The End of the World in 2012: A Myth that Could Create Very Real Dangers
It is not the apocalyptic or Millennarist discourses themselves that should be prohibited. Numerous Millennarist, apocalyptic or New Age groups exist today around the world and obviously all of them do not incite their members to commit serious criminal acts, extreme violence or individual or collective suicide. It is therefore important to remember that a sectarian group that that announces the end of the world in its doctrine does not automatically produce a tragedy. “In fact, we must not see in all apocalyptic currents ‘self-destructive ferment’, millions of believers in the world adhere to a so-called ‘Millennarist’ conception without inevitably plunging into violence.”
While respecting in an absolute way the freedom of belief, it is useful to maintain a certain vigilance in the face of these theories, that, in certain circumstances and in extreme cases, can lead to dramatic events for the group members themselves, and for society as a whole.
Without taking on the role of Cassandra, Miviludes wishes to recall a certain number of former historical events that can only incite prudence with the approach of 2012.
These events shine light on the dangers that these types of anxiety-ridden discourse can contain. For a better comprehension of the risks, we can put them in four categories:
- dangers linked to the apocalyptic or Millennarist doctrines themselves when they become the central axis of belief for the group;
- dangers linked to the paranoid personality of the charismatic leader of the group;
- dangers linked to the use of the apocalyptic theses to better ensure their hold over the group members;
- dangers linked to a desire to destabilize the democratic values and foundation of the society.
Because of its very specific characteristics, rich in lessons for the future, a particular development of the drama of the Order of the Solar Temple will be undertaken.
Dangers linked to the apocalyptic or Millennarist doctrines themselves when they become the central axis of belief for the group
Without stigmatizing any beliefs at all, it must be underlined that the Apocalyptic and imminent End of the World theme can become an essential element of the doctrine of certain groups, encouraging the passing over to criminal acts, and testifying to a true process of gaining a mental hold over the individuals-adepts.
According to Elisabeth Campos, “the extremist doctrines held by these groups, these communities or these particular individuals are not criminal in themselves, but these types of apocalyptic theses such as we find in most of the sectarian groups can be the origin of a potential for psychological or physical violence pointed at the adepts and/or society” which can be observed with different dramas.
In spite of the high number of groups associated with this type of discourse, it is possible to uncover a certain number of doctrinal points in common, which lets us better target thermal threats and risks for the “member-adepts” and external society:
Ever Present Dualism in the Discourse
Two irreducible principles, good and evil, are always part of this type of doctrine and this recurrent dualism sometimes risks to call up violent reactions due to the stigmatizing opposition created vis-a-vis the exterior.
Thus, the New Age Heaven’s Gate group, part of the UFO movement, was led by a guru who was convinced after a coma that he was “an extraterrestrial who had come to bring the Good Word to humanity.” According to him, “terrestrial life is fundamentally corrupted by Evil, civilization is condemned, the Apocalypse is close. Only a small minority of the elect, selected by the ‘level above mankind’, will be saved. They will thus leave their bodies, these ‘temporary containers of the soul’, will embark in a UFO and will be reincarnated on another planet.” This vision explains the dramatic acts that followed.
In VHS documents, the adepts had declared “that it was time for them to leave their bodily envelopes.” Some members of the group had declared shortly before the drama that they were “angels sent to Earth”. They presented themselves also as “monks” and called the residence where they lived their “temple”.
The Imminence of the end of an irreparable world
These movements often express in their speeches and writings the last days they believe they are currently living. Thus this brings them to take without delay the steps necessary to insure their salvation, which can rapidly deviate towards criminal tendencies, even deadly, in the case of a bad interpretation of present events or the words of their guru.
Fear plays an important, if not fundamental, role in the birth of such psychoses or anxiety within these groups. It is undoubtedly how the apocalyptic doctrine serves most often as a catalyzer, because it promotes the idea of an inevitable or close end. This fear will be all the more anxious because the end is foreseen with a short delay.
According to psychologists and researchers engaged in the study of these manifestations, “the phenomenon of collective anxiety experienced by a group will provoke a process of regression, bring with it a weakened critical sense and intense passionate states. Everything becomes dramatic and the end of the world discourse is there in order to put pressure on the individual adept. The group can easily therefore pass from one extreme to another.”
The emotional and passionate element here is important because it will limit judgement and reason while exacerbating the will to act. They must absolutely reach the ideal that they have fixed, no matter what. According to Elizabth Campos, “groups as with individuals can experience these exceptional situations of anxiety and collective psychosis which can lead them to moments of destruction and self-destruction. Particular modes of functioning and organization seems to foster this risk of ‘collective deflagration’ and we find them often in certain types of sectarian groups and apocalyptic beliefs that quicken the fear of tomorrow and the imminence of the end of the world.”
The suicide of thirty-nine adepts of Heaven’s Gate, evoked above, was directly inspired by the doctrine of the group that thought that the world was due to be destroyed.
Another example can be given with the drama of Waco, home of the Davidian community which had rebaptized their domain “The Ranch of the Apocalypse”. Vernon Howell alias David Koresh (the reincarnation of Cyrus, King of Persia), born in 1959, had a divine revelation in 1985 announcing the return of Christ ten years later, in 1995. He founded his own church in 1985 and “reigned” in 1990 over a hundred or so adepts. Showing proof over the years of growing authoritarianism, he prepared his faithful for the end of time starting in 1992, his thirty-third year, notably by stockpiling arms. Alerted, the police began a siege which reinforced the group in their apocalyptic ideas; 87 people were killed, including 73 adepts (including 17 children) and 14 police.
