Oprah Interviews FLDS Turncoat

Possibly of interest, Willie Jessop, former Warren Jeffs bodyguard, current apostate, was interviewed by Oprah in a show to air tonight.

Winfrey catches up with Jessop in an episode of "Where Are They Now," to air Sunday on the OWN network

Jessop parted with Jeffs just before Jeffs' trial in 2011. He since has started cooperating with federal and Utah authorities, so much so that the United Effort Plan, the polygamous trust operated by the state of Utah, agreed to sell him land at a reduced price.

He also took possession of Jeffs' compound in Hildale and turned it into a bed and breakfast.

Jessop remains a controversial character, with many continuing to doubt his motives. But he did give us a lovely tour of Warren Jeffs's former compound before turning it into a bed and breakfast. Maybe tonight he'll explain how one repurposes a rape room and makes such a place a charming place to stay on vacation.

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The Unbreakable Woman in Red

For anyone with an interest in Warren Jeffs and his FLDS, this Dateline episode is must viewing. Rebecca Musser -- former wife of Rulon Jeffs, witness for the prosecution against Warren Jeffs, and red wearing apostate -- has written a book. The Witness Wore Red tells the story of her life before and after breaking from the church she grew up in. Musser was instrumental in putting Warren Jeffs behind bars and this Dateline episode gives a fairly thorough overview of the long process of bringing this unrepentant pedophile to justice. The whole show is in the embed above and can also be viewed here. Some of it is hard to take. The "desecrated" temple with its sacred, holy beds is every bit as creepy as other well-hidden rape rooms Jeffs has constructed.

Musser is one brave woman, risking hell-fire and damnation to free herself from total domination by dirty old men of God. One can't help but marvel at the strength of women like Musser, her sister, and other apostates, who have not only found their voices but used them to put a far too powerful sex offender in prison.

In other news, the FLDS empire continues to crumble. The Alta Academy, where Warren Jeffs raped children and taught such unassailable facts as how the moon landing was faked because God would never allow such a thing, is slated for demolition. Good riddance.

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Warren Jeffs Prophesies Destruction of Salt Lake City

The most startling reveal in Warren Jeffs's latest revelation is that Jesus has terrible grammar. His punctuation is somewhat capricious and he has little patience for articles like an and the.

That Salt Lake City will be destroyed by a falling Mount Olympus is kind of exciting, too.

For the first time in a long time, we're hearing from jailed pedophile and polygamist prophet, Warren Jeffs.

. . .

In it, Jeffs attacks the "Mormon Church" and says Mount Olympus will fall on Salt Lake. He writes, "Mount Olympus falling across valley in world land pressure explosion." He then adds, "That city is my enemy now."

As per Jeffs, Jesus has been upset with the Mormon Church since Wilford Woodruff signed an "agreement with hell," which is code for ending polygamy. That was in 1890, so Jesus has been showing remarkable restraint. Now he's really lost patience and the reason is that Warren Jeffs is in prison and state governments are seizing all his property.

74. Let my servant go. Let my people receive full order of my consecrated lands now under attack by governing state powers by influence of apostate lies.

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Warren Jeffs's Utah Compound on the Auction Block

As I mentioned here, one of the thousand cuts for Warren Jeffs's empire was a 30 million dollar judgment in favor of his former spokesman Willie Jessop. As discussed, collecting that judgment is proving challenging, but Jessop should get at least partial compensation from the auction of Jeffs's Utah compound.

Washington County officials plan to auction a sprawling compound belonging to Warren Jeffs’ family to pay a judgment to a former spokesman for the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The April 25 auction will allow the public to bid on the multibuilding complex in Hildale that property records show sits on 6.1 acres and has a market value of $2.65 million. The sale is designed to raise money for a judgment obtained by Willie Jessop.

Jessop sued FLDS leaders, including Jeffs and his brother Lyle Jeffs alleging they arranged a late-night break-in at his business, R&W Excavating. Jessop argued that during the break-in several people stole computers, hard drives and other property.

Jessop will also have the option of putting a "credit bid" on the property himself, using a portion of the 30 million.

Jessop, for his part, mostly seems pleased to see Jeffs lose possession of compound that was largely designed for the purpose of sexually abusing young girls -- the same reason Texas is moving to seize Jeffs's Yearning For Zion Ranch. In the interview posted above, he describes how disillusioned and demoralized he was when he learned what Jeffs was doing in secret chambers of compounds like this one.

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FLDS Splinter Group Takes Root in the Desert

Click for Video

A very long, convoluted, lede-burying set of articles and blog posts in the Salt Lake City Tribune profiles William E. Jessop, the leader of a growing group of FLDS apostates. Not to be confused with Willie Jessop, William E. Jessop was born William E. Timpson but an earlier splintering of FLDS caused him to become a Jessop. I suspect this story would be easier to sort out if FLDS weren't so inbred and didn't keep playing musical chairs with the wives and children.

Apparently William E. Jessop was ordained by Rulon Jeffs, father of the currently incarcerated Warren Jeffs. The ordination is dubious, however, because the elder Jeffs had had a number of strokes which by his own rules disqualified him from ordaining anyone. Even so, Jessop was one of Warren Jeffs's top lieutenants and the bishop of Short Creek. He was often called upon by Jeffs to do his dirty work, like delivering his capricious excommunications. Jessop also acquired the wives of a number of excommunicates.

Jessop acknowledged taking some of those women as his own wives. Records seized by Texas authorities in the 2008 raid of the YFZ Ranch show Jessop had 11 wives as of 2006. Jessop says he has many fewer wives now.

Within his new group, polygamy is still practiced, but Jessop has condemned the practice of compelling young girls to marry. Teenage girls are to be provided with options and if they choose to marry, are to be warned of the implications.

"We do not want to do anything that breaks the law," he said.

On the topic of marriage, he later added: "We’ll encourage [girls] to be of age and learn the qualities of life and to enjoy life and not get into something they regret."

Jessop also advocates work and education as options for women.

Jessop has more to go on than his dodgy ordination by Rulon Jeffs and one-time favor of the jailed prophet. In 2007 Warren Jeffs apparently tried to hand him the leadership role, declaring himself to be too "wicked" to continue as the leader of FLDS. Jeffs was in jail for a different rape related offense than he is currently incarcerated for. When he called Jessop, he confessed to incest and pedophilia, and handed over the reigns.

Okay. I have this message. The lord has intervened and detected me to myself. He has shown me that I have not held priesthood since I was 20 years old, having been immoral with a sister and a daughter. And father pointing his finger to me was father’s test on all of us.

