No? Why not? I think it's an intrigueing question. What is the important difference between a local chapter of, say, the Bloods or a neonazi gang and one of these newage treatment groups?
Legality? No, neither one has much respect for the law. Integrity? Doesn't look like it. Neither one is particularly attached to the objective truth. True belief? Nope, strike three. Gangs seduce members by exactly the same means as treatment cults do; they convince them that they have big, big trouble from some outside influence and that they must unite to survive. Gang members are true believers too. Why else would they risk their very lives and commit murder for their cause?
Ah! There's one important difference! When treatment cults become murderous, they generally either go out in a blaze like the Branch Davidians or Synanon or they emmigrate to some wilder region like, say, Jim Jones' People's Temple Revival. Say, what ever happened to the Mexican part of the Whit program, anyway?
Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever.
--Sigmund Freud, Austrian-born psychologist
