Published in CULTIC
STUDIES JOURNAL Volume 17 (2000): 56-78.
Most contemporary debates about the applicability of
"brainwashing" as a social scientific concept involve arguments over
what (if any) utility it has when discussing conversion to some high-demand,
alternative religions. Some
sociologists of religion use the term "brainwashing" to apply to
extreme social influences. Others
restrict use of the term to situations involving forcible confinement and
physical coercion, presumably amidst a group-indoctrination process. Since few
such conversion situations exist, these sociologists avoid utilizing
brainwashing within social scientific discourse. What they have overlooked,
however, is the conceptual utility of the brainwashing concept, even with their
restrictive definition, for analyzing some groups' efforts at retaining or
reconverting members. This study examines an example of a brainwashing
program--the camps and programs that the Children of God\The Family developed
for its teen members. These programs
included intense re-education programs in the context of physical,
psychological, and socio-emotional punishments, often in confined or guarded
camps. As a social scientific concept, "brainwashing" has explanatory
usefulness for understanding The Family's harsh efforts both to increase the
intensity of teens' commitment to the organization, and to foster compliance to
leadership.
Central
to the lives of preteen and teenage members of The Family (formerly the
Children of God [COG]) in the late 1980s was their [p. 57] involvement in organizationally
run teen training and re-indoctrination camps and programs in various parts
of the world. Hundreds of young people passed through programs that operated
in Brazil, Denmark, England, Italy, Japan, Macao, Mexico, Norway, the Philippines,
Scotland, Switzerland, Thailand, South America, and probably other locations
(for a partial list, see Ward, 1995: 135, 167). Some of these young people
remained in these programs for years. It is not possible either to establish exact numbers of young people
who went through them or to know what was the average length of time that
they stayed in them. Likewise, thus far it has proven impossible to obtain
detailed information about the imposition of these programs on adults (see
COUNTERCOG, n.d.). Nevertheless, we are able to identify many of the activities
that routinely occurred as part of the re-indoctrination processes that young
detainees experienced in different programs around the world.
COG
leadership started these programs and camps in an attempt to heighten
commitment to founder, David Berg, and his directives among the children of the
initial converts (often called ‘the second generation'). By operating these
programs, The Family was attempting to address the classic problem that
confronts sects, which involves the cultivation of commitment and devotion
among a second generation born to parents who are members already. By the early
1980s it seems that a number of teens in The Family were having grave doubts
about following in their parents' footsteps, even as others considered
themselves committed adherents to Berg's instructions. Teen camps and programs,
therefore, were attempts to instill a deep commitment among young people whose
faith may have been wavering, or who had not made intense emotional investments
to the ideology. On these grounds alone, the stories of people who went through
these camps and related programs should interest many scholars.
Of
greater interest to scholars, however, is that these teen training programs
fit the most restrictive definition of brainwashing facilities. That is to say, these programs variously confined
(and at times incarcerated) their young participants as they physically maltreated
them, which are the two necessary conditions that some sociologists require
for labeling and analyzing a thought reform program as "brainwashing"
(Anthony, 1990: 304-305). Indeed, we even could narrow further these already
restrictive requirements for brainwashing by saying they must take place amidst
a program of intense ideological
training consisting of indoctrination classes, social [p. 58] isolation, and
forced confessions, often combined with extremely hard physical labor and
social humiliation. Because The Family's so-called teen "education"
programs of the late 1980s meet this most narrowly restrictive sociological
definition of brainwashing, scholars (especially sociologists of religion)
will need to reexamine a term that has been out of favor among them for over
a decade and a half.
Our
purpose here is not to argue over the long-term effectiveness of brainwashing.
Instead, we simply intend to support our claim that The Family instituted
programs that meet the most demanding social scientific definition of
brainwashing—a definition even stricter than one given in a Family publication
that “’brainwashing’ implies the use of force, coercion, duress and
imprisonment” (World Services, 1993: 20). We are fully prepared to consider the
possibility that brainwashing programs can operate outside of settings that
forcibly confine and physically maltreat (presumably as they attempt to
re-educate). We do not explore,
however, this possibility within the study at hand.
Not
only does this study call for a reexamination of the brainwashing concept, but
also it relies upon a research source--former members--that many sociologists
of religion have neglected for a number of years (see Richardson 1994: 34-39).
Simple triangulation, involving the collection of multiple accounts of the
programs by different people, in combination with organizational publications,
help ensure the basic accuracy of former members' information (see Richardson,
1994: 37).
On
the topic, therefore, of teen training programs, former members who assisted us
are far more reliable than current Family members. Current members appear to
have become so conscious of the benefits accruing from favorable public
relations from academics that they may not give accurate descriptions of life
in these programs and camps (Kent and Krebs, 1998a: 45-46; 1998b: 37-38; 1999:
21-22). Moreover, this particular group has a long-standing policy that
justifies deception when protecting its collective interests (Berg, 1979), so
members' comments about a controversial subject such as these teen re-education
programs are likely to be highly problematic.