I know of your ordination, that you are the keyholder and I have sent a note with my signature verifying it so that there is no question, according to Section 43, although not valid.

All the ordinance work since father’s passing has to be redone and there’s many men that were sent away that do hold priesthood and their families will need to be put back.

And then to say this to you. I am one of the most wicked men on the face of the earth since the days of Father Adam.

Shortly thereafter, Jeffs thought better of his abdication, and excommunicated Jessop instead, sending him to Wisconsin to repent for unspecified offenses.

Now one might think that such a series of events would have convinced Jessop that Warren Jeffs was not a leader worth following, but one would be wrong. After thirteen months of Wisconsin exile, he was readmitted and directed to readmit some other men who had been previously expelled. He stayed in the fold, despite nagging concerns about Jeffs's paranoid proclamations from prison and the increasingly poor, barren conditions of the flock.

In early 2011, Willie Jessop showed him evidence of Jeffs's crimes, including his sexual abuse of a 12 year old girl.

"The voice that I was hearing was not the voice of God," Jessop explained.  

Jessop attempted to seize the FLDS presidency and assets but Jeffs countered and maintained his legal title. So Jessop started his own congregation in Short Creek and invited the members of FLDS to leave the diseased organization and its pedophile leader. He has attracted a following to his kinder, gentler FLDS Lite. (His new church doesn't have a name yet.) His followers are free to eat things other than beans and water, play games, and one assumes, have sex with their spouses... however many of those they may have. In other words, they can return to a lifestyle prohibited by Jeffs, as he requires his membership to share in his jail cell suffering.

Jessop's following is made up of people who were excommunicated by Jeffs and there is a lot of fear among these apostates, as he continues to exert his influence.

Many of the families in Jessop’s congregation are small for a polygamous community. Few men appear with multiple wives, and no one has more than a handful of children. Several adults even sit alone.

Attendance at the meeting is a testament to the conflicts that have ripped through Short Creek in recent years. After Warren Jeffs took control of the FLDS church in 2002, he unleashed mass purges. Many men were kicked out and their wives and children ordered into new families. Husbands, wives and children were separated. Today, even from a Texas prison, Jeffs reportedly continues to control the church and expel members for any reason, including attending Jessop’s Sunday services.

Many, but not all, members of Jessop’s congregation are consequently secretive. They eschew media attention, and attendance this day may have been smaller due to the presence of Salt Lake Tribune staffers. Several group members pointed to white security cameras on nearby buildings, saying they exist to catch people attending Jessop’s congregation or engaging in other activities barred by Jeffs’ self-described revelations.

FLDS is on an ugly and dangerous path to self-destruction, but it still seems to count thousands as members, at least that's the claim. It will be interesting to see how many of its refugees wind up in the Jeffs-free version of their church and what that will look like down the line.

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Warren Jeffs: The Final Chapter?

This could be the end of the infamous Yearning For Zion ranch as Texas moves to seize the large property holding from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS. The State contends that the ranch was used to further a criminal enterprise, one aspect of which was the crime for which FLDS leader Warren Jeffs was convicted last year -- molesting underage girls.

Investigators filed a warrant to seize the 1,600-acre ranch in West Texas under state law that allows seizure of property used to commit or facilitate criminal conduct.

According to a 91-page page affidavit in support of the search and seizure warrant served on the ranch in Eldorado, about 300 miles west of Dallas, church members purchased the property for about $1.3 million in 2003 with laundered money and used the property to sexually assault children and hide Jeffs in 2006 while he was a fugitive on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted List.

According to the attorney general’s office, the ranch was purchased by church members at the order of Jeffs, who was based in Utah at the time but, “sought a rural location where the FLDS could operate a polygamist compound where the systemic sexual assault of children would be tolerated without interference from law enforcement authorities.”

Jeffs's own records make clear that the ranch, originally referred to under the code name R17, was designed for criminal use. It's far enough from main roads and infrastructure to allow him to skirt everything from building codes to other "wicked laws, un-righteous laws passed by the government that could put us in jail..." I'm guessing those would be those pesky laws against polygamy and sexual abuse of minors.

As discussed, there have been indications that FLDS was removing itself from the extensive property -- such as constructing and then dismantling a sizable watchtower. Perhaps they saw the writing on the wall and decided against defending the stronghold against an impending State takeover.

Where have they all gone, is the bigger question.

The church's numbers are dwindling due to excommunications, arrests, and deliberate fleeing. But there are also indications of organized relocation due to Jeffs's cryptic warnings and proclamations.

The State seems to determined to shut down Jeffs's Texas footprint completely and keep him incarcerated for the duration.

Officials call their attempt to seize the group's compound "the final chapter" in a multimillion-dollar battle against the polygamist sect, which authorities believe was centered around sexual abuse and funded through money laundering.

Authorities say Jeffs used the compound's temple to commit his crimes, saying it "was constructed in a special manner so that Warren Steed Jeffs could perpetuate sexual assaults in the Temple building."

And they quote from Jeffs' own designs and the group's "Priesthood Records": "There is a table, but it will be made so it can be a table or it can be a bed. It should be made so the tabletop can come off. It will be on wheels… This will be made so that it can be taken apart and stored in a closet where no one can see it. When I need it, I will pull it out and set it up… It will be covered with a sheet, but it will have a plastic cover to protect the mattress from what will happen on it."

So at least the mattress was safe. Young girls may have been raped and defiled on it. But the mattress was definitely safe.

And I definitely feel a little sick. The thing about FLDS and its creepy leader is that as bad as you think it is, it's so much worse.

A recent "20/20" report went behind the scenes and interviewed excommunicated members, shedding light on the increasingly restrictive control the imprisoned leader exerts. Many lives have been shattered by Jeffs's recent proclamations and paranoid weirdness. Not even his own brother has escaped banishment and the reallocation of his family. I guess he wasn't one of the lucky fifteen men still allowed to procreate. He and other "sons of perdition" have been removed from the dwindling gene pool. Meanwhile, numerous women have been excommunicated for the vile sin of having miscarriages. If that isn't a perfect storm of inbreeding disaster, I don't know what is.

While some long for the life they knew and worry for their immortal souls, others are enjoying their new-found liberation. A nineteen year old boy, freed from the 7-9 hours a day of forced labor he enjoyed in his childhood, can finally learn to read. They are all learning surprising things about history and government like that Warren Jeffs is not, in fact, the president of the United States. A sweet, little girl is finally able to wear a tiara and play with dolls. She says matter-of-factly, "We're considered apostates and wicked."

