asked.
“Yes, a desktop.” She glanced to her left. “You sending me an email?”
“No. There’s a website.”
“I’ll just Google it.”
“They scrub their name from search engines and social networking sites.”
DeStefano lifted an eyebrow. “That’s a technique you see with some of the more troublesome cults. What’s the URL?”
Shaw recited it and DeStefano turned away, typing on the other keyboard.
Eyes to the left, she read the Foundation’s homepage. “Hmm. Hard to say from this. Most true cults want you and your loyalty for life. A three-week session? More like a dude ranch or yoga camp. Have some fun in the country, listen to lectures, sit around a campfire and sing ‘Kumbaya.’ At worst, you’ve wasted some time and money. But then there’s ‘Osiris’—the Egyptian theme. That’s a bit occult. And Master Eli. A lot of the more culty leaders give themselves titles like that. You know anything about him?”
“Not much. His data’s scrubbed too. Was a businessman a few years ago, then gave it up to run the Foundation. I saw some of his followers. They were all wearing matching clothes.”
“Then it’s not your typical self-help outfit. But that doesn’t mean it’s a cult.”
“What exactly is a cult?” Shaw asked.
DeStefano chuckled. “Somebody once said a cult is a religious or a social movement that you don’t happen to like.”
Shaw smiled.
“Well, what’s a cult and what isn’t?” she mused. “For me, it’s like that Supreme Court justice who said he wasn’t going to try to define porn but he knew it when he saw it. People with common interests and goals get together every day. You could say a sports team with a mesmerizing coach is a cult. You could say the Catholic Church is a cult. The Shriners, the Lions Club, the Masons. Me? I define a cult as a group that presents a potential physical or mental danger to the members or those outside.
“I borrow my test from a book by Margaret Singer and Janja Lalich, Cults in Our Midst. For them, a cult, one, controls the environment of the followers; two, has a system of rewards and punishments; three, creates a sense of powerlessness among the followers; four, uses fear for control; five, promotes dependency on the leader or cult; and, six, has a mission to reform followers’ behaviors.
“There’s another element too: nearly every cult is headed by a single controlling leader. He—it’s usually a man—has a consuming ego, attacks his enemies, lashes out in anger, has an absolute belief that he’s correct, won’t listen to advice or criticism, is paranoid and craves worship and adulation.”
DeStefano’s eyes cut left to the second computer. “This Osiris Foundation?” She shrugged. “Can’t really say without more information. It seems to fall into the category of a personal improvement and transformational cult—the least harmful. Usually the followers are people who’re sick of their jobs or can’t find satisfactory romance. The leaders’ll use hypnosis, meditation, dream study and encounter sessions to change your outlook on life. The lack of a social media presence is troubling, though. Are they hiding anything?”
“You mentioned categories of cults. What would those be?”
DeStefano stretched back. “The majority are religious, drawing on traditional sects, hybrids or made up out of whole cloth. Then the political ones—we can thank 8chan and the internet for most of those. There are business-oriented cults that suck in members for get-rich-quick schemes. Then the really bad ones: racist, like the KKK or Aryan Nations. Militant separatists. White supremacists. Psychopathological cults—Charles Manson, for instance. Black magic. Satan worship, animal and human sacrifice. There are more of these than you’d think.”
The deprogrammer leaned forward and eyed Shaw. “Can I ask why you’re interested?”
He told DeStefano about the murder of the journalist Gary Yang and the likelihood that the killer had been a member of the Foundation.
This drew a frown. “Yang wrote an exposé on it?”
“Not really. It was just one reference to the Foundation. But the piece suggested that the group might be a cult. Yang was killed a week after the article ran—by someone who probably had been a member.”
“So the killer either wanted to get revenge for what Yang wrote, or he was afraid that Yang might be planning to write more, maybe revealing some secrets.”
“I was thinking that.”
DeStefano thought for a moment. “There’s a phenomenon in all organizations called the isolated negative. Let’s take a benevolent group whose purpose is to help people, Transcendental Meditation, for instance. Something like that. The leader or teacher’s not on any power trips, truly wants to better people’s lives. There’s no abuse, the fees are reasonable, its programs are uplifting and positive and effective. No control. You meet every Tuesday night and go out for cocoa after.
“But the group exists to help people who, to a greater or lesser degree, are troubled—otherwise, they wouldn’t be there in the first place. Right? That means the membership contains a higher percentage of individuals more likely to act out, sometimes violently. That goes against the entire purpose of the cult but they don’t care. Those individuals are ‘isolated negatives.’ I’ve seen them in completely harmless organizations. They’re fine … until they snap and assault and sometimes kill fellow followers or outsiders.”
“There was another death involving a member. He killed himself.”
Her brow furrowed at this news. “Do you know why?”
“History of depression. Lost his mother recently. He was about to be arrested, though I think the charges would have been dropped. He should’ve known that. Still, he took his own life.”
“Some cults—especially the transformational ones like this Osiris outfit seems to be—can be tough on the unstable. Encounter sessions can amount to institutionalized bullying.”
That word resonated. He explained about the treatment of the brunette by the driver of the van.
The woman was silent for a moment. “Mr. Shaw, I get your concern. But, my two cents: there’s something that happens when people fall under someone’s spell. Jim Jones convinced over nine hundred followers in his Peoples Temple to murder hundreds of children and then kill themselves with poisoned fruit punch—not Kool-Aid by the way, another brand. Up until 9/11, it was the largest civilian loss of American life in a single non-natural event.
“Charles Manson told four of his followers to slaughter complete strangers in the most gruesome way they could and they didn’t blink twice before doing just what he asked. David Koresh, founder of the Branch Davidians, convinced his followers to battle it out with the FBI. Seventy-five people died. Warren Jeffs was the head of a fundamentalist Mormon cult. They believed in polygamy and marrying children as young as twelve. He had eighty-seven wives. He’s now in jail for life.
“Cults brainwash. There’s another name for brainwashing: menticide. Murder of the mind and the personality.” A wave at the offstage computer to her left. “This Process that the Osiris Foundation talks about might’ve turned its members violent
