“Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”
Introduction
In our daily discourse, the word “cult” is often used, seldom defined, and never fully comprehended. Understandably, there is no universally accepted objective definition of the term “cult.” It is no wonder that researcher James T. Richardson, after critically examining various definitions, concluded that scholars should avoid the term because of its confused and negatively connoted meaning [Reference Richardson1]. Yet given the frequency with which the word “cult” shows up in public forums, from acts of terrorism to mass suicide, the term deserves a closer scrutiny. However, unlike in physical sciences, social manifestations are better understood by describing their essential components than by aiming for any one impervious definition.
Joseph Campbell [Reference Campbell2], the noted scholar of comparative religion, famously quipped, “mythology is what we call other people’s religion” [3]. Like mythology, “cult” is a pejorative term. We do not use it to describe the world’s major religious faiths, nor do the members of a movement identify their group as a cult. Hence, the term is loaded with subjective biases. These biases, however, are not unique to the subject matter of this study; they embed most epithets – such as terrorism, fundamentalism, hypernationalism, far-right or far-left movements, and so on. – that freely enter public conversations. Therefore, while we may not be able to define a cult, we can tease out the core elements of what the term implies. These are as follows:
A cult refers to a physical group, not a single individual actor. Thus, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth or the bombing attacks by the solitary Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, are not classified as products of a cult, even though these perpetrators might have shared a widespread ideology. This distinction is vital since cult behavior straddles the liminal space between social psychology and psychiatry.
The second attribute of a cult is the relative size of its membership. Usually, we think of a cult as a small group. Yet, this attribute can be extremely fluid. If we measure size by the number of victims of their violent paths, we can see that the number of victims of mass murder-suicide of Jim Jones’ devotees in 1978 was approximately 1,000 [Reference Scheeres4] while the 1987 Tokyo subway attack by Aum Shinrikyo was 27 [Reference Lifton5]. Alternately, measuring by the number of adherents, the group International Krishna Consciousness (commonly known as Hare Krishna) which currently claims over a million followers worldwide, may qualify [Reference Kotela6].
Although the extent may vary, cults control every aspect of their members’ lives and demand submission to their dogma with unwavering fealty [Reference Davis7]. As a result, the members often isolate themselves from the outside world and even sever relationships with their immediate families and friends.
A cult’s religious or political beliefs must be seen as outside the pale of the society at large. For instance, due to Mormonism’s adherence to polygamy and other heterodox practices, in its early days, many branded it as a cult despite its widespread following [Reference Duffy8].
Cults, even the atheistic ones, such Heaven’s Gate, often derive their belief system by drawing from some established religious faith. The religious foundation provides the leaders and their teachings an aura of divine ordination and incommutability. Therefore, most of those groups that we readily recognize as cult draw from religious imageries to forge group cohesion [Reference Gupta9].
While most cults define their identity through a stark distinction between “us” and “them,” some embrace violence while others do not. Depending on the group’s ideology, violence may be directed at the “outsiders” and/or its own members, who might be wavering or trying to defect. As all groups impose strict rules for their members, they impose costs for defection, which may vary from excommunication to physical punishment and even death.
Finally, and perhaps, most importantly, cult groups are created and led by charismatic leaders, who exert total control on their followers. Drawing from Max Weber’s classic study of charismatic leadership [Reference Weber10], a burgeoning literature has focused on the role of leaders and followers [Reference Post11]. Weber argued that leadership rises out of three sources: traditional, legal, and charismatic personalities of the leaders. The traditional leadership is based on long traditions, which varies from the papal tradition in Catholicism, the Mullah tradition of the Shi’as, to the Lamas in Tibetan Buddhism. The law-based leadership is what we see in modern democratic nations, where leaders are elected or nominated according to well-established and recognized process. The third type, charismatic leadership, is typical of cults and other small subnational groups. Based on the extensive literature on social psychology, we can begin to understand the role group formation plays in human society and the impact it has on individual behavior [Reference Kahneman and Tversky12].
Group Dynamics in Cults
Unlike the animal world, where group formation is based on genetic proximity, human groups are imaginary [Reference Anderson13]. All groups based on nationalism, religious affiliation, ethnicity, linguistics, etc., are founded on mental constructs and exert powerful forces in directing individual actions.
New technologies in brain imaging have allowed neuroscientists to assess the tendency toward and reinforcement of social group formation and identification. The resulting research demonstrates that when we form a group, an essential aspect of our evolutionary path [Reference Atran14], our brains reward us by the secretion of pleasure hormones, such as oxytocin [Reference Sapolsky15]. These findings help social scientists in understanding human proclivities for group formation in pursuit of some utopian vision. Their insight can be profitably used to understand dysfunctional behaviors from cult violence to genocide and terrorism [Reference Gupta9, Reference Gupta16, Reference Sapolsky17].
The manifestation of our need to form groups is seen in the creation of leaders and followers. However, at a micro level, we need to understand the motivations and characteristics of the leaders and followers.
Charismatic Leadership
The question of charismatic leadership begs the question whether these leaders possess certain unique characteristics. There is no record of any (reliable and valid) psychiatric interview using currently acceptable diagnostic measures (International Classification of Diseases [ICD] or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM]) on any Eastern religious cult leader. We do have actual evidence from some notorious cult leaders, such as Charles Manson [18]. Beside those, despite the American Psychiatric Association’s Goldwater Rule that prohibits drawing conclusions about states of mind of subjects without proper authorization, there are plenty of analyses based on secondhand information about leaders such as Hitler and other dictators and autocrats [Reference Post11].