- The Persecution of the Elect Implies that the Salvation of the Group and the Suppression of the Enemy Can Only Come Through Conflict
These movements consider themselves sometimes as “prophetic pioneers” in their doctrines, belonging to a chosen elite, but feeling themselves persecuted by “perverse and tyrannical forces” that push them to take dangerous concrete measures to defend their sacred, if not divine, status. To the degree that the salvation of the group depends entirely on the direct participation in the apocalyptic struggle, which the doctrines of these groups expose generally well, the group is always waiting for confrontation. This can thus authorize them, for example, to take whatever means necessary to prepare for conflict (notably stockpiling weapons) with the goal of eliminating evil and suppressing the enemy.
The example of the Davidian group, discussed above, is very revealing in this way. An armed militia developed and the community was guarded night and day. Contacts with the outside were more and more reduced. In order to be ready for the final battle, tons of munitions and weapons were purchased, which finally alerted the service that controlled arms and weapons. (Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms). In 1993, during the siege of the community at Waco (Texas), which lasted a month and one-half, many adepts were released, including women and children, but this didn’t prevent the human tragedy during the final assault by the police force.
- Isolation From the Outside World
The fact of thinking one holds an absolute truth and of feeling chosen to be an “elect” (which is valuable both for the leader and the adept) pushes the individual, in time, to rely on himself within the comforting (but finally imprisoning) framework of the group, and thus to focus uniquely on the community.
Others and the outside world can in consequence rapidly become dangerous (a reversal of systems of thought and value) because they put into question the integrity of the group and the contents of its doctrine, even if, potentially dangerous in itself, it postulates the imminent cataclysm of the end of time.
The fact of living in isolation or even of living in a virtual world they have constructed (and the new phenomena of the hold of the Internet are from this point of view unnerving) only reinforces the will to break with the external world to save, in appearance only, a particular choice of life.
A notable example is given by the orthodox Russian sectarian group “The Illuminated of Penza”: In 2007, south-east of Moscow, thirty-five adepts, mostly women, and four children including a baby of one year and a half, sought refuge in an underground shelter to await the end of the world, an apocalypse foreseen for May 2008. They threatened to blow-up their refuge if the authorities intervened. Their group dug 4 km of underground galleries and stocked enough goods to maintain a long siege. It lasted at least six months. They proclaimed themselves the “true” Orthodox church and denounced the diabolical practices of the “warped patriarch of Moscow”. Several of the adepts were former armed soldiers. The guru was a forty-four year old man, a building engineer, from a very pious family who was taken over by a “messianic delirium” several years before. In fact, he suffers from schizophrenia and had the habit of sleeping in a coffin…. He succeeded in indoctrinating thirty or so people into believing in the imminence of the Apocalypse “by studying the stars”. All the members of the group believed in prayer as a means of healing superior to that of doctors. From March to May 2007, almost all the adepts progressively left the shelter following the collapsing of some walls due to important rain storms. Two people died during the underground sojourn due to lack of medical care. The local police force hadn’t foreseen this situation: to avoid a drama similar to that in Waco, they resigned themselves to do no more than a siege of the underground shelter and wait for the adepts to come out either because of exhaustion or weariness.
- Determinism in their positions and actions
Some groups believe so fervently that their doctrine can carry the “final battle” that they estimate they have no choice other than to set off the Apocalypse by violence, if and when they judge that the cataclysmic scenario is in the process of happening or is not far off.
With social and geographic exclusion more or less rapidly comes severance from reality. The group will thus interpret reality and events for itself in the dualistic sense that fits them the best.
The basic apocalyptic discourse and the daily anxiety engendered, heightened by the apprehension of a group that is more and more dogmatic, can only produce the arrival of a situation that is more excessive and highly dangerous.
At this point, different criteria can help identify the essential notion of the “severance from reality” , the last possible phase before passing to criminal acts:
- adepts and leaders are looking for clear truths, simple and absolute, not ideas that don’t bring answers to their questioning;
- cultural regression of the adepts with a reduction of language;
- reinforcement of the hold by research of a “second state”, with the possible multiplication of rituals, making the adept more fragile.
For Elizabeth Campos, “it is during this period that the apocalyptic sectarian groups risk becoming more fanatic, because there will be a sort of contagion that will envelop the group. The fact that there were conflicts within the group (the OST in 1993-94) or tensions with the external world can also increase the paranoia of the group, even more if the end of the world seems imminent… The passing to the act then seems to be THE solution to resolve all the problems of the group.”
An example is provided by the French group Neo-Phare.
The Phare-Ouest association was created in 1989 by “André” Auguste Bouguenec. Within this group, twenty-one “apostles” were given the task of rewriting the Bible by analyzing the precepts of the guru, and then, after the apocalypse, of propagating the good word. The doctrine of this group borrowed from diverse sources: esoteric, Christian, spirit and apocalyptic. September 11, 2001 thus became the first step towards the apocalypse. The process of sectarian closing in on itself and gaining a mental hold was thus begun. First, the adepts decided to live together on an isolated farm after having stocked up on stores for the apocalypse. During this period, several people were always in a trance and became the channel for the dead charismatic leader.
