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Quasi-religious groups may be on the increasCompiled by Kate Levings from information supplied by federal agents, academics and psychologists specialising in law enforcement.

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The junction between an old and new millennium represents more than just a milestone on the chronological scale to some religious groups, and while research shows that new religious movements are constantly being established, some academics have forecast that there will be an increasing tendency for such organisations to emerge as 2000 approaches.

While most of these ‘quasi-religious’ groups are harmless, some have attracted the scrutiny of law enforcement authorities which shoulder the responsibility of gauging when their activities fall outside the boundaries of society’s legal parameters — a responsibility which requires skilful judgement considering the right to freedom of expression in our democratic society.

Australia has been relatively free of fanatical religious groups, however some organisations, although not necessarily millenarian movements, have been the subject of law enforcement investigation in this country. Among them, the case involving the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo Sect in 1995 demonstrated that we are not immune to the influence of fanatical groups regardless of their location.

The group’s leader Chizuo Matsumoto, also known as Shoko Asahara, and some of his followers are on trial in Japan for the nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995 which killed 12 people and injured thousands of others.

Matsumoto tried to bring about his doomsday vision by recruiting young intellectuals to develop weapons of mass destruction. Sect members operated under a mix of Buddhist reincarnation and deliverance beliefs and were involved in legitimate enterprises as well as a range of criminal activities.

The sect saw Australia as one of the few places which would be relatively unaffected by its doomsday prophecy, but the full extent of its activities outside of Japan was not discovered until after the subway gassing.

10 Platypus Magazine

fith the approach of the new millennium

The AFP’s investigation into the group’s activities in Australia began two years later when the new owners of the Banja warn property contacted authorities on learning of the Tokyo subway gassing.

The subway attack brought to world attention the destructive capabilities of religious fanatics who had obtained the resources to act on their violent beliefs. The Aum Shinrikyo sect leader combined his

The remote Banjawarn Station, in Western Australia where Aum Shinrikyo sect members conducted nerve-agent experiments on sheep.

personal charisma with claims of divine inspiration to convince followers that his apocalyptic beliefs were substantiated. He had a strong following of scientists and technicians and extensive finances. Equipped with such tools, he was able to act on his visions of devastation.

Reports by a Japanese Public Security Investigation Agency this year indicated the sect was re-establishing itself after many of its members were released from jail with one in three, or 138 people, rejoining the group. Aum’s headquarters in Tokyo were shut down last year after the sect was declared bankrupt and its official status as a religious corporation with tax privileges was removed, however, as noted by Federal Agent Penrose in his 1995 report, “in Japan, the rights of religious groups are highly protected by law”. The international news agency, Agence France-Press, reported recently that the sect now had 26 footholds nationwide as it had regained impetus since January when a legal panel turned down a government request to outlaw it. The panel said it was “impossible to find sufficient reason” to believe the sect could still be a threat to society. Aum opened its new

The group’s members bought a remote property, Banjawarn Station, in Western Australia in 1993 and had told real estate agents in Perth that they needed to ‘conduct experiments of benefit to humankind’. Later investigations found that the property was used to conduct nerve-agent experiments on sheep and that the sect had planned to establish a permanent facility at the site.

In September 1993 Chizuo Matsumoto and 24 sect members arrived in Perth, paying $A30,000 in excess baggage. Customs luggage searches resulted in chemicals and laboratory equipment being confiscated and two sect members being fined $A2,400. (It was later discovered that a sect member had then flown from Western Australia to Melbourne to buy a new batch of chemicals).

Federal Agent Jeff Penrose who headed the investigation into the group’s activities in Australia wrote in Platypus in December 1995 that the Aum Shinrikyo sect members involved in the experiments left Australia eight days after they arrived. Further visa applications from four of the original group to return were refused by the Australian Embassy in Tokyo because of suspicious circumstances surrounding the first visit and their failure to openly disclose their activities. This suspicion was based on information provided by the AFP following consultation with the Japanese National Police Agency and research which indicated that the sect was possibly involved with kidnappings in Japan and unlawfully detaining members who wanted to leave the group. Two sect members managed to avoid detection, obtained visas from the Australian Consulate in Osaka and travelled to Australia to become caretakers for the station.

No. 57—December 1997 11

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headquarters in May in Tokyo’s downtown district of Shinjuku, which can accommodate more than 100 followers, the report said.

Officials from the Public Security Investigation Agency said they continued to check on the sect and would compile reports every three months.

