This is a small case study on the Church of the First Born and General Assembly of Heaven (great name, sure).
So, nine months after their teenage son died of an infection from a burst appendix, a couple from Creswell who chose prayer over medical care for their son, admitted criminal responsibility for his death.
Russel and Brandi Bellew each pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Lane County Circuit Court to charges of criminally negligent homicide, as part of an agreement with prosecutors.
The Bellews are members of the Church of the First Born and General Assembly of Heaven, who believe in using prayer instead of modern medicine to treat illnesses (and polygamy, amongst other things...).
Prosecutor Erik Hasselman said:
“The family, through their reliance on faith, ended up praying for his recovery. It appeared that Sprout [their son] wanted to respect his faith and the manner in which he was brought up.”
Had the couple been convicted of manslaughter, they each would have faced a minimum prison sentence of six years and three months. Which I think is fair. They were instead placed on probation after being allowed to plead guilty to the less-serious felony charge of criminally negligent homicide. They avoided jail due to their plea (Excellent!), but will spend the next five years on probation. During that time, they will be required to contact a doctor whenever any of their six surviving children suffer from an ailment that causes them to miss school for more than one day.
But this is just the most recent case... The General Assembly and the Church of the First Born has been linked to a number of controversies related to its spiritual healing practices.
This doesn't shock me, though. I am aware of a number of different cults who do the same kind of thing - "faith healing" (in exchange for substantial cash donations). What I am struggling with, is that the two founders of the Church of the First Born and General Assembly of Heaven are actually rapists and paedophiles - and people still follow them. Here's some background...
Terrill Dalton, 45, who uses the name and claims to be the "Holy Ghost," was convicted of two counts of rape in March of this year, and given six years prison time. His partner-in-crime Geody Harman was also charged with rape, a first-degree felony, however, he testified twice against Dalton and, in exchange for his testimony, was allowed to plead guilty to a reduced count of unlawful sexual activity with a minor; a third-degree felony. He was sentenced to probation.
Dalton, right. Harman, left.
The worst part? It was Dalton's 15 year-old daughter that they raped. So, yes, not only is Dalton guilty of raping his own daughter, he's guilty of allowing his mate to rape her as well... Because "God told them to".
Prosecutors say Dalton condoned an "impression" (message from God) that Geody Harman, 38, said he had received indicating that he needed to have sex with Dalton's daughter, Cynthia Dalton (seriously, how would you bring that up? "Err... Sorry mate, but God's told me I have to have sex with your daughter. Awkward. Bummer."). In a prior hearing, Dalton's daughter testified that she was promised she would receive blessings if she had sex with the two men and felt extreme pressure from her father and those in his church to comply.
Prosecuter Tupakk Renteria said:
"She was raped at 15 years old by a person who should have protected her. Instead of protecting her, he served her up on a silver platter. … In raping her, he manipulated her. He used religion, said this is what God wanted."
Following two days of evidence, Renteria asked the jury to convict Terrill Dalton on both counts of rape. He stated Dalton was not on trial for his unconventional religion, but for raping his own child.
As evidence of Dalton's guilt, Renteria recounted testimony from a number of witnesses, including another daughter of Dalton and the man's sister. Both women said Dalton made sexual advances toward them.
"He knew how to prey on weak individuals," Renteria said. "Individuals who were depressed, individuals who were young."
GOOD.
The Church of the First Born and the General Assembly of Heaven was based in Magna when Cynthia Dalton was told about Harman's "impression." The then-teenager ultimately had sexual intercourse with Harman and soon after, said her father told her that she needed to have intercourse three times with him. She said it happened once and only because she was scared, "didn't know how to get out of it" and was hoping for the blessings she was promised.
Not long after the alleged incidents, Cynthia Dalton left home, testifying she never received the blessings she was promised and that her life then went "downhill."
Wonder what happened to them blessings?!
THIS CULT IS STILL ACTIVE.
