Breaking the Power of Cult Symbols
Breaking the Power of Cult Symbols
The following is a
paper I presented in 2017 at a conference on cultic studies. As you read,
you'll find places where I cited slides in an accompanying PowerPoint that I
was showing the audience, but I am not posting it here. Instead, please use
your imagination.
Footnotes are at the
end of the paper.
Original
presentation given at International Cultic Studies
Association 2017 Conference in Bordeaux, France.
Presenter: Charlene
L. Edge, author of Undertow: My Escape from the
Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International. New Wings Press. 2017.
My presentation today
is about how cult leaders use symbols to control followers and how we can break
the power of those symbols. As an example, I’ll use The Way International,™ the fundamentalist cult I escaped in
1987. High-control groups like The Way use insignias, catch-phrases, and other
imagery to recruit, manipulate, and retain believers. These emotionally charged
symbols contribute to how hard it is for followers to leave the cults that
captured them. Understanding what a cult’s symbols mean, and the ways they
affect followers, can contribute to cult recovery.
First, let me tell
you a little about me.
In 1970 I was a
teenaged college student yearning for knowledge of the Bible and a like-minded
Christian fellowship. I turned away from family and friends after college
student recruiters led me to The Way. At the time, it was a small sect led by
the charismatic Victor Paul Wierwille, but within a decade it was one of the
largest cults based in North America. The Way held me in its grip for seventeen
years.
Believing that God
led me to Wierwille, I underwent his intensive two-year program, The Way Corps™, designed to produce loyal leaders. I
was totally committed and ignored warning signs of Wierwille’s increasing
paranoia and abuse. For instance, he considered dissenters as agents of the
Devil, manipulated us into keeping his secrets, lashed out against
denominations, damned homosexuality, and surrounded himself with bodyguards.
None of that deterred me. I married a fellow Corps graduate and we served
across the United States as Way leaders, funneling money into Wierwille’s
bursting coffers and shunning anyone who criticized him. As obedient Way Corps,
we also raised our child to believe the doctrines of Wierwille.
Eventually I was
promoted to the inner circle of biblical researchers, where I discovered
devastating secrets: Wierwille deliberately twisted Scripture to serve his
personal agenda, shamelessly plagiarized the work of others, and misrepresented
the purpose of his organization. Worst of all, after Wierwille died in 1985,
shocking reports surfaced of his secret sex ring.1 Amid chaos at The
Way’s Ohio-based headquarters, I knew I had to escape—for my own survival and
my child’s.
People ask why I
stayed in The Way so long. The answer is complicated, but it includes
Wierwille’s implementation of mind control through symbols.2 This
paper answers the question, “How did Wierwille use symbols to control followers
and keep them loyal to his goals?”
So, what exactly is a
symbol?
From the
Merriam-Webster Dictionary we learn that a symbol is “something that stands for
or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention,
or accidental resemblance.” A symbol can be “a visible sign of something
invisible, for instance, the lion is a symbol of courage.” 3
Most symbols at The
Way, like photographs of Wierwille in The Way Magazine and catch phrases
like, “Dr. Wierwille is our father in the Word,” triggered loyalty to our
leader as God’s spokesman and the authority on the Bible. We will see how The
Way used symbols as instant reminders of our collective purpose and sparked
loyalty to our cult leader.
Using religious
symbols
To begin, let’s
compare how cults and traditional religions use symbols. For example, most of
us are familiar with the three major monotheistic religions, Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam. They use various symbols to enhance the spiritual life of
believers, to provoke devotion to God, and to remind followers of their
spiritual duties. For Christianity, symbols like the cross remind devotees of
Jesus’s sacrificial death. Paintings of Jesus healing the sick engender empathy
for those in need.
Leaders of
high-control cults, however, deliberately deploy symbols for different
purposes. Instead of encouraging believers to contemplate invisible spiritual
realities represented by symbols, cults use their leaders’ photographs,
slogans, and official insignias to galvanize commitment to the group and
obedience to their leaders’ beliefs, dogmas, and directives. This results in
members discarding their own opinions, abdicating their autonomy, and suffering
from low self-esteem.
