist ideas and is based in Rev. Moon’s book “Divine Principle,” which teaches that the original purpose of creation was to set up a perfect family, in a perfect relationship with God.
In 1972, Rev. Moon moved to the United States and started a major recruitment drive. A decade later, he performed the first of many mass wedding ceremonies in which more than 2,000 couples were married.
In 1984, he was convicted of tax evasion in the U.S. and sent to prison for 18 months. The church claims to be active in 190 countries.
The beliefs of the Unification Church are similar to those of most conservative Protestant denominations, with a few unique twists:
- Before Adam and Eve were married, Eve had an affair with the Archangel Lucifer (the
Devil). This caused the spiritual fall of mankind. She later had a pre-
marital sexual relationship with Adam. This caused the physical fall of mankind. This illicit sexual behaviour caused them to form an imperfect family. Their sin led to Satan taking control of the world. God’s original intent was for Jesus Christ to form a perfect marriage in order to redeem humanity, and undo the harm caused by Adam and Eve. Because Jesus was executed before completing his mission, it will be up to a third Adam to form this perfect marriage and finish Jesus’s work; - Jesus was reborn in Korea between 1917 and 1930 (Rev. Moon was born in Korea in 1920). He will be recognized as the third Adam, the perfect man. He will marry the perfect woman, and they will become the “true spiritual parents of humankind.” Some members of the Unification Church regard Rev. Moon and his second (and current) wife Hak Ja Han as these perfect parents. The Unification Church has never made this claim, but it doesn’t seem to have gone out of its way to squash the notion either;
- The church links communism (the expression of Satan) with Cain and democracy (the expression of God) with Abel;
- One of the main purposes of the Unification Church is to unite all of the fragments of Christianity into a single body.
There is no evidence that the Unification Church is a destructive cult, although it has come in for plenty of negative comment.
It demands a very high level of commitment from its devotees, some of whom become completely immersed in the church. If for some reason, such a person leaves the movement they lose their entire support system and often feel cheated.
The church has been criticized for its recruitment practices and for some of its business and political activities. It has been banned in Singapore.
Image credit
Tim Lindenbaum
Sources used in this series
Religions in Canada, Directorate of Human Rights and Diversity, Government of Canada.
The Encyclopedia of World Religions, Robert S. Ellwood (ed.) Facts on File, 1998.
Religion for Dummies, Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman, For Dummies Publishing, 2002.
Religious Tolerance, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Religion, CBC Montreal
© Canada and the World, April 2011
All rights reserved
Most of the members of the Higher Source were well educated computer programmers who made a good income for the group through designing websites.
“[Scientology] is a hugely profitable global racket that
survives by
intimidating members and critics in a
Mafia-
COUNTER CULTS
What’s that about for every force there’s an equal and opposite force? That’s physics and this is religion, but the rule seems to apply.
A counter-
Some people in this counter-
- kidnapped adults and assaulted them;
- held them against their will for days;
- attempted to forcibly brainwash (the groups use the less negative term of “deprogram-
ming”) them so they will abandon the faith they have taken up; - deprived them of food and sleep in order to bring on an emotional, mental, or spiritual breakdown;
- prevented them from communicating with former cult members; and,
- charged hefty fees for their services.
Sometimes, it gets so it's difficult to tell the good guys from the bad.
Members of a group calling itself Synanon followed its leaders’ suggestion and attempted to murder a lawyer who had sued the cult by placing a rattlesnake in his mailbox.
In France, a former racing driver called Rael has a following of believers who say that humans were created in laboratories by aliens.
According to a 1997 Associated Press
report, The Garbage Eaters is a band of
people on the U.S. West Coast that
rummages through dumpsters for spiritual salvation and food.
They blame their stomach aches on Satan and scorn the materialistic world.
They are led by an ex-
Sociologist Tom Robbins once observed that if someone at a previously unknown vegetarian
community died from being squashed by a giant cabbage, tomorrow’s headline news story
-