Cults Inside Out: How People Get in and Can Get Out

by Rick Alan Ross

  The group 1 Mind Ministries never had more than a dozen members.322 And like MOVE of Philadelphia, the cult lived in a single residence. At times the behavior of the group drew the attention of neighbors. Nearby residents in West Baltimore reportedly complained about “shouting and screaming” coming from the home. “You’d hear it in the middle of the night—loud noises and chanting. They were real strange—they’d wear all white or camouflage and talk about demons and devils all the time. People just left them alone,” one neighbor said.323

  Danielle Smith, a former member of 1 Mind Ministries, testified at trial during 2010, “Queen Antoinette made people believe that [living with her] would be a better situation for you. She just said that God spoke to her and told her how to live in her household.” The prescribed rules included fasting and only wearing the colors tan, blue, or white. Smith too was cut off from her family, and Queen Antoinette turned her against them. Smith was told that they didn’t properly follow the Bible and that her mother was a “witch.” Danielle Smith was also not allowed to be alone with “outsiders.” Antoinette also didn’t need “to abide by certain laws of the land,” Smith testified, because as a “Queen” she was accountable only to God.324

  Queen Antoinette ordered the starvation of Javon Thompson because the child reportedly failed to say “amen” after meals. “His body got weaker, he got thinner, his lips got dry…Everybody saw him,” Ramkissoon testified. But no one helped Javon Thompson because Antoinette forbade it, prosecutors said.325 Subsequent to the little boy’s death, the cult leader told her followers to pray, and Javon Thompson would be resurrected. But when the child’s body began to decompose, she decided that his remains would be moved and hidden.326

  Maryland prosecutors didn’t see Ria Ramkissoon as a murderer. Instead, they understood that she was a victim, as her mother described. A plea from Ramkissoon was agreed on in exchange for her testimony against cult members. Ria Ramkissoon pled guilty to one count of child abuse resulting in death, with the understanding that she would receive a sentence of probation. According to that agreement, if her son, Javon, did rise from the dead, she would withdraw her plea. Her attorney, Steven D. Silverman, told the press, “This is something that she absolutely insisted upon, and this is indicative of the fact that she is still brainwashed, still a victim of this cult,” he said. “Until she’s deprogrammed, she’s not going to think any differently.”327 As a condition of Ramkissoon’s probation, prosecutors required that she submit to treatment, including sessions with an expert on cult behavior.328

  Cult leader Toni Ellsberry, known as Queen Antoinette, was sentenced to fifty years in prison. Her daughter, Trevia Williams, and another cult member, Marcus Cobbs, were sentenced to twenty-five years for second-degree murder and child abuse, with all but fifteen years suspended. The judge said they showed no remorse in court.329

  Ria Ramkissoon spent months in a faith-based residential treatment center per the terms of her probation. Her lawyer said, “She’s come to realize that she was misled.” The judge commended Ramkissoon for making “great strides” and hoped she would “be one of our few true success stories.”330 In 2011 Ria Ramkissoon explained in an interview that she had once feared eternal damnation if she didn’t obey Antoinette. “Those were the fears that I dealt with, no matter how ridiculous they may be to somebody else,” she said. Commenting about her son’s suffering and death, she told the press, “It is difficult, because I don’t think it’s settled, fully, the weight of what was lost.”331

  2010—Mohan Singh, Sexual Predator and Rapist

  Michael Lyons used the name Mohan Singh and claimed to be a spiritual man focused on helping people. He said he was a trained “naturopathic” healer, whom celebrities often sought out. He said he was “chiropractor to the Queen” and an osteopath who treated the Dalai Lama of Tibet. But authorities described Lyons as a sexual predator who mesmerized and exploited women, creating an international cult composed of female followers who treated him “like a god.” Lyons may have attacked hundreds of women before British police finally arrested him.332

  In 2010 a London court sentenced Michael Lyons to seven years in prison for raping one woman and three more years of confinement, to run consecutively, for assaulting another. The court also heard the testimonies of five women, whom Lyons had raped in the United States.333 Prosecutor Philip Katz described Lyons as a “sexual predator masquerading as a guru and a healer,” someone who seemed “charismatic, charming and reassuring” but was in fact “controlling, aggressive and sinister.”334

  The counterfeit guru convinced his followers that he could cure cancer, and the women who followed Lyons lavished gifts and cash on him. He lived in a luxurious penthouse apartment in North London, liked to wear expensive, flowing robes, and was driven around in vehicles made by Bentley, Mercedes, and Roll-Royce. Lyons jetted around the world, visiting Miami, Paris, and India, methodically creating a network of women who would do his bidding. His female followers, called “The Friends of Mohan,” would recruit or lure other women, whom the guru would then abuse. “It is about psychological and emotional control, brainwashing and isolation from families,” investigating officer Detective Sergeant Nick Giles explained.335

  Lyons’s exaggerated persona was a cover for humble beginnings. He was born in Jamaica, and his parents moved to England in the 1960s. Lyons grew up in a poor neighborhood in Manchester. He began his group, The Friends of Mohan, while visiting India during the 1980s. The self-styled guru started frequenting gyms and yoga studios, promoting himself as a practitioner of “alternative therapies.” “His victims [tended] to be highly intelligent with an interest in spirituality, but at a point in their life where they are searching for answers,” Detective Giles said.336