In another case, Victoria Police investigated allegations earlier this year that members of the Kamm sect based in that state had been ordered by their leader David Kamm, also known as the Little Pebble, to arm themselves in preparation for war with the Australian Army.

A former member of the sect alleged that Mr Kamm told his followers to dig graves, preaching that children of the sect would become ‘sleepers’ and would be cared for by angels. He said Mr Kamm had made predictions that when the Hale- Bopp comet arrived in June this year it would bring world-wide devastation. The man became suspicious of Mr Kamm when his predictions proved false and after the leader asked him to tell the parents of a 10-year-old girl that their daughter was going to die. The Melbourne newspaper The Herald Sun reported on July 9 this year that the man had feared that the group’s members were prepared to die for their beliefs.He said Mr Kamm constantly referred to death and talked of a holy war and Armageddon saying “many of you will perish in the coming chastisements and will be lost - not only to the world and your families and loved ones, but also to heaven”.

The man told The Herald Sun that he became involved with the sect at a low point in his life after accompanying a friend to a sect meeting to ensure her involvement was not dangerous.

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A ‘Little Pebble’ site available on the Internet Explorer

“I spent a weekend [at the property] listening to what William had to say and he was saying all these positive things about me, how I was a mystic who would be able to do some good in the world, and he made me feel worthwhile for the first time in ages,” the man told the paper.

“Everyone needs to do something important with their lives . . . then you talk to this guy who offers you the world ... so of course I listened to him,” he said.

AFP inquiries in 1994 into the Swiss-based religious group, The Order of the Solar Temple, showed that some of its members had made visits to Australia.

The AFP investigated the possibility that the Solar Temple had connections here after the group drew international public attention in 1994 when 53 members committed murder-suicide simultaneously in chalets in Switzerland and Canada, believing that their deaths would allow them to travel to the star Sirius.

Leaders of the group Luc Jouret and Joseph di Mambro had visited Australia - Jouret on three occasions from 1989 to 1993 and Di Mambro six times from 1986 to 1994. They, and others who accompanied them, opened bank accounts in Sydney and rented accommodation on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

Interpol alerted law enforcement authorities worldwide in seeking the whereabouts of di Mambro and Jouret after the murder-suicides and subsequent inquiries by the AFP found no evidence that they had conducted illegal activities here. The bodies of both men were eventually identified as among the dead in the Swiss chalet used for the doomsday ritual.

In 1995, French police found the bodies of 16 of the group's members, laid out in a ceremonial circle formation. Some left behind suicide notes, with one note saying, “Death does not exist, it is pure illusion. May we, in our inner life, find each other forever”. In March this year, the bodies of five more members were found in Quebec, arranged in the form of a cross.

Another religious organisation, the Japanese Sukyo Mahikari group which has branches internationally, attracted media attention in Australia in late 1996 when the ACT Government gave it permission to establish a national headquarters in suburban Holder.

The Canberra Times reported on Sunday March 2 this year that “Sukyo Mahikari Australia Ltd is registered as a non-profit company whose principal activity according to the articles of association are ‘conducting and

maintenance of religious worship’. The sect is

12 Platypus Magazine

asset-rich, a fact not known to many of its members, overwhelmingly middle-c lass professionals. According to records, it owns several thousand hectares of property in NSW, including a rural property near Canberra.”

The newspaper article made reference to the group’s activities overseas as being subject to investigation by authorities in various European countries, however, AFP inquiries into their activities in Australia found no grounds for further investigation.

The Sukyo Mahikari organisation complained to the Australian Press Council about a series of articles about it run by The Canberra Times between March and May 1997, but the complaints were dismissed. The Council said that the newspaper also had published a substantial balancing article by the Australian Regional Director of the Sukyo Mahikari organisation, fulfilling its requirements for balance and fairness.

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Introduction to the Spiritual TrainingOn August 19. 1999,10 planets of the Solar System will form a cross. It is called "Grand Cross ' The Grand Cross suggests the end of material-primary civilization, and at the same lime, it symbolizes the beginning of the new spirit-primary civilization. In order to live in the new civilization, a person's soul has to have the vibration of altruistic love.

We at Sekai Mahikari Bunniei Kyodan practice the Spiritual Training which is based on t spiritual art, "Mahikari-no-waza.” We aim for purifying vibration of our innermost mind.

The Japanese Mahikari Group attracted media attention in Australia in late 1996 when the ACT Government gave it permission to establish a national headquarters in suburban Holder.

Theories on isolated extremist groupsThe Lethal Triad

Three social-psychological components which interact to nurture a given group’s beliefs and behaviours were identified and dubbed The Lethal Triad by Kevin M. Gilmartin, an American police psychologist, after he conducted 20 years research into isolated extremist groups.