By contrast, former members who wish to remain anonymous have a great
investment in protecting their identities, so if anything they are more likely
to understate, rather than overstate, their experiences.
[p.
59] The study's senior author conducted the interviews described in this paper
between 1992 and 1998. These interviews
build upon and grow out of his ongoing research about so-called "cults
and new religions" that have affected Canada and Canadians. The interviews
ranged in duration from less than forty-five minutes to several hours. They involved open-ended questions that allowed
people to tell their own stories in their own words. Many of the people whom the senior author interviewed
felt strongly about what they considered to have been extreme physical, emotional,
and sexual abuses that they experienced in these programs, and they were pleased
that an academic provided them an opportunity to speak.
Moreover, the senior author did all but one of the interviews over
the telephone, which prevented interview subjects from being influenced by
unintentional body cues.
The Teen Training Programs and Victor Camps in
Academic Studies of The Family
Only
one of the existing academic discussions of The Family has anything beyond a
brief mention of these camps and programs (see Chancellor, 2000: 234-241).
Indeed, it is impossible to know what these programs were like from information
gleaned from most of the standard (and even controversial) studies on the
organization. The earliest scholarly discussion appears to be David E. Van
Zandt's Living with the Children of God. Writing during a period
(January 1991) when at least some of these camps probably still operated, Van
Zandt stated that "[a]t the age of eleven or twelve, a member is sent to
one of the TTCs [Teen Training Camps] for leadership training. In many cases,
those who attend the TTCs do not return to their parents, but are sent directly
to new [Family] Homes to begin their adult proselytizing efforts for the
Family" (Van Zandt, 1991:
171-172). Van Zandt did not indicate that young people above the age of
twelve also entered variations of TTC programs.
Van
Zandt suggested that the teen camps were designed to protect teens from sexual
pressures:
As with adult sexual sharing, there are reports that
some leaders set up 'sharing nights' for children in which they were paired off
to make love before falling asleep.
Moreover, there were many cases in which older males were pressuring
young girls to share sexually.
[p. 60] This activity apparently got out of hand by
1984, and the group established "Teen Training Camp[s]" (TTC) in
1985 and 1986 at which pre-and young teens were removed from these sexual
pressures and were educated (Van Zandt, 1991: 171).
Our
ex-member sources, however, indicate that pre-teen sexual sharing took place
for a brief period at one of the camps, and that teen sex flourished at another
(Hosea's Macao camp). Moreover, adult sexual exploitation of young girls almost
certainly continued at Macao's Detention Teen program, which we will discuss
later on.
Other
references to The Family's teen camps and programs in academic literature
appear in the controversial study of The Family edited by James R. Lewis and
Gordon Melton (1994; see Balch, 1996). One article, written by a psychologist
and a sociologist who studied young people in The Family, mentioned the problem
caused by individualistic expressions in the organization. It continued by stating:
[A]n initial approach to this problem was the
establishment of special youth centers in certain parts of the world (e.g.,
Japan, Mexico, and Brazil) where young people who had been identified as
"problems" could be sent for an intensive period of social and
spiritual "retraining and strengthening" under the direction of adult
teacher-supervisors.... These centers were called "Victor" programs,
signifying the hope that those who entered the program would be able to gain a "victory"
over personal problems and return to their homes in a "yielded"
state, with heightened motivation to make more positive contributions (Shepherd
and Lilliston, 1994: 63).
Readers
can infer from these comments that one purpose of the Victor program was to
train teens to subjugate their individuality to the collective will (presumably
what the researchers meant by "a 'yielded' state"), but they give
no details about how this subjugation occurred. Gordon Melton's brief mention
of these camps and the Victor program only said that "the attendees and
the leaders engaged in a rather [p. 61] frank
discussion on sexual issues" (Melton, 1994: 90), without mentioning their
more central purpose of individual teen subjugation.
Hints
about the intensity of the techniques that many teens experienced in the Victor
program appear in a brief section written by David Millikan (1994: 229).
Millikan indicated:
[t]he problems of discipline within The Family of
young people, led to the establishment of Victor Camps. In a limited number of
locations in Maca[o], the Philippines, Norway and elsewhere, problem
adolescents were separated from regular Family activities. They were submitted
to a strict discipline of hard work, long hours of "Word" study
[i.e., David Berg's writings], and for the recalcitrant, extended periods of
isolation. The last of the "Victor" camps was closed in England in
1992. They have been the attention of close examinations, in particular, of a
wardship court case in London. Some of the accusations of excessive discipline
and physical beatings have been admitted to be true. These accusations have
been brought by ex-members, including Berg's granddaughter Mene [Merry] Berg,
who described a regime of discipline which went beyond the bounds of what could
be regarded as acceptable (Millikan, 1994: 229).
Millikan knew about the harsh and often physically
abusive conditions of the Victor program, but he did not give details about it.