  The guru also reportedly used such methods as sleep deprivation as well as psychological and peer pressure to persuade women to obey him.337 The women Lyons raped were alternately told that he would somehow enlighten them with his “organic penis” or that he was “feeling” their “energy pulse” and that this behavior was “unblocking” their “chakras.”338 Some of the women suspected they were drugged.339

  Women who followed Lyons were deeply devoted. New initiates were “smothered in attention.”340 Many contributed substantially to their guru’s cash revenue, often paying as much as [$625.00] a month into his personal bank account. Detective Giles told reporters, “When he was first charged the movement managed to put up his [$468,300.00] bail incredibly quickly.”341 One die-hard devotee even testified in his defense at trial despite the fact that her parents strongly opposed the guru and had cooperated with the prosecution.342

  After appearing in court as a witness for the prosecution, one of Michael Lyons’s victims told the press, “It was an incredibly liberating experience. Looking at him in court I felt disgusted by him. I can’t believe that a master manipulator like him walked the streets for so long and I’m just glad that he will no longer be able to take advantage of other vulnerable people.”

  2012—Faith Healing Deaths

  During 2012 there were multiple criminal convictions in the United States tied to the deaths of minor children due to medical neglect. This focused public attention on the faith healing beliefs of certain small religious groups and somewhat larger but not widely known churches.

  In May 2012 Jacqueline Crank and her “spiritual father,” Ariel Ben Sherman, were found guilty of misdemeanor neglect resulting from the 2002 death of Crank’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Jessica. Under Sherman’s influence Crank decided not to pursue medical treatment for a growing tumor in her daughter’s shoulder. By the time authorities intervened, it was too late to help the girl. The conviction of the pair occurred only after years of legal wrangling and proceedings in the state of Tennessee. Tennessee law allows parents to choose between faith and medicine, even in a medical emergency. The law, however, states that their faith must be a “recognized church or denomination.”343 Apparently Crank’s mentor, Sherman, didn’t meet this criterion.
Instead, he led a very small group that included the Cranks and about six other members. They lived together in a six-bedroom house. After their conviction Crank and Sherman were sentenced to probation, but despite this they both promised to appeal the court decision.344

  Ariel Ben Sherman had a history of legal troubles. The itinerant preacher previously led a religious commune in Oregon during the 1980s. He was charged in Oregon with five counts of child abuse but fled prosecution.345

  Susan Grady of Oklahoma didn’t find refuge in any special provision under the law as Jacqueline Crank did. In 1983 the Oklahoma state legislature specifically ended the use of religious faith as a defense in the event of a child’s death due to medical neglect.346 In May 2012 Grady was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the death of her son, Aaron. The nine-year-old boy died in 2009 of complications from diabetes. Grady is a member of a controversial religious group known as the General Assembly Church of the First Born. The group has a long history of legal problems due to its beliefs about modern medicine. Susan Grady didn’t receive probation. Instead she was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.347

  The General Assembly Church of the First Born reportedly has no ministers348 and is instead led by elders. Tom Nation, a fourth-generation elder of the group, has characterized its legal troubles as “persecution.” “The people that lift their voice and persecute you the most are the people that don’t know nothing about you…Maybe some of them would stone us if they thought they had a chance,” he told the press.349 The group’s faith healing practices are reportedly “rooted in [the] elders’ interpretation of specific Bible verses.”350 And they rely on the New Testament portion of James 5:12–16, which reads in part, “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” This biblical recitation doesn’t explicitly prohibit medical care, but according to Nation, those who visit doctors are wrong. “As far as we’re concerned, they’re in violation of the word of the Lord…They’re going to have to answer for it,” he said.351 Susan Grady seemingly agreed. She chose to disobey the law rather than her elder’s teaching.

  In October 2011 Dale and Shannon Hickman were sentenced to six years in prison for second-degree manslaughter. It was the harshest sentence yet doled out regarding medical neglect connected to faith healing beliefs. The Hickmans, both members of a group known as the Followers of Christ, were criminally convicted for the death of their infant son, David. The boy was born prematurely with underdeveloped lungs but almost certainly would have survived if he had been taken to a hospital. Relying instead on their faith, the parents allowed the baby to suffer and die. In 2011 Oregon, like Oklahoma, eliminated its legal exemption providing for a faith healing defense. Commenting on the couple’s sentence, Robert D. Herndon, the presiding judge, said, “This is a sentence you have justly earned…a modest penalty for causing the death of a vulnerable person…This was so preventable.”352

  Walter White, known as a powerful, charismatic preacher, established the Followers of Christ. White’s followers considered him to be an absolute authority and “apostle.” “Walter became a Christlike figure…People believed the only way to get to God was through Walter White,” a former member once told the press.353 White was criticized for his use of intimidation. The preacher was known to rebuke people from the pulpit, and he frequently created fear through predictions about the end of the world. White created what some called a “cultlike” environment.354 The fiery preacher died in 1969, but critics say “cultlike pressures” within the twelve-hundred-member group still persist. The Followers of Christ, like General Assembly Church of the First Born, is now led by elders. The group can be seen as socially isolated, largely living apart from outsiders and shunning defectors. Leroy Worthington, a lifetime member ostracized for expressing dissenting views, told the press, “I know there is a cult in this church.” Terry Gustafson, the Clackamas County district attorney, described the mentality of the group. He said, “They think the world is out to destroy the church…This is what Walter [White] predicted.”355