Arnaud Mussy proclaimed himself the “reincarnation of Jesus Christ” and considered himself to be the only “channel” by which God expressed himself. He foresaw a new date for the apocalypse, October 24, 2002, the anniversary of the death of André Bouguenec. July 14, 2002, an adept killed himself. Several days after this drama, two other people tried to put an end to their days. One of them explained later that she was searching for the “prince” that should accompany her to another planet… The group was then only six people living in a pavilion in the region of Nantes, in almost total autarchy. Arnaud Mussy was condemned by the court of appeal in Rennes on July 12, 2005 to three years in prison, which confirmed the decision of the court in Nantes. He was found guilty of fraudulently abusing the state of ignorance and weakness of several people who were in a state of physical and psychological subjection, an infraction foreseen by the About-Picard Law of June 12, 2001.
Taking into account the importance of determinism in the doctrine of these groups, the non-realization of the announced events can be the object of diverse interpretations.
Often, the failure of the prediction will in reality be reintegrated as a factor of credibility vis-a-vis the imminent end of the world, only it will be put off.
“Is a group condemned to disappear when a prophecy doesn’t occur? Not necessarily. Paradoxically, it can even be transformed into a success, that the prayers or action of the elite group enable a respite.
“In a Millennarist scenario, if the expected event doesn’t occur, there are two possibilities: either push back the event to a later date, or else insist something happened, not the visible event we expected, but on another level, which amounts to ‘spiritualizing’ the announced event.”
According to Jacky Cordonnier, “after the non-arrival of announced cataclysmic prophecies, a particular five-point process can occur:
“1) a short period of general deception;
2) A re-examination of the texts on which it was based and the discovery that something happened but it was invisible for those people who aren’t initiated or who are insufficiently prepared and formed;
3) Taking up parts of the erroneous prediction in order to put them into the schema of the next prophecy;
4) An insistence on the catastrophes and problems of the present world to demonstrate that the group is still correct to announce that the end of the world is soon. Texts written before the prediction are therefore modified to correspond to reality;
5) The error becomes a supplemental reason to believe, because it is a clear sign that God, the messiah, or the master has given an increase of truth.”
Thus, for example, in 1976 the Heaven’s Gate group, presented above, was already preparing for a trip in space in Colorado, but nothing happened. The disappointment was immense for the fifty or so adepts, but by and large they remained united and in solidarity. After several weeks of doubt, the group got stronger and reinforced itself. According to them, it was the lack of energy and faith of the members of the community that led to this failure. The movement lived during a certain period an initiatic wandering in order to grow stronger. Twenty years later, their passage to a new world constructed to their own vision, and organized according to a precise ritual, was accomplished.
Another example can be given by the Aoum sect , that had, before the attacks perpetuated in Tokyo in 1995, four dates for the end of the world, of which some were changed by the leader Shoko Asahara even before the predicted date had arrived.
Inversely, in other cases, dramatic consequences could have followed due to the failure of the predictions. Thus, in March 2000, a number of burned bodies were found in Uganda after a fire at a cult site of an apocalyptic group called “Movement for the restoration of the Ten Commandments of God”. Certain people among the 924 dead had been burned alive in a church, others killed by blows of a bat, others stabbed, strangled or poisoned. The investigators attributed these crimes, considered first as a collective suicide, to the leaders of the group. They had organized these massacres in the face of the reaction of the adepts who wanted to recuperate, in vain, their goods which had been sold by the heads of the community in preparation for an end of the world announced for December 31, 1999. The bodies of the leaders were not found among the victims.
It must be said that even if the predictions have been systematically taken apart in the facts, new generations of new prophets continue to come forward and announce other dates of the apocalypse.
Dangers Linked To the Paranoid Personality of a Charismatic Group Leader
For certain psychologists who are specialists in the matter of sectarian movements, “Millenarian” is sometimes a synonym for “explosability” when it is incarnated in and propagated by charismatic leaders who are seeking to:
- Be taken for the Messiah;
- Make a link between the Millennarist destiny of a human being and their personal evolution within the group;
- Diabolize their opponents to build up their own image.
According to certain authors, “there is no guru without paranoia. It is this psychosis that gives the feeling of being different from the rest of humanity; it is this paranoia that will give him the conviction that he will have the role to play of leader and guide”.
{In France, the U.N.A.D.F.I. (Union Nationale des Associations de Défense des Familles et de l’Individu- The National Union of Associations for the Defense of Families and the Individual) is dedicated to fight against cults. As noble as they sound, in their view, any organization whose teachings do not conform to the Catholic faith is a cult. Some of their “Human Rights Defense” is based on highly questionable psychiatrists. For instance:
Ted Patrick: former U.S. military psychologist, who adopted the brutal methods of “deprogramming” to reintegrate in the right way members of “sects” (kidnapping, violence…).
Dr. John Clark: Mind Control Specialist and former assistant of Dr. Lindemann of the CIA has been sanctioned by the Council of the Medical Association of Massachusetts for a person forcibly interned because of his religious beliefs. In 1983, he proposed a plan to get rid of the “new religions”. Clark denounces legal barriers and liberal democratic societies that stand to thwart his personal views. His work is often cited in ADFI publications.