There is a little more insight into Jeffs's increasingly bizarre demands as he blames his followers for his incarceration and forces them to share in his suffering. Dietary restrictions like giving up corn and dairy products are part of their collective penance. The labor-intensive building of a million dollar home for Jeffs was supposed to cause his prison bars to melt and free him. It didn't.

I highly recommend viewing the episode, which can be found here. The commercials make it a little glitchy and you may need to reload it once or twice but it's well worth the effort.

Breaking Polygamy: Secrets of the Sect

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Is Mormonism Racist?

I was reminded again recently of how much insane, socially unacceptable, and terribly, terribly cruel, stuff is in the Bible. The writings that were compiled into that text were products of their time... and it was a fairly brutal chapter in human history. Today most but, rather stunningly, not all Christians would not support the idea of killing rebellious children, as that most recent example makes clear. The rejection of violent, homicidal, and genocidal, Biblical passages only really presents a problem for fundamentalists who still insist that every word in the book is the true and irrefutable word of God. Having been raised Episcopalian, leave say, I learned to look at the Bible through a somewhat different lens.

As Brian Keith Dalton, aka. Mister Deity, points out, this is much trickier for Mormons. Dalton, who apparently was a Mormon, explains that the Book of Mormon is literally true and "the most correct book on Earth" under Mormon doctrine. That makes it much harder to gaffe off the wackiest bits.

The racism that was so acceptable in the time of Joseph Smith is forever enshrined as unassailable truth in Mormonism. That would seem to leave non-racist Mormons -- let alone black Mormons -- with little to fall back on other than cognitive dissonance.

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The Trip from Bountiful

As discussed, Warren Jeffs appears to be totally losing it. Deranged proclamations, paranoia, mass excommunications, and propaganda blaming members for his continuing incarceration, have raised the concern of social agencies and law enforcement near his Yearning For Zion Ranch and other strongholds around the US. Now comes news that Canadian officials are also dealing with the fallout of an FLDS spinning out of control as the compound in Bountiful, British Columbia shows similar signs of distress.

Jeffs's earlier edict prohibiting sex and marriage for all but fifteen of his most faithful stewards and their selected females has resulted in hundreds of husbands and fathers being excommunicated and their families shattered. Numerous teens have also been excommunicated for innocuous offenses like wearing short sleeved shirts or improper hairstyles. Most tellingly, socializing with their friends is now a banishing offense. Wives have been reallocated like the chattel they are.

Six men from Bountiful, B.C., went to Provincial Court in Creston this week pleading for access to their 40 children after having been excommunicated by Warren Jeffs, the jailed leader of North America’s largest polygamous sect.

Earlier this year, the fathers were deemed to be “unworthy” by Jeffs, the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Some of these men are actually risking their own legal standing because they're practicing polygamy -- and not necessarily willingly.

One told [attorney Georgialee] Lang he loves his first wife and had never wanted a second wife.

He told her how he’d been taken from his home one night and driven by church leaders on a circuitous route that ended in Nevada, where he married a woman he’d never met before.

One of things that is coming clearer as the curtain is peeled back on this insular sect, is that the men in FLDS are as much victims of Jeffs's tyranny as the women are -- except for those at the top of the food chain. As of now that would seem to be the fifteen men who have their pick of all the women, married or not.

Children are also being shuffled around and one of the petitioners believes four of his kids are living in the care of a woman other than his wife, who has since been reallocated.

In addition to banning all sex except for his chosen fifteen, Jeffs has also prohibited all intimacy and affection, except for handshakes. It's just so very 1984.

Mothers and fathers have been ordered not to touch or hug their children and toys, recreation, and games are no longer permissible.

The Bountiful elementary and secondary schools have, for the first time, refused government funding, opting to run the programs they desire. Reports have surfaced that school hours are now filled with YouTube videos of Jeffs’ preaching.

Yes, the children even have to watch telescreens of Big Brother Jeffs.

All of this is a test of faith. Followers must adhere to these guidelines until Jeffs is released from prison because, as discussed, he is blaming his incarceration on his followers.

While it's sordid and deranged, none of this is hard to figure out. It's simple divide and conquer. People who are able to form strong bonds with each other -- family, friendship, romantic love -- have split allegiances and won't be totally subservient. And the more powerless Jeffs feels, locked away in his prison cell, the more he intensifies his grip on his remaining followers. And anyone who he perceives as a threat to that authority has to go.

As discussed, I think this reallocation of wives to his fifteen chosen enforcers is a reward -- he's buying their loyalty with women's bodies. But there is something else it does which is in some ways more pernicious. It keeps those men from establishing strong emotional bonds. How can they with all those women and children and such totally imbalanced power dynamics. They don't have wives. They have sex objects and breeding stock.

These bizarre edicts are also a window into Jeffs's twisted psyche. He's in jail, unable to have sex with any of his many, many wives, so he's restricting sex. He's lonely so he's breaking down intimate relationships and friendships. I don't think this is just about his incarceration either. Jeffs's life story is one of isolation. He was a sickly child who did not play well with others. He was also a Peeping Tom, lusting after girls from a safe distance. He's odd, even by FLDS standards and was never so much part of a community as he was a power figure by inheritance. 

Perhaps the most telling of his bizarre new rules is his restriction on affection with children. Men are not allowed to touch any children at all. He has redefined touching children -- affectionately or even innocuously -- as adultery and its an excommunication offense. Note that it's adultery, not pedophilia. And then consider that Jeffs is a child molester. Not only was he convicted of marrying and impregnating underage girls, the court heard testimony that he had molested prepubescent children, including his then 5 year old nephew.

Many of the rulings Jeffs is dispensing from his jail cell are not exactly breaking new ground. He's been reassigning wives and families since he assumed leadership in 2005. What has changed is the scope and intensity as he struggles to keep his grip on power.

So far the displaced men of Bountiful are not having much luck through the courts. Interim orders have granted some visitation and have prohibited the wives from taking the children out of the district, but no other custodial rights have been granted to the frustrated fathers as yet. Meanwhile, they wait and pin hopes on signs like wives who are also considering leaving. Of course, it's much harder for women to get out than men.

There are signs that Jeffs's increasingly draconian leadership is backfiring and accelerating the fragmentation of his church. But shattered lives, damaged children, and at least one suicide, are a horrible price to pay. And it will most likely get a whole lot worse.

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FLDS Getting Stranger and Stranger

The behavior around Warren Jeffs's stronghold in Texas and among his remaining followers has been increasingly strange -- a no sex edict for most, numerous excommunications, a tower built and then demolished... Now come reports that people are relocating and concern is that it is tied to end of the world prophecies from the incarcerated leader. To my mind, the assembled reports indicate that FLDS is falling apart. Jeffs has lost control of his circumstances and is tightening his grip on those he still deems to be faithful. If there was ever a reason to fear a Jim Jones type incident, now is when I'd really start to worry.

