About
this section
Do you realize that dance students stand a fairly
good chance of becoming exposed to various cults as they wind their
way through dance and academic institutions?
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Personal Cult Story?
Read one and submit yours |
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Ballet
Cult Project
(Off-site link)
Read up on Chuck Stewart's experiences in a Ballet Cult and
submit your own story.
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Dancers can be 'at risk' for many reasons. The most important
thing for a parent to realize is that there is no personality type
that can be identified as 'cult susceptible.' Experts generally
agree that any person, from any walk of life, can be entrapped and
led astray.
Dancers make excellent cult bait. If you examine the recruiting
techniques and the individuals commonly targeted by cults, you'll
discover that many cults are engineered to target characteristics
that we can call the dancers' common condition.
A dedication to the arts can often minimize social exposure to
peers outside of dance. This is certainly more pronounced for
dancers involved with home schooling, residency programs and intense
training schedules. Dancers often struggle with community, peer,
family and even church acceptance and thrive in the arts as
emotional beings with strong spiritual or affirmation needs.
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The
Hot List
Organizations in focus |
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Kirov
Academy of Ballet
Group: Unification Church
Also known as: Moonies, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, True Parents
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Northern
Plains Ballet
Group: Landmark Education
Also known as: The Forum, Est |
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On
Campus
Group: International Church of Christ
Also
known as: Kip McKean,
Boston Church of Christ, Alpha Omega, Campus Christian
Movement, Hope On Campus, Students Advocating Christianity
Today, Upside Down Club, Campus Advance
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As
dancers enter new schools and new environments this common
condition can place them at increased risk when they are
confronted with the apparently warm and welcoming face of a cult.
This point becomes far more alarming once we recognize that there
are famous examples of cult participation in dance training programs
and that colleges and universities are nearly powerless to prevent
cults from operating near or on campus.
Imagine
the leverage that can be held over a student that seeks a quality
education and is 'sold' on the opportunity with grants or
scholarships. Campus visits, staff interviews, auditions and school
brochures will not disclose the ugly truth of cult participation.
Each
year our readers contact us with concerns about dance training
programs that are rumored to have ties to cults. Since we do not
seek or accept advertising money from these organizations, our dance
publication is uniquely positioned to share information that is
vital for dance families to understand.
Dance
students obviously have a right to associate and worship as they
please. Our aim with this section is to inform and educate using
information that can be readily gathered from many media sources,
including the cult web sites.
This
section would not be necessary if these organizations operated
transparently and with full disclosure. However, the typical
practice is to bury the truth in a wild maze of corporate names,
legal actions, and hidden agendas.
What
is a cult?
Defining
or using the label 'cult' will cause protests regardless of how it
is done. It is beyond the scope of this section to attempt to arrive
at a complete definition.
We
can say that cults don't just 'happen' -- they are engineered. They
may have one or more core goals such as selling a product, promoting
a belief system, destroying people of a particular skin color, or
even world domination. The manner in which these organizations go
about their business, the way they achieve their goals, and the way
they treat members and society are arguably more important
considerations than the actual goals of the organization and its
leaders.
Cults
are typically an exercise in grandiose egotism in which the cult
founder tries to convince his flock, and the world, that he is more
than human and that his value system is the solution for all earthly
problems. Such organizations can be eligible for tax-exempt status
from the US Government, they collect and demand a rich harvest of
donations from members, and often create an army of conscripts to
further the recruiting and business interests of the founder.
What
are the risks?
There are many. Cult members often lose access to
health care, which can be seen as dangerous, evil, or as evidence
that cult cures don't work. People
can and do die by participating in cults. If a person is denied food
and medical treatment even simple problems can become fatal.
Children
or women in a cult may find themselves in forced sexual or marriage
relationships with the founder or his trusted officers.
The
pressure to dedicate time and donate money can be so intense that
your college money may end up funding a cult instead of an
education. Forced starvation and malnutrition, sleep deprivation,
loss of personal freedoms and identity, and the emotional and
spiritual assaults that cults leverage to achieve their goals can
leave a person with deep emotional and financial scars that will not
soon fade.
In
general, your life is probably not at risk and such a thing would
represent a rare and extreme situation. Emotional and financial
damage are much more common, as is the risk of losing several years
of your life as you focus your attention on a person or group that
is unworthy of your talents.
It
gets very complex
You aren't going to become a cult expert as a
result of this article, but hopefully it will motivate you to become
one. There are an incredible number of variations in the way cults
recruit, operate, and seek funding. Some cults provide housing, some
just meet on weekends. Some want you no matter what, others dump you
when you run out of money or will demote you to menial tasks.
You
might be expecting to be confronted by a horrible looking old man
that demands all your money and wants sex. You
should realize that cults put on a friendly face and have developed
very sophisticated recruiting and member retention methods.
Organizations that once used drugs or kidnappings to retain members
now find they are even more successful by using financial and legal
blackmail, behavior and personality manipulation techniques, or by
exploiting spiritual, social, sexual, and emotional needs of the
individual.
The
generalizations made on this page are not intended to be
descriptions of the activities undertaken by the organizations
listed in our Hot List. Each organization is different and not all
will meet the definition of 'cult.' Rest assured than none of these
groups will welcome being called a cult. We'll simply provide you
with links, references, and quotes and let you do the research and
decide how much risk you wish to assume.
Strangely,
we are not going to address the quality of dance training or career
possibilities. There may be some merit to the quality of the
education offered at these organizations.
Dance
On. Carefully.
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