Margaret Singer: a military psychologist who had problems with the American justice system, which held that psychiatric reports were “value judgments disguised as expert opinion.”
Dr. Louis West: He advocated the sterilization of blacks and Hispanics in the fight against crime. He is often quoted in ADFI publications (e.g. Bulles).
The arguments put forward by these psychiatrists raise the indignation of American psychiatry, who point out the obvious: they are marginal people with no genuine professional standing or expert status.
Dr. Robert Lifton: A strong advocate of “deprogramming”, he is the author of a book on the ambiguous practice of doctors in Nazi concentration camps.
The A.D.F.I. was founded in Rennes (France) in 1974 at the initiative of Dr. Champollion and the Psychiatrist André Badiche. She immediately declared its commitment to the pseudoscientific theories of American psychiatrists: John Clark, Margaret Singer and Louis West, with the goal of the normalization of the society that would be in jeopardy because of new sects or religions.
[Sectes, religions et libertés publiques by Christian Paturel, Édition La Pensée Universelle 1996. Taken from L'UNADFI - enquête sur la « secte anti-sectes »]
It’s just amazing that these French groups are basing their ideas and policies on rejects from the American psychological sciences!}
Then, it is often the conjunction of reasoning like “it is us against them” (a dualist vision of reality and the world) and of “they are all united against us” (paranoid vision) that will bring with it a hostility and a growing distrust towards the external world. These feelings can be reinforced by:
- the fact of believing that one holds the truth and the solution to all humanity’s ills, which will engender the belief in the necessity having to triumph; in the case of the Order of the Solar Temple, which will discussed more fully below, the members of the group affirmed they were “the bringers of justice mandated by a higher order”.;
- the presence of a persecution delirium, making reference equally to OST, certain minor incidents were able to take a disproportionate importance, confirming thusly the paranoid suspicions of the group and brought them to passing into action under the direction of the leaders.
This power of the leader will manifest via a certain number of elements:
- Strong Control over the members of the group
Beyond the reference texts, the guru will take hold of the daily life of the members of the group and subject their systems of values to rigid dogmas, removing them from the more democratic constraints of external society. The leader will then be well placed to demand of his disciples to commit acts, even violent, that they wouldn’t commit in normal times.
For the specialists, it is the attitude of the leader, his orders and his initiatives that in the end risk to bring about the end of the group.
{Here comes the "People's Temple" example, which anyone who has paid attention now knows was nothing but a CIA psy-ops, experiment and the CIA murdered all those people.}
The example of the People’s Temple of the Reverend Jim Jones, in the United States, is the most perfect illustration. This church was founded from an earlier community called the Christian Church of the Assembly of God or Evangelic Church of the Temple of God in 1953. Among the converted, there were people on the margin, the old age, people on welfare, but also people who were well-off and instructed, “seduced by the possibility of realizing an ideal of fraternity, of social justice in a harmonious community, with people of all races”. The social realizations of Jim Jones were cited as examples in all countries in the 1970s: dispensaries, social restaurants, workshops, daycare, reinsertion of the marginal, drug addicts, and help to delinquents. Nearly 20,000 faithful were associated with this cult at the height of the community and the press reported all their work. In 1977, the Reverend Jones decided to install his community in Guyana in South America, and the community rented 11,000 hectares of land from the government of the time to build barracks and its town: Jonestown. Behind the curtain of the humanist and solidarity community, there was another reality: strong incitation to give all of one’s salary to the movement and to work for free for the group, threats on disenchanted adepts, exhausting work in a hard climate, little food, cruel physical punishment applied even to children… that is to say, sexual violence.
“Behind the facade of radical harmony, of help for those left behind, of a joyful life within a big family, there reigned in fact a constant brutality: verbal, psychological, and physical violence, drubbings for those who fell asleep during the interminable sermons of the pastor that lasted all night, public confessions, parents separated from their children, often badly treated and undernourished, submitted to an intensive indoctrination, without speaking of favouritism, arbitrariness, and the sexual fantasies of the chief”.
Jim Jones was paranoid and haunted by the spectre of a nuclear apocalypse. He saw enemies everywhere, conspiracies mounted by the CIA or the FBI, and the Nazis ready to take power in the United States and to destroy the “coloured races”. Pastor Jones thus instilled in his disciples his own persecution mania through his writing and speeches, which was all the easier in isolation, with no contact with the outside world, without information that could contradict the speeches of the “father”.
As it happened, all the community’s inhabitants were persuaded that if they quit Jonestown, the camp in Guyana, their lot would be awful and that “death would be preferable to what awaited”. Moreover, passports were under lock and key in the safe of the master and Jim Jones himself touched the old age pensions of his disciples. This being shut in strongly contributed to passing to the act of generalized suicide by the adepts of the People’s Temple in 1978, in which 923 people (including 274 children) died.
- No Attachment to the bonds and norms of established society
As well in the doctrinal texts we perceive the cutting off of the group from the rules of society and its simple and unique submission to the laws of the community, according to its own social code and it own rules of behaviour. In this sense, authority can be exercised in a violent, arbitrary, and absolute way, even outside of the group.