Jeffs is being painted as a martyr and the loyalty of his followers is being called into question. At least that is the way I'd read the flyer that turned up in a school near the Utah, Arizona border. The flyer (above) asks of members, what are you doing about Jeffs's imprisonment? Observes Lindsay Whitehurst of the Salt Lake Tribune:

It reflects what people have been telling me about the message from FLDS leaders: Warren Jeffs is a martyr. He could be free if only the people's faith was strong enough.

. . .

That mind-set that turns any questions about Jeffs back on the doubter, and helps to turn people against each other.

What we're seeing now is a cult purge, as a rapidly decompensating Jeffs projects his shadow onto anyone he can blame for his self-destruction. The truly frightening question is what will he demand of his followers next as proof of their loyalty?

One of the key indicators that FLDS is in a fairly rapid decline is that it appears to be losing its financial footing. And it owes Willie Jessop $30M. Jessop, the former FLDS spokesman who fell out with the sect and became a very public critic, sued Jeffs and two other church leaders for breaking into his business. Similar attempts to intimidate apostates have included things like the recent torture killing of a kitten left on one Isaac Wyler's property. But the most alarming thing about Jessop winning the suit is that it was a default judgment. They never even mounted a defense. And they're continuing to ignore the problem, which may make it a tad difficult for Jessop to collect.

Things are a little different when the defendants are the secretive leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They’ve thus far ignored the suit, prompting a 5th District Court judge to grant Jessop the default judgment.

"Our belief is the leadership is moving assets around," James said Tuesday. In addition to the Warren Jeffs judgment entered July 26, Jessop has also won default judgments Jeffs’ brother Lyle Jeffs, who has been considered a leader in the sect’s border town home base of Colorado City, Ariz. and Hildale, Utah; and John Wayman, a top aide to Warren Jeffs thought to have succeeded Lyle Jeffs in leadership. They share legal responsibility for the $30 million judgment.

It's fairly clear that they don't think the law applies to them but they have to know on some level that the walls are closing in. And that's exactly how they're acting. They're constricting, consolidating, and withdrawing ever more from outside world. They recently stopped paying legal fees for two Colorado City officials charged with misuse of public funds, and left them to file as indigent. They may also be relocating their communities.

Last month members at the Yearning for Zion ranch in Texas demolished a tower days after completing it. When I read about this at the time, about all I could say was, huh. Although I was rather struck by the Babel Tower imagery. But with other signs of relocation, I'm wondering now if the tower -- which to my eye is very obviously a watchtower -- was built because they thought they'd have to defend their position but have been directed to quit the area instead.

The Eldorado Success reported Wednesday a noticeable decrease in activity at the “Yearning For Zion” Ranch and other FLDS properties in the area. The newspaper reported liens have been filed against FLDS members for unpaid bills, and construction has picked up at other properties, including South Dakota and Colorado.

“It seems like there’s been kind of a gradual exodus from Texas,” said Sam Brower, author of “Prophet’s Prey” and a private investigator who works for lawyers suing the FLDS Church.

“They truly believe, and Warren has been telling them, that the end of the world is coming,” he told FOX 13. “And I believe that they’re preparing for that.”

The whole thing reeks of escalating paranoia. Jeffs is acting like a cornered rat and there's no telling what could happen next.

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Religious Abuse: The Amish Hair-Cutting Trial

The trial of the Amish hair-cutting ring is set to start next Monday, August 27th. And prosecutors will be able to present evidence of Sam Mullet's abuse of his own parishioners: sex with other men's wives, paddling, the chicken coop, all of it. The government's argument is that these things are evidence of Sam Mullet's control over his flock, making him culpable for the hair-cutting raids on other Amish communities.

"His ability to convince those women, as well as their husbands and parents, to permit him to do so, establishes the extent of defendant Mullet's control over the community," the government said.

Based on that, the government said, the jury can conclude that Mullet was aware of 2011's attacks and approved.

In addition to the sexual conduct issues, alleged paddling rituals and punishing members by sending them to a chicken coop "are not inflammatory; they are undisputed facts" that the jury should hear, the government said.

Defense attorneys had moved to have much of this information excluded on the basis that it was unproven and prejudicial. But Judge Dan Aaron Polster has largely agreed with the prosecution. He found that Mullet's treatment of his own people is an element in the crime in question and testimony about that treatment can be heard by a jury. He did agree with the defense that prosecutors not use prejudicial language to describe the Bergholz clan which has been characterized by many as a cult. Witnesses, however, will not be so constrained.

Federal prosecutors will be allowed to question witnesses about Amish leader Sam Mullet’s sexual activities when the hate-crime trial of Mullet and 15 followers begins next week, a federal judge ruled Monday (Aug. 20).

U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster also agreed to allow testimony about Mullet’s use of corporal punishment to control followers, but forbid prosecutors from describing his group with words such as cult, sect, clan, band, schism, faction, offshoot, breakaway, renegade, rogue or splinter group. Witnesses, however, can use any terms they choose.

Judge Polster also upheld the request by defendants that they not be required to swear an oath, in deference to the Amish prohibition against swearing oaths. They will have to verbally affirm their truthfulness.

This is shaping up to be a very interesting case. Once again, what we're looking at is the psychology of influence and how evidence of that can and can't be used in court. As with the James Ray trial, testimony is being presented about a charismatic leader with a sadistic streak about a mile wide. And, once again, we have a defense team arguing that it's not a cult and that the word cult should not be used. Of course, the punchline in the Ray case was that it was the defense which kept using the word and battling a straw man that was never actually argued by the prosecution.

The cult question seems to be coming up a lot, not least in the political sphere, where Mitt Romney's Mormonism has raised concerns about how independent his choices might be were he to become president. I just watched The Mormon Candidate on Current, which asks that question of Mormons and disaffected ex-Mormons, alike. Many, including Mitt Romney's own second cousin, Park Romney, have deep concerns about the hold the Church of Latter Day Saints has on its members' psyches. Says the outspoken ex-Mormon, "I don't really think they understand the degree to which they are engaging in brainwashing. These are masters of mendacity."

Therein lies one of the trickiest bits when it comes to the psychology of influence. Not only don't followers realize they are being manipulated, many leaders don't realize they are participating in manipulation and that their own thoughts are not, in fact, their own. This, of course, raises larger questions about how all of our thoughts are influenced, by whom, and the point at which that becomes dangerous -- let alone a possible element in a crime. As I've said repeatedly, these are very tricky First Amendment questions.

