When I lived in Montreal I met a fellow, Mike Kropveld, Director of Info-Secte, a Canadian organization to help people understand cults and cultic behavior. The organization has been renamed as Info-Cult.
Info cult has been doing a lot of work since I left. For one thing they have defined another scale which we can use to define whether a group is a cult. A new publication The Cult Phenomenon states the following. The book is available for free foron-line reading
Info-Cult listed criteria to identify cults with the potential to cause physical or psychological harm to their members. The following characteristics distinguish these groups:
- The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment;
- The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act and feel. For example, members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth;
- The group is preoccupied with making money. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example, collecting money for bogus charities);
- The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities;
- Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group;
- Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members;
- Questioning, doubt and dissent are discouraged or even punished. Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
In the mid-'90s, Info-Cult staff considered the utility of the concept of "cultic thinking." It conducted research and held discussions to try to understand the meaning and usefulness of this concept in distinguishing groups that had the potential to harm their members from others that did not. The organization defined cultic thinking as:
A way of conceptualizing reality and society by dividing them in two monolithic blocks (black/white, saved/damned, good/evil). Within this framework there is no room for grey areas. Individuals and movements with this kind of thinking automatically classify themselves in the category of the pure and the saved. Subsequently, they look for scapegoats in order to explain problems experienced by them or by society. Cultic thinking can lead to intolerance and extremism, and is particularly prevalent in times of personal, social or economic crisis.
The term "cultic thinking" is used by Info-Cult to better understand the thinking process of members which can influence their behaviour and the practices of groups, but it is not used as a criterion to distinguish groups that can harm their members.
So, does it apply? Is this another tooll we can use to define whether the WTS is indeed a cult?
The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment;
In the case of the WTS/JWs the focus is on a mostly unseen Governing Body which insists it is worthy of unquestioning commitment, loyalty and obedience
The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act and feel. For example, members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth;
JWs pride themselves on their unity in beliefs. All are taught the same beliefs from the same books. All are commissioned to do the same preaching work and they are a "happy people"
Members must marry only within the group, dating is a premarital arrangemetn and is closely monitored.
Certain forms of work are prohibitted, Work is considered a means to support yourself so that your real work of preaching can furthered.
Both men and women are to wear a certain style of "modest" clothing and people can be reproved for not following this.
While the "where to live" may not be a huge issue, the WTS does encourage people to move away from non-believing family members if at all possible. Sharing an apartment to save on financial costs is allowed as long as it is same gendered.
The leadership encourages corporal punishment as an appropriate way to discipline children
The group is preoccupied with making money. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example, collecting money for bogus charities);
Although few JWs realize it, the WTS is a multi-million dollar business. I believe it has been listed as a top forty in the US (there might be a reference to that in the Best of... series). While telling their members to pay their taxes the WTS has gone out of its way to make sure all its money is tax-free. This even included telling its members in Mexico to not use their Bibles when going door to door, and calling themselves a "cultural group" instead of a religion. Those who wanted to send money through the WTS to help with disaster relief for the victims of Katrina were told NOT to write on their checks that it was for Katrina victims but rather that it was for the "world-wide work and the WTS would decide best where it would go.
The WTS is finding new and creative ways, many of which are unethical, to bilk not only their members (Kingdom Hall building donations, paying double for literature - "donate" when you pick them up and then give any donations you recieve back to the org., but also other charities (UN, Nazi compensation fund), and the governments (appling for charitable tax exemption for the "humanitarian" work they do).
The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities;
The WTS has published openly that their law is higher than the law of the land because it is "God's Law" Because they follow God's Law they are entitled to lie in court even after swearing an oath, and their policy of "Theocratic Warfare" states that it is permissible to lie if it further their purposes.
Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group;
As members get more involved with the group they are encouraged to rely more and more on ther group for their social interactions. Outsiders are considered a danger to their well-being. Higher education has been discouraged for many years. Even though there are times when the WTS publishes that it might be OK, those who do go further in their education are looked down on. Interests outside of the group are stringly discouraged. Hobbies, sports, other interests outside the group are slowly squeezed out in favor of "Kingdom interests"
Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members;
Marriage and association outside the group is prohibited. Those who do are considered "weak" and other members should show caution in their association with them.
Questioning, doubt and dissent are discouraged or even punished. Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
The many unresolved questions and doubts are stifiled under the "wait on Jehovah". Asking about these questions can be hushed up and members are told not to talk to other members about their doubts and questions. The WTS uses a "loaded language" that prevents critical thinking. People are encouraged to pray, go to the meetings, study, and keep busy in the door-to-door work instead of wasting their time on dangerous thinking.
Can you thinking of other examples of how the WTS fit this list?