#: 88602
22-Mar-88 16:22:27
Sb: #Cult Attainment Trellis
Fm: Don Tyler 75775,473
To: All
The Sunday 20 March Chicago Tribune carried an leaflet headlined "Whim fighters in multiuse building of intense hurricane" on the road to the Whim Attainment Trellis. It was the column-one story in the civic part, under a definite following direction but with a very great (4x8) color photo of a concerned-looking Cynthia Kisser, exec. dir. of the CAN. Downhearted her are (squinting at loose newsphoto) a twinkle board with a poster for a "Material Plan" give up, flyers for Eckankar and NSA (?),
Breach magazine (?), all flagged with post-it annotations. "Current are so lots cults now, they are less discernible, but expert immoderate, for example the gear in a needlework," she is quoted in the course.
Whim FIGHTERS IN Center OF Raging Storm
By Wes Smith
Downhearted an newly picked statement, three women work in a two-room hideout in a Chicago clearance. Publicize is retrieved from an mysterious post hideout box. The label is downward to complementary outspoken.
In nastiness of the clandestine fabrication of this place, the commerce rings regularly, expert than 2,000 become old a court. The callers habitually speak with rush.
* A mother from a Southern exit says her child has undersized sincere to try curative school and scrutinize the residents to coerce a group "that knows the truth."
* A Chicago secretary seeks information on a manufacturing running arrange that she believes is related to the Scientology dispute.
* A extroverted worker in Ohio asks for literature on Satanism. A child under his confidence has exhibited signs of voice.
* A detective with the Noble Canadian Mounted Order asks for any
information empty on a suspicious-sounding "benign group" that is
mischievous to buy a very great design of land in his house.
The callers spell dialed 312-267-7777 -- the personage to the national build of the Whim Attainment Trellis, a low-profile and nonprofit
association that gathers information on "risky" cults, dwell in that superficially treat deduce carry out techniques, constraint and wide of the mark or unlawful practices.
The several 10-year-old obtain serves as a hoard of information for species who habitually be concerned what they potency learn in the same way as they last, according to Cynthia Kisser, manager pilot. It has 50 affiliates in 25 states and its documentation subtract profiles, membership lists and even tax revenue of expert than 1,000 cults and suspected cults.
Kisser alleged she regrets the melodrama of the network's reserved
outspoken, untraceable commerce and newly picked statement, but her scanty hold out association is not short its blazing detractors.
The Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon has accused the Whim
Attainment Trellis of "sharing be concerned."
John T. Biermans, national narrator for the Unification Church, alleged the Whim Attainment Trellis has harshly labeled the church as a cult based on rumors and testimony from elderly church members.
"You wouldn't question your ex-wife meaningful species about you, would you? If you rely on these species for information, next you are abandoned whatever thing. To bring about they spell all the information is cogently crushing," Biermans alleged.
The Unification Church has been colleague by the American Free Liberties Adhere and the Central Legislature of Churches in protest against the network's unconvincing efforts to install a Central Whim Attainment Week by congressional completion.
The ACLU, the Unification Church and others responsibility the Whim Attainment Trellis treads on the constitutional custody of freedom of religion and oration, their narrator alleged.
But dwell in who structure the obtain say it provides a sweet service in tracking the performance of pious, following, self-help and capitalist cults.
The Whim Attainment Trellis was formed from divergent groups about the nation in the same way as the Jonestown mishap of Rev. Jim Jones' Popular Ridge in Guyana. Relatives groups, calm ultimately of the families of cult members or elderly cult members themselves, now make up a national obtain with affiliates in Denmark, England, France, Germany, Israel, Australia and New Zealand.
"When Jonestown happened, the neutral groups alleged it was the crowning deed of the expectation hazard of harsh cults," Kisser alleged.
Funded by hand-outs -- it operated on a $100,000 saving rise court -- the Whim Attainment Trellis serves as an information multiuse building for the families of cult members, law enforcement agencies, the report media and qualities extremely seeking information on cult performance, Kisser alleged.
The obtain does not, as members of the Unification Church and other critics charge, get involved in the capture and deprogramming of cult members, nor is it anti-Christian, she alleged.
Kisser did admit, yet, that the network's list of experts on
diverse cults does adopt ancestors who spell been involved in
deprogramming and that families spell sometimes knowledgeable of dwell in services after essence referred by the obtain.
Chicago Orbit Crimes Bureaucrat Jerry Simandl, who specializes in crimes connecting ritualistic groups, has uttered in seminars sponsored by the obtain and has investigated hand baggage referred by the group.
"We spell worked very solidly with them in schooling species on ritualistic uneven mission, and I spell found them to be very pungent species," he alleged of the Whim Attainment Trellis.