The upcoming trial looks not to be just a trial about a hate crime that arose out of a sectarian conflict. Sam Mullet's crime is being framed as a case of religious abuse, whether or not that terminology ever becomes explicit. The charges against the senior Mullet will only really stick if it can be proven that he either actively or tacitly encouraged his followers to assault the members of other communities with hair clippers.

Religious abusers are dangerous and concerns have been raised by the local sheriff and some of the local Amish that there are shades Jim Jones in the Berghoz community. But I would also caution against the common assumption that religion is a necessary element in this kind of psychological tyranny. Bear in mind that the two landmark studies into the psychology of influence, the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment, had nothing whatever to do with religion. Abuse of authority can arise in any case of leaders and followers.

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Warren Jeffs: FLDS Not Inbred Enough

Warren Jeffs has released another proclamation to his flock and this one is... well...

Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence in prison, has ordered most of his followers to stop having sex except for 15 men -- and the women they men choose --- designated to father all future children for the sect.

So, let's see... The remaining membership is estimated to be around 10,000, a lot of the young males were excommunicated to reduce competition, so it's probably a little female-heavy, anyway. My back of the envelope calculation says, a handful of men will all have harems about as large as Solomon's. Sounds, um, tiring.

Here's cult expert Rick Ross's take:

"A lot of these revelations are a grab for attention," said Rick Ross, an expert on cults and the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints. "He is trying almost through the revelations to maintain the illusion that he is god's elect, he is the prophet. He's saying: 'Don't forget me.'"

. . .

Ross said the public can expect to hear a lot more of Jeffs' "incoherent" revelations as he spends the rest of his life in prison.

"It's wishful thinking of a deeply disturbed mind," he said. "Jeffs can not really exercise the kind of control he once did. These are the rantings of a man who has really lost it." 

All true, but I wouldn't discount the political calculus. It's all about loyalty. It's not clear whether he's already picked his fifteen but, one way or another, they will most assuredly be his most stalwart supporters. They will be the most likely to enforce his every, deranged emanation. Because a) they're chosen for their existing loyalty, and b) they're being paid in, well... You get the idea.

On the downside, I think the general membership will continue to attrit.

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Following Orders: The Vatican and Beyond

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“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

The trial of Monsignor William Lynn is bringing some fascinating insight into the internal dynamics that have driven the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. I say that because the Philadelphia diocese is by no means an anachronism. If anything it's emblematic of the top-down authority structure that has allowed these wounds to fester in parishes all over the world. I found this tidbit particularly juicy.

Monsignor Michael Picard was punished for complaining when the priest was assigned to his Newtown, Pa., parish in 1996. Picard said he had heard disturbing information about the priest from reliable sources — and acted for the sake of his parish.

The late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, angry that Picard was rejecting his decision on the placements, ordered him to apologize and take a two-week retreat to reflect on his actions.

"Cardinal Bevilacqua noted that he will not tolerate even the appearance of disobedience by any priest," states a memo of a disciplinary meeting read in court Wednesday.

So a priest questions the placement of a suspected pedophile in his parish and the response from higher is to stop being disobedient. And his response was to plead that he was not being disobedient. He even accused Lynn of "falsifying the disobedience charge." He was merely raising a reasonable question. Silly priest. Doesn't he know that questioning the absolute authority of the Church is disobedience?

Monsignor Lynn, for his part, has defended his actions -- and inactions -- by claiming that he was simply following the orders of Cardinal Bevilacqua.

This was not the first time this week that I was brought up short by the very concept of obedience.

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The other evening my husband and I were watching this interview on the Daily Show and were struck by a peculiar irony -- one not addressed at all by Jon Stewart, or anyone else that I'm aware of. I have no quarrel with Zach Wahls but I did find it fascinating that he structured a book on being raised by a lesbian couple around the Boy Scout Law.

A Scout is:

• Trustworthy,
• Loyal,
• Helpful,
• Friendly,
• Courteous,
• Kind,
• Obedient,
• Cheerful,
• Thrifty,
• Brave,
• Clean,
• and Reverent.

Why do I find this odd? Because the Boy Scouts of America strictly prohibits gay people from participating in the organization. So right off the bat, Eagle Scout Wahls has proved himself to be at least a little disobedient to the spirit of the organization. And good for him. No, really. Good for him. But you gotta wonder how the parent organization feels about being thematically tied to a book called My Two Moms.

So how's all that moral prohibition working out for the Boy Scouts? Not so well, really, as discussed here:

Stealing attention from the Catholic Church's problems, allegations recently came to light of similar incidents within the Boy Scouts of America under the patronage of the Church of Latter Day Saints (aka the Mormons). The Catholic and Mormon churches are two of the most vociferous arbiters of morality. Both invested heavily in promoting the passage of Proposition 8 which rescinded the law allowing gay marriage in California. Both are sponsors of Boy Scouts of America and have campaigned against allowing gays and atheists to participate. The Mormons threatened to pull their memberships if the Scouts changed their rules, which would have devastated the bottom line for the organization.

When it comes to sexual abuse in their own midst, these moral authorities have been strangely silent. Mormon Bishop Gordon McKewn withheld the identities of 17 boys, who Scoutmaster Timur Dykes admitted molesting, from police investigators. The "morally straight" Boy Scouts now stand accused of secreting away at least 1000 such "perversion files."

That I would choose tolerance of gays and atheists over tolerance of sex offenders kind of goes without saying but I'm not making the rules for the Boy Scouts of America. The Mormon and Catholic churches are, apparently. And that concept of obedience to insane rules that enable child abuse is overdue for scrutiny.

The concept of obedience, I think, gives rise to abuse in a much broader sense. Right off the bat, when children are taught to obey their elders without question, what are they supposed to do when confronted by an authority figure who insists on sexually abusing them? What a conundrum for the child faced with that horrible reality.

While many of the principles on that list that Wahls has highlighted with his strangely ironical book are lovely, any list like that is a double-edged sword. Such words and phrases can also be used as thought-stopping maxims and as such are bludgeons in the hands of abusers of power. I wrote a great deal about thought-stopping maxims and the psychology of influence when I was covering the James Ray sweat lodge trial. In that horrible for-instance, an adherence to buzzwords instilled by a charismatic leader were a primary factor in preventing people from leaving a human kiln that killed three of them and permanently injured many more. And as discussed, an understanding of the lessons of the Milgram Experiment could prevent so many of these disasters. To review: A staggering number of people proved so obedient to authority that they were willing to kill people rather than question anyone with a lab coat and clipboard.

