CULT ENCOUNTERS

...They have come to accept their son's involvement as a Hare Krishna...

...Inner space" suggests a preoccupation with self which is very much a part of what the cults have to offer...

...all common reactions among parents of children who have joined cults...

...Some conference delegates advocated mini-courses in public and religious schools to warn kids of the dangers of missionary groups, others stressed the need for a greater emphasis on Jewish education...

...A lot of that has to do with the training of rabbis," says Rabbi Jacobson...

...It is almost impossible to generalize about cult leaders, be they called Gurus, Swamis, Messiahs, Reverends, or even Rebbes...

...But no one has yet been willing to fund retreat centers specifically for Jews...

...Tens of Michael Appell is Lifestyle Editor oj Boston Today and has written for The Hartford Advocate and the Brown University History Journal...

...But the real attraction of the cults is their emphasis on community...

...Somewhere ! along the way, whether because of drug-induced or other experiences, Schacter became convinced that the Jewish way was not the only way...

...For the bewildered and the lonely, the cult may seem substantially more attractive than a singles' bar or a dorm social...

...Hamden, Connecti- < cut Rabbi Alvin Berkun, for example, believes that some 60 percent of those who join cults have a record of such instability...

...And our concern with bigness—in synagogues, fund raising drives and service programs—has eroded "the warmth, intimacy and supportive-ness of the small group...

...Doctors, lawyers, and psychologists were invited to discuss deprogramming, proselytizing and other cult-related issues...

...You just don't say to your son, 'come home or else I'll kill you,' " says Mrs...

...Anger, resentment, bewilderment, shock, fear...

...How many Alans are there...

...Zen and Vedanta are still more intellectually and self-awareness oriented...

...they are now perceived as an affliction which threatens significant numbers of young Jews...

...His latest article, "Mapping Out the Moods of Israel," appears in the November issue of Boston Today...

...His retreats highlight meditation, chanting, dance, free movement, breathing exercises and other kinds of bodywork...

...A highly controversial figure in his own right, Schacter laments the cynicism which he claims under-rides the controversial deprogramming efforts of Jewish and other anti-cult leaders...

...To a rabbi...

...The desire to escape from freedom is not limited to the obviously disturbed...

...You Jews must be a very spiritual people," a swami once told Rabbi Schacter, "because Subud, Bahai, Vedanta Society, I Am, Theosophi-cal Society...

...Here, too, a socialization process weeds out those Jews with an interest in individual spiritual growth until only those with more pedestrian concerns remain...

...As a working definition, the element of authoritarianism is probably the best distinction between cults and other forms of religious expression...

...Many Jewish alternative groups, he points out, assume a certain socialization into Jewish ways of praying, sharing Shabbat, appreciating Israel, and feeling confident about one's own identity as a Jew...

...Cults offer direction...

...It sounds, to be sure, like your average adolescent identity crisis...

...And the best bridge the Jewish community has to these kinds of groups is Rabbi Zalman Meshullam Schacter, former diamond cutter, Lubavitch rabbi, LSD tripper, Sufi Sheikh, Professor at Temple University...

...I did some reading, went to some lectures, but nothing helped...

...A more reasonable estimate is offered by Rabbi Maurice Davis, who has deprogrammed over a hundred cult members...

...Perlmutter for support, she was surprised to learn of their ignorance...

...FT No, we do not know very much about cults, nor about those who join them...

...It was this definition which, presumably, led Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld to assert, two years ago, that the Lubavitch Chassidim should be considered a cult...

...More likely, he offers a resting place for people who need time to find their own way, a place far more likely to sustain their Jew-ishness than is offered by the cults...

...Now God and peace are not somewhere out there...

...Ethnicity alone," says the report, "has become the sum total of Jewish identity for a large part of the American Jewish community...

...And so, in still another installment of the "Jews are like everybody else only more so" pattern, Jewish youngsters find haven in exotic religious groups...

...The needs are clear, says the report: more campus workers and better facilities for the hundreds of thousands of Jews on the campuses...

...An outsider may well question how much growth there can be in a setting which involves the total abdication of self, but from the perspective of the convert, the cult cares about the details of his life in a way which his synagogue did not...

...In addition to the theological rebellion, cult membership also implies a rejection of deeply rooted general values...

...But his combination of a cultivated imagination and a down-to-earth, childlike exuberance may well sow the seeds for a viable Jewish alternative to cults...