Dr Gilmartin said in his 1996 paper The Lethal Triad - Understanding the Nature of Isolated Extremist Groups, that groups which chose to express their views through violent criminal behaviour shared many similar traits in their basic composition, regardless of their beliefs. In The Lethal Triad theory there are three components - isolation, projection and pathological anger, and through these Dr Gilmartin believes the basis of fanaticism is formed.

“The isolation process begins as members become sequestered from their previous identities or memories,” Dr Gilmartin wrote. “Members sometimes receive new names, and any contact with family members who do not belong to the group is either forbidden or strictly monitored. Ostensibly, this practice protects members from the contaminating influences of the outside world. In reality, it preserves isolation, which bolsters group solidarity.”

Isolation was not only a physical restriction, he said. Members were often controlled psychologically, with access to outside media denied, and a strong focus was placed on group literature and lectures. Although some groups appeared to rely heavily on information sources such as the Internet, the group leader would

usually censor information before distributing it among group members.

Communal living and regular prayer or chanting sessions preserved the unity of the group, while dietary restrictions and sleep deprivation were often used to maintain control over members.

“As isolation increases, critical thinking decreases,” said Dr Gilmartin. “Without access to alternative information sources, members encode new belief systems. Group tenets are never challenged, only recited. Platitude conditioning replaces reasoning processes.”

The isolation process removed the individual’s ability to think for themselves. Thoughts which were critical of the group or its belief systems were strongly discouraged by leaders, and members were required to perform repetitive body movements or chants for extensive periods, creating a closed belief system. It was in this state of mind that conspirational thoughts about mainstream society could be instigated, the paper said. With the loss of past identities, new group members became open to the other two components of the triad - projection and pathological anger.

Projection occurred in two ways. “First, the group projects responsibility for its decisions and direction onto the leader. Second, the group projects the cause for its perceived grievances onto some outside entity.” As members lost the ability to think critically, they assumed the leader to have absolute authority. “Groups may pay homage to the leader in a number of ways, including shouting ‘Heil Hitler’, bowing or

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chanting the leader’s name during religious practices,” wrote Dr Gilmartin.

The leader maintained control of the group by having members perform activities such as group prayer or meditation. The lack of access to ideas beyond the group’s reality ensured that members did not have the opportunity to test the belief system. Members who ventured outside the group’s mental restrictions were returned to conformity by being made to perform isolation exercises. Some members of the San Diego cult Heavens Gate, 39 of whom committed suicide in March 1997, opted for castration as a means of eradicating sexual thoughts, rather than feeling they had failed as group members by harbouring forbidden thoughts.

The final component of Dr Gilmartin’s lethal triad was pathological anger, which grows from the combination of isolation and projection. “Collectively, group members see themselves as victims of an outside force. As they project blame onto this entity, they grow emotionally volatile,” said Gilmartin. “Their explosive anger can fuel actions that range from scapegoating ethnic minorities to bombing and gassing outsiders indiscriminately.”

Dr Gilmartin believed the persuasive nature of the group process allowed members to be absolved of any guilt for their actions. “Because of their isolation, group members come into significant contact only with others who share their world view and emotional reaction to it. . . they feel no sense of individual accountability.As a result, they can commit heinous acts without experiencing significant emotional turmoil or guilt. In essence, the group process has created situational sociopaths who suffer no remorse no matter what they do.”

Some members of the San Diego cult Heavens Gate, 39 of whom committed suicide in March 1997, opted for castration as a means of eradicating sexual thoughts, rather than feeling they had failed as group members by harbouring forbidden thoughts.

The ‘millenarian mood’In ‘Millenarianism and Violence ’, a special

issue of the Journal of Terrorism and Political! Violence, Michael Barkun, a Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University, and the author of three books on millenarian movements, refers to a rising ‘millenarian mood’ - an intangible but growing awareness of the year 2000.

“Its approach implies, however irrationally, that we stand at a critical dividing point between eras,” Mr Barkun writes in the introductory chapter.

He discusses the significance of exchanges that take place between specific groups of millenarians and specific centres of power that can affect them, such as the government officials who must deal with them.

“In case after case, how active a group becomes and the level of violence it employs depend critically upon the way it has been treated by those in authority.”

He cites the Branch Davidians case of 1993 in which the FBI tried to gain access to a property occupied by the group in Waco, Texas, where about 80 people subsequently died.