While symbols may be
introduced to appeal on the cognitive level to members, they quickly influence
deeper, emotional commitments, much like pledging allegiance to a flag or
singing a national anthem. Thus, symbols can be used to control members, and
since their pull remains on the non-conscious level, they can make it difficult
for a member to extricate from the group.
How did Wierwille use
himself as a symbol of God’s authority?
This photo [published
of Victor Paul Wierwille standing at the podium in the auditorium at The Way]
is a perfect example of how Wierwille insinuated himself in our minds as God’s
spokesman to be obeyed.
On the banner right
behind him, we see “I Am The Way,” a well-known phrase from the Gospel of John
attributed to Jesus, but here it can easily be construed as referring to
Wierwille! Looking friendly, Wierwille poses with an open Bible and offers a
welcoming gesture. He appears to be a respectable man of God. I now see him as
a self-proclaimed prophet who knew how to promote himself.
This image prompts
the question, “Why did any of us get hooked on The Way instead of another Bible
group?” I offer three main reasons.
First, Wierwille claimed he taught “the
accuracy of God’s Word.” That was a powerful inducement to join and remain
loyal. Initially, what he called his biblical research sounded legitimate to
most of us who had no training in Old or New Testament history, Early Church
history, or biblical criticism.
Secondly, his academic credentials made him
appear to be a biblical scholar. In 1940 he earned his Bachelor of Divinity
degree from Mission House Seminary, Sheboygan, Wisconsin. In 1941 he earned a
Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary (which has nothing to do
with the prestigious Princeton University). He was then ordained in the
Evangelical and Reformed Church, which later became the United Church of
Christ. He started his first pastorate in Ohio at age 24. In 1948 he received
his Doctor of Theology degree at Pikes Peak Bible Seminary and Burton College,
Manitou Springs, Colorado (much later I learned it was not accredited).4
And lastly,
but possibly the most important reason for many of us, was the fantastical
story he told, published in The Way: Living in Love by Elena Whiteside,
a devoted Way follower. Wierwille said God talked to him audibly:
“He said He would
teach me The Word as it had not been known since the first century if I would
teach it to others. … Well, I nearly flew off my chair. I couldn’t believe that
God would talk to me. … It’s just too fantastic. People won’t believe it. But He
spoke to me just as plainly as I’m talking now to you.” 5
In Whiteside’s book,
Wierwille goes on to say that he asked God for a sign to prove He had spoken to
him. When he looked out his office window on what had been a clear day, he saw
snow falling so thickly that he could not see the gas pumps at the filing station
across the street. It was true, he insisted, that the alleged revelation was
from God—the snow story proved it. Some of us were vulnerable enough to believe
it.
Years later, when I
came to terms with this story, I was more than chagrined to learn it was bogus.
Among other reasons for rejecting my previous belief in it, early Church
history tells us that today’s New Testament (part of “The Word” that Wierwille
referred to) did not even exist in the first century. It evolved much later,
during the first two hundred and fifty to three hundred years of Christianity.6
Thousands of us
became hooked on Wierwille, the man we accepted as the ultimate authority on
the Bible, which was the centerpiece of his teachings.
So, the Bible became
the Supreme Religious Symbol
After my escape from
The Way in 1987, my recovery included reading about cults and fundamentalism.
Over time, I learned that Wierwille’s fundamentalist doctrines—many of which
were plagiarized—was a mix of Literalism, Pentecostalism, Dispensationalism, and
Millennialism, with a dash of self-help witticism.7 At the center of
these “isms” was the Holy Bible.
One of Wierwille’s
favorite slogans was “It’s the Word, the Word, and nothing but the Word.” When
outsiders accused him of bibliolatry—worship of a book—Wierwille scoffed, but I
eventually realized those critics had been correct. Scholar James Barr points
out in his book Fundamentalism, “It is this function of the Bible as
supreme religious symbol that justifies us in seeing fundamentalism as a quite
separate religious form.” 8 In our group, Wierwille proclaimed the
Bible as being the only source of truth. And he made his teachings of it
so convincing that we failed to realize what is obvious to outsiders: Wierwille
was promoting his own interpretations, which often he deemed to be the
original reading of the Scripture. Nevertheless, we praised his Bible classes
and adopted his goals.