  Together, the Followers of Christ and the General Assembly Church of the First Born are responsible for more minor children dying due to medical neglect in recent history than any other similar groups in the United States.356 Historically, though, within the United States there have been other religious groups responsible for many needless deaths, notably Faith Assembly in Indiana, led by Hobart E. Freeman. Faith Assembly, which once included approximately as many as two thousand members, was deemed responsible for ninety deaths in eight states. These deaths included mostly children and women in childbirth.357 In 1984 Freeman was criminally indicted on conspiracy charges for encouraging parents to deny their children medical care. He died of congestive heart failure and bronchial pneumonia before the case went to trial.358 Without Freeman, Faith Assembly, which was often called a “cult,”359 disintegrated and faded away.

  Another purported cult historically linked to the issue of medical neglect is Meade Ministries, also known as End Times Ministries led by Charles Meade. Meade was once closely associated with Hobart Freeman, who influenced his faith healing beliefs. But the two preachers parted ways in 1984.360 Much like the other dominating leaders discussed, Meade had a long list of prohibited evils including TV, chewing gum, earrings, and Dr. Seuss books. Most notably he preached that sickness was “the work of the devil” to be healed by faith rather than by doctors.361

  Joni Cutler, a former member of Meade Ministries, delivered her daughters at home according to Meade’s teachings. But due to complications and the ministry directive against doctors, one of Cutler’s babies died.362 It was a breach birth, and the infant struggled for two days. “Libby quit breathing again and turned blue…We needed help, but I could hardly get out of bed,” Cutler recounted in a press interview. Her mother-in-law suggested medical help, and she agreed but was overruled. “They told me if you think like that, that’s what could kill her,” Cutler said. The autopsy report stated that the cause of death was “pneumonia.” Her daughter would have had a 99 percent chance of survival if she had been brought to a hospital.363

  Cutler later divorced her husband and left Meade Ministries in Florida. She moved with her four remaining daughters back to South Dakota, where she completed law school and was later elected a state senator. Joni Cutler received an award in 1990 for helping her state become the first to eliminate religious immunity laws concerning medical neglect.364 Cutler recalled in an interview, “For 10 years I did everything they told me to do…I lost the ability to think critically for myself. I had no idea that something that looks so much like a church could be so cultlike.”365

  Charles Meade died in 2010 at the age of ninety-three.366 Meade Ministries subsequently changed its name to Mountaintop Ministries Worldwide Inc.

  Rhode Island pediatrician Dr. Seth Asser published a study of the deaths of 172 children due to what he called “religion-based medical neglect.” According to that study, 140 of the children had a 90 percent chance of survival, while 18 others had a 50 percent chance of survival if they had received proper medical care. “Most were ordinary illnesses that no one dies from—appendicitis, pneumonia…And many of them died slow, horrible deaths, without the benefit of [pain-relief] medicine,” Asser said.367 Child advocate Rita Swan worked with Asser on the study project. Swan left Christian Science, a church known for its faith healing beliefs, after her youngest son died without medical attention while a Christian Science practitioner prayed over him. Swan explained, “We’re not against prayer…Parents have a right to pray for divine healing. But when parents see the situation is critical, they have a responsibility to seek medical help in addition to prayer.”

  CHAPTER 3

  FAMILY CULTS

  Some small cults can largely comprise the members of a single family or blended family led by an all-powerful—usually patriarchal—figure. In the book Captive Hearts, Captive Minds, Madeleine Tobias and Janja Lal
ich explain, “In addition to the larger, more publicized cults, there are…’family cults,’ where the head of the family uses deceptive and coercive persuasion and control techniques.”368 The bonds within this particular type of cult are quite strong, strengthened by loyalty that is expected through family ties. Children raised within such an environment may know of no other life, and for this reason they accept without question what the outside world would regard as bizarre behavior. The following historical examples of family cults illustrate these points.

  Within such closely tied family groups, the so-called DDD syndrome may develop, which summarizes a cultic situation that includes “debility, dependency and dread.” A publication of the American Sociological Association first described this syndrome.369 Psychologist Michael Langone later adapted DDD for the American Family Foundation (AFF), now known as the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA). Langone witnessed the additional factor of deception in the recruitment practices of some cults as well, so he included deception in his adapted version of DDD.370

  In family cults a combination of deception, control of the environment, and socialization may debilitate those victimized. This is enforced through stringent rules and relative isolation. That is, those held within a family cult environment are expected to express dutiful submission and commitment to parental authority. Langone described people in destructive cults as “vulnerable” and influenced by authority figures who deceptively appeared to be both “benevolent” and beneficial. This role of authority, when assumed by a parent, can be particularly deceptive and debilitating to children.