Case Vignettes: The Assassins, Thugs, Aum Shinrikyo, and Rajneesh Movement
Four case studies follow; they are from the family of “Eastern religious cults” to represent separate geographic areas:
For the Assassins, Aum Shinrikyo, and the Rajneesh movement, we will study the group and offer a macroanalytic perspective. For the Thugs, we can offer both a macro perspective and a more detailed individual-based analysis, from a personal micro perspective (one of us was the court-appointed forensic psychiatrist ordered to evaluate a “Thug,” who admitted criminal behavior (murder) but asserted a Thug-like defense (“God told me to kill!”). Moreover, the modern English language has two words – assassin and thug – whose origins derive from these Eastern religious cults.
The Assassins
The original meaning of the word “assassin” is somewhat innocent: the Arabic word hashashin refers to a consumer of hash (opium), but in the modern Western imagination, an assassin is not an innocent hedonist using narcotics, but a reviled political murderer [Reference Lewis19].
The Assassins cult was born in the Middle East in the twelfth century, a time of great political turmoil. Christians were fighting Muslims in the Crusades, and Muslim sects were fighting each other (i.e., Sunnis vs. Shi’as), and the Shi’as further divided into competing sects, one of which became the Nizaris. The founder of the Assassins was a Nizari named Hasan Sabah who was born in Iran and whose childhood friends included the poet Omar Khayyam and the politician Nizam ul-Mulk, who he later had assassinated [Reference Lewis19]. When Sabah died, his cult of the Assassins had 70,000 followers willing to die for their cause [Reference Lewis19]. It is remarkable that he created such a powerful cult, but it is unclear how he did it.
The cult left few written records, so scholars are dependent on the writings of a later (fifteenth-century) Egyptian historian, Makkisi, who, being a rival Sunni, may have presented the Nizari Assassins in an unsympathetic light [Reference Lewis19].
The Assassins recruited members and offered an alternative view of religious truth. Whereas Judaism and Islam emphasized orthopraxy (correct behavior) and Christianity emphasized orthodoxy (correct faith) as a pathway to paradise, the Assassins taught that correct knowledge was the path to salvation [Reference Lewis19].
Traditional Islam believed in the absolute truth of the Quran (scripture) and of the ethics derived therefrom. In contrast, the Assassins taught there was no absolute truth, and that all ethics was situational, so all rules could be rejected or reinterpreted, obviously to coincide with the ulterior motives of the Assassin leadership, which were usually political [Reference Lewis19]. Therefore, cult members routinely carried out political assassinations, which led them to be a significant source of fear throughout the Middle East.
The adherents exhibited extraordinary levels of courage, willingly, brazenly, and unflinchingly seeking “martyrdom,” because they believed that death would give them a greater reward in the paradise they had briefly tasted through the tricks of the Assassins’ leadership. The cult began to decline with the death of its founder Hasan Sabah in 1124 and died out when the Mongols attacked and destroyed Baghdad in 1258 [Reference Lewis19].
The Thugs
“A Thug rides his horse! Wears his dagger! And shows a front. Thieving? Never! Never! If a banker’s treasures were before me and entrusted to my care, though in hunger and dying, I would scorn to steal. But let a banker go on a journey, and I would certainly murder him. Dacoits and robbers are contemptible. I despise a dacoit. Let him come before me!”
The English word, “thug,” meaning a violent, aggressive criminal person, has its origin in an Eastern religious cult. “Thugee” is a Sanskrit word for “deceptive concealment,” and the Thugs were a religious movement who worshipped the Hindu goddess Kali, the goddess of death. The Thugs killed victims by strangulation and then robbed them. Although cult members worshipped a Hindu goddess, the cult included both Hindu and Muslim members, suggesting the cult had powers of social cohesion [Reference Dash20].
Historically, the first recorded mention of the cult is in 1356 in an account by historian Ziya ud Din Barani, and the cult died out by the nineteenth century. The Guinness Book of World Records reports that the Thugs were responsible for about two million deaths [21], so the quantum of harm was enormous.
The success of the cult required deception, social cooperation (cult members worked not as individuals but in teams), and specialization (each cult member was trained in a specific task). While senior or strong cult members committed the murders, a variety of tasks were assigned to junior or weaker cult members; for example, the elderly or infirm, who may have appeared as less threatening, worked as guides or spies [Reference Dash20]. They had an honor code mandating that they were not to kill Brahmins because they were considered too pure; not to kill women because they were incarnations of Kali; and not to kill the sick because they would be an unworthy sacrifice [Reference Dash20].
Theological explanations for killing approved targets included the motivation to appease God with human sacrifice. Some Western readers may express shock at this barbaric practice, but in the Abrahamic religions God also demands the Prophet Abraham to carry out a human sacrifice of his own son, though he changes his mind later. In Christianity, a human sacrifice achieves salvation for all of humanity through divine intervention. The Thug theology is not that dissimilar.
