by Pete Evans
Issue #196, November/December 2004

Rick Ross lives and works in the New York City area and makes himself available to the national media on a regular basis. As head of the nonprofit The Rick A. Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups and Movements, Rick and his associates have assisted thousands of families. He's been interviewed in most major U.S. newspapers and magazines and his work has been featured on a host of television shows. The nature of his work involves some of the hardest-hitting headlines from groups you might recognize but know little about. He is also absolutely fearless.

THE DOOR MAGAZINE: How long have you been working with cults?
RICK ROSS: I've been dealing with controversial groups, some that are called cults, for about 20 years. I began my work in 1982. I first worked for the Jewish community in the 1980s and then I became a private consultant working all over the United States. I worked internationally in Great Britain, Israel, Canada, and so on.
DOOR: Were you doing what used to be called de-programming?
ROSS: Part of my work now continues to be what was once called "cult de-programming" or what I would now call "cult intervention" work. It is done on a voluntary basis — which means that person I'm working with has agreed with their family to meet with me and discuss things with me, though I very often come in as a surprise. The group would probably not allow the person to meet with me. So initially, when I sit down, it's kind of a surprise and then they agree to continue to talk and then their family typically persuades them. Intervention is a large part of my work, but I also lecture at colleges and universities across the United States.
      I also act as a paid professional consultant for the media doing analysis work on film projects. I was once hired by Miramax/Disney to consult on the film Holy Smoke featuring Harvey Keitel as a cult de-programmer. I was his technical consultant. I'm now working on a project for an independent film company based on one of Frank Peretti's books.
DOOR: You've also testified as an expert witness in court cases.
ROSS: I'm qualified and accepted as an expert witness in seven states. Most recently I was involved in a wrongful death lawsuit—the largest settlement ever paid by Jehovah's Witnesses in its history, $1.5 million. You can see the case—Coughlin vs. Jehovah's Witnesses —on my website.
DOOR: What got you started?
ROSS: It involved my grandmother. She was a resident of a Jewish nursing home in Phoenix and the staff had been infiltrated by people involved with a controversial group called the Jewish Voice Broadcast, which was founded by an Assembly of God Minister by the name of Lewis Kaplan. It was styled after Jews for Jesus and essentially was a similar organization that targeted Jews for conversion to Pentecostalism.
DOOR: Were you successful in getting your grandmother out?
ROSS: It wasn't a question of getting her out. Group members who wanted to convert nursing home residents had infiltrated the home. My grandmother had been confronted by a nurse's aide who had been affiliated with this organization and she was very upset one day when I came to visit her. My objection was not that they did not have a right to share their faith with other people including residents of the nursing home, it was that they were not requested to be there. They were operating covertly and there should be some kind of understanding ethically that if residents of the nursing home wanted people to come in and witness to them and share their faith with them, it should be done on request. It should not be done covertly by placing people with jobs in the nursing home and operating that way.
DOOR: Where did your objections lead?
ROSS: That situation led to me working with the nursing home director and that led to a series of appointments to committees in Arizona and then national committees regarding cults and missionaries. The focus of my work regarding missionaries was specifically groups that targeted the Jewish community. I spent a period of time working for Jewish Family and Children Service in Phoenix, the Bureau of Jewish Education, The Union of American Hebrew Congregations—commonly called the Reform Movement of Judaism. Subsequently, I became a private consultant towards the end of 1986.
DOOR: How does your faith tie in with your work?
ROSS: It really doesn't because my approach to intervention work is the issue of the behavior of the group. In other words, the group may be hurting people through coercive persuasion, through undue influence, or manipulating them and exploiting them and this harm may be physical. They may, for example, deny medical care for members. That may be part of their group's doctrines. There could be mistreatment of children. There could be sexual abuse or whatever. My focus is the behavior of the group and not the beliefs. So, when families bring me in, it's not a theological issue but it's "is this group harming my son or my daughter or my spouse or parent by the way they operate?"
      For example, I was called in on a case with Robert Tilton and this involved a woman who was a wife and mother who was giving large amounts of money to the Tilton ministry out of her family's business and her husband found out. He was very concerned that Tilton and his ministry were dominating his wife's life. It was causing a rift in their family and he was very concerned. In fact, she had moved out of the house when I came to work with her. The end result was that she left Tilton's orbit and returned to her family. She realized that she had essentially been taken in by Tilton and was under his undue influence. His people had told her that her husband's opposition could be seen as Satanic.
DOOR: What are some of the more controversial groups operating today?
ROSS: The groups I've received the most complaints about on a monthly basis are probably Landmark Education, which is a seminar program that presents something called The Forum. Also, the word-faith churches that are basically growing, like Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, the name-it-claim-it crowd, which would include Benny Hinn.
DOOR: Blab-it-grab-it?