We remember the case of the group “The Family”, created in the United States by Charles Manson in the 1960s. Convinced that the title of a Beatle’s song, Helter Skelter, was the code name for the beginning of the apocalypse, Manson thought that a generalized conflict between whites and blacks would occur and that the Apocalypse would follow. Only a few of the elect, members of the “Family” who had taken refuge in the Californian desert would survive this nuclear apocalypse. Preparing for this imminent end of the world, the members of the “family” undertook preparations based on his instructions: they purchased rifles, knives, and maps to locate themselves in the desert after leaving the city. Seeing that several people of the group had been arrested for minor offences, Charles Manson was convinced the hour had come. On August 9, 1969, he took the decision to order five murders (including the actress Sharon Tate) and to place the responsibility on the Black Panthers.
- A life in retreat from the world and a strong cohesion of the group vis-a-vis the outside world
Strongly linked with the writings of these groups, these movements generally inspire incomprehension and hostility on the part of society. Often, in the reference texts, they themselves mark their defiance vis-a-vis society, which pushes them to live even more outside, materially, socially, and psychologically.
The power of the leaders finds itself growing, along with the homogenization and dependence of their disciples.
The texts can thus foresee that the group living on the margins of the society must expect at some point to fight against ambient hostility and persecution; from there flows the necessity to mobilize themselves against the end of time by acquiring for example the means to defend themselves and weapons.
Among the numerous example of this type, we can cite this very recent example of the Australian group “Agape Ministry of God”. In May 2010, containers filled with arms, munitions (20,000 cartridges) and explosives were found on the twelve properties belonging to this community, a sectarian and apocalyptic sectarian group known to local authorities and linked to the Australian guru Rocco Leo.
In all probability, the members of this group planned to install themselves on a desert island (in Fiji or Vanuatu) to survive until the end of the world and the Apocalypse announced by their chief. “The 54 year old spiritual guide presented himself as a great healer and believe himself to be very charismatic. He attracted people and made them believe that he had the answers to all their questions”, recounted a witness. He called himself “brother Rock” and preached that there was no Jesus, no God, no saints, nor angels. “There is only the Lord and ‘brother Rock’ who is the man anointed by God”, expressed an old adept. Former community members think that the diversion of funds from donations could amount to millions of dollars, as the members had to give over 10% of their revenue.
Dangers Linked to the Use of Apocalyptic Theses to Better Control Group Members
Certain reasons can push individuals to join a sectarian group: looking for security, to feel protected, looking for a safe place, for recognition, intellectual or esoteric curiosity, protection in regards to the outside world and society.
Moreover, the adept can want to research absolute truths or a new sense of his destiny, more profound research into his existence. He can also be incited to join the group to feel strong feelings, that is, to respond to a spirituality other than that proposed by the great monotheistic religions or by society as a whole.
In reality, in all these situations, the adept will submit to a process of enrollment that will make them adhere to the dogmas of the group. He will obtain, certainly, in appearance, all the desired advantages, but at the price of renouncing his own identity while totally abandoning his critical sense and freedom.
“One of the particularities of the sectarian dimension consists of replacing the wanted and searched for individual project with the expectations that go with it for a group project that requires a change of belonging and a full and complete submission to the community.”
In this goal of belonging and recognition in the group, the theses of the origin of man and the end of his destiny can be particularly attractive for new adepts. Certain groups have well understood this mechanism and can be tempted to use the apocalyptic and Millennarist concepts to better ensure their control on people and to bring them to acts prejudicial to themselves, but beneficial for the group or the leader.
From this point of view, it isn’t the apocalyptic doctrines themselves that can present a danger for people, but the opportunist use made by the group to attract favours from new adepts, notably financial.
We can cite here a lot on theories inspired by the New Age.
The fact of proposing to man the possibility of searching for a mystic wisdom, or a forgotten ideal while assuring him of happiness can be an extremely attractive enticement...
Also, there is a risk that current societal themes (like ecological inspiration) can play on anxieties and fears: frustration in the meaning of life, solitude, anonymity and ambient individualism, lack of interpersonal communication and social recognition, need for the religious and the sacred in one’s life, refusal of a suffocating mode of social life.
“The dream of the New Age of seeing the actual world transformed and of marching towards a more harmonious world corresponds very well to a type of Millennarist hope. In this way, the theme of 2012 appears as the revitalization of the dream of the New Age, whether or not this label is used.”
The expectation of an imminent cataclysm, constantly announced and always deferred puts the most fragile people in a state of psychic, that is physical exhaustion such that it can bring them to self-destructive behaviour or to acts that are reprehensible to outside society.
{Ummm.... isn't that what MIVILUDES is doing here? And the psychopaths running the world and waging pre-emptive wars, destroying the economy etc, have been doing for a long time? You know, those folks that are the "constituted authorities" that MIVILUDES would have us believe have all the answers to all our problems on the planet!}
“The violent currents observed in groups like the OST and Aoum are exceptional and are often linked to the very particular individual psychological profiles of their leaders. It is always possible that a non-apocalyptic group in its origin could come up with a criminal scenario of this type and graft its suicidal plan to a date touching a coming apocalyptic prediction. This corresponds to a real potential danger in the New Age today.”
Above the financial prejudices, psychological prejudices can be devastating for individuals, notably for the children who are members of the group.