Now, my previous post on cults was more of a focus on the leaders and founders of the groups... But after reading about this specific cult, I was left judging the followers more than I was Dalton and Harman. Might sound a little weird? But Dalton and Harman are obviously just disturbed; that explains that. What I want is an explanation of how they have convinced people they are the "Holy Ghost" and "God in the Flesh", and why people still follow their preachings and lifestyles when they are clearly just paedophile rapists.
So I firstly I looked into what kind of people join cults...
Turns out, just regular people like us! Research indicates that approximately two-thirds of cult members are psychologically healthy people that come from normal families. The remaining third are likely to have depressive symptoms, usually related to a personal loss - perhaps a death in the family, a failed romantic relationship, or career troubles. Only 5-6% of cult members demonstrate major psychological problems prior to joining a cult (Singer, 1995). Cults don't want, and don't recruit, people with psychological problems or physical handicaps - they represent a loss rather than a gain of "cult-oriented productivity". Cults prefer intelligent, productive individuals who are able to contribute money and talent to "the cause" (Hassan, 198-).
So considering that didn't give me much insight I then decided to put my (sort of) psychology degree to good use, and looked up behaviour patterns...
Behavior is a function of both a person's personality and her situation, which can be described with the Lewinian formulation B=f[P,E]. This indicates that behavior is a function of, or an interaction of, both the personality and the environment.
An interesting fact is that the environment can easily dominate personality-based differences among people, making personal differences a relatively minor variable in the equation. So, given a powerful and engaging situation, people often react to it in a uniformly similar fashion, regardless of personality differences. This is evident historically: Nazism, Bolshevism, Jim Jones, etc.
Because of this, there appears to be no reliable personality factor that predicts cult membership. However, certain situational elements make people more vulnerable to cult recruitment, and they include: loneliness and uncertainty about how to proceed. These situations create the desire for quick, simple solutions. Cults provide a myriad of "solutions," which are more importantly accompanied by structure, authority, and close social contacts - elements that people want, need, and which most of us take for granted in the course of our everyday lives.
I found conflicting research on why people join cults, such as:
1. Langone's deliberative model: People are said to join cults primarily because of how they view a particular group.
2. The "psychodynamic model": Individuals choose to join for fulfillment of subconscious psychological needs.
3. The "thought reform model": People do not join because of their own psychological needs, but because of the group's influence through forms of psychological manipulation.
I think perhaps it wold be a combination of all three. But the following study rang true for me...
In the 1960's sociologist John Lofland completed a case study of the Unification Church missionary Young Oon Kim and a small group of American church members in California and their efforts in trying to promote their beliefs and win new members. Lofland noted that most of their efforts were ineffective and that most of the people who joined did so because of personal relationships with other members, often family relationships. I think this is a massive part of it - cult leaders often believe in polygamy, and encourage procreating within the cult. This gives them automatic new members, and as a larger collective, they have more chance of securing more followers.
My personal views?
Cults offer instant friendship, a caring family, respect for your contributions, an identity, safety, security, simplicity, and an organised daily routine. Much cult recruitment is done by family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, teachers and highly trained professional recruiters - people you'd trust. Once people are lured in by these factors they begin to make personal relationships within the cult and this strengthens their loyalty. Then, it is a case of Herd Mentality that alters their perception of reality. They experience deindividuation...
Deindividuation is basically a loss of self-awareness. When people deindividuate, they are less likely to follow normal restraints and inhibitions and more likely to lose their sense of individual identity. Groups can generate a sense of emotional excitement, which can lead to the provocation of behaviors that a person would not typically engage in given they followed their own mind.
When a person reaches this stage, it takes something pretty drastic to get them out of it. For example, your dad and his mate raping you, with no sign of the blessings you were promised...
Anyway folks, I'm very interested in hearing if anyone else has any further insight into this? I fear this has all got a bit out of hand now. This post is epic and I feel all too susceptible to cult initiation. I fear I myself may have been brainwashed. It is time I stopped lurking behind my computer looking up how vulnerable I am to being indoctrinated into a cult (turns out, very) and start doing real things, in the real world, with real people...
Wish me luck.
L.