Wierwille created an
official symbol to express those goals
When I was involved
in The Way, from 1970 until 1987, this was the group’s official insignia [a
round green and white seal]. We called it The Way seal, which appeared in
gigantic form as the backdrop on stage at our annual festival, The Rock of
Ages, in 1973. It also came in three-inch diameter size as a sticker sold in
The Way Bookstore. Many of us affixed this seal to our Bible covers, keeping
our new, godly aims in plain sight.
In the center of this
seal is a familiar image of a globe. Above the globe, are Syriac words to
convey Wierwille’s goal, “The Word Over the World.” Why Syriac? Wierwille was
convinced that the Bible had been originally written in Aramaic, from which
Syriac is derived. (Our teacher gave no evidence for this claim, which
contradicts modern scholarship showing the New Testament was written in Greek.)
These words mean “The Word of God throughout all the inhabited earth,” which
was Wierwille’s dream. Thousands of us dedicated ourselves to making it come
true.
The open Bible,
indicating the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, sits at the top of the
globe. It implants the idea that Christians should rule the world and obey the
New Testament doctrines in Paul’s letters, which Wierwille said were addressed
directly to us today, in contrast to Jesus’s teachings in the Gospels which
were directed to Israel. Why? Wierwille was a dispensationalist, which means he
subscribed to ways of dividing up the Bible into time periods to account for
the conflicting ways God is shown dealing with mankind.
The phrase Power
for Abundant Living printed across the globe is the name of Wierwille’s
Bible class, our primary recruiting tool. He marketed this class as offering
“the accuracy of the Bible.” In his book by the same title, Wierwille tied
spirituality exclusively to Bible knowledge:
“Spiritual weakness
and spiritual inability can be due only to an improper diet, that is, the
neglect of the Word of God.” 9
He also claimed his
classes contained keys for manifesting the power of God and appropriating God’s
promises to bring abundance to every category of our lives.
Around the bottom of
the seal is printed, The Way Biblical Research Center. That refers to a most
unique aspect of Wierwille’s cult: biblical research. I worked on projects in
The Way’s biblical research department and finally realized it was only window-dressing
to make Wierwille appear as a reliable educator. Mostly, we served to backup
what Wierwille had already taught, parts of which were plagiarized and riddled
with sloppy thinking. In no small way, inerrancy, the non-negotiable foundation
of Wierwille’s approach to the Bible, produced many twisted and fabricated
teachings.
In summary, The Way
Seal was a one-stop-shop insignia representing the group. Followers recognized
it easily and knew what it stood for. Its imagery made me feel important. I was
proud to follow who I perceived as God’s man and belong to his organized movement
for this day and time. Many of us displayed the seal with pride on our Bibles,
bookbags, and even household refrigerators. It galvanized our loyalty to The
Way and reminded us of what we were supposed to be doing—recruiting others to
take the Power for Abundant Living class.
Sometime after I left
the cult, the second president, Craig Martindale, discontinued promoting this
seal. Why? Because by then, thanks to about 40,000 followers, he considered Way
teachings to have spread around the world. To reflect this, The Way created a
new slogan: “The Prevailing Word.”
Wierwille as a father
symbol
So, we’ve seen how
Wierwille crafted the official Way seal and used photographs to elevate himself
in his follower’s eyes as God’s chosen leader. As an even stronger symbol, for
many loyal followers, especially The Way Corps, he even became “our father in
the Word.” This intimate phrase came from Wierwille’s likening his ministry to
the apostle Paul’s. In First Corinthians 4:15, Paul told his believers: “For
though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many
fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.”
This is a major Way
belief that qualifies Wierwille as a cult leader. In this photograph, we see
members of The Way Corps in 1972 gathered around Wierwille in The Way
Headquarters’ auditorium. I am seated near the middle (age 20). The young man,
who ten years later would become the second president of The Way, Craig
Martindale, is on the far right looking on as Wierwille leans his arm on his
knee, depicting himself as our teacher.