According to Sonya Jougla, “generally all it takes is to see the very expressive drawings of children to perceive the confusion they are subjected to and their irreperable serious traumas”. Jean-Pierre Jougla adds for his part that “the minor who goes to live in such a group will only have the landmarks that were inculcated into him. H ewill have been formated during his entire childhood in the vision of he sectarian group and can, for example, be eventually persuaded of being a child of the age of Aquarius (according to the dogmas of the New Age), or a cosmic child, an “indigo” (half-human, half essence of extraterrestrial_ or one who is charged with a divine mission... Often his wishes will not be requested. He’ll simply follow the movement and the group decision.”
{Wait a minute... isn't that what MIVLUDES wants the "traditional churches" and government to be able to do with no choice or input from the parents?}
The testimony given to Miviludes by Amoreena Winkler about her childhood spent in the community of the Children of God, is eloquent in this regard: “Beginning at the earliest age in our community, we shouldn’t show the slightest attachment to people, places, objects or aspects of our person. Moreover, having been born and raised with the view of an apocalypse, we were certain as children that we would never become adults. I didn’t have (not me, nor the other children around) the means to project myself towards the future, to imagine any possibility but to die for our faith, serving the Lord. Death by execution, by bombardment, or in the terrible cataclysms that will come and batter the Earth. As a minor, this perspective crystallized a state of inner terror already installed by violence, maltreatment, and mental control subjected by the group.” [Voir aussi Amoreena Winkler, Purulence, Angoulême, Ego comme X, 2009.]
{But it's okay to accept all suffering for the sake of Christ because then, you will be rewarded IN HEAVEN! And if you accept the lies and thievery of your government, you will get a pension... maybe!}
The Particular Case of the Order of the Solar Temple
There exists groups where it is impossible to determine the apocalyptic origins and that can shift into such extremes without any visible precursor signs. It is difficult thus to not reserve a paricular development in the OST drama, such as its specificity is important.
According to Jean-Pierre Jougla, “a purely apocalyptic or Millennarist classification is not in itself meaningful for danger. A group like the Order of the Solar Temple can for example shift from one day to the next to an apocalyptic solution although its initial declared plan (ecology, natural care) was more within a logic of survival. The death instinct is more linked in large part to a group dynamic at a certain time, to the age and health of the guru, to the perception of the outside world of the group, that is to say, to pressure put on it... A group reputed to be or self-proclaimed as apocalyptic can very well never pass over to the act, that is, to self-destruct, while a group that has never had the dimension of belief in the return of Christ can very well fall into chaos from one day to the next. The OST became deviant and criminal under the influence of several factors: personal problems of the leaders (illness of the leader Jo Di Mambro), group financial difficulties, discovery on the part of the adepts of fraud on the part of the gurus of a nature that puts into question their beliefs, reinforcement of delirium linked to the doctrinal teaching, development of internal dissent in the group and reorganization because of it.”
For specialists, the OTS can not be considered as an apocalyptic group from its beginnings. Its members became sensitive to these ideas well after its creation because of events which were essentially internal to the group. A “Settling of accounts” concerning certain dissidents within the group has been generally mentioned, dissidents who contested the two charismatic leaders and who were the object of assassination in September 1994 (the execution of the couple Dutoit and their baby) in Morin Heights, Quebec and in October 1994 (the execution of Robert Fallardeau, all this right before the first transit. [Élisabeth Campos, Sectes et millénarisme..., op. cit.]
The justification of the passing to the act as it was presented within the group is obviously completely different: “As well, in the face of the general incapacity on the part of the whole of the leaders of nations, facing their outrageous dishonesty cupidity, those who proclaimed themselves defenders of liberty and the rights of man, facing the increasing valorization of lies and manipulation, facing the systematic persecution of the bringers of light (J.F. Kennedy, Gandhi, Martin Luther King), facing the debasing of the human race, unable to control their destructive impulses, and above all facing the intimidations of the police and all those of whom we are continually the victim..., we have decided to retire from this world in full lucidity and in the fullness of our consciousness.” [Testamentdel’ordreinitiatiqueduTempleSolaireinChristopheLeleu,LaSecteduTempleSolaire.Explications autour d’un massacre, Paris, Claire Vigne, coll. « Documents », 1995.]
These are the propos, taken from the Testament of the initiatic Order of the Solar Temple, that are supposed to have brought 74 people, including eleven children to commit “suicide” [We should rather speak of “killings-suicides”.] in three successive waves between 1994 and 1997 in Switzerland, Canada, and France.
“The Knights of the order leave without regret this world that they consider condemned. They therefore prefer to leave before the final deadline that they have themselves fixed between 1992 and 1999.” [́lisabeth Campos, Sectes et millénarisme..., op. cit.]
According to Jean-Pierre Jougla, this group voyage, passing by a death that should not really be a death, was suppose to on the contrary liberate teh souls of the prepared adepts to attain a place of purity and absolute knowledge represented by the star Sirius, place of residence of beings of light. The members of OST were persuaded that their mission consisted to raising themselves spiritually and to operate the passage between man of the 4th reign (Age of Pieces) and that of the 5th reign (Age of Aquarius).
A particular protocol and perfectly orchestrated planning were necessary to help “the uncoupling of the adepts’ souls to liberate the necessary energy for the ascension process” which were brought to light through the writings found during the judicial investigations:
- the necessity of annihilating the exterior perceptions of the adepts to avoid the onset of effects that could deviate the group’s plan. To have that, the adepts had to ingest diverse anesthetics , their heads covered in plastic bags so they couldn’t see, which also rendered them anonymous to the eyes of the “brother executioner”;
- the liberation of the soul of the adept by a shock to the skull by means of the shot of a bullet;
- partial burning of the bodies to transform the death into a “propulsive energy” for the “rising of the soul”. [J.-P. Jougla, op. cit.]