Nor did he, or other researchers, use the term, "brainwashing," to
describe what the young people went through, even though the long hours of
study, the physical beatings, the "excessive discipline," and the
social isolation strongly suggest that the term would have been appropriate.
The
British wardship case that Millikan mentioned involved a grandmother attempting
to obtain custody of her grandson because her daughter (the child's mother
and caregiver) was in The Family. The written judgment by The Right Honourable
Lord Justice Alan Ward in the High Court of Justice, Family Division (London,
England) about the case (which allowed the mother to maintain custody as long
as she followed strict guidelines) spent nearly eight pages discussing Merry
Berg's plight (including her Teen Detention Camp experience in Macao). He
concluded, "[f]or The Family to gain respectability which [p. 62]
they [sic] now appear to seek,
they must acknowledge that what David Berg did to his granddaughter was wrong,
not just a mistake, but inexcusably wrong. They must atone for their treatment
of her which I find to have been barbaric and cruel" (Ward, 1995: 133,
see 125-133).
As
clarification to The Family’s “disciples” and “friends” about its written
response to Justice Ward’s queries about reform within the group, Family leader
Maria specifically acknowledged that abuses against teens had taken place, and
she apologized for them:
Also, we apologize to any of you young people who may
have been harshly and unlovingly disciplined in the past. We have heard a number of testimonies of
past excessive corporal punishment, prolonged “silence restriction” and/or
isolation, as well as other means of discipline which some of you experienced,
and we want to say that it pains us to hear such things. It was wrong, and we
are truly sorry that any of you received such treatment (Maria, 1995: 6-7).
In essence, because of the trial, the accounts of abuse
within many Teen Training Camps had received extensive exposure in open court,
and Family leadership had (at the very least) to acknowledge and apologize for
what had occurred.
The most recent academic book on The Family quotes two
young adults who had been through the beatings, humiliation, silence restrictions,
and hard physical labor of the Teen Training Camps, and one older adult who
had imposed these regimes on the teens (Chancellor, 2000: 237-241). This study
also mentioned, “[i]n the early stages of the Teen Training Camps, several
teenage girls related experiences of inappropriate and uninvited sexual contact
with adult males,” (Chancellor, 2000: 20). In response to these experiences
(which probably took place in early-to-mid 1986), Maria instructed the person
responsible for the group’s child care literature to publish an official internal
memorandum stating, “’we do not agree to adults having sexual contact with
children’” (quoted in Chancellor, 2000: 20). Despite having identified these
abuses, the author diminishes the impact that they likely had on the youth
who were victimized by concluding, “Family leadership and the individuals
who [p. 62] orchestrated the whole TTC affair seem genuinely repentant (Chancellor,
2000: 240).
Background to the Teen Training Camps and
Victor Program
Some
information exists about why Family leadership initiated both the Teen Training
Camps and the Victor program, and undoubtedly several factors facilitated their
appearance. By the mid-to-late-1980s, the group had a cohort of children in or
approaching their teenage years, and it seems likely (even from the name of the
Victor program) that many teens lacked the enthusiasm of their parents. A Family publication from the mid-1980s, for
example, indicated:
“Many of the couples who had married during the early
years of the Children of God era had adolescent children and, as is natural at
that age, those young teenagers were encountering serious questions about life
and the world around them as they searched for their identities and that, of
course, held new challenges for Family parents" (quoted in Ward, 1995:
135).
This
statement portrayed the problem of the second generation as a
"natural" process related to age, and it specifically avoided
identifying the "serious questions about life" that the teens were
having. Apparently, however, the Mexican Teen Training Camp of 1986 contained a
large number of disillusioned teens (Ward, 1995: 135).
Additional
insight about the crisis of the second generation came from information that
one of the Victor program's designers provided to Lord Justice Ward:
“By 1988 there was so much concern about the difficulties
in various field homes being experienced with the Jett [Junior End-Time Teens]
age (11 to 13 years), that a council of people was called. It had become apparent
that some of the teenagers did not have the same commitment to the way of
life of The Family as their parents (it [sic] wasn't so much that they didn't
have the same beliefs as their parents, they probably did, but they didn't
share the same enthusiasm and commitment and many of them [were] bored and
felt there was no challenge in their [p. 64] life [sic] and nothing to do.) We felt that the solution
lay in providing for the teenagers the sense of enthusiasm that we had when
we first joined the Children of God in the early ‘70s to bring [to] them a
sense of excitement and adventure and to enlarge their vision and the goals
of what it means to be in [T]he [F]amily, and that is basically what we try
to do with the Victor programme” (quoted in Ward, 1995: 163).
While
this Family member gave a positive interpretation of her organization's
creation of the Victor program, a Family publication suggested that, in some
cases, the resistance of the young to the lifestyles of their parents had
become pronounced. Indeed, a 1991 Family publication by Maria (entitled
"Jett/Teen Discipleship Revolution Needed Now") concluded, "we
have a big worldwide emergency with all our Jetts..." (Quoted in Ward, 1995:
168).