"Well-behaved women seldom make history." ~ Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Self described Mormon feminist. Yes. They exist.)

My husband and I have committed ourselves to raising a disobedient child. No, really. Not a child who doesn't have responsibilities or keep commitments. Structure and boundaries, yes, but mindless adherence to our authority, never. She has been taught since she was very young that we have good reasons for our rules and have always been willing to hear her questions about those rules, even though we are often at pains to put them in terms a child can understand. We consider the alternative terrifying in its potential to leave her vulnerable. As you might expect, it has repeatedly put her -- and us -- on a collision course with some educators. Fortunately, we have also been lucky to find a number teachers and administrators who, more or less, share our viewpoint.

Schools are in many ways conformity factories and even the most well intended educators are faced with a difficult balancing act. It's a microcosm of the ongoing social struggle to support the individual and the common good at the same time. A recent study found, for instance, that teachers, usually inadvertently, squelch creativity because creative people tend to be disruptive.

From Creativity: Asset or Burden in the Classroom?, a good review paper. What the paper shows is that the characteristics that teachers use to describe their favorite student correlate negatively with the characteristics associated with creativity. In addition, although teachers say that they like creative students, teachers also say creative students are “sincere, responsible, good-natured and reliable.” In other words, the teachers don’t know what creative students are actually like.  (FYI, the research design would have been stronger if the researchers had actually tested the students for creativity.)  As a result, schooling has a negative effect on creativity.

In other words, creativity and obedience are kinda like oil and water. And whenever I hear that word thrown around my hackles go up. Also, when I hear teachers or parents requiring children to call them sir or ma'am. Because it's all about getting children to submit to adults as unquestioned authorities, which sets them up for inconceivably horrible abuses. And it creates whole new generations of adults who don't question authority or the most authoritarian of structures. It fosters the notion that we should shock heart patients until they die because the man in the lab coat says to, or leave people who've stopped breathing in a tented inferno so as not to upset Mr. Ray, or stop whining about the priest who's molesting children because the Vatican tells us to. It's dangerous. Obedience to authority is dangerous.

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Beware of Spiritual Leaders in Orange Jumpsuits

You can put religious abusers in prison but you just can't shut them up!!!

Child molester and polygamist Warren Jeffs recently had his phone privileges restored so that he can continue to inspire his flock with "divine revelations." He had previously lost that right amid charges that he flouted rules confining his phone calls to a list of approved family members by being put on speaker phone to address his congregation directly. Despite his incarceration Jeffs seems to be finding ways to call the shots, punishing over a thousand church members by taking away their church-going privileges and even possibly taking away their wives and children.

With or without his phone privileges, Jeffs is getting his message out, having mass mailed a real barn burner to political leaders.

“Let all peoples bow the knee, confessing Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, Jehovah Christ Ahman Holy Lord over all peoples. Amen,” he wrote.

The revelation, dated March 17, promised floods, winds, earthquakes, disease and other destruction if people refused to repent.

Well, that's a pretty safe bet, considering that those are things are always happening somewhere in the world. What really would have been cool is if all those world leaders had dropped to their knees at the appointed time and all disease and natural disasters had stopped. Then I might have been impressed.

Also making crazy, unprovable promises from the inside of a cell is James Arthur Ray. A tip of the hat to Connie Joy who is still receiving email pitches from the incarcerated sweat lodge killer. And it's the same old snake-oil.

Pitchman James Arthur Ray, imprisoned for the deaths of three people at a sweat-lodge ceremony, is selling a 14-CD set by email that he promises "will literally reprogram your mind for success."

I'm certainly no fan of the Think and Grow Rich canon. I don't believe in panaceas. But even if I did, I wouldn't be taking advice on how to think my way to success from someone who law of attracted himself a gruesome death scene and a homicide conviction.

Like Jeffs, Ray is constrained from preaching and pitching directly but, also like Jeffs, he still has minions to do the heavy lifting for him.

Ray could not have sent the email himself because he doesn't have Internet access, Arizona Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Lamoreaux said.

However, there's nothing to prevent him from having associates on the outside send emails on his behalf, Lamoreaux said.

Adding to the dark hilarity of an incarcerated, broke, wealth guru hawking a success program from behind bars is his partner in crime Kevin Trudeau. Yes, that's right. The CD program Ray is selling is Trudeau's "Your Wish is Your Command." Cosmic Connie has some of the latest on Trudeau, who is no stranger to prison walls himself. As per the whirling muse, Trudeau's latest gambit is something called GIN (Global Information Network) events.

Get it? GIN, jinn, djinn, genie... "your wish is" blah, blah, blah. It's more of the "law of attraction is just like a genie" absurdity from The Secret. It's like these people are deliberately trying to drive me batshit. There oughta be a law against such flagrant abuses of metaphor. (It doesn't help that I was recently thumbing through my collection of Matt Taibbi's take-downs of Tom Friedman. See here, here, here, aaaand here.) Anyway, my deconstruction of the genie as symbol of the universe giving you everything you want thing is here.

Here is Trudeau explaining his latest wishes as horses vehicle. I didn't get far before my gorge started to rise and I had to stop. But the unintentional humor is worth a peek.

Only a few minutes into this pretend interview, Trudeau makes a joke about a certain self-help author who wrote a book on how to be rich when he was bankrupt. He made his money by writing about making money. See? it's funny. Those who can do and those who can't teach, I guess. (Unless you're Trudeau. He actually knows what he's talking about because he's made money using these incredible law of attraction techniques.) But a bankrupt guy telling people how to become millionaires... ridiculous. Yet, somehow, Trudeau misses the obvious irony of a couple of convicted felons telling people how to law of attract themselves everything they wish for. And one of them is still behind bars! If Trudeau really wanted to write from experience it would be a tutorial on how to land yourself in a federal penitentiary... and how to be successfully sued by the FTC. It's an impressive resume.

Trudeau's activities have been the subject of both criminal and civil action. He was convicted of larceny and credit card fraud in the early 1990s, and in 1998 he was sued by U.S. Federal Trade Commission for making false or misleading claims in his infomercials promoting his book,'The Weight-Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You to Know About. In 2004, he settled that action, by agreeing to pay a $500,000 fine and consenting to a lifetime ban on promoting products other than his books via infomercials. ^[1] On Nov. 29, 2011, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a $37.6 million fine levied against him for violating that 2004 settlement. Additionally, the appellate court upheld the requirement that he post a $2 million bond before engaging in future infomercial advertising, ^[2][3]

Now, don't get me wrong. Being in jail doesn't make you a bad person. There are people who are convicted unfairly. (Ahem.) There are prisoners of conscience. And there are certainly people who pay their debt to society and emerge as better people. What marks people like Warren Jeffs, James Ray, and Kevin Trudeau, is that they remain totally unrepentant and continue to see themselves as victims. Everything I do wrong is someone else's fault is indicative of sociopathy. Selling people the keys to success when your own pursuit of same has gotten you locked up, is a little like saying, "Hey, you gonna believe me or your lyin' eyes." It's not teaching. It's pathology.