This “crazy” protocol is difficult to accept today for common sense, even if it follows a certain “coherence” with the internal logic of the group.
The fact that two charismatic leaders of the group died during the first wave of suicides in 1994 shows the power of the mental control realized on the whole of the members because, once the leaders were dead, the group could have dissolved and/or stopped the suicidal process.
“It is essential to have clear ideas on the OST drama. This dramatic example sheds very important light on the criminal reality of certain sectarian groups. If the inherent risk in these groups that have a process of sectarian dependence is not seen for its true value, it is strongly worrying that other dramas of the same nature will occur again in the future.” [Ibid.]
Dangers Linked to the Will to Destablize Democratic Values and the Foundations of Society
Apocalyptic Announcements of the end of the world by religious groups or groups linked with the New Age are susceptible of introducing desocializing attitudes, ending with a disengagement from all social life by members of the group.
These doctrines can equally lead to putting into question the rules of life in society in order to replace them by standards belonging to the group.
The extreme cases can take the form of serious troubles to the public order, revealing a willingness for violent confrontation, that is, the destruction of democratic societies.
Disengagement of the individual from his life as a citizen
Apocalyptic discourse bears within a form of incitement to disengage from civic life, from all social life outside of the group.
In effect, what interest will they have to participate in the life as a citizen iff society as a whole will soon disappear? What’s the point of voting?
But this disengagement from life in society, in the form of “decline of the citizen” can also take other aspects: why work if the end of the world is arriving? Why not break the law if we can’t be condemned by the justice of men and the existing system anyway?
According to Jean-Pierre Jougla, “the apocalyptic and criminal plan of a groups risks to accelerate the situation of the rupture of individuals vis-a-vis society: for example, as that adept, who was led to increase his bank loans because the future apocalyptic disorders mean he won’t have to pay them back, could “increase the pressure” on his guru when the bank starts to demand repayment when the date of the end of the world is passed.”
This way of thinking can only engender the putting into place of other values, less democratic or falsely democratic, that definitely hide a subjection of the individual and the true negation of his rights. This brings with it equally a recentering of the individual on the elected community and a disinterest, or exclusion or rejection of all those who aren’t a part.
The Superiority of Internal Dogma Over the Rules of Social Life
This opposition between the principles of the group and the rules of civil society can contribute to engendering a very delicate position of a quasi-schizophrenic nature for individuals of the community. In effect, they find themselves facing the difficulty of reconciling that which can not be reconciled: the preponderance of obligatory internal discourse from the community with the social and intellectual contributions from life outside the group.
“All these remarks establish the fact that the apocalyptic dimension is only one part of the sectarian danger. In fact, examining only the lethal (deadly) risk of a group means ignoring or denying the ‘social toxicity’ that a group can have vis-a-vis the social codes of the outside world.” [Ibid.]
These groups thus develop a mechanism of power and control over individuals that are aligned in a perspective of “breaking up social ties”. Under cover of pseudo spiritual or New Age discourse connected with the end of the world, they try to undermine society’s rules in order to substitute their own precepts.
The example of the Jim Jones’ People’s Temple in Guyana, presented above, is an extreme illustration of the mode of thought and social organization certain apocalyptic doctrines can lead to, with the institution of rules of life and penalties proper to the community, in flagrant contradiction to the laws and the much stricter respect of individuals and human dignity.
Will to destroy the democratic values of society
In certain extreme cases, apocalyptic beliefs can lead to unprecedented acts of violence no longer focused against members of he group themselves, but against the social body as a whole, with the desire to undermine the democratic foundations of the systems in place.
It is difficult today to evaluate the risk of serious violence that could be committed by the apocalyptic or Millennarist groups in France or other countries because there are few studies available on the subject. This deficiency of data could be harmful to preventive action on the part of the public power in the face of this, certainly exceptional, type of risk but it would be dangerous to underestimate the dramatic consequences for the population.
It is impossible to avoid a reference here, regardless of its actual specific, of the group Aoum, emblematic case of a sectarian movement classified among the most dangerous groups: parallel to a well-known apocalyptic discourse, it deliberately tried to make problems for and constitute a menace for the surrounding society. “This group combined apocalyptic ideas and doctrines with the paranoid expression and hatred of its leader for Japanese society.” [Élisabeth Campos, Sectes et millénarisme..., op. cit.]
It is a priori the only case of a sectarian movement associated at the same time with the realization of “terrorist technicality” and the development of religious theses. In fact, the apocalyptic initiative came from the group that decided, by these violent and spectacular acts to precipitate the events that would lead to Armageddon. [David Kaplan, Aum, le culte de la fin du monde. L’incroyable histoire de la secte japonaise, Paris, Albin Michel, 1996.]
It is also why certain specialist say “that the group Aoum could not be understood or exported outside the Japanese framework and context” [Roland Campiche, Quand les sectes affolent. Ordre du Temple Solaire, médias et fin de millénaire, Genève, Labor et Fides, 1995.]; but opinions are very divided on this point.