Hints
at the depth of this resistance appeared in a 1990 Family publication, which
indicated that "a number of teens" required special supervision. One
can suppose that Family leadership believed these young people were on paths
leading out of the organization, so their attitudes, views, and behaviors were
causing problems for other teens (and possibly for their parents or guardians).
A Family document put it this way:
Recently, different teens were brought in from many
different field Homes to the Heavenly City School [in Japan] to be part of the
"Teen Ministry Training Program" where they were to receive special
training in different ministries. At the same time the Shepherds wanted to help
a number of teens who had serious problems & were greatly in need of very
close oversight, discipline & intense retraining & rewiring in the
Word. To give this small group of
problem teens the care & attention needed, the "Teen Victor
Program" was begun. These problem
teens, now called the Teen Victors, were moved to a retraining center where
their Shepherds were able to zero in on their needs (Family Services, 1990:
11).
While
these comments referred specifically to arrangements for teens in the Japanese
facility, they basically described (from The Family's [p. 65] perspective)
the development of all the Victor programs worldwide. Disagreement exists,
however, over how long they operated, with a British judge indicating that
they ran from about 1989 to their closure approximately eighteen months later
in 1990 (Ward, 1995: 163) and an academic indicating that the last one shut
down in 1992 (Millikan, 1994: 229). The most recent book on The Family locates
the establishment of the Mexican Teen Training Camp in June and July, 1986,
which stimulated the creation of others in South America and Asia (Chancellor,
2000: 20). Van Zandt’s earlier study dates the Teen Training Camps from around
1985 and 1986 (Van Zandt, 1991: 171). One of our informants spoke about entering
(what she called) a Teen Combo in Mexico in 1991 or 1992 that strongly resembled
the Teen Training Program (Kent Interview with Betty, 1996: 42-50).
Certainly
the crisis of faith experienced by David Berg's granddaughter, Merry Berg, had
shown Family leadership that teens might need "retraining &
rewiring" because they cultivated ideas that challenged the organization's
ideological claims. Sara, who was the nanny in the David Berg household, wrote
about "how unbelievably good Mene [Merry's Family name] was in her overall
behaviour, attitudes, and even spirit. There is no more extreme example we
could use as an almost, nearly 'perfect' child" (Sara in [Berg], 1987:
460). Nevertheless, David Berg and his
immediate leaders put the fourteen-year-old through at least five exorcisms and
frequent beatings because (so they charged) she was filled with pride, making
"cruel criticisms of Grandpa & Mama" (i.e., David Berg and his
long-time mistress, Maria [Karen Zerby]), having violent dreams about her
grandfather (see Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992a: 67), and having serious
doubts about his behavior and teachings (Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992a:
71; [Berg], 1987: 444-446; Ward, 1995: 131).
During
an interview, Merry described a growing disillusionment with her grandfather
because of the behavior she witnessed while living in various households with
him for several years. As she reflected
back on this period, she noted, "it was disappointing for me to come
to his house and see what he was really like" (Kent Interview with Merry
Berg, 1992a: 59). Little doubt exists,
for example, that David Berg sexually assaulted her countless times (Kent
Interview with Merry Berg, 1992a: 31-34; Ward, 1995: 116; see Kent, 1994a:
157-159; Kent Interview with Stephanie, 1997: 11, 12-13), and Merry witnessed
the debilitating effects on his mind and body from her grandfather's self-admitted
alcoholism (Berg, 1989: 3; see Hill, 1981: 44-48, 90; [p. 66] Kent
Interview with Stephanie, 1997: 12-13; Van Zandt, 1991: 169 n.13). As Merry
exclaimed, "[h]ere Mo was, you know, guzzling down God knows how much
sherry every night...." (Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992a: 61, see
60; see Ward, 1995: 131). In addition, Merry also saw "him contradicting
himself and his letters all the time" (Kent Interview with Merry Berg,
1992a: 61; see Kent, 1994b: 40-41).
The Detention Teen Program in Macao
Disregarding
the factual basis for Merry's doubts, Berg and his inner cadre subjected her to
severe physical maltreatmentLord Justice Ward called her ordeal "a form
of torture" (Ward, 1995: 152, see 126-133)that ultimately failed to
"adjust" her thinking about her grandfather. In frustration and anger, they finally sent
her to COG property in Macao during April 1987, which her uncle, Hosea (David
Berg's son) ran (Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992a: 78; cf. Ward, 1995:
125, who gives her departure to Macao as August 1987). Within weeks of her
arrival, Family leaders sent Hosea instructions that would become central
restrictions against supposedly rebellious teens. Merry recalled these
instructions: "'Merry needs to be on silence restriction....[W]henever she
walks from place to place, she needs to have an adult with her'" because
(as she remembered her uncle telling her) "'you are untrustworthy right
now'" (Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992a: 78). In the Victor programs
that soon developed, silence restriction (which prohibited a person from
conversing with others) and close adult monitoring became standard practices.