Unlike many cults that have a rigid structure, the Thugs appear to have had no formal membership, no leader, no written records, and no recruitment drives. The Thugs members were recruited through family initiation, that is, fathers recruited sons, ensuring secrecy and loyalty [Reference Dash20]. There was no rigid orthodoxy requiring a correct belief, but there was a devotion to one particular god (or Goddess Kali), and a moral decision to engage in a certain lifestyle characterized by murder and robbery. Although their acts violated the Law of the Land, the Thugs saw their actions as honorable and religiously motivated, appeasing a god for the greater good.
One of the authors of this chapter (Ansar Haroun, MD) served as the court-appointed forensic psychiatrist to examine the mental state of a man who, though not formally professing membership in an Eastern cult by name, believed in such an Eastern cult’s ideology.
In 1998, Matthew Cecchi, an innocent nine-year-old boy, was found murdered in San Diego, California. The police suspected, but ruled out, the obvious motives (sexual molestation by a pedophile, robbery, murderous rage). Soon, the police caught the killer, 20-year-old Brandon Wilson, who said that “God told me to kill” [Reference Morris and Haroun22].
The evidence against him was overwhelming, and he could not deny the behavioral guilt. However, he denied moral guilt, informing the police that he had indeed committed the killing, but only because God ordered him to do so. This assertion was met with disbelief, scorn, astonishment, and obviously invited a psychiatric evaluation. The defendant was evaluated by several psychiatrists, both for the defense and for the prosecution, and also for the (neutral) court. All the mental health experts noted his defense, which consisted of “God told me to kill” [Reference Morris and Haroun22].
Some opined that this represented a genuine psychotic disorder characterized by a religious delusion, while others speculated that the defendant was malingering and pretending to have such a delusion in order to succeed in a mental health defense. No one considered the possibility that the defendant was a pious Thug, who had actually received, as he claimed, an order from God to kill. Although the court accepted that the defendant suffered from a psychosis at the time of the act, the psychosis was not a “settled” one, so any insanity defense had to be rejected, and the only question was one of behavioral guilt as opposed to moral guilt. The defendant admitted to his behavioral guilt and received the death sentence. While on death row, in 2011 he committed suicide by hanging himself, which is symbolically similar to the strangulation method of the Thugs. The November 17 date of his suicide is psychologically significant, as November 14 signifies the murder anniversary.
The evaluation of the killer’s mental state raises many questions pertaining to issues of competency, sanity, mens rea, dangerousness, and possibility of rehabilitation, as well as other questions from philosophy and theology. Because the case was so high profile, it was discussed and rediscussed at many clinical, forensic, and scholarly meetings. The majority opinion was that the defendant indeed suffered from a mental disorder of a psychotic type, based on his religious delusion, namely the false belief that God had told him to kill.
Forensic psychiatrist Haroun proposed a minority/dissenting opinion, namely the possibility that there was no mental disorder and that his claim (i.e., God told him to kill) was not a false belief qualifying for a religious delusion; rather, it was a genuine belief.
Many Americans who subscribe to Jewish, Christian, or Muslim beliefs believe that God does order some to kill, as in Genesis 22 where God orders Abraham to kill his son. Also, many in South Asia believe that God does mandate orders to kill as in the example of the Goddess Kali giving such orders to her Thugs. Few would suggest that such pious Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Hindus are mentally ill.
This case fascinates legal and psychiatric scholars for many reasons, including the awareness of bias in psychiatric evaluations. All the psychiatric experts testified that the defendant’s belief that God told him to kill was false and not based on any verification from God. On the contrary, the psychiatric experts based their assessments on their Eurocentric biases that convey the belief that God is a benevolent kind-hearted being who could not possibly mandate such a crime, despite the evidence that Kali does give such instructions – both to her Western followers of Abraham, and to her Eastern followers of Kali.
As the American population becomes more diverse, American psychiatry will have to accommodate more diverse images of God to replace the current warm kind-hearted being that is popular among American religious liberals, perhaps with deities from cults.
Aum Shinrikyo
Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo cult (often called “Aum”) has operated with two principal elements: a) it promotes the concept of establishing a “utopia” and b) it is extremely dangerous, violent, and destructive.
Aum Shinrikyo is a cult that promotes violence for the purpose of creating a utopia, that is, a perfect society based on its ideology, beliefs, and social system. Most cults are not outwardly violent, but Aum Shinrikyo, which combines the Sanskrit word “Aum” with the Japanese for “Supreme Truth,” is homicidal and extremely destructive. On March 20, 1995, Aum Shinrikyo operatives carried out a deadly Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. The attack killed 13 and injured nearly 6,000, a number of whom were paralyzed or blinded [23]. Sarin is a highly toxic and lethal military-grade nerve agent that the Nazis invented [23]. Aum Shinrikyo members also attempted to carry out cyanide attacks afterward but were unsuccessful, and after these attacks the group fled and went into hiding. The group’s charismatic leader, Chizuo Matsumoto – also known as Shoko Asahara – who claimed to be an incarnation of both Buddha and Jesus Christ, also went into hiding until police found and arrested him [23].
Aum Shinrikyo has achieved global attraction and loyalty with tens of thousands of followers worldwide [23]. Aum’s leader, Shoko Asahara, created the Aum ideology based on an amalgam of Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist principles. Later, he also injected aspects of Christian dogma, particularly messianic and apocalyptic beliefs that integrated well with Asahara’s expertise in pharmacology. Asahara claimed to be the creator of yoga and described himself as “God-like” [Reference O’Connor24]. He loved science fiction and comic books. Asahara had the penchant to use toxic agents to facilitate and accelerate the coming apocalypse that he prophesized based on his obsession with Nostradamus, who predicted that the world would end in 1999 and a “savior” would come from the East [25]. Aum’s schemes for mass killings would fulfill the ideology’s concept of a postapocalyptic utopia based on Asahara’s vision and teachings [25].