No matter the cause, what remains particular with Aoum is the fact that this violence appeared without objectives and specific demands. It thus constitutes the symbol of the emergence of an extreme violence charcterized by religion and nihilism, that is, “with no other objective than the destruction of the other, that which is different and is part of society outside of the community”. [Amaona, Frédérique, Asahara, gourou mal-voyant, aspiré par le néant. Le chef de la secte Aum est passé du yoga, symbole de paix, à l’apologie de la destruction, Libération 25 avril 1995. www.liberation.fr/ monde/0109138380-asahara-gourou-mal-voyant-aspire-par-le-neant-le-chef--de-la-secte-aum-est-passe-du-yoga- symbole-de-paix-a-l-apologie-de-la-destruction.]
Founded in 1984, Aoum (in Japanese Aum Shinrikyo: “Supreme Truth”), starting as a simple yoga group, became in 1989 a religious association recognized by the Japanese State. It integrated certain sectarian Buddhist and Taoist currents and Christian doctrines mixed with a mysticism linked with tantrism and yoga, and was part of and extremist thought that promoted Hitler...
In the middle of the 90s, the group had tens of thousands of members in Japan, Russia, Germany, the US and several other countries...
It developed an apocalyptic logic proclaimed from 1987 linked to the imminence of nuclear conflict. A new end of the world was announced for September 1999, then for 2003 [À ce titre, seuls les élus et adeptes seront sauvés de la destruction finale qui anéantira le Japon avant l’an 2000.] by the guru Shoko Asahara [Né en 1955, il fut professeur d’acupuncture et de yoga. Poursuivi pour exercice illégal de la médecine, car ayant ouvert sa clinique sans diplôme, il fut condamné à une amende.], whose real name was Chizo Matsumoto. [Philippe Pons, « Quatre ans après, la secte Aum se reconstitue et prospère », in Le Monde, 12 mars 1999.] Promoting an extremely paranoid vision [Le gourou se proclama «messie divin» et se dit «choisi pour conduire l’armée de Dieu» après avoir reçu une vision dans l’Himalaya en 1986.] of the coming world, Asahara recruited a number of scientists in order to build an arsenal of chemical weapons readied to be used and to head studies on the culture of bacteria and gas, specifically the gas sarin that provoke death by paralyzing the nervous centres and which was employed during the Second World War. [Ce gaz fut ensuite interdit par des conventions internationales.]
On his instructions, the group also bought a important stock of arms. Asahara then revised again the date for the start of Armageddon and placed it in 1996 rather than 2003.
On January 17, 1995, at 5:46, a violent earthquake hit the city of Kobé, killing 5,500. Asahara saw it as the beginning of the Apocalypse and affirmed that the US had provoked the earthquake “by voluntarily modifying the Earth’s magnetic field”. [éférences aux théories du complot et aux prophéties du New Age sur les changements climatiques, utilisées encore aujourd’hui dans les prédictions apocalyptiques pour 2012.]
On March 14, 1995, they passed to action, killing twelve people. Six thousand others were intoxicated. March 22, over a thosand police officers wearing NBC [Suits treated to resist Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical attacks] suits raided the headquarters of the group. They discovered among the arms and the gas human remains, the remnants of recalcitrant former members of the group. On May 5, 1995 a new attack in the Tokyo metro, using Zyklon B, was foiled.
On May 16, 1995, Asahara was called in and imprisoned along with a number of adepts. Condemned to death, he continues to lead the group from prison even though his son was selected to take his place.
Today, the group has refounded under the name of Aleph and is implanted over thirty or so sites in Japan. [AFP, avril 2009.] It continues to prosper and to recruit, on campuses for example, even if the number of members has shrunk: 11,000 people in 1995, 7,000 in 1998 and 1,500 in 2009. The group owns a number of companies and computer stores and real estate. The Japanese government maintained a surveillance on the group until 2009. Nevertheless, the persistence of this movement, in spite of its convictions, continue to raise real worries among Japanese officials.
A more recent example of the desire to destroy society is given by the Hutaree militia in the United States. [Voir différents articles sur les sites suivants : www.la-fin-du-monde.fr/2010/04/hutaree-la-milice-de-la-fin-du- monde/; http://observers.france24.com/fr/content/20100330-etats-unis-hutaree-milice-extremistes-chretiens- guerre-antechrist-armes-michigan]
Located in Michigan, this Christian apocalyptic group planned violent anti-government acts in March 2010, forcing the authorities to make arrests. The Department of Justice said the group was charged with “conspiring to organize an anti-federal uprising and an attack using arms of mass destruction”.
On the group’s web site [ www.hutaree.com, consulté en novembre 2010. Ce site n’est plus consultable au moment de la mise sous presse du présent rapport.] we can read that “all police are considered as a footsoldier of the Federal state against which we demand armed struggle.”
This group is not only a new case of a militia, of which there are many in the United States. It has developed an indoctrinating discourse, both extremist but which also present a very particular dialectic touching religion in its eschatological aspects. Among other things, the members say that “Jesus wants us to be ready to defend ourselves by the sword and that we should be equipped to remain alive”. According to the elements gathered during the first investigations and provided by the FBI to the press, the group was preparing for “the battle of the end of the world in order to conserve living of testimony of Jesus Christ”. To do this, they stockpiled explosives that were found t their headquarters, identical to those used during attacks in Iraq.