For
the next three-and-a-half years, Merry remained at this facility, which became
know as a Detention Teen Camp by the beginning of 1988 (Kent Interview with
Merry Berg, 1992a: 83) but which The Family also called "a camp for
Determined Teens" (Ward, 1995: 152). Soon other teens began arriving, most
of whose parents were members of The Family's elite World Service (Ed Priebe,
1993: 23; Kent Interview with Lorna, 1996: 18; see Kent Interview with Frost,
1995: 12). (At some point Hosea transferred out of his oversight position of
the Detention Teen program and led a Victor program on the same Macao
property.) Merry estimated that about fifteen teens spent time in the detention
camp during her stay there, with their periods of servitude varying from
"a couple of months" to "two years" (Kent Interview with
Merry Berg, 1992b: 5).
[p.
67] Merry endured many ordeals in the camp, which were the likely causes of
her mental breakdown (Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992a: 84; 1992b: 17-19;
see Ward, 1995: 115, 130-133). These ordeals must have been what David Millikan
had in mind when he acknowledged that the "regime of discipline"
that she underwent "went beyond the bounds of what could be regarded
as acceptable" (Millikan, 1994: 229). Merry stated that she was locked
in a room for six months, and during some of that time had to relieve herself
in a bucket filled with disinfectant (Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992a:
80). Somewhat later, she and other
teens were placed on hard labor (beginning at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning),
seven days a week, while they were on silence restriction (Kent Interview
with Merry Berg, 1992a: 81; Kent Interview with Lorna, 1996: 19). She recalled
one lunch break by which time she and the others already had worked nine hours
(Kent Interview with Berg, 1992a: 82). Chores
included "busting up cement and old sidewalks," "laying [sic:
pouring] cement; cutting grass (mainly with sickles) or gathering it up...with
a grass cutter for the horses; doing the farm chores;" manual labor on
construction projects; transporting scrap metal, bricks and dirt; building
septic tanks; and "a lot of painting" (Kent Interview with Merry
Berg, 1992b: 8; see Kent Interview with Frost, 1995: 11, 34-36; Kent Interview
with Lorna, 1996: 19; Kent Interview with Stephanie, 1997: 7 [for similar
work regimes in Brazil]; Kent Interview with Betty, 1996: 46 [for digging up rocks in Mexico]).
Adults constantly watched them "every second" (Kent Interview with
Lorna, 1996: 18; Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992b: 11).
Punishments
were harsh, and they certainly meet the social scientific definition of "physical
maltreatment" that some say must exist in a brainwashing setting. Adult-inflicted
physical maltreatment included beatings with a wooden paddle "quite,
quite hard" (Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992b: 6).
Indeed, beatings with paddles or boards are ubiquitous in the accounts
from the two Macao programs, the Philippines (Kent Interview with Donovan,
1995: 13-15;), and Japan (Kent Interview with Stephanie, 1997: 2). Immediately
prior to her breakdown, Merry "started trying to be honest" by telling
her adult female leader about her doubts and negative thoughts, and the adult
"decided [that] she'd slap me every time I confessed a critical thought,
and I agreed with her because I wanted to get rid of them" (Kent Interview
with Merry Berg, 1992b: 17; see 3). Moreover, after a new set of leaders replaced
her uncle in the teen detention program, Merry again claimed that she suffered
repeated sexual assaults by an adult (Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992b:
83). Her accounts of [p. 68] sexual
assault resemble others that allegedly occurred in another physically abusive
teen detention program, called the Rotten Apple Camp, which operated in Matsumoto,
Japan (Auty, 1999).
Interspersed
with the heavy workload and physical maltreatment were classes and instructions
in David Berg's writings. Called
"Word classes" and "devotions," they involved reading or
listening to Bible verses or excerpts from his publications, which leaders
often then applied to the teens (Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992b: 3; see
Kent Interview with Lorna, 1996: 18; Kent Interview with Marleana, 1995: 11
[for Japan]). Leaders were able to apply verses and writings to teens partly
because teens had to compose daily "Open Heart Reports," in which
they expressed their "confessions of doubts and criticisms." These
reports included the teens' "thoughts of disloyalty or... criticism of
leadership—especially any kind of leaders... who were in charge of us or
especially Mo or Maria" (Kent Interview with Merry Berg, 1992b: 4; see
Kent Interview with Betty, 1996: 65 [for their use in Mexico]). Indeed, high-ranking staff in the Filipino
Jumbo realized that these Open Heart Reports were "‘a very good way for
the leadership to stay intimately involved with the different situations and
personnel in the camp'" (quoted in Ward, 1995: 154).
In
summary, Merry Berg's account of Macao's Detention Teen program, which receives
corroboration from another former member, far exceeds the most restrictive
social scientific requirements of a brainwashing program. Incarceration and physical maltreatment
occurred in the context of social isolation, demanding physical labor,
ideological training, and forced confessions. While the Rotten Apples teen
program in Japan may have rivaled the Macao
program for the brutality and sexual assaults that the teens appear to
have experienced (see Kent Interview with Ester, 1998: 16-30), all of the
Victor programs about which we have information resembled the Detention Teen
program to lesser degrees.