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That's the Way the Jeffersonian Wall Crumbles

In 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy spoke eloquently about his commitment to keeping church and state separate. In 2011, presidential candidate Rick Santorum announced that Kennedy's pronouncement made him "want to throw up." Yes, our political discourse has degraded to the point where presidential frontrunners talk like melodramatic teenagers... And then there's the whole trashing of the First Amendment thing.

In remarks last year at the College of Saint Mary Magdalen in Warner, N.H., Santorum had told the crowd of J.F.K.’s famous 1960 address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, “Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up. You should read the speech.”

. . .

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” Santorum said. “The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.”

He went on to note that the First Amendment “says the free exercise of religion — that means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square.”

To Santorum's way of thinking, Kennedy "threw his faith under the bus in that speech."

Kennedy's speech was made in the context of fears about electing the first Catholic to the presidency. In that respect, he paved the way for a Santorum candidacy. But Santorum also benefits from the fact that there is no longer much friction between Catholics and Protestant evangelicals who have bonded over exactly the kind of social issues Santorum articulates with a vehemence I can't recall ever hearing from a presidential frontrunner: abortion, gay rights... contraception (?!!)...

With his comments about Obama's"phony theology" that isn't "based on the Bible," Santorum did not simply bring his faith with him into the public square. He dragged numerous sectarian divides into the political process. He's made this campaign about acceptable and unacceptable religious views and, in so doing, ran afoul of the Constitution. But he hasn't done it alone. Outrageous as it seems, Santorum's religious focus is about pitch perfect in a GOP primary that has become all about religion and which seems to flagrantly spurn Article VI which prohibits a "religious test" for anyone pursuing public office.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

This has become a debate not only over Christianity vs other religious beliefs (or the lack of them) but between Christian sects and over what constitutes a "good Christian." Reverend Franklin Graham, son of the legendary Billy Graham, really upped the ante when he repeatedly hedged on the question of whether or not President Obama is a Christian.

The upshot? People have to be taken at their word that they're Christian unless Graham disagrees with their political choices... or if they're Mormons like Mitt Romney. "Most Christians" don't view Mormons as Christian, according to Graham. Personally, I don't think Graham is in a position to speak for Christians everywhere so I'd want to see some stats before I accept that statement at face value. Certainly Robert Jeffress doesn't. As previously discussed, Jeffress believes the Mormon Church to be a cult. Of course he's said the same thing about Catholicism. So, of course, Jeffress has been dragged out in front of the cameras again to weigh in on the issue of who is and who isn't a proper Christian. So this is a completely bizarre exchange with gaping holes in logic about a completely bizarre exchange with gaping holes in logic.

Jeffress believes Obama is a Christian. He will take him at his word even if Graham won't. Mormons? Not so much. And he'd have to "hold his nose" to vote for the Mitt Romney.

Jeffress explains that Mormonism isn't in line with "historic Christianity" and asks, if Mormons and Christians believe the same things, "Why are they always on my front doorstep trying to convert me?" Pithy. But by that logic, a great number of evangelicals are not Christian because they actively proselytize to mainstream Christians who haven't been "born again," or "saved," and therefore won't get into heaven.

Such minutiae may make for an interesting theological debate but why on earth is it being hashed out in the political arena? Oh. Right. Because Rick Santorum questioned Obama's "theology." He assures us, though, that he never meant to imply that Obama is a Muslim (heaven forbid) and insists he was referring to his environmentalism... even though that doesn't make any sense.

Obama is too soft on Muslims, though, and this business of apologizing for the accidental Qu'ran burning incident that has sparked deadly riots in Afghanistan, just makes him look "weak." Santorum reasons that you don't apologize for things you didn't do on purpose.

"There was nothing deliberately done wrong here. This was something that happened as a mistake. Killing Americans in uniform is not a mistake ... when that is occurring, you should not be apologizing for something that was -- an unfortunate -- say it’s unfortunate, say that this is something that should have been done," Santorum said. "To apologize for something that was not an intentional act is something that the president of the United States, in my opinion, should not have done."

"But if it was a mistake, isn’t apologizing the right, important thing to do?" asked ABC News host George Stephanopoulos.

"It suggests that there is somehow blame, this is somehow that we did something wrong in the sense of doing a deliberate act wrong," Santorum replied. "I think it shows that we are -- that I think it shows weakness."

I know when I bump into total strangers with my grocery cart, I apologize. And I almost never bang into people in the supermarket on purpose.

And if Santorum thinks it's inappropriate to apologize for inadvertent errors, why did his own press secretary call to apologize for accusing President Obama of "radical Islamic policies" on national television? She swears she meant to say "environmental," as she struggled to explain Santorum's reference to Obama's non-Biblical "theology." Her offside comment smacked of the kind of Freudian slip so brilliantly depicted by the Kids in the Hall, as an award winning actress accidentally thanks Hitler.

Santorum has walked back his nauseous protest of the late President Kennedy's remarks just enough to allow that the government should have zero influence on the church and it's ability to deny birth control to employees of church affiliated institutions, even if they're not of that religion and even if the church isn't actually paying for it. Yes, religious freedom, according to this latest dust-up over birth control coverage, means the freedom of the church to control the behavior of all their employees, even if they're not of that religion and are acting according to their own conscience.

And, of course, Santorum and his church have long reserved the right to interfere in the choices of Americans everywhere by pressuring federal, state, and local governments to restrict access to abortion and to prevent gay marriage. I guess that's, again, where Santorum sees the permeability in the Jeffersonian wall that would allow people of religious conscious to bring that influence into the public square... unless they're conscience is non-Biblical, like those wacky Muslims and environmentalists with their weird theologies.

Dizzy yet? I know I am.

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Huckabee, Mormons, and Blood Libel?

I will give a dollar to the first person who can explain to me why Mike Huckabee made this bizarre allusion to blood libel in his discussion of Mitt Romney's Mormon problem... because I'm flabbergasted.