Initially, Aum Shinrikyo presented itself as harmless, using animation to depict Asahara and his followers posing in highly spiritual movements and yoga positions [25]. Asahara gained global fame as a religious figure, even posing for a picture with the Dalai Lama. Aum’s main message condemned the world’s obsession with materialism and lack of spirituality. The group’s message went as far as to convey that one must focus on the spiritual or go to hell.
As in all cults, Aum devotees had to sever all ties and give up everything. They had to transfer all worldly belongings and assets to the organization and undergo rigorous initiations that tested their loyalty. Devotees also had to prove their spiritual bonds with Asahara through unbearable physical “training,” such as hanging upside down, submerging in very hot water, or staying in an underground box for six days [25]. When some of them died from such physically taxing “training,” the group’s henchmen secretly cremated the bodies and discarded the ashes [Reference O’Connor24]. Often, the devotees wore electrically wired headgear that claimed to share brainwaves with Asahara. The Aum leader was worshipped as a divinity, who many believed could levitate, and no one was allowed to question him or the group’s beliefs and practices. The consequences would be severe.
The Aum Shinrikyo ideology began to form in the 1980s, but it solidified in 1990 when the group decided to present candidates for election into the Japanese parliament, called the Diet. Upon all Aum representatives getting rejected and ridiculed, the group turned to violence and focused singularly on the apocalyptic aspect of the ideology. Hence, Aum Shinrikyo came to be known as a doomsday cult, mixing its theology with violent acts of revenge and destruction.
Shoko Asahara prophesized that the world will precipitate into the next world war, after which only Aum members will emerge as the survivors [Reference O’Connor24]. Asahara promoted the idea of a “pure” utopia in the future with life having more meaning as everyone will be Aum followers after World War III, and the Aum ideology will provide the best model for this postwar utopia. Oddly, for the utopia to be realized, everyone outside the cult must be killed in order to be reborn. According to Asahara, “[t]he world and everyone in it could be saved if only they were first destroyed” [Reference O’Connor24].
Based on this ideology and the insult of rejection from the parliamentary election, Aum Shinrikyo began to stockpile toxins like sarin, firearms, and even biological weapons. The group embraced a strategy of violence and destruction, which encompassed murder, kidnapping, and the use of chemical and biological agents as weapons against civilians. The March 20, 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway became Aum Shinrikyo’s most notorious act of mass violence.
In the lead-up to the subway attack, Aum Shinrikyo murdered and attacked numerous targets both within its organization, such as whistleblowers, as well as in society and public figures like judges and journalists [Reference Pollack26]. In 1989, Asahara dispatched operatives to drug and murder an anti-Aum lawyer, Tsutsumi Sakamoto, along with his wife and infant son. Sakamoto was helping Aum members who wished to leave the cult. According to The New York Times (September 7, 1995), “acting on Mr. Asahara’s orders, [the men] broke into the Sakamotos’ apartment in Yokohama at about 3 a.m. on November 1989, and killed the family by injecting them with a drug, hitting them with a hammer and strangling them” [Reference Pollack26]. The operatives then discarded the victims’ body parts in various forested and mountainous areas of the city, not to be discovered until September 1995 [27].
In addition, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (June 1, 2001):
While expanding its influence in Japan, Aum also set up branch offices overseas in the United States, Germany and Sri Lanka. In Russia, it is said that over 30,000 people joined the cult. Aum secretly plotted to buy arms and drugs and sent its members for training in shooting. Aum also opened affiliated business firms in Sri Lanka and Taiwan. In Australia, the cult purchased a farm, manufactured chemicals, and tested the chemicals on sheep.
Moreover, “[i]n a trial run, the cult successfully sprayed Sarin gas in Matsumoto, and so a chemical plant for Sarin production was started in the autumn of 1994. The cult also succeeded in synthesizing a VX-agent” [27]. The gas attack in Matsumoto resulted in nearly 300 people checking into the hospital’s emergency room with similar symptoms after exposure to the nerve toxins, and the following day numerous animal carcasses were found in the attack area.
Separately, a land purchase legal dispute led to another sarin attack that killed seven people and injured three of the judges involved in the case [Reference O’Connor24]. Aum also targeted journalist Shoko Egawa with toxic gas because she reported on the cult’s crimes, but she survived. The legal cases and journalists’ negative reports against Aum provide fodder for Asahara to claim that there is a conspiracy against the group. This further fuels the cult’s paranoia.
Despite these violent crimes, Japanese police were reluctant to scrutinize and investigate Aum Shinrikyo due to the sensitivities relating to the post–World War II constitution that granted religious freedoms and rights, which were denied prior to the world war eras. The postwar Japanese constitution’s legal framework for religious freedoms was deemed untouchable. Undoubtedly, the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway was the last straw. Public anger pressed on the police to act against the violent cult.