The Victor Program in Macao
Operating
on a different part of the Macao property was a Victor program for teens whom
leadership considered to be less troubled or troubling. Most often the two programs worked separately,
but occasionally inmates had contact (even at occasional dances). Often inmates
could see people working in the other program (Kent Interview with Frost,
1995: 9-11). Allegedly these teens
in the Victor program also suffered (what one former inmate called) "pants
down [p. 69] spanking[s]"
in front of everyone (Kent Interview with Frost, 1995: 42; see Kent Interview
with Lorna, 1996: 24). Leaders used
a paddle that one witness described as "a big, thick, piece of wood"
(Kent Interview with Lorna, 1996: 24) and another described as "a big,
thick wood pole" that was "about four feet long" (Kent Interview
with Frost, 1995: 44; see Kent Interview with Stephanie, 1997: 4 for a description
of the paddle in Japan]). One young man who had received many of these beatings
claimed that leaders videotaped some of the public beatings (Kent Interview
with Frost, 1995: 43). As in the Detention Teen program, the inmates had classes
on Bible scripture and Berg's writings (see Kent Interview with Frost, 1995:
29), and leaders punished some teens by putting them on silence restriction
(Kent Interview with Frost, 1995: 40; see Kent Interview with Marleana, 1995: 15 [for Japan]; Ward,
1995: 154-155).
The
sexual ethic among teen inmates in Macao differed from that in other
programs. When Danny Frost [a
pseudonym] arrived at the Macao Victor program in the spring of 1988, Family
leadership apparently was establishing the sexual policies for the young
inmates (cf. Lorna, 1996: 12 for an earlier date). The policies that they
developed apparently included adult leaders "encouraging all the teens to
have as many dates as they could with other teens...." These dates
involved "any two people who wanted to [could] get together and have sex
in a room," which adults made available for this purpose (Kent Interview
with Frost, 1995: 4; see Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995: 28; Kent Interview
with Lorna, 1996: 13-14). Within five
months, however, the policy apparently changed to prohibiting teens from having
sex until the males were sixteen and the females were fifteen years and three
months old (so that they would be sixteen if sex were to have led to pregnancy
and birth [Kent Interview with Frost, 1995: 58; Kent Interview with Lorna,
1996: 15; Ward, 1995: 74).
The Victor Program at the "Jumbo" in the
Philippines and Elsewhere
The
Family's largest teen Victor program seems to have been in a Filipino complex
called "the Jumbo" (so named because of its size). Surrounded by
walls at least ten to fifteen feet high, the Jumbo had between two hundred
and three hundred and fifty people living there from early 1988 to early 1989
(Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995: 1-2; see Kent Interview with Hendricks,
1995: 18). At night armed guards patrolled the wall (Kent Interview with Cheryl,
1996: 59; see [p. 70] Kent
Interview with Hendricks, 1995: 19, 30), ostensibly to keep out burglars,
but their presence also ensured that no one tried to escape. All aspects of the teens' lives were controlled,
with leaders requiring (according to one source) that they record the nature
of their bowel movements ("hard, runny, or soft" [Kent Interview
with Cheryl, 1996: 64]) and restrict themselves to using only three sheets
of toilet paper (Kent Interview with Cheryl, 1996: 66).
As
at other facilities, the Jumbo's inmates operated under a strict demerit system
(Ward, 1995: 153). Early in the program, teen inmates who received three
demerits in a day had to do the diaper wash-up in the nursery, which consisted
of cleaning "nine garbage cans full of dirty diapers" (Kent Interview
with Donovan, 1995: 7, 10). Eventually
the adult leader in charge of discipline changed the punishment to a
calisthenics program, involving "the usual sit-ups, jumping jacks...,
vigorous running, running up and down stairs, push-ups, and star jumps"
(Kent Interview with Cheryl, 1996: 100-103; Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995:
10, 12). Most difficult of the calisthenics seems to have been the "duck
walk," or "squat walk," where the teens "had to squat and
walk around the compound" (Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995: 11; Kent
Interview with Cheryl, 1996: 101; Ward, 1995: 185 [for its imposition on teens
in the Victor program in Wantage, England in 1989]). Former member Ernest
Donovan [a pseudonym] remembers "at least one time one of the boys
becoming extremely pale, and passing out while doing calisthenics" because
"when you were tired you couldn't stopyou were forced to keep going"
(Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995: 10).
The
demerit system often led to teens being placed on silence restriction or being
"paddled." (One informant, for example, stated that a leader paddled
her after she wrote a note indicating that she wanted to leave the Jumbo and go
live with her grandparents who were not Family members [Kent Interview with
Cheryl, 1996: 92]). Some of the punishments that adult leaders inflicted on the
young people in their care were both unique and especially harsh (or as Lord
Justice Ward concluded, were "excessively and at times brutally
applied" [Ward, 1995: 192]).
