By Anuttama Dasa
It has been almost thirty years since I first attended a conference of the American Family Foundation, now the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA). I was recently in Barcelona, Spain, for their latest international gathering.
What I’ve learned, both in those meetings and through my leadership role in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), is that we in the Hare Krishna movement need to be concerned about “cultic behaviors.”
When I first attended the ICSA meetings, I found that many people thought in a simple duality: Organizations, and especially religious societies, are either healthy and benign, or dangerous and destructive “cults.”
However, the study of cults was evolving. Many concerned with the cultic phenomena were not just debating whether a group is a cult or not. They were studying interpersonal dynamics within groups to understand and measure cultic behaviors. In other words, they were finding that leaders of groups may manipulate and harm members—sometimes as an isolated case of abuse within an otherwise healthy organization. They spoke of a spectrum of manipulation, or what some called undue influence.
Read more: https://iskconnews.org/why-iskcon-needs-to-be-on-guard-against-cultic-behavior/
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