For two years, we
lived in mobile homes for this round-the-clock intensive leadership training.
Wierwille controlled our environment, our schedule, our incoming information,
and therefore wielded undue influence over our thoughts. Day and night, at
formal and informal meetings, we were to soak up everything Wierwille said
about the Bible and how to apply it to our lives.
Some of Wierwille’s
teachings were harmful. Besides
garnering adoration from The Way Corps, Wierwille solicited loyalty by
convincing tens of thousands of people that he taught God’s Word. Here are just
a few of his unorthodox and/or harmful teachings:
- The Bible fits together “like a
hand in a glove.” Consequences of this were twisted meanings of Scriptures
to maintain the illusion of inerrancy and wipe out contradictions. One
byproduct was the teaching that four men were crucified with Jesus, not
two.
- All believing equals receiving.
Consequences of this were many. When we did not believe strongly enough to
receive the “promises of God,” which included health, abundance, and power
over negative circumstances, it was our fault. We were told we needed to
stop doubting and being negative and get more knowledge. That meant we
should take more Way classes, study harder, and attend more fellowships to
get stronger.
- The husband is the head of the
wife. Consequences of this were many, too. Although Wierwille allowed
women to be leaders, and even ordained some of them, married women were
subservient to their husbands and were not encouraged to develop their own
talents and flourish as independent adults. Wives were to be helpmates to
their men and bear children to further The Way ministry.
- Homosexuals are possessed by devil
spirits. Consequences of this are obvious. This belief produced bigotry
towards “the other” and demonized all members of the LGBT community. In
the 1990s, The Way “purged” any suspected homosexual from the group.
What is important to
remember is that cult symbols are tools of manipulation and abuse.
Using the vowels of
the alphabet is one way to remember how cult symbols result in abuse. In my
experience:
- Altruism was exploited. Personal
aspirations and desires to make the world a better place were abandoned
for Wierwille’s goals; self-sacrifice for The Way became the norm.
- Emotions and creativity were
abused. Emotions were constricted and creativity was enlisted for
propaganda. Emotional and sexual abuse often proliferated because we were
told our feelings did not matter and could not be trusted; only The Word
mattered.
- Intelligence was thwarted.
Thought-stopping clichés like “The Word of God is the will of God,” and
“Believing equals receiving” squelched critical thinking, especially after
years of accepting Wierwille’s propaganda as true. Curiosity was primarily
confined to matters within the group.
- The Outside world was
demonized because of the teaching that the Devil is the god of this world.
Relationships that hindered commitment to the cult were broken.
Unbelievers were agents of the Devil, including non-cult family members
and friends who disliked Wierwille.
- Our Understanding of the
Bible was controlled by inerrancy, plagiarism, and bibliolatry. We denied
contradictions in the Gospels, for instance, to support inerrancy. We
accepted the use of Scripture out of context to support our leader’s
dogmas. We regarded modern biblical criticism as a threat. When anyone
recognized Wierwille did not credit his source material and engaged in
plagiarism, they were told he just “learned from others.”
To sum up, Wierwille
hijacked his followers’ idealistic hopes for making the world a better place
and funneled their energy into his cause. He especially manipulated The Way
Corps (numbering over 1,000), training us to promote his interpretation of the
Bible, as well as his various political, cultural, and economic opinions.
Thousands of us lost our autonomy. Often our emotional, mental, and physical
health was damaged.
As we parroted
official Way rhetoric, our unique identities were masked. Anyone who interfered
with our commitment to The Way was deemed a spiritual enemy. Our understanding
of The Bible, the supposed reason for The Way’s existence, was shaped in the
image and likeness of Wierwille’s fundamentalism.
Despite its dark
history, The Way continues to operate from its Ohio headquarters, although it
now has far fewer followers (an estimated 7,000). In January 2017 Rev.