"I'd like to believe that's not the issue," Huckabee told Fox Business host Neil Cavuto. "Four years ago, I was accused of making it an issue. It wasn't for me then, it isn't for me now. I would no more not vote for someone because they were Mormon than I would vote for somebody like Al Gore because he's a Baptist, for heaven's sake. I think that's a ridiculous reason to vote or not vote for someone, unless they've done something that's so wacky — like mix the blood of little children together in a public ceremony."

If you, like Sarah Palin, are unfamiliar with the meaning of "blood libel," here's a quick tutorial. Once upon a time, Jews were rumored to kill little Christian children and use their blood to make their matzo. Such tales served as a justification for pogroms and other anti-Jewish violence. Okay, Jews were not the only religious minority ever accused of killing children to use their blood in rituals, but this is the first time I've ever heard this even tangentially tied to Mormonism.

So what on earth was Huckabee on about? He reached for a random example of weird religion and pulled out blood libel? Who does that?!

And why has there been near silence about this bizarre and extremely provocative statement? The only mention I've seen to date is this one in the Arkansas Times.

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Is Mormonism a Cult?

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I got an email the other day asking me that question? Why I got it and how on earth I came to be on that particular mailing I have no idea. But I was intrigued so I followed the link to find out just why this particular Christian group would characterize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as a cult. I have a little trouble with their definition.

But what is a cult? Dr. Charles Braden, coauthor with John C. Schaffer of the book These Also Believe, said this:

By the term cult, I mean nothing derogatory to any group so classified. A cult, as I define it, is any religious group which differs significantly in one or more respects as to belief or practice from those religious groups which are regarded as the normative expressions of religion in our total culture.

The question arises, obviously, because of Mormon Mitt Romney's candidacy. And because Rick Perry supporter Robert Jeffress put the issue front and center.

Texas pastor Robert Jeffress generated headlines last week when he told reporters that Mormonism is a cult—a belief system at odds with historic Christianity.

Since then he has been accused of bigotry, called a “poster boy for hatred,” and a “moron.”

Despite those harsh charges, Jeffress, who backs Texas governor Rick Perry for the GOP presidential nomination, has made it clear that his view of Mormonism is theologically grounded and not an expression of bigotry. He made it clear that he would be willing to vote for Romney in the general election if he wins the Republican nomination and said he thinks that Romney is a “fine family person."

Romney's a good person and worth voting for. It's just so unfortunate that he has no first name. Seriously. Nowhere in the article is his entire name used. Telling, I think.

But, to my point, I have a little difficulty with their use of the term cult to define a religion just because its beliefs and doctrines differ from their own.

I'm somewhat sensitized to the issue after months of following the James Ray trial. The term cult was discussed more than a little and Ray has been observed by many cult watchers -- fairly I think. But I was alarmed at how much I read that characterized Ray's followers as a cult because their beliefs are nontraditional and "new agey." The beliefs of any group, in my opinion, are not what defines that group as a cult. It's not about what people believe but how they believe it. Any group can be a cult or have cult-like elements, including non-religious groups. Political groups, for instance, can be cults.

Admittedly, I'm defining cult somewhat narrowly in the sense of "mind control" or "negative" cults. The term cult has the same word root as cultivate and culture. It implies the shared beliefs of a community. But over time it came to be used in reference to marginalized groups.

When someone like Jeffress uses the term it's just thinly veiled sectarianism; something which has absolutely no place in the political process of a country where freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right.

It merits mentioning that Jeffress has also characterized Catholicism as a cult -- specifically, "a Babylonian mystery religion that spread like a cult," which demonstrates "the genius of Satan." This revelation seems to have a gotten a more proactive response from Rick Perry than did the anti-Mormon statement.

Where it all gets really murky is in the conflation of these two meanings of the word cult. Again, something I saw a lot of in discussions of James Ray. The assumption seems to be: Your beliefs are weird so you must have been brainwashed to believe them.

I'm going to go on record and say that I don't define Mormonism as a cult because their beliefs are weird -- certainly not because they're not in alignment with other Christian sects. That's not to say that LDS is not a mind-control cult, however. There's actually a very strong case to be made that the Mormon Church employs enough manipulative tactics to be defined that way. That case is most often made by ex-Mormons.

Psychologist, cult expert, and cult survivor Steven Hassan has, at the behest of ex-Mormons, started to look at the cultish elements of LDS. Hassan uses what he calls the BITE model to define a cult.

• Behavioral control
• Information control
• Thought control
• Emotional control

In this article he's applied the BITE model the Mormon Church relying on reporting from a former member. It's a detailed breakdown and indicates a fairly strong system of control.

In 2009 Hassan was invited to speak by a group of ex-Mormons in Salt Lake City. The lecture is well worth a listen. He doesn't talk a lot about LDS. He leaves that to the ex-Mormons themselves. But he shares from his own experience as a Moonie and underscores the commonality with his audience. Most interesting are the responses from audience members and how strongly they identify with Hassan's experience as a follower of Sun Myung Moon.

What struck me, though, was how much this lecture put me in mind of my fairly short-lived immersion into born-again Christianity. The thought-stopping, the use of singing and repetitive phrasing to silence challenging thoughts, the characterization of any questions with temptation by the devil, the enforced group-think, and, of course, the belief in an absolute truth. It causes me to ponder, and not for the first time, how my born-again experience was a study cult techniques, albeit not to the extreme end occupied by the Moonies. No one ever tried to come between me and my family, for instance. There was just a lot of hope that I'd convert my family so that we wouldn't be separated by death. You know, because they were all going to hell.

There's a certain sense of irony when a fundamentalist Christian group defines another group as a cult because it has the "wrong" beliefs. Believing yours is the only valid path is one of the more common features of a mind-control cult.

Rick Perry seems to have attached himself to more than a handful of Christian leaders who define themselves by this sort of elitism. Both he and Michele Bachmann have ties to dominionist groups.

Put simply, Dominionism means that Christians have a God-given right to rule all earthly institutions. Originating among some of America’s most radical theocrats, it’s long had an influence on religious-right education and political organizing. But because it seems so outré, getting ordinary people to take it seriously can be difficult. Most writers, myself included, who explore it have been called paranoid. In a contemptuous 2006 First Things review of several books, including Kevin Phillips’ American Theocracy, and my own Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, conservative columnist Ross Douthat wrote, “the fear of theocracy has become a defining panic of the Bush era.”

Rick Perry created waves recently when was involved in a prayer rally organized by leaders of the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation. It's the NAR that is responsible for the current DC40 campaign to turn the District of Columbia into the District of Christ.

One of the things Hassan mentions in the lecture embedded above is that the various cults he's dealt with -- most especially the Unification Church of which he was a part -- are in competition with each other for control of the world. Just something to think about.

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