In March 1995, five Aum operatives boarded five different Tokyo subway trains. Each man carried umbrellas and plastic bags containing sarin. The men pierced the plastic bags with the sharpened tips of their umbrellas releasing the sarin gaseous vapors and fled. Thirteen passengers died and thousands were injured. A number of victims became blind and paralyzed. Most victims choked and suffocated from the toxic fumes, which linger as long-term effects in survivors. Fortunately, the particular chemical synthesis of the toxin that the Aum operatives used in the Tokyo attack was not conducive to the most lethal sarin components. The chemistry of the sarin was far from perfect, but it still resulted in numerous deaths. Had the toxin’s chemistry been perfected, the death count would have been catastrophic.
Aum’s goals for this attack included overthrowing the Japanese government and triggering World War III. The sarin gas attacks were also a form of revenge for the rejection and ridicule of the cult from the public during the parliamentary elections. Asahara decried that “[t]he world has rejected the truth!” [Reference O’Connor24]. These attacks shook Japan to the core, unleashing a national security crisis that the country had not experienced since World War II. Aum Shinrikyo’s murderous campaign was actually the nail in the cult’s own coffin.
Following the subway attacks, the cult went underground. The authorities finally arrested Asahara on May 16, 1995, and his court trials lasted years due to questions about his sanity and mental stability, which, according to many observers, the blind cult leader deliberately acted out. Ultimately, in July 2018 Asahara and six of his henchmen were executed by hanging in Japan.
The remnants of Aum Shinrikyo have constituted the lower-level adherents who were seemingly nonviolent and claimed they had no knowledge of the violent crimes that the higher echelons of the cult committed at Asahara’s command. In 2007, Fumihiro Joyu claimed to be Asahara’s successor, and he formed a new organization called Hikari no Wa, which means “Circle of Rainbow Light” [23]. Although the new religious organization is now considered legal in Japan, it continues to be viewed as potentially dangerous and is constantly under surveillance [Reference Cutler28].
These Eastern religious cults (Assassins, Thugs, and Aum Shinrikyo) were born and bred in the East and are obviously “Eastern.” The psychological profiles of their cult leaders and their followers require a degree of knowledge and sensitivity to Eastern psychologies. But what about a cult that has an Eastern leader with a Western following? Is the applicable psychology Eastern or Western? That cult is Rajneesh.
Rajneesh
The Rajneesh cult, later known as Osho, is named after the founder of the Rajneesh movement, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who first started the movement in his country of origin, India. Eventually, the Rajneesh movement gained a popular following in the West, since Rajneesh set up his New Age Utopia settlement in Oregon.
The Rajneesh cult broke ground in acquiring Western devotees and also operating in the West, though it originated in the East. This begs additional questions about the Eastern–Western dynamics pertaining to cults and their leaders. Some scholars suggest that Western followers may view Eastern leaders in an unrealistic light. Edward Said, who coined the term “Orientalism,” argues that the Orient (i.e., the East) is viewed in the Western imagination not as it actually is, but rather as false stereotypes emphasizing grotesque aspects of life, which are not necessarily Eastern [Reference Said29]. Examples include lewd sex, white slavery, imperial decadence, exotic harems, and hashish. Such themes are indeed apparent in the New Age Utopia in Oregon, where there were suspicions of such practices.
Amartya Sen, the Eastern-born, Western-educated Nobel Prize of Economics laureate also notes the Western caricatures of the East, namely that while the East may have produced gurus, mystics, saddhus, fakirs, and polytheists in abundance, there is a lack of cold, rational, logical nontheists. Sen points out that the reality is that some of the oldest nontheist schools of religious thought have originated in the East, for example the Carvaka, who actually made fun of and mocked the gurus, mystics, saddhus, and the like [Reference Herbjørnsrud30].
The Characteristics of Cult Leaders
This part of the chapter addresses psychiatric analyses pertaining to the characteristics of cult leaders. In doing so, the following key questions need to be addressed:
Do cult leaders suffer from any DSM psychiatric disorders?
If not, do they have a psychiatric profile – no disorder, but traits?
If not, do they have a developmental history with risk factors which may increase risk?
There is no record of any reliable and valid psychiatric interview using currently acceptable diagnostic measures (ICD or DSM) on any Eastern religious cult leader. The majority of such cult leaders lived before modern times. Therefore, modern diagnostic measures were not available. Even if such a cult leader lived today, the American Psychiatric Association’s Goldwater Rule prohibits its members from offering psychological opinions about individuals like cult leaders who the psychiatrist has not personally examined. As a result, we have no opinion about the presence or absence of a DSM psychiatric disorder in such cult leaders.
However, there is rich literature on the psychological profiles of leaders, which may or may not be applicable to our subgroup of leaders (i.e., leaders of Eastern religious cults). While leadership in the West may be analyzed from many perspectives, both good (e.g., courage) and bad (e.g., ruthlessness), and neutral (e.g., the propensity for risk-taking), leaders of religious cults are commonly viewed rightly or wrongly as having extreme characteristics around:
content of belief – the cult belief is surely “false”
degree of belief – cult followers believe “fanatically”
deviance of belief – cult followers are certainly weird and most likely dangerous
Leaders of religious cults are thus not viewed favorably, but if the cult is an Eastern religious cult, it carries the added burden of being strange, alien, and foreboding. For most Eastern religious cults, the paucity of information about them precludes scholars from intelligently commenting on the cult leaders. However, in the case of the Assassins, there is some information, albeit biased, but nevertheless available.