Jean-Yves De Lisle was installed as the fourth president.10 Due to
ongoing upheavals, especially after Wierwille died and when Martindale, the
second president, was ousted in 2000 after lawsuits for sexual misconduct, many
Way leaders left the organization and formed their own groups.
So, how can we break
the power of cult symbols? Answer an S.O.S.
- Show cult recruiters how their
cult’s symbols are manipulative propaganda aimed at controlling their
beliefs and behavior.
- Offer assistance to former cult
members. When appropriate, suggest professional counseling, books about
cultic manipulation, articles on websites like ICSA’s. Offer ways that
survivors can validate their own personhood, like developing latent
talents. Above all, we can offer them comfort by listening well as we give
our undivided attention.
- Share cult stories about how other
people escaped cults and recovered. Stories can be a powerful antidote to
cult power and provide healing for the wounded.
My Story
This is my story, a
memoir titled, Undertow: My Escape from the
Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International. It’s now available in paperback and
e-book.
Cult experts like Dr.
Michael Langone and Dr. Janja Lalich, as well as religious studies professors,
former Way Corps members, and other academics and authors, are helping me
promote Undertow, what readers are calling a valuable, in-depth, and
healing story.
Notes
- Accounts of sexual abuse were
later published in Karl Kahler’s The Cult That Snapped: A Journey into The
Way International.
Los Gatos, CA: Karl Kahler, 1999. Another personal account showing
Wierwille as sexual predator is Kristen Skedgell’s Losing The Way: A
Memoir of Spiritual Longing, Manipulation, Abuse, and Escape. Richmond, California: Bay Tree
Publishing, 2008.
- For descriptions of mind control
techniques, see Steven Hassan’s Combatting Cult Mind
Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery
from Destructive Cults,
Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1988. Most recent update: 2016.
- For definitions of symbol
from Merriam-Webster Dictionary, visit: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/symbol
- Wierwille’s academic credentials
are listed in many materials, including two booklets: The Teacher:
Victor Paul Wierwille printed by The Way and distributed at the Rock
of Ages festival, August 12, 1985, and “From ‘Vesper Chimes’ to ‘The Way
International’: The Founder, History and Activities of The Way Ministry”
by John P. Juedes and Douglas V. Morton. Distributed by C.A.R.I.S., P.O.
Box 1659, Milwaukee, WI, 53201.
- Elena S. Whiteside, The Way: Living in Love, (New Knoxville, Ohio: American
Christian Press, 1972), 178.
- New Testament scholar Bart D.
Ehrman writes: “… In the year 367 C.E., Athanasius [Bishop of Alexandria,
Egypt] wrote his annual pastoral letter to the Egyptian churches under his
jurisdiction, and in it he included advice concerning which books should
be read as scripture in the churches. He lists our twenty-seven books,
excluding all others [there were many others]. This is the first surviving
instance of anyone affirming our set of books as The New Testament. And
even Athanasius did not settle the matter. Debates continued for decades,
even centuries. The books we call the New Testament were not gathered into
one canon and considered scripture, finally and ultimately, until hundreds
of years after the books themselves had first been produced.” Misquoting Jesus: The
Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 36.
- Examples of Wierwille’s plagiarism
are well documented by John P. Juedes and Jay Valusek in the booklet “Will
the Real Author Please Stand UP? A Review of the Origins of Victor Paul
Wierwille’s Writings,” available from Watchman Fellowship: A Personal Freedom
Outreach, P.O. Box 26062, Saint Louis, Missouri 63136 and at Juedes’s
website: http://empirenet.com/~messiah7/cultsthe.htm
- James Barr, Fundamentalism, (Philadelphia: The Westminster
Press, 1978), 37.
- Victor Paul Wierwille, Power for Abundant
Living: The Accuracy of the Bible, (New
Knoxville, Ohio: American Christian Press, 1971), 95.
- Consecutive Way presidents: Victor
Paul Wierwille, L. Craig Martindale, Rosalie Rivenbark, Jean-Yves De
Lisle. For more information, visit: http://www.theway.org.
---END---
Thanks for reading!
Your writer on the
wing,
Charlene