...Most parents know about the cults only from sensationalized press accounts, and never bother to look further...

...The world is unsettled and unsettling...

...he cared about me...

...But provide a guru to intervene in such crisis, provide a master who fills a perceived vacuum, and you have a potent mix...

...Rabbi James Rudin of the American Jewish Committee sees the need for sizable Jewish communities to sponsor hostels for young Jews where food, counseling, prayer, and study would all be incorporated under a single roof with sleeping accommodations...

...The flute and guitar help create an atmosphere he sees as conducive to communal and spiritual endeavors...

...IV Some observers, in seeking an antidote for the pernicious lure of the cult, have pointed to the success that the Lubavitch movement has enjoyed in its efforts at reaching campus youngsters...

...There will surely be critics who see Schacter as a wolf in sheep's clothing, subverting Jewish youth from within...

...His parents are devastated—and embarrassed—his friends are perplexed, his rabbi and teachers bewildered...

...For at least some young people...

...And in professional training in the field of Jewish communal service a similar outward emphasis is prevalent...

...store-fronts, drop-in centers and coffeehouses to provide an open door to other young adults...

...No one has anything but approximations on how to serve God," he claims...

...In his book Fragments of a Future Scroll, he describes what he calls "Humanistic Kabbalism," an approach to the spiritual goodies of Kabbalah which often raids the picnic baskets of other traditions as well...

...Some cults instruct their members to approach members of the opposite sex and to emphasize the warmth and togetherness of their group...

...Many of the old symbols have been tarnished, the old values debased...

...The kind of education that Reform and Conservative rabbis receive has nothing to do with individual spiritual growth— it's professional training on how to study the sources and perform a priestly function in the community, to carry out administrative as well as ritual functions...

...Indeed, the superficial similarity between Lubavitch and the cults—authoritarian leadership, elaborate rules to guide personal behavior, submergence of self to community, repression of sexual energy—have prompted critics of the "Lubavitch strategy" to suggest that one ought not fight fire with fire...

...cults are a tempting and increasingly acceptable way of opting out of the strug- j gles that accompany growing up in such a world...

...And, amidst the plans for coffee houses and social workers, amidst the conferences on deprogramming and on counter-propaganda, perhaps there is room for increased attention to creating a community that will more obviously and more completely satisfy the yearnings of its members...

...We may, in short, be witness to the acting out of a social malaise rather than of a personal neurosis...

...And the drifting stopped...

...Many people imagine cults as inherently violent, or orgiastic, or fraudulent...

...When parents of one long-time Krishna convert approached Mrs...

...At the same school the Protestant ministries provide a full time staff of twelve...

...Alternative groups can draw on these feelings and experiences but often cannot create them ex nihilo when Jewish camp, youth movement, or Israel experiences are lacking...

...It is time to create communities, beginning, of course, with ourselves...

...Call him Alan K. We don't know very much about him, and what we do know does not particularly distinguish him from the young man next door, the one who has it all together...

...II "We weren't aware of anything until he made his decision and moved into the New York Temple in Brooklyn," relates Mrs...

...Should one turn to friends and family...

...They've spent ten years resenting...

...Except for an occasional Yiddish phrase, his appeal is noticeably non-ethnic...

...Schacter brings his eclectic lifestyle to weekend retreats and experiential learning sessions all across | America...

...What is remarkable is not so much the content of this conference as the fact that it was held at all...

...And it is, of course, entirely possible that "proper" means something different for each person...

...It is time to stop making signs...

...He told me, 'I have made a decision about what I'm going to do with my life.' And he was all of 19...

...That argument will not soon be settled, and, whatever the view one takes, it is obvious that the Jewish community cannot afford to rely on any one answer to satisfy the diverse quests of the wayward young...

...Members of the Alliance for the Preservation of Religious Liberty picketed the conference, claiming that mental health professionals should not pass judgment on religious movements...

...The authoritarianism which alienates and puzzles the observer is quite likely the very quality that attracts the adherent...

...they just gave me cliches about responsibility...

...A lot of the cults are bad because they deprive human beings of growth and make them slaves of a kind of fear...

...Accordingly, we seem to be talking about a phenomenon which has attracted tens of thousands of young Jews...

...If the Orthodox (Jews) had it all together they would be happier and holier...

...Too many families have been touched, too many "normal" youngsters affected, to permit such certainty...

...What a cop-out,' my husband said...

...These groups emphasize yoga and tolerant devotionalism...

...He gave me direction...