The Assassins’ leader was born in a time and place of great turmoil, probably raised in an environment of great anxiety wherein survival required keen skills. The fact that he not only survived but flourished suggests he had (either by nature or by nurture) those survival skills, which probably included cunning, the capacity for deceit, good social skills, and the ability to negotiate with different classes, religions, and ideologies. The fact that his childhood friends included a world-famous poet, Omar Khayyam, and a successful politician, Nizam ul-Mulk, suggests that he had an elite education in the company of other elites with plenty of brain stimulation.
Also, the fact that he was born in one culture that is Farsi-speaking Iran but trained in another culture that is Arabic-speaking Cairo suggests that his developing brain had access to two of the then world’s most sophisticated civilizations. Thus, he was cosmopolitan, broadly educated, a man of the world, and well equipped to negotiate different ideologies and viewpoints all to his advantage.
The fact that he had his childhood friend (Nizam ul-Mulk) killed over a grudge suggests a cold-heartedness, a lack of empathy, or a lack of virtue (mercy). If it is the former (lack of empathy), then he may have had a psychopathic personality, which is a no-fault condition. The condition is regrettable but not blameworthy. If it is the latter (lack of mercy), then he may have lacked virtue, which is a fault condition and worthy of blame.
The Assassins’ leader’s ploy of tricking recruits into thinking they were in paradise by surrounding them with the sensuous pleasures of drugs and sex requires a creative imagination and extraordinary planning, which suggests that he had both creative skills and executive functioning skills. The fact that membership in his Assassins cult required not only obedience, but blind, unquestioning obedience, suggests that this gradient of power expressed through behavioral submission is central to the cult follower–leader relationship and further connotes a psychopathic leadership style where the social bond between leader and follower is based not on love, respect, admiration, or need but rather on cold fear.
If we compare and contrast the broad group (i.e., all leaders) with a narrow group of leaders of Eastern religious cults, then the question begging is: What are the similarities and differences? Are the similarities/differences:
an accident of nature (vs. nurture), suggesting randomness
a feature of nurture (Eastern parenting styles?)
a feature of society (does the East encourage cults?)
Although these are worthy questions, so far, there have been few answers from social science research. There may be answers from folk psychology or folk wisdom.
In the last generation, the West has witnessed a demographic revolution. In previous generations, Western parenting was practiced in the geographical West, while Eastern parenting was practiced mostly in the geographical East. In the last generation, migration patterns have changed, and there is now a large population of “Eastern” parents living in the West, allowing the comparison of Eastern parenting styles, in the same space (the West), with the same stresses (those common to the West).
The conventional approach of Western parenting supports an “authoritative” parenting style. However, recent research suggests that Eastern diaspora populations (i.e., Indians from South Asia and others from East Asia) are demonstrating great academic success but with a style of parenting that is not authoritative but rather authoritarian [Reference Huang and Gove31]. Thus, apparently the despised authoritarian parenting style is associated with academic success but not necessarily with good emotional health in the context of Eastern populations in Western demographics. If this is true, it may be that “Eastern” leaders, including politicians and cult leaders, are more likely to be the products of one parenting style (authoritarian) rather than the expected – at least in Eurocentric eyes – authoritative. The current political leadership in India is certainly influenced by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which, to its enemies, is considered a political cult which demonstrates an authoritarian style of leadership. Would such findings apply to Eastern religious cult leadership? That question needs to be addressed.
Leaders of Eastern religious cults differ from their Western counterparts in the quality of their followers’ religious traditions. All religions differ in detail, but there are some broad differences between the Eastern and Western religions, which may require difference in leadership style. The Western mind, which is influenced by Abrahamic thinking, views the leader (i.e., the Abrahamic God) as having both power and agency to give. As a giver, He may (or may not) give the supplicant things such as rewards, money, gifts, victory in war, forgiveness of sins, salvation, and paradise.
In contrast, the Eastern mind, which is influenced by dharmic thinking, views the leader or guru not as a giver but as a guide. Salvation requires not the supplication of a savior-god but the understanding of karma. If you acquire bad karma, begging or praying for forgiveness will not help, but revised actions may result in a revised karma and a better outcome. Therefore, there is a greater willingness in the Eastern mind to accept guidance from a leader who is a guru, or a guide, and there is no requirement for He/She to demonstrate supernatural qualities (e.g., perform miracles) [Reference Malhotra32]. Since the guru (Eastern religious leader) is a guide, like a psychotherapist, the bar remains low, and there are numerous gurus, the majority of who do not claim supernatural powers.
In contrast, Western religious leaders claim to talk to supernatural powers. In fact, even secular Western leaders supposedly interact with Western gods who apparently command them to invade preferably non-Western lands, as in the case of US President George W. Bush’s claim that his god told him to invade Iraq, not for the oil, but to end the tyranny.
It is rare for an American psychiatrist to have access to the mental state of a practicing member of an Eastern religious cult. However, there is a recent report of the last psychological evaluation of cult leader Charles Manson [Reference Roy, Mihura, Friedman, Nichols and Meloy33]. Manson was the leader of a Western religious cult but was available for psychiatric evaluation since he was incarcerated in a California prison where he was serving a life sentence after his death penalty was invalidated in 1972. Manson had his psychiatric evaluation in 1997 when he was first admitted to Pelican Bay State Prison in California, but the results were not made public until his death in 2017.