"Paddling,"
or beating disobedient teens with boards, was one of the common features of
these programs around the world, but one particularly severe and degrading
beating incident in the Jumbo is especially well documented. The senior author
spoke with: the teen (now young adult) who received the beating; an unfortunate
young [p. 71] man who was
sitting too close in the front row and who got hit accidentally by the paddle
as the leader swung it; a teenaged girl (now young woman) who was in the audience;
and a staff worker who happened to pass in the hallway as the beating was
taking place.
The
person who received this well documented beating was Sam Hendricks, who at the
time was thirteen years old. The person
who inflicted it, according to our sources, was a Family leader (for whom we
use the pseudonym, Mickey), who currently contributes to the group's public
relations efforts towards scholars and the United States Congress (Bainbridge,
1997: 228).
Hendricks
had been an irritant to leaders for some time. Consequently, in the period
prior to the beating, Hendricks recounted that Mickey sent him and some other
boys into a three day isolation program that involved fasting and reading
Berg's writings all day. When the
others returned to the main program, leaders prohibited Hendricks from
returning with them, keeping him isolated from the others for about a month and
a half of additional study and alleged frequent beatings with a belt (Kent
Interview with Hendricks, 1995: 20). Still not satisfied with his progress or
his attitude, leaders held a two-hour prayer session and exorcism over him
(Kent Interview with Hendricks, 1995: 22). Afterwards he returned to the
regular teen program, but soon got into trouble for using someone else's
earplugs while swimming. Leadership allegedly sent him back to solitary
confinement for three months, during which time the leaders had him read a considerable
amount of organizational literature and for one week restricted his food to
bread, soup, and water (see Ward, 1995: 191 for similar procedures in Rugby,
England). Every night he wrote a report about his supposed
"victories" that resulted from his readings, but apparently leaders
did not believe him. The spankings continued (Kent Interview with Hendricks,
1995: 23).
Eventually
Mickey brought Sam into an assembly consisting of all of the other
teenspossibly a hundred or so peerswearing a cloth mask over his mouth and a
sign around his neck about being on silence restriction (see Ward, 1995: 189,
for similar signs around teens' necks in Rugby, England). Mickey publicly
criticized him, then told him to pull down his pants and bend over. Mickey then pulled out a paddle that had
holes drilled in it to lessen air resistance (see also Kent Interview with
Stephanie 1997: 2, for a similar board in Japan). In Sam's own words:
[p. 72] and I bent over and he smacked me with this
thing in the butt, and I remember it was like my entire body just absolutely
exploded with, like, fire. [It] just felt like so intense pressure and like
heat and everything, you know, it's just unbelievable.
And the second time, it wasn't hot any more, it just hurt so badly
and it knocked me forward, like, three feet. I remember, like, falling forward.
He told me to stand still. And I bent over, and this went on for probably
five minutes, maybe, maybe longer. He hit me more than twenty, twenty-five
times easily with the breadboard, weighing probably five pounds, and this
time... I'd just turned thirteen.... And so he's sitting there and he's spanking
the crap out of me.... He spanked me so hard that I had bruises on my butt
and legs that were so hard they started to thicken up...and it bruised and
it thickened. It was like really thick and hard, and I remember I'd have to
sleep on my stomach...and any time I'd touch my butt to anything it stung.
I couldn't sit down during the day 'cause it hurt so bad. I could barely move
my left leg, because, like, the bruises were so tight it, like, hurt. I felt
like I was gonna rip my skin or something. And I went back to solitary confinement...
(Kent Interview with Hendricks, 1995: 24-25).
Soon afterward he was sent back to the United States.
Other
people spoke about this beating. Ernest Donovan, for example, was in the
audience, and he remembered Mickey's talk about Sam's "problems, his
foolishness, and talking back, and disobedience" (Kent Interview with
Donovan, 1995: 15). Although he only remembered Sam being hit about four times,
the beating was vivid for him because "I was inadvertently hit on the
back-stroke... [and] it left a bump on my head, you know" (Kent Interview
with Donovan, 1995: 16). He described what he remembered happening during the
beating itself:
I believe after the first two [hits, Sam] was begging
for mercy, in front of a group...which must have been totally embarrassing
to him. He was begging for mercy. "Please don't hit me again," to
which [Mickey] callously said, "Bend over, and take another one."
[p. 73] And then [he] hit him again (Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995: 16).
Cheryl,
who also was in the audience, also remembered that Sam was hit only four or
five times (Kent Interview with Cheryl, 1996: 93), but did say that "Sam
was beaten quite hard with this paddle" (Kent Interview with Cheryl, 1996:
94).