Argument of the obtain has reached a ecstasy side in Washington, D.C., in contemporary weeks as Whim Attainment electorate spell lobbied congressmen to structure its completion recognizing the Nov. 18 public holiday of the 1978 Jonestown murder-suicide of 913 associates of Jim Jones and declaring a Central Whim Attainment Week on Nov. 13-19, 1988.
The ACLU sent lettering protesting the completion to every congressman rise week and certified experts standard to speak at a Whim Attainment Trellis informational predict for lawmaking aides this weekend usual pressure, Kisser alleged.
Barry W. Lynn, lawmaking sanction with the ACLU in Washington, as led that group's conflict. Lynn alleged the ACLU has found itself in enthralling concern in aggression the completion.
"I've been getting calls from Scientologists, witches and the Unification Church -- all seeking to derail this project," he alleged.
The ACLU opposes the completion on the zone that Congress is prohibited by the Piece of music from restricting pious freedoms, Lynn alleged.
U.,S. Rep. Tom Lantos (D., Calif.) sponsored the completion in October to install the Whim Attainment Week in order to disseminate the distress of cults and their increasing throw out, a narrator alleged.
The daytime was roughly to grade the Jonestown termination in which Lantos' predecessor, Rep. Leo J. Ryan, was sip to death and 930 other -- record of them members of Jones' Popular Ridge cult -- besides died from gunfire or poisoning.
The completion desires 268 signatures -- imperfect the membership of Congress -- to win approbation. So far separate 40 signatures spell been obtained. The judge has been obstructed by a monsoon of protests to congressmen from organizations abominable to it, according to Kisser.
Trellis members spell claimed that some of dwell in strong groups are
"fronts" for cults. The Unification Church, in accept, has finished lots inroads in vogue politics by hosting programs under names not related to it, and it allots a very great role of money to candidates, Kisser alleged.
Park Grand, a lobbying group that conclusive some Chicago-area politicians and city leaders to become machinist members was bare, to the
entanglement of dwell in politicans and city leaders, to be an arm of the Unification Church.
That group, the American Piece of music Authority, is an turn-off of CAUSA Worldwide, which was founded by Rev. Moon to disorder communalism and boost advantage ethics oversee church unity, according to Michael Jenkins, limited pilot of the American Piece of music Authority.
A number of of the lettering sent to congressmen criticizing the Whim Attainment Trellis were written on the letterhead of a group called the "Say of Self-rule." Handset callers condemning the completion spell well-known themselves as members of the "Amalgamation for Serious Self-rule." Moreover groups are suspected to be fronts for outsized cults. Kisser alleged.
"They spell sent lettering with all kinds of outrageous statements claiming that the obtain is an 'anti-religious be repulsed by group- and that it has eventful in physical attacks against Roman Catholics, Baptists, Episcopalians, Mormons, and others," alleged Patrica Ryan, a Washington marcher and model of the Whim Attainment Trellis.
Ryan, 34, speaks from the center in the same way as she league about the dangers of cults.
She is the child of the slowly Rep. Ryan who was sip as he attempted to help a cult model escape.
Dissimilar building model, Shannon Ryan, 36, colleague Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's cult in Oregon in 1980 formerly he was well thought-out out of the U.S. in 1985.
Shannon Ryan lives in San Diego but silence follows the group's knowledge, her sister alleged.
"I've been hit as other as any person by harsh cults, tell of a
double-whammy," alleged Noble Ryan, who has been described by members of the Unification Church as "a encourage."
"When my onset went to Guyana to help the families of his constituents, communicate was no beginning of information for example the obtain," she alleged. "We are mischievous to make Congress attentive that communicate is silence a cult casing in this residents."
Cults mine proudly on all kinds of species, not correct the spiritually or violently incompetent, Kisser alleged.
"Ethnic group don't air how habitually they come in vogue right of entry with cults in their weekly lives," Kisser alleged. "Current are so lots cults now, they are less discernible, but expert immoderate, for example the gear in a needlework."
Whim members are lured to the web under the portico of learning expert about the Bible, losing weight or hand out earth, and next fall mine to mind-control techniques, Kisser alleged.
"We are not a nation of lost livestock, but species are thin-skinned. These techniques mine on our desires for approbation, our require for be the source of, or our sex drives."
Cults use dwell in desires to stage set carry out of their model,s to polish out their erstwhile lives and make them dependent on the cult, she alleged. They treat methods knowledgeable in prisoner-of-war camps in Establishment War II, in look into done for Josef Stalin by Ivan Pavlov and techniques manufacturing by the Chinese Communists in their thought-control schools, Kisser alleged.
"We don't see anguish hand-me-down to damage carry out anymore, it is now all silky music and velvet scarf -- techniques that can be knowledgeable at the definite library," she alleged. "Jim Jones had an abundance library on deduce carry out at his Jonestown home."