...Jewish leadership is also handicapped by the lack of personnel trained to deal with alternative lifestyles...

...What is the melody these pied pipers play...

...But what can he know...

...Apparently that's typical...

...In the cult, acceptance is guaranteed...

...But in the cults, God is approached ecstatically...

...As Alan K. puts it, "I didn't really know what I was doing with myself...

...Any group which equates doubt with guilt is a cult," asserts Rabbi Zalman Schacter, Professor of Jewish Mysticism at Temple University...

...Who cares about me in the synagogue, in the federation...

...There's a reticence within the Jewish community to deal with issues of personal spiritual growth...

...To a psychologist...

...And maybe that is all it is...

...The Philadelphia report, which is the first major document to address itself to Eastern as well as Western cults, singles out the college arena as a crucial one in the struggle for Jewish youth identity...

...What we do know is that their norm is to insist on total obedience to their absolute leadership...

...And how, for openers, shall we define what we mean by "cult...

...Nor are there many parents who can any longer smugly sit back and say, "Not my child...

...I couldn't look to my parents or rabbi for advice...

...The growth of cults may well be seen as a response to the absence of discipline and authority in other social institutions—most notably, the family...

...Obviously, cult leaders are not generally available for research studies, and we know very little about them...

...Rabbi Jacobson echoes the shortcomings which Schacter decries...

...He was so sure of himself, and so sure of what was right for me...

...Some parents turn to men like Rabbi Davis who see the cults as brainwashing agencies and who claim to deprogram cult members...

...Rabbi Burt Jacobson, who works with the Aquarian Minyan in Berkeley, California claims that "Jews are embarrassed to talk about God...

...He seemed to know exactly what I was looking for...

...But I don't like the cynicism that deprogramming creates about the whole human enterprise," he says...

...You tell me where there is an opportunity for me...

...Freaking out" on Chassidut may be less threatening than wandering about downtown streets with shaven head and saffron robe, but it's still freaking out, an abdication of the self rather than an indication of personal growth...

...Lubavitch members have, on occasion, entered the temples of Swami Satchidananda and Hare Krishna in order to win Jews back to their tradition...

...As Harold Schulweis says, "How shall we answer the Jew who asks, 'You tell me where in this i great Jewish community there is compassion and care for me individually...

...An unabashed proponent of Yid-dishkeit, Schacter has been instrumental in popularizing the spirit and teachings of eccentric Chas-sidic masters like Reb Nachman of Bratzlav...

...they're all full of Jews...

...specially funded programs to expose greater numbers of Jewish youth to charismatic Jewish leaders in both formal and informal settings...

...And in New Haven, Connecticut ' in May of 1978, the Central Conference of Reform Rabbis met to discuss the cults...

...That may not sound like very many Jewish kids most of us know, but the recurrent surprise is that the cults attract so many young people who do not appear to be distressed, confused, in trouble...

...At the University of Pennsylvania, only two full time staff workers serve a student pool of between five and six thousand Jews...

...it is a major relief to discover an environment which offers answers rather than questions, and which does so in a context that professes to be constructive...

...There should be some respect for what a soul has to work out with God on this planet...

...These centers are long overdue," declares Rabbi Steven Shaw, Programming Director of the National Jewish Conference Board...

...Some students of the matter have suggested that as many as 40 percent of all cult members in the United States are Jewish...

...He has introduced labs into the courses he teaches at Temple University because he believes that chanting Chassidic melodies can help students understand the rise of Chassidim in Europe...

...they are part of my everyday inner space...

...Most authorities on the subject emphasize the dogmatic nature of cults and the dependency they create around a single authoritarian figure who claims Divine power or unique access to the Truth...

...As Schacter observes, "Jewish kids need a place where they can run away to...

...But the authoritarian nature of cults is so out of step with American notions of freedom and democracy, and with Jewish emphasis on questioning, that their attraction to Jews seems doubly puzzling...

...We have to appreciate him for his creativity and try to ignore the rest...

...The cults, on the other hand, provide elaborately detailed guidelines for personal behavior, covering habits of eating, breathing, praying, meditating...

...In this view, it is not that disturbed young people search out the cults...

...But I know from my own community that it is adults who are going to Synanon, to Esalen, to est, TM, Scientology, all of which are analogues of where their children are going...

...But what of the embarrassment...

...But if Rabbi Shaw is correct, even groups like Schacter's will be hard put to influence large numbers of Jewish youth...