Cheryl’s
description of the beating itself is consistent with the other accounts. Sam
had to:
hold a chair and put his hands on a chair, turn
around, and was beaten. And he tried to
hold out a bit, and he eventually just broke down and started crying and
begging for mercy. "No, please stop!" And he just[Mickey] just kept
beating away. And I was really shocked (Kent Interview with Cheryl, 1995: 95).
A
statement that I obtained from Amalia Priebe, who was working in the Jumbo at
the time, reinforces the essential accuracy of the beating:
[A]s I was walking down the hallway (in a
round-shaped building on the Jumbo complex) I heard some 'whacking' sounds off
to my left and [Mickey's] voice. I looked into an open room and this is what I
witnessed:
[Mickey] had made Sam turn around and bend over.
[Mickey] was there with two adult cult members... [who] had come all the way
from Brazil to learn the proper way to "deal with" the teens, and
this was a learning session.
Another male cult member (whose name I don't recall)
was there. A teen shepherdess, an American woman... (with glasses and curly
hair) was also present.
As [Mickey] was beating Sam, he was telling him words
to this effect, "This will straighten you out, so you'll learn to obey.
And I'm showing this to your [p. 74] room shepherds so they'll know how to deal with you
when you're stubborn, and you don't submit and obey...." These kind of
beatings were common (A. Priebe, 1995: 5).
In
summary, details differ about the number of people in the audience and how many
times Mickey beat Hendricks. Moreover, only Amalia Priebe reported that
Brazilian Family leaders were present at this supposed "learning
session." No doubt exists, however, that Mickey beat a thirteen year old
severely in a public event. It goes without saying that this incident is a
dramatic example of physical maltreatment in the context of large
re-indoctrination program involving incarceration and intense ideological study.
Similar
beatings also happened elsewhere. Lord Justice Ward reported, for example,
that, in a Victor program in Rugby, England, Family leader Mary Malaysia
"beat [MS] so hard with the stick cut by DM that MS's buttocks were cut
and her knickers covered with blood" (Ward, 1995: 191). Another young
woman reported being beaten so severely with a belt by the Rotten Apples
program leader in Japan that she was bruised from her waist to her knees (Kent
Interview with Ester, 1998: 27-28).
Conclusion: The Family's Brainwashing Programs from a
Social Scientific Perspective
The
Family's Teen Training Camps and especially the Victor program add a new
dimension to existing literature on the subject of brainwashing. This new
dimension builds upon a conceptual scheme that Alan Scheflin and Edward Opton,
Jr. developed in their definitive brainwashing study. Scheflin and Opton say
that the Soviet brainwashing program wanted compliance and confession from
their victims. They wanted the brainwashed defendants in the state's show
trials to "testify against themselves and confess error in their thoughts
and conduct. After their confessions, they were of no further use to the
state" (Scheflin and Opton, 1978: 88).
The
Chinese Communist interrogators in the early 1950s also demanded compliance
in their brainwashing program, but they "sought ideological conversion
through a process of intense indoctrination" into the new teachings of
Mao (Scheflin and Opton, 1978: 88). Finally,
the North Koreans (during the Korean War in the early 1950s) "modified
Chinese thought reform and Soviet [p. 75] interrogation
techniques into an effort to induce compliance and collaboration" as
part of their efforts to denounce their Western enemies (Scheflin and Opton,
1978: 89). In contrast to all of these
programs, The Family's brainwashing efforts demanded compliance as a means
to achieve retention and/or re-conversion among people who already held various
degrees of ideological commitment. As
Lord Justice Ward concluded about the teen training camps:
they existed for the purpose of changing the children
and shaping their lives in order to mould them to The Family's image. The cost
to the children was to rob them of their personal identity. It was an invasion
of personal freedom (Ward, 1995: 157).
Specifically
regarding The Family, the goal of its teen brainwashing program was to make
adolescents compliant and dependent upon the older leaders and the group's
fundamental doctrines, since these young people soon would be moving into
administrative and management responsibilities in the organization.
As
Berg himself argued in 1985, "[i]f we don't start training the teenagers
now, who are going to be the teenage leaders of tomorrow?" (Berg, 1985).
In essence, by the mid-1980s The Family experienced the crisis of the second
generationyoung members who held differing amounts of commitment to the
organization and its leaders, but who never had undergone the intense
conversion experiences of their parents. Family leaders, therefore, attempted
to force these conversion experiences on their teens through intensely coercive
and abusive programs around the world. In so doing, they reinvented techniques
that other ideologues have used over the centuries in attempts to mould the
wills of captive populations.
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***
Stephen
A. Kent, Ph.D. is a Professor in the
Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. He has written, lectured, and consulted
widely on cults, sects, and new religious movements. steve.kent@ualberta.ca
Deana Hall, M.A., is a Ph.D. Candidate in the
Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta, where she also is
enrolled in the M.B.A. program in the University's School of Business. Her
research interests focus on the sociology of work, including thought reform and
corporate culture in religious and secular organizations. Previously she
has published in Sociology of Religion and a jointly-authored study in the
Journal of Social Psychology. dhall@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca