Let's prey Targetting the Elderly

Modern Maturity/June 1994

by Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz

Respect your elders; cults certainly do. They respect elders' retirement incomes, investment portfolios and paid-for homes. No longer satisfied with recruiting wide-eyed and penniless youths, the cults have shifted their focus to older people - even those who have little more to offer than their Social Security checks or small pensions.

From the Branch Davidians in Waco to the Church universal and Triumphant nationwide, cults are obeying the cardinal rule of all confidence games: Follow the money. In exchange, they are offering everything from health to political change to the kingdom of heaven. Says Reg Alev, former executive director of the Cult Awareness Network, a Chicago-based information and referral group: "As a compass points to the North Pole, cults point toward the money." And as [Rick Ross cult expert and] deprogrammer adds, "The elderly are a cult's bread and butter."

[Note: WARNING! The Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was recently bankrupted and bought up by Scientology. We strongly recommend you do not contact them for assistance.]

Experts across the U.S. support those charges. So do the numbers.

• As many as a million current cult members are over 50, estimates Marcia Rudin, director of the International Cult Education Program of the American Family Foundation, a national organization founded to educate the public about destructive cults. In 1982 Rudin unearthed a document from a major cult that declared its intent to target older people. It urged individuals over 50 to join and "set the example for youth." It went on: "We are especially proud of our octogenarians and septuagenarians, but we have many in the golden years of the 50's and 60's who come aglow with the rapture of the ascended masters shining in their faces and the Holy Spirit in their hearts."
• At least five people age 50 and over were among David Koresh's followers who perished in the fire at the Branch Davidian compound in Texas last year. The number would have been much higher had not many of the older individuals left in the weeks before the showdown. (See our story about two of them, "Tales from the Cult," below.)
• In the Bible-oriented mind-control groups that embrace entire families, it's not uncommon for up to 50 percent of the membership to be over 50, according to David Clark, an exit-counselor and court-certified cult expert based in the Philadelphia area.
• Approximately 40 percent of all those involved in cult-like New Age groups are over 50, says Kevin Garvey, a Connecticut-based expert who specializes in helping businesses deal with the impact of cults.
• There are 2,000 to 5,000 cults in the U.S. today with 3 to 5 million full-fledged members, according to University of California at Berkeley adjunct psychology professor emeritus Margaret Singer, Ph.D., who has studied cults for 25 years and treated more than 3,000 former members. Add the 10 to 20 million Americans who have had some involvement with cults at one time or another, she notes, and you have some idea of the magnitude of the cult movement.