THE ADVANCED BONEWITS CULT DANGER EVALUATION FRAME
Introduction Events
in the last several decades have clearly indicated just how dangerous
some religious and secular groups (usually called “cults”
by those opposed to them) can be to their own members as well as to
anyone else whom they can influence. “Brainwashing,”
beatings, child abuse, rapes, murders, mass suicides, military drilling
and gunrunning, meddling in civil governments, international terrorism,
and other crimes have been charged against leaders and members of many
groups, and in far too many cases those accusations have been correct.
None of this has been very surprising to historians of religion or to
other scholars of what are usually labled “new” religions
(no matter how old they may be in their cultures of origin). Minority
groups, especially religious ones, are often accused of crimes by
members of the current majority. In many ways, for example, the
“Mormons” were the “Moonies” of the 19th
century — at least in terms of being an unusual minority belief
system that many found “shocking” at the time — and
the members of the Unification Church could be just as
“respectable” a hundred years from now as the Latter Day
Saints are today.
Nonetheless, despite all the
historical and philosophical warnings that could be issued, ordinary
people faced with friends or loved ones joining an
“unusual” group, or perhaps contemplating joining one
themselves, need a relatively simple way to evaluate just how dangerous
or harmless a given group is liable to be, without either subjecting
themselves to its power or judging it solely on theological or
ideological grounds (the usual method used by anti-cult groups).
In
1979 I constructed an evaluation tool which I now call the
“Advanced Bonewits’ Cult Danger Evaluation Frame” or
the “ABCDEF” (because evaluating these groups should be
elementary). A copy was included in that year’s revised edition
of my book, Real Magic. I realize its shortcomings, but feel that it
can be effectively used to separate harmless groups from the merely
unusual-to-the-observer ones. Feedback from those attempting to use the
system has always been appreciated. Indirect feedback, in terms of the
number of places on and off the Net this ABCDEF has shown up, has been
mostly favorable. For example, it was chosen by and is now displayed on
the website of the Institute for Social Inventions, who paraphrased it
for their “Best Ideas — A compendium of social
innovations” listing.
The purpose of this
evaluation tool is to help both amateur and professional observers,
including current or would-be members, of various organizations
(including religious, occult, psychological or political groups) to
determine just how dangerous a given group is liable to be, in
comparison with other groups, to the physical and mental health of its
members and of other people subject to its influence. It cannot speak
to the “spiritual dangers,” if any, that might be involved,
for the simple reason that one person’s path to enlightenment or
“salvation” is often viewed by another as a path to
ignorance or “damnation.”
As a general rule,
the higher the numerical total scored by a given group (the further to
the right of the scale), the more dangerous it is likely to be. Though
it is obvious that many of the scales in the frame are subjective, it
is still possible to make practical judgments using it, at least of the
“is this group more dangerous than that one?” sort. This is
if all numerical assignments are based on accurate and unbiased
observation of actual behavior by the groups and their top levels of
leadership (as distinct from official pronouncements). This means that
you need to pay attention to what the secondary and tertiary leaders
are saying and doing, as much (or more so) than the central leadership
— after all, “plausible deniability” is not a recent
historical invention.
This tool can be used by parents,
reporters, law enforcement agents, social scientists and others
interested in evaluating the actual dangers presented by a given group
or movement. Obviously, different observers will achieve differing
degrees of precision, depending upon the sophistication of their
numerical assignments on each scale. However, if the same observers use
the same methods of scoring and weighting each scale, their comparisons
of relative danger or harmlessness between groups will be reasonably
valid, at least for their own purposes. People who cannot, on the other
hand, view competing belief systems as ever having possible spiritual
value to anyone, will find the ABCDEF annoyingly useless for promoting
their theological agendas. Worse, these members of the Religious Reich
and their fellow theocrats will find that their own organizations (and
quite a few large mainstream churches) are far more
“cult-like” than many of the minority belief systems they
so bitterly oppose.
It should be pointed out that the
ABCDEF is founded upon both modern psychological theories about mental
health and personal growth, and my many years of participant
observation and historical research into minority belief systems. Those
who believe that relativism and anarchy are as dangerous to mental
health as absolutism and authoritarianism, could (I suppose) count
groups with total scores nearing either extreme (high or low) as being
equally hazardous. As far as dangers to physical well-being are
concerned, however, both historical records and current events clearly
indicate the direction in which the greatest threats lie. This is
especially so since the low-scoring groups usually seem to have
survival and growth rates so small that they seldom develop the
abilities to commit large scale atrocities even had they the
philosophical or political inclinations to do so.
The Advanced Bonewits’ Cult Danger Evaluation Frame (version 2.6)
Factors: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Low
High
1. Internal Control: Amount of internal
political and social power exercised by leader(s) over members; lack of
clearly defined organizational rights for members. 1 _________________________
2.
External Control: Amount of external political and social influence
desired or obtained; emphasis on directing members’ external
political and social behavior. 2 _________________________
3.
Wisdom/Knowledge Claimed by leader(s); amount of infallibility declared
or implied about decisions or doctrinal/scriptural interpretations;
number and degree of unverified and/or unverifiable credentials
claimed. 3 _________________________
4.
Wisdom/Knowledge Credited to leader(s) by members; amount of trust in
decisions or doctrinal/scriptural interpretations made by leader(s);
amount of hostility by members towards internal or external critics
and/or towards verification efforts. 4 _________________________
5.
Dogma: Rigidity of reality concepts taught; amount of doctrinal
inflexibility or “fundamentalism;” hostility towards
relativism and situationalism. 5 _________________________
6.
Recruiting: Emphasis put on attracting new members; amount of
proselytizing; requirement for all members to bring in new ones. 6 _________________________
7.
Front Groups: Number of subsidiary groups using different names from
that of main group, especially when connections are hidden. 7 _________________________
8.
Wealth: Amount of money and/or property desired or obtained by group;
emphasis on members’ donations; economic lifestyle of leader(s)
compared to ordinary members. 8 _________________________
9.
Sexual Manipulation of members by leader(s) of non-tantric groups;
amount of control exercised over sexuality of members in terms of
sexual orientation, behavior, and/or choice of partners. 9 _________________________
10.
Sexual Favoritism: Advancement or preferential treatment dependent upon
sexual activity with the leader(s) of non-tantric groups. 10 _________________________
11.
Censorship: Amount of control over members’ access to outside
opinions on group, its doctrines or leader(s). 11 _________________________
12.
Isolation: Amount of effort to keep members from communicating with
non-members, including family, friends and lovers. 12 _________________________
13. Dropout Control: Intensity of efforts directed at preventing or returning dropouts. 13 _________________________
14. Violence: Amount of approval when used by or for the group, its doctrines or leader(s). 14 _________________________
15.
Paranoia: Amount of fear concerning real or imagined enemies;
exaggeration of perceived power of opponents; prevalence of conspiracy
theories. 15 _________________________
16. Grimness: Amount of disapproval concerning jokes about the group, its doctrines or its leader(s). 16 _________________________
17.
Surrender of Will: Amount of emphasis on members not having to be
responsible for personal decisions; degree of individual disempowerment
created by the group, its doctrines or its leader(s). 17 _________________________
18.
Hypocrisy: amount of approval for actions which the group officially
considers immoral or unethical, when done by or for the group, its
doctrines or leader(s); willingness to violate the group’s
declared principles for political, psychological, social, economic,
military, or other gain. 18 _________________________