...for others, especially those most attracted by relatively non-dogmatic groups, such as Integral Yoga, Sufi and Meher Baba, other answers are required...

...He is the first rabbi with a Chassidic and traditional Kabbalis-tic background to unabashedly introduce modes of worship usually considered Eastern into Jewish settings...

...And then one day a friend of mine dragged me along and I met R. (Alan's guru...

...Many people who think about these things see the matter rather more prosaically...

...Tens of thousands, and twice that many grieving parents...

...According to Rabbi Jacob-son, "the energies of the Jewish community are typically turned outward—towards Israel, issues of survival, social services...

...The need for that acceptance, evidently, is most strongly felt among the children of relatively well-educated, affluent, and upwardly mobile families—exactly the group among which Jews are so disproportionately to be found...

...I felt like a new person...

...In their adolescence they would like to live a life that gets them up to a spartan regime, which gives them the highest spiritual model of how to live, a chance to call people brother and sister, share in the chores, and have time for prayer...

...Considering that he operates outside the Jewish institutional framework, it is a bold endeavor...

...As Alan puts it, "In the synagogue, God is just a word...

...And Shaw sees no major liturgical communities on the horizon which might form the basis for a spontaneous synthesis of mystical and consciousness raising currents with traditional Jewish expression...

...they offer immediacy as well, as a substitute and antidote for the abstract intellectual concepts of Judaism...

...Other students of the matter, however, suggest a very high rate of mental instability among cult members...

...Fund raising and social service projects override any concern with the development of agency programs to encourage experimentation with spiritual as well as ethnic identification...

...His approach is more often practical than philosophical, intuitive rather than scientific...

...We do, however, know that those who remain in the conventional community, who do not seek and who are uncomfortable with the alternative lifestyles that have now become so popular, are not necessarily satisfied with the opportunities the community offers for spiritual growth...

...Synagogues have been basically lacking in reaching out to young or middle-aged individuals with a strong spiritual path to personal development," says Jacob-son...

...Many others simply lump all unfamiliar religious groups together under the heading "cult," mixing Eastern religions with self-awareness groups and Yoga institutes...

...How many of them are conscious exploiters of their followers' weaknesses, and how many actually believe their own claims...

...Jewish identity, it says, has lost the crucial balance which melds ethnicity and spirituality together...

...In fact, the evidence suggests that cults are especially attractive to young people away from home for the first time...

...thousands, and a community only now beginning to view the matter not merely as a personal tragedy but as a communal threat...

...At a recent retreat in the hills of Eastern Pennsylvania there was more interest in the strictly vegetarian meals than in issues of survival or Zionism...

...Instead, the cults energetically cast a very broad net, and in that net they catch large numbers of youngsters whose confusions are perfectly normal—as well, of course, as a proportion of those who do need clinical help...

...With the establishment of a Rabbinic Seminary Without Walls and the formation of B'nai Or, an organization devoted to "God, Consciousness, Torah and the harmonious development of the whole Jewish person," a new phase begins in this roving teacher's life...

...Jewish education, long considered the panacea for a variety of Jewish ills, is noticeably absent in the Philadelphia report, except as a component of larger endeavors like retreat centers and hostels...

...Nor, in seeking to understand why so many Jewish youngsters have been attracted to alien cults, can we dismiss the example set by thousands of adult Jews, an example to which Rabbi Harold Schulweis has called eloquent attention: "We enjoy picking on the little kids and talking about 'Jews for Jesus' and other cults which are outside the established Jewish community...

...Ill The confusion of Jewish parents is mirrored in the Jewish community at large, which has only recently begun to respond in systematic fashion to the threat of the cult...

...Her son, Daniel, joined the International Society of Krishna Consciousness in 1972...

...Sadly, the well-researched study shows most campus programs to be understaffed and underfunded...

...In ten years they had learned nothing, had not even tried to understand...

...He believes that some 12 percent of cult members are Jewish, a figure close to Harvey Cox's estimate that 15 percent of all Hare Krishnas are Jewish...

...Further, the unravelling of the Jewish family seems to have happened almost overnight, in a kind of frenzied effort to "catch up" to the rest of society, creating a sudden desta-bilization and the loss of community...

...In January 1978, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia released a 70 page report of its Special Committee on Exotic Cults...

...He feels that most Jewish institutions have stagnated because of their lack of responsiveness to the more mystical and obscure elements in the tradition—elements which he finds most useful in attracting disaffected Jewish youth from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, from the totally non-religious to those with a yeshiva education...