The recently published findings suggest that Manson’s symptoms were consistent with a bipolar illness in contrast to earlier findings that emphasized his psychopathy. This is psychiatrically significant because bipolar disorder is very treatable while psychopathy is not.
While there is a report of a psychiatric evaluation of a Western cult leader (the report on Manson, as discussed), there are no comparable rigorous reports on the psychology of any Eastern cult leader. However, the case of Aum Shinrikyo illustrates the fundamental criteria and characteristics of an Eastern cult and leader, along with a few distinctions, including the following:
Aum was a violent and destructive cult
Like all cults, Aum engaged in mind control and violence
Shoko Asahara was characterized by aggressive narcissism and psychopathy
Asahara proclaimed himself as divine
Asahara strategically combined other religious beliefs to create his cult
Aum stockpiled weapons
Aum was an apocalyptic and utopic cult, which is a common trend among cults
Asahara combined religion and science (pharmacology)
A notable difference is Asahara’s demise: He was not suicidal; he was arrested, tried, and executed
According to Peter Olsson’s book, Malignant Pied Pipers (2017), the conventional characteristics and techniques of a cult and its leader include the following [Reference Olsson34], which clearly align with Aum Shinrikyo and Shoko Asahara:
use of intense fear
charisma
intimidation
power and malevolence
extreme idealism
erasing one’s autonomy
weakness in character is sought in followers – “less individuated people”
father/parental figure
narcissism
symbiotic relationship between the cult leader and their followers
control through thought reform
radical personality changes
embrace black-and-white thinking without question
In addition, Olsson posits that those seeking to join a cult are searching for “easy answers to the meaning of life – an addictive affiliation with stimulation, excitement, and grandiose action” [Reference Olsson34, p. 5]. Moreover, quoting Otto Kernberg, he describes the four elements of malignant narcissism [Reference Olsson34], which is wholly consistent with Asahara’s personality with the exception of suicidal behavior:
paranoid regressive tendencies with “paranoid micro-psychotic episodes” (i.e., narcissistic rage)
chronic self-destructiveness and/or suicidal behavior
major and minor dishonesty (i.e., psychopathy)
malignant grandiosity “with overt sadistic efforts to triumph over all authority”
Specifically pertaining to Asahara, Olsson explains that, like many cult leaders, he exercised mind control over his devotees; he presented himself as “divine” but, in reality, he was a charlatan promoting a “pseudo-theology”; he exhibited traits of a criminal psychopath; he preached apocalyptic scenarios; he conveyed a “sinister charisma”; and he employed “treacherous techniques of power and control” [Reference Olsson34, p. 78].
Overall, Asahara miscalculated that the Tokyo subway gas attacks would translate to the public that the United States and the West were invading Japan [Reference Olsson34], hence triggering World War III and the apocalypse. In the end, Japan learned an important lesson about considering attacking a “new religion” as taboo, when, in fact, it turned out to be an extremely dangerous, violent, destructive, and homicidal cult.
The most suitable summary of this case is embodied in the words of Max Cutler in the introduction of his book entitled Cults (2022): Cults and their leaders manifest
the strange and often deadly symbiosis of belief and charisma and perversity. [These cult figures] may have left trails of bodies in their wakes, but that could never happen without the misguided devotion of their acolytes – their eagerness to step beyond the rules of ordinary life and even the boundaries of common sense. The larger-than-life dominators who seized control of their small but highly profitable bands of believers were gifted at gaining confidence and misdirecting it, but their devotees were willful and energetic in the execution of their faith. It was the cult leaders who lit the fire, and the people trapped within their grip who tragically acted as the fuel.
The Characteristics of Cult Followers
To examine the cult followers we employ psychiatric analyses with specific criteria and questions. For example:
Do cult followers suffer from any DSM psychiatric disorders?
If not, do they have a psychiatric profile (no disorder, but traits)?
If not, do they have a developmental history with factors that may increase risks, such as:
1. Being prey-like: attractive to predators, weak, vulnerable, fragile, isolated, few supports.
2. Being dissatisfied with the reality of their lives (not flourishing), so easily attracted to novel realities, which offer a better life, a more idealistic or idyllic life involving love, social justice, hope, comradeship, and the like. The old life is portrayed as bad (unjust, dirty, lacking meaning), and the good new life in the new promised land requires rejection of the old, hence the need to avoid contact with old friends, family members, and news sources.
3. Being cognitively confused about the complexities of the world, so they are encouraged to rely on slogans and simple and dogmatic answers from an infallible source, that is, the leader, who removes all confusion. Two common methods to reduce confusion are:
replacement of dimensional with categorical thinking
replacement of Western logic with Eastern logic
The human mind thinks of constructs either in terms of dimensions (i.e., constructs that are easily quantified, like height, weight, intelligence) or in terms of categories (gender was until recently binary, male/female). For convenience, according to the DSM, some constructs that are actually measures on a dimensional continuum are forced into artificial categories (intelligence). Statisticians use different methods to analyze data from dimensional to categorical.
Often, reducing complex data from dimensional to categorical makes it easier to manipulate or understand. Therefore, some leaders are tempted to reduce complex situations (the world is complicated and wise decision-making requires appreciation of nuance) into apparently simple ones and to offer decision-makers simpler binary choices (e.g., Bush’s analysis of the world was simple – the world was either good or bad, and he offered world leaders simple choices – you are either with us or against us) [Reference Priest35].