“The contacts with government were extensive and well documented, and it has become abundantly clear that the fire-fight during the initial raid, the stand-off with the FBI, and the final gas attack and fire cannot be understood without examining the ways in which each side saw the other, and the decisions taken on the basis of those perceptions.

“The interactions millenarians have with others are important for two reasons. First, each side has an interpretive framework that gives meaning to the behaviour of the other. Second, this interpretive framework is marked by a dualistic view of the world. The millenarian interpretive framework is comprehensive. It purports to offer an all-encompassing set of ideas that makes sense of the world millenarians see. Indeed, they often claim to possess a special knowledge not vouchsafed to others, so that they alone have a correct and complete understanding of the world. This interpretive framework or world view is in fact not equally detailed in all its parts. It is often vague in its description of the perfect future that will eventually emerge, but it tends to be highly specific in identifying present forces of evil and the sequence of events that will lead to the final victory. Thus, although the millennial age itself may be only lightly sketched, the final events of history are often rendered in graphic detail.

14 Platypus Magazine

a Terror is attractive in itself to nt essian ists just

for this reason represents a break with the past,

epitomising the antinomianism or complete liberation

which is the essence of the messianic expectation”

“This detail is important because, first, it allowsmillenarians to precisely identify fyecause ft is OlltsUle the normal range of violence 00(1those who are their enemies.Second, it often includes predictions about the behaviour of both sides, the actions that may be expected both of the elect and their adversaries. This gives to millenarian interpretive frameworks the character of scripts, giving to the last days a distinctly dramaturgical cast. In many versions of the script, particularly in the West, conditions for the elect will get progressively worse, so that suffering, instead of being viewed as a sign of defeat, becomes evidence of the nearness of victory. The situation worsens until a final struggle with evil, where the once beleaguered millenarians find themselves newly empowered, pennitting the final triumph.

“The state’s forces do not possess so uniform a point of view. However, while the authorities possess a broader array of interpretive frameworks, they too have a set of lenses through which they read the meaning of events. Where the authorities come from a cultural background different from the millenarians themselves, the state’s picture may invest millenarians with attributes of savagery, superstition, and ignorance . . .”

such mutual incomprehension can have more far- reaching effects. The relationship between the Branch Davidians and federal law enforcement agencies lasted for only 51 days. But where millenarians and government interact over months or years, the misreadings (or, rather, reading in terms of one’s own script) can powerfully affect group activation and violence. For example, millenarians’ willingness to employ violence is often a function of the sense of being besieged, which may in turn result from the policies employed by state agencies with no direct knowledge of how the world appears to the millenarians themselves but amply equipped with its own conception of why they behave as they do. Without meaning to do so, therefore, each acts in precisely those ways most likely to antagonise the other.”

Further in the article, he continues that these images are important because they have behavioural consequences.

“Each side claims to have knowledge of the other, yet this knowledge is not derived from the other but from one’s own concept of the world. To the extent that the other is demonised - to millenarians, the state is evil, and to the state, millenarians are crazed - there is little incentive to see the world from the other’s point of view. What is looked for instead is evidence that confirms the picture already held. To the extent that the two sides interact on the basis of these mirror-image scripts, each will selectively identify and interpret evidence that fits into the appropriate script. Thus, in the case of the Branch Davidians, the ATF [Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms] raid and the subsequent massive FBI presence confirmed David Koresh’s apocalyptic predictions. On the other side, the FBI referred to Koresh’s theological presentations as ‘Bible babble’ and moved ahead with the gas attack even as Koresh worked on the final interpretation of Revelation that might have allowed him to surrender.

“At one level, these interactions are systematic and symmetrical misreadings. At another level,

David C. Rapoport, a political scientist with the University of California at Los Angeles, in his 1988 article Messianic Sanctions for Terror: Comparative Politics About the Circumstances in which Millenarian Groups become Violent wrote: “Once a messianic advent appears imminent, pre­existing paradigms guide the expectations and, therefore, the actions of believers, paradigms which, for the most part, are the creation of the dominant or orthodox religious cultures, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. When the paradigms are vague and conflicting, believers must make choices and may abandon some for others more promising and equally legitimate.This also means that there will be differences between movements and distinct phases which seem contradictory within a single movement. Yet in every case powerful impulses towards terror are inherent in the beliefs of a world about to be destroyed, the gains imagined, the character of the participants, and God’s methods. Beyond all this, and I cannot emphasise the point enough, terror is attractive in itself to messianists just because it is outside the normal range of violence and for this reason represents a break with the past, epitomising the antinomianism or complete liberation which is the essence of the messianic expectation.” -A

No. 57—December 1997 15