...Manson and Moon have dominated the headlines, and there is a widespread tendency to suppose that all the others share the bizarre qualities of these...

...But there is little consolation in the lower figures: Egon Mayer, a Brooklyn College sociologist, has traced and documented the emergence of some 1300 new religious cults in America since 1965...

...Novelist Kurt Vonnegut once remarked that a clever presidential candidate could easily win election by adopting as his campaign slogan, "Lonesome No More...

...Direct experience and group support are top priorities in Schacter's attempt to domesticate so-called "peak experiences" and bring a more transcendent hue to the humdrum colors of everyday life...

...The report also recommends expanding high school youth movement programs, aid to summer camps, trips to Israel and a variety of programs which create close living situations...

...V Rabbi Schacter's emphasis on the practical and experiential is one symptom of a search that engages many Jews, as the success of how-to-do-it books like the Jewish Catalogue clearly show...

...But there is little disagreement that for a significant number of youngsters, there has been a debilitating absence of authority in their lives...

...Lubavitch will appeal to some...

...As a result of parental ignorance there is great confusion about where to turn when help is needed...

...This assertion distresses parents, and raises a major challenge to social \ agencies: are we to assume that tens of thousands of young Jews are in urgent need of psychiatric attention...

...That was the shock...

...Before they have reason to, they lack incentive...

...We don't press suits here—we make signs.' It seems to me that we have got to understand that you can't talk about peoplehood or about God or about Torah unless you allow people to experience intimately in a non-threatening and supportive i community their presence, their spontaneity, their freedom, unless they can experience peoplehood and divinity and goodness and study...

...The increase of interest in chavurot and other communal endeavors also demonstrates a growing desire to taste firsthand the fruits of Jewish tradition, however prepared or processed...

...Jewish retreat centers are another major priority of the report...

...It wasn't really anger, it was more bewilderment...

...As straightforward as the Perl-mutter's approach may appear, few parents of cult members have been willing to adopt it...

...Those members are the parents of the young people for whom cults are now an option, and what those young people learn from their parents may have something to do with whether they choose to exercise that option, or, rejecting it, choose to find answers ; within the community...

...But Alan joined the Hare Krishnas last week...

...The craving for human companionship is a dominant preoccupation for large numbers of Americans, one most keenly felt during adolescence and young adulthood...

...Kierkegaard said he once went into a store that had a sign on the outside that read 'Suits Pressed Here.' And he said, 'I'd like you to press my suit.' The storekeeper said, 'You're making a great mistake...

...Zalman's got plenty of shticks," comments one rabbi, "but he's the most creative force we've got...

...After having been a prime force behind the establishment of West Coast counter culture groups like the Aquarian Minyan, Schacter will now try to create a network for all Jewish alternative groups under the B'nai Or umbrella, providing educational and counseling services along the way...

...after they have reason to, they are too upset...

...While criticizing some cults for anti-Semitism and abuse of power, the report goes on to cite growing secularism as a major factor in the flight of Jewish youth from traditional institutions...

...The cults have come of age...

...Catholic and Protestant groups have long seen the positive benefits that such centers can provide for intensive communal and spiritual experience...

...But how will he reach the child...

...Psychologists still debate the proper proportions of structure and freedom, of discipline and permissiveness necessary in constructive parenting...

...Two recent responses are especially worthy of note...

...But the Perlmutters are exceptions...

...There was only one thing for us to do and that was to learn, to find out what this strange thing we know nothing about really is...

...Polly Perlmutter...

...This greying guru's mild mannered speech and warm eyes give no hint of his stormy past or his controversial present...

...The emphasis on new living situations rather than on new learning programs is revealing...

...And what kinds of ears are required to be attracted by it...

...As melodramatic as some of the more publicized efforts at deprogramming have been, the approach offers some comfort to parents, who can think that their innocent children have been ensnared by demonic forces...

...The result may not look like anything we know now, but neither is it likely to be as alien in either substance or structure as the cults are...

...Perlmutter...

...As many students of the subject have noted, the consequences of the peculiar permissiveness which characterized child-rearing in America in the 1950's and 1%0's were bound to show up somewhere...

...Schacter is pained by the many Jews who have turned to cults and other religious groups...

...Pursuing its goals with a missionary zeal that rivals the most energetic cults, Lubavitch offers many of the same satisfactions the cults do...