As in the world of politics, the moral world is in reality complex, and many moral judgments require an appreciation of nuance and greyness. But some Eastern religious leaders are tempted to reduce the world’s moral complexities into a simpler frame. The cult recruit is educated in a manner in which their current world, which may be unsatisfying, is portrayed as simply bad, in contrast to the cult world, which promises much satisfaction, as being simply good. Such a binary choice is indeed simple, and many choose that which is good, clean, and noble over that which is not. In making decisions, the cult member may be informed that the cult ideology is based on true facts (not false fictions), and the cult leader has, of course, access to these true facts. But manipulation of the facts requires use of logic, and there is a difference between Western logic (taught in all Western universities) and Eastern logic that is mostly neglected in the Orientalist West.
Western logic, derived from the Greek masters, assumes that a proposition must be either true or false. The statement “2 + 3 = 5” is true, while the statement “2 + 3 = 23” is false. Those are the only two choices, true versus false. In contrast, Eastern (Indic) philosophy is more subtle. It agrees that a statement may be true, or it may be false, but in addition, it offers the rich insights that a statement may be true and false, and also neither true nor false. For example, the statement “lying is good” may be true, and it may be false. The statement “the wind is green” is neither true nor false. Such sophisticated Eastern logic (in contrast to the simpler Western logic) allows for more logical options, and allows for controversial ethical methodologies like casuistry, which is much maligned in the West [Reference Said29].
4. Being socially confused: Most humans have multiple identities (i.e., race, gender, religion, tribe, moral community) but not all such identities are a source of comfort. By creating an external enemy, the cult creates internal cohesion with a more intense sense of group identity, which is socially comforting. By introducing a moral component, such as the external world is morally corrupt, the cult members are deemed morally pure, and cult membership also becomes morally comforting.
5. Being socially isolated: The cult offers a social group where no member has to be alone. In fact, being alone is discouraged, and there is peer pressure to join in and hence to conform.
6. Being decisionally uncritical/gullible: All humans make decisions, wise or foolish, with various degrees of critical thinking. Some institutions, like academic departments of philosophy, encourage critical thinking. Cults encourage uncritical thinking; the decision-making passes from the leader to the devotees, so there is substituted judgment.
7. Search for order, regimentation, discipline, structure, uniformity, and even uniforms, as in militaries, prisons, monastic orders and so on.
Summary
This chapter has reviewed some conceptual topics such as problems in defining the concept of “cult,” and it has given a description of some Eastern religious cults, an analytical comparison of cults from different Eastern geographical locations (i.e., East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East) as well as Eastern cults in the Western diaspora.
This analysis has also presented the problems that may confront American psychiatry if an Eastern religious cult ideology is asserted as a mental defense in a Western court of justice. In addition, the authors have attempted to highlight the characteristics of cult leaders and followers that are unique to Eastern religious cults. While there is a rich literature about the social and psychological characteristics of leaders in general, and even of cult leaders, such literature about leaders and followers of Eastern religious cults is sparse.
Nonetheless, scholars may extrapolate findings from the broad category of leaders/followers to the narrower group of cult leaders/followers, to the yet narrower category of “Eastern” cult leaders/followers. Further insights may be gained not from studying actual leaders/followers of Eastern religious cults, which may be difficult, but from studying the dynamics of leadership, and comparing Eastern and Western leadership styles, parenting styles, and examining the differences between Eastern and Western philosophies contextually.
Key Points
The title of the chapter, “Eastern Religious Cults,” implies that the two adjectives – Eastern and religious – when applied to cults give relevant information about the subject of cults.
While both adjectives are descriptors, they are imprecise. The boundaries between a religious and secular cult (e.g., a political cult) are poorly defined.
The boundaries between Eastern and other are similarly poorly defined, as Eastern may refer to a geographical space roughly corresponding to Asia, or to the source of an ideology, perhaps dharmic, as opposed to Abrahamic, or even to a biased interpretation of anything that is alien, or the “other.”
Starting with the biased Orientalist tradition, but continuing to modern (non-Orientalist) scholarship, there is a desire to understand and learn more about the East and Eastern religious cults and how they may differ from their non-Eastern counterparts.
While there are few findings from hard research, there are more findings from soft research and many opinions from folk psychology, which suggest that Eastern religious cult leaders are narcissistic, scheming, full of oriental cunning, devious, and successful at duping not only followers in the East, but even gullible simpletons in the West.
Such an analysis may or may not have elements of truth in it, but it may be the result of a tautological fallacy.
The East and West are full of many social groups with a variety of belief systems.
Some meet with the approval of the majority – most in the West approve of Jesus and his teachings, and most in the East approve of Buddha and his teachings. These groups are therefore deemed “religions.”
In contrast, some groups do not meet with the approval of the majority.
In the West, the majority disapproved of Osho, and in the East, the majority disapproved of the Assassins and the Thugs, partly because their leaders were viewed as narcissistic, scheming, and cunningly devious. Based on these characteristics, these leaders are considered cult leaders.
As a result, it would be a tautology and silly to conclude that Eastern cult leaders are narcissistic or cunning or devious, as our findings presented in this chapter articulate.