ROSS: Scientology is another. Yoga groups run by a particular guru or swami. Not yoga groups for exercise, but ones that seem to have a hidden agenda.
DOOR: How would you define a cult?
ROSS: Any group of people that are intensely devoted to a person, place or thing would be called a cult or a cult following. The question really is what really defines a disruptive cult. There are many groups that could be called cults, such as the Amish, or Elvis fans, or Trekkies or groups that are benign that actually may be beneficial to the people involved. Trekkie fans have a good time at conventions. Elvis fans have a certain camaraderie. The Amish are a peaceful, productive society.
      When most people use the term "cult," they mean a destructive cult. A destructive cult first can be defined as a group that has an absolute totalitarian leader and is personality driven. Regardless of whatever they quote—whether it's the Bible, Freud, or Marx—what they really are about is the leader. They are defined by that leader who is the focus of power in the group and who dictates virtually anything and everything without any meaningful boundaries.
      Second, you have an ongoing dynamic or process in the group that could be referred to as "thought reform," commonly called "brainwashing." People systematically are robbed of their ability to critically think or make independent choices. Ultimately, they essentially become dependent upon the leader to make value judgements and do their thinking for them, or through the leader's delegated counterparts so they no longer are really thinking for themselves.
      The third is that the group is destructive. They hurt people. This could be very easily seen by child abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, labor exploitation, psychological and emotional trauma or abuse. There are many ways this can be seen but essentially you begin to see a pattern of destructive behavior and abuse that occurs through the group. Not all destructive cults are the same. With some groups, certain of these three criteria are expressed more strongly than in others.
DOOR: Do you see any distinctive patterns with race or educational background?
ROSS: No. What I see are people from all walks of life. All socio-economic levels, all educational levels. David Koresh's second in command, Wayne Martin, was a Harvard law school graduate. Steve Schneider, his third in command, was a seminarian. I've also heard a lot about the Nuwaubians, who have made a lot of news lately.
DOOR: Nuwaubians? Any relation to the Wauhobs of Iowa?
ROSS: The Nuwaubians are a group composed of African Americans near Atlanta under Yahweh Ben Yahweh, a leader who did some time in prison regarding murder conspiracies in Florida. Then there are the white supremacist groups composed solely of white Anglo Saxon Americans, such as the Aryan Nations led by Richard Butler. And then there are groups in the United States like Suma Ching High, which is Vietnamese. Or Falun Gong, which has gotten a lot of publicity lately, and is led by Lehung Ghi from mainland China with many followers in the United States, but which focuses on the Chinese community.
DOOR: Any future Heaven's Gate or Jim Jones type groups out there?
ROSS: There are two groups I'm deeply concerned about. The first is the House of Yahweh in Texas, led by Yisrael Hawkins, which is part of the Yahweh-ist movement. Hawkins basically took some of the beliefs of the Worldwide Church of God and melded them together with the beliefs of the Yahweh-ist movement and various Jewish holidays and customs and created his own unique church. Most of the members of his compound have taken his name and they're all called Hawkins.
DOOR: Dang. Texas again. Are they armed?
ROSS: There have been rumors that there's an arms stockpile that's been hidden by the group. There have been very serious complaints about the group. They have a very troubled history. That's a group I'm concerned about. They have a compound. Groups with compounds tend to be more intense, more controlled, more problematic.
      The other group that I'm concerned about is the Endeavor Academy in Wisconsin in an area known as the Wisconsin Dells. This group is led by a man named Chuck Anderson, whom the members call "the master teacher." He works from a book called The Course in Miracles but he has his own peculiar idiosyncratic interpretation of that book. It is not consistent with what most of the ACIM people would subscribe to. In fact, I don't get many complaints about that book at all, even though it's controversial. The issue is the way Anderson runs that group. The behavior of that group has been very troubled over the years. In fact, 48 Hours did an exposé about them some years back. I participated in that. Anderson teaches the people to disconnect from the world around them. He basically defines reality for them in much the same way that Marshall Applewhite did for his followers in Heaven's Gate. It seems like the group is getting more and more frantic. The videos produced by Anderson are far more disturbing and I'm concerned about that group.
DOOR: OK, are they armed?
ROSS: They're not armed. But Anderson talks about his students being attached to him in a way similar to what Applewhite did when he said his "class," as he referred to Heaven's Gate, was attached to him. He says that through him they could reach the level above human and there's verbiage very similar to that within the Endeavor Academy and its teachings. That causes me great concern because Chuck Anderson is getting old. I think he's in his late seventies. This was a problem with Heaven's Gate. I believe Marshall Applewhite thought he was dying—though he wasn't. He was a deeply disturbed man—as many cult leaders have proven to be over the years. When he felt he was dying, he felt his students needed to come with him. That precipitated the mass suicide at Heaven's Gate.
