Chapter Three: Janja Lalich and the bounded choice of the true believer
3.5 Boundedness
3.6.1 The relational dimension: charismatic authority
The framework’s first dimension is relational and is centred on the emotional bond that develops between the leader of a cultic group and the members of the group. Lalich calls this dynamic “charismatic authority” as it is a power relationship that develops as a result of esteem and affection. The overall purpose of charismatic authority is to provide leadership for the group but it also serves to legitimate the authority of the leader to the group. Charismatic authority is promoted though privilege and command and it leads members to identify ever more deeply with the leader.
For Lalich, charismatic authority is extremely significant as it provides the foundation for all that follows: without a leader there would be no attraction or call or promise of salvation. Similarly without followers responding to the call, there would be no legitimation of the leadership, no group, and no group dynamics.
Typically, charismatic authority in cultic groups is fostered by the leader using group- appropriate language, symbolism and ritual that makes a deliberate claim to personal pedigree and/or a lineage of authority. Examples include claims of a special connection to a higher power or to the source of the ideology; notions of the leader’s perfection, and prophecy about the group, leader or future. Together with evasions of proof about
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these claims, an unassailable level of authority is created, to which new recruits respond and which loyal members defend, and by means of which, all member are controlled.
In Heaven’s Gate and the DWP the charismatic authority cultivated an essentially parental relationship. As Lalich posits, “A member’s every need was met, or was supposed to be met, by virtue of participation in the group.”194 Both groups provided housing, finance for members and directed their major life decisions. Members submitted to this authority
as one does to a parent – sometimes with guilt or shame, sometimes with anxiety, sometimes with relief, and almost always with a mixture of love and fear. The personality regression apparent in at least some of the members, as well as the lack of independent thought and action on the part of members of both groups, indicated a type of developmental regression.195
Charismatic leaders tend to keep a protective distance from followers. Access to them is limited and so is access to information on financial and strategic decisions. There may be strict policies controlling the dissemination of information, including any information on a leader’s background. This naturally stifles discussion and evaluation of leaders. However there is frequently an inner circle of followers in cultic groups “...for consultation, for implementing and maintaining the status quo, for personal attendance, for moral support, and for sharing good and bad times.”196
The leadership may also promote distance from, and tension with, outsiders to the group. By deliberately antagonising outsiders they are able to fuel perceptions within the group of having enemies and being persecuted. This promotes a paranoia that serves to keeps members in a state of uncertainty and fearfulness which fosters a renewed reliance upon and submission to the leadership. The control dimension of Lalich’s framework intersects with charismatic authority at the point where members submit their personal freedom, lifestyle and worldview to the authority of the group’s leader.
194 Lalich, Bounded Choice, p. 238.
195 Lalich, Bounded Choice, p. 239.
196 Lalich, Bounded Choice, p. 224.
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Cult leaders are frequently responsible for modifying popular beliefs in their social milieus, thus creating a novel and attractive belief system which, combined with the leader’s special relationship with the higher power or source, becomes a definitive formula for salvation. The interlocking of the dimension of charismatic authority and the transcendent belief system is here evident.
Charismatic leaders are held up as role models for their followers. They set the style and tone of the group, and are received by their followers as being exemplary and perfect.
Members attempt to emulate their example. Paradoxically, double standards are common: leaders are not held to the strict standards they set for their followers. It is also common for leaders of cultic groups to demand absolute devotion and veneration from their followers. As Lalich points out, “All this, of course, is related also to issues of knowledge and power, because devotion to charismatic leaders is inseparable from a type of dominant power relationship based on the dissemination of, or the promise of the dissemination of, knowledge.”197
The knowledge that is synonymous with the leader is the knowledge of how to attain personal salvation or freedom. Veneration becomes a trade-off for the possibility of salvation which precipitates an increasing dependency on both the leadership and the group. In time adherents come to believe that they have no existence or value apart from the leader and group. Any thought of leaving the group inspires acute fear at the thought of losing contact with the source of salvation and of group support, and of potentially being required to undergo another major shift in worldview. There is therefore strong motivation for members to conform to the ideal promoted by the group and its leader, to model themselves on one another and thus to succumb to the power of influence - the remaining dimension of Lalich’s framework.
Charismatic authority leads to authoritarianism and groups that lack democratic mechanisms for members. In time, the charismatic authority in the group becomes
197 Lalich, Bounded Choice, p. 19.
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institutionalised but this does not detract from the personal and unique devotion that individuals have for their leader.
In Lalich’s words, charismatic authority “serves to lend legitimacy and grant authority to the leader’s actions while at the same time justifying and reinforcing the followers’
responses to the leader and/or to specific ideas and goals.”198