Posted by Suggestion on March 17, 2005 at 20:23:07
In Reply to: Re: your questions are difficult to answer posted by Monika Kosz on March 17, 2005 at 06:28:09:
Thank you for explaining more about your work and the appraoch of your research. It helps to understand that your focus is on the organizational culture of cults such as the COG. Of course you are right, the COG is an "organization that has its management, structure of power, promotion, punishment and reward system, symbols, rituals and myths that integrate the group."
You are also correct that the leaders being out of reach created a mystique, and was used as a form of manipulation. Berg wrote a letter called "I gotta split" about his need to disappear. Probably most first generation members envied the leaders closest to Berg and dreamed about being privy to his whereabouts like they were, to be trusted enough to know where their dear leader was. To obtain that trust, one could not afford to have a marked record. But that is a whole topic to itself.
Incidentally, you can find a lot of information about the post 1994 period of the sect. They have been forcedto be more open now, and there are more people spreading information about what is going on inside, away from the general public's eyes.
For my part, I have no problem answering questions to someone who has not had the same experiences. It's just that there are good questions and not-so-good questions. The way you are asking is too daunting and too broad, in my opinion. I assure you that I did not think you had any bad intentions, and that fear was not in any way hindering my answering you. I will try to help you out as time permits, but there is nothing easy about any single question you've asked. As you must understand, there were many differernt phases in the group's history, and members who were in at different times and places experienced very different things. Everything you are asking is complicated if you don't narrow it down some more. I will start with "profit."
Are you researching the idea that leaders flaunted wealth and signs of profit?
In the earlier days, there was more of a communistic socialistic spirit, with everyone sharing their poverty. Members ate out of garbage cans, begged for expired food at restaurant outlets, ate chicken feed, shared clothes. The visible leaders had it a little better, but did not flaunt wealth. When The top leaders moved away from reach, they did amass wealth. People who lived in their household, will tell you that there was money, but it was not necessarily flaunted.
There was the FFing prostitution phase when certain homes were wealthier, and they bought consumer goods which Berg recommended as tools for their work such as VCRs, micro cassestte recorders, video cameras, cameras, etc. Members from areas where there was not much escort work, were usually poorer.
If there was any flaunting, it was more hidden before the non-profit phase of the group. When it founded the FCF, and when they had prophecies of becoming a major financial power, people who put a public face to the cult such as Gary from the FCF, might wear a Rolex watch for example.
In this sect you won't find Rajneeshes 99 Rolls Royces.