DOOR: Are any of the word-faith groups in a similar position?
ROSS: I receive many complaints about Word of Faith groups from families and former members about families being broken up, divorces, and people just feeling very broken. They've been told their disease, their financial situation, whatever, could be resolved by their faith commitment. When it wasn't, they felt they had somehow betrayed God. Their faith was not true. There was something wrong with them spiritually or ethically and they felt very isolated, very broken, very lost. Then, of course, families have broken up over this because one member of the family has becomes involved and the rest of the family is very concerned.
      For example, one case I recently dealt with, someone stopped taking medication for a chronic illness and as a result they had a very bad attack. That could really harm a person when you give up medication over a word of faith group.
DOOR: What is the most appealing thing about these groups? Is it community?
ROSS: So often, what people don't understand about groups that have been called cults is that what people think they are getting involved in is not what they are getting involved in. There's this element of bait and switch. Very often there is deception in the recruitment process. People believe they're entering into a group that is political, that is philosophical, or that is a charity that helps others. They enter for a variety of reasons: to improve their study—Scientology has a reading program called "Applied Scholastics" where people might become involved because they want to read better. Rev. Moon, the leader of the Unification Church, has had historically hundreds of front organizations where people might enter because they are interested in abstinence, interested in honoring their parents, or ballet. Oftentimes groups can be misleading in the way they bring people to the group.
      Having said that, once people become involved, it is a process of increments that I would liken to boiling a frog in a pot on a gas stove—increasing the temperature gradually so the frog won't jump out. The changes that occur with people are very often a long process or fairly long process, step by step, spoonful by spoonful. People are not allowed to make an informed decision about the totality of what the group wants them to believe or accept or do from the very beginning.
      If I wanted to become a Jesuit or to join the Marine Corps, I would know before I joined what the expectations of the group were. I would have a good idea of the strictness that would be a part of my life and how my life would be structured. In many cases, if the people that I work with knew in the beginning what they later came to find out, they never would have joined in the first place. For example, I just finished a case involving a multi-level marketing scheme. They painted a very rosy picture as a business opportunity to supplement existing income. It wasn't like that. Certainly people that become involved in tight-knit groups find themselves in the midst of a community where they have a sense of belonging, a sense of acceptance. In destructive cults, the friendships they experience and the acceptance is highly conditional. There is no legitimate reason to leave. Those who leave become marked or estranged from the group. People are no longer friendly with them.
DOOR: Ostracized?
ROSS: They're called losers, backsliders, reprobates. They're rebellious against God—however the group terms it. The bottom line is the friendships they feel they've made and the sense of acceptance they feel the group offers is really not unconditional and instead quite the opposite. Most people could leave a church or a club or an organization and still have friends in that group and still communicate and still have a sense of history with that people and a continuing relationship—but that is most often not the case with the groups I deal with.
      So even though people have this feeling about community and acceptance that, in and of itself, is often deceptive. It is not quite the way it seems. There is a certain sense of security and comfort that comes from the certainty that many of these groups offer. They have all the answers. There are no holy mysteries. There are no loose ends. People feel that the organization can answer every issue in their life. Of course, most of us know there is no such perfect organization with all the answers. It can be very reassuring when people are told, "Yes, you have found that one organization that has all the answers" and "Our leaders can answer all your questions" and "You are on the cutting edge of some movement—you're on the side of the angels and those on the outside are clearly not." With the groups I deal with, it is very extreme, very black and white. There are no shades of gray. One of their attractive features is that there is little or no ambiguity.
DOOR: Do you really enjoy what you're doing?
ROSS: I really feel that my work is satisfying to me personally. I feel good about my work. I expect to continue as long as I can.
DOOR: Do you still personally do every de-programming that comes along?
ROSS: I do intervention work myself. Where I have staff—if you could call it staff—is really people who I sub out to. I have a technical designer and advisor for the web site. I have a webmaster. I have people that do a lot of work for the Ross Institute database—a very large database that contains thousands of documents and articles. There are anywhere from five to seven thousand individual unique users coming to the web site each day and downloading information from it. It's one of the most visible databases of its kind on the world wide web.
DOOR: Has the internet made your work easier?
ROSS: With the Internet, the process of educating people is far easier. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, they can access a wealth of data. Also, on the Ross Institute database there is a huge collection of links to other web sites divided up into categories, groups, topics, etc. What I think is so wonderful is now we can educate the public. People can find out about these groups in their bedrooms. If they or a family member is being recruited, they can go on the internet and find out about them. This has made education more viable. That's all it boils down to. These groups will then live with their history on the internet and people can access it and make informed decisions about being involved.
DOOR: How can people get to your website?
ROSS: The Ross Institute website is www.rickross.com.

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