ABSTRACT
Minority or non-mainstream religions and religious groups keep appearing in the limelight of the media’s attention, usually in connection with a ‘scandalous’ affair of some kind or seemingly incomprehensible ‘bizarre’ or ‘lunatic’ behaviour. Recent events which have made the headlines include the suicide of Ricky Rodriguez, a former member of the Children of God (now The Family). A ‘product’ of ‘flirty fishing’, Rodrigueznicknamed ‘Davidito’, the young ‘prophet’—was the son of David Berg’s consort Maria and had been held up as an exemplar for child rearing in the group, destined to be the future leader. Before committing suicide Rodriguez recorded a somewhat theatrical indictment against his upbringing on video and then killed Angela Smith, his erstwhile nanny, as a dramatic act of revenge. The incident had wider implications, leading to the examination of the connection between Family Care Foundation, a charitable organization, and The Family International. Another recent ‘story’ is that of Tim Guest who grew up in the Rajneesh (Osho) movement, the experience of which he recounts in My Life in Orange (2004) as well as in international newspaper articles. The violence of the Jonestown tragedy of 1978, the demise of David Koresh’s Branch Davidians in the Waco compound in 1993, the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo underground perpetrated by Aum Shinrikyo or Aum Supreme Truth (now Aleph) in 1995, the voluntary death of the Heaven’s Gate members in 1997, and the deaths of the members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in 2000 remain live issues, thanks to continuous media coverage. With regular reports about such dramatic and sensational ‘stories’ in the press as well as the fictional dramatization of some of these in featurelength films and novels, the ‘man and woman in the street’ are reminded of the subject of ‘cults’ again and again and attracted to reading about and watching ‘weird’ and ‘outlandish’ occurrences unfolding, only to have all the stereotypical perceptions about such groups continually reinforced and confirmed. ‘Cults’ and any (religious) group or community that might fit the category provide media-effective material, especially when there is a connection with stars or ‘famous’ personalities, such as John Travolta and Tom Cruise’s membership of Scientology; often, they present volatile combinations of the very ingredients in which the media are interested: religion, money, sexual misdemeanour, children, exploitation, ‘bizarre’ rituals, exotic locations, and so on.
