Madonna, Elizabeth Taylor, Roseanne and Marla Maples have all been involved with the Kaballah Center led by Philip Berg.

Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley, Kirstie Alley Jenna Elfman, the musician Beck, Jazz pianist Chick Corea, Anne Archer and Issac Hayes are all Scientologists.

Gwyneth Paltrow's yoga teacher Eddie Stern has been compared to a "cult like" guru. Model Christy Turlington, is another Stern devotee.

Olympian Carl Lewis and rocker Carlos Santana were once devoted to cult leader Sri Chinmoy. Santana now says that Chinmoy's "shit is not for [him]."

Rock singer Courtney Love has been linked to "Yogi Bhajan" of 3HO and "Friends" actress Courtney Cox is now following some sci-fi guru namesd Stephen Lewis.

What is it about cults and extreme groups that attracts so many celebrities? Hollywood seems to be overflowing with such groups and stars flock to them.

Unless I am mistaken, Goldie Hawn was once linked to Satya Sai Baba, as was whoever started the Hard Rock Cafe chain. SSB is renowned for his psychic powers and miracles and is considered God in human form. His ashram is in Puttaparthi, in southern India. Recently some news has come out that SSB has been a long time pedophile who targets young boys and men, and may well have faked many of his alleged miracles. Because he has so many devotees in India and has become rich, he can bring a valuable number of voters to the polls, so he's pretty much untouchable--kind of like an old style Mafia chieftain.

Even Paul William Roberts, a very fine writer and journalist (he describes SSB in his marvellous book on India, Empire of the Soul) has listed Satya Sai Baba and the Kabbalah Centre as spiritual resources on his official homepage. Very odd, since Roberts usually has an excellent BS detector. He easily saw that Rajneesh was a fake, and intuited that Mother Theresa had some hidden narcissism. But he fell hook, line and sinker for Satya Sai.

As for the celebrities, they are probably easy to recruit because they are vulnerable, lonesome, and when they become famous, they find that fame isolates them. They become afraid to mix spontaneously with people. They are confined to socializing in structured settings, become spiritually hungry, have murderous work schedules. As a result they are easily targeted and hooked in by cult recruiters who know how to speak to their loneliness. And celebrities are not mistreated by adroit cult leaders; they're too valuable to be mistreated--stars are used to attract the innocent multitudes who are the ones who are exploited and bled dry.

They're human. If they see life as looking for meaning, they will look for it. I hope they find it. Maybe it's the "thing" to do.

People who join cults have one thing in common with all of mankind. . . we come from the womb wanting one thing - someone to accept us. It was Robert S. McGee in his book, The Search for Significance who said, “The deep need of man is the need to overcome separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness (McGee 64)." In order to understand, we need to study. I lost my brother to a cult. I haven't seen him in 18 years. I've turned my college research towards topics related to cults. It is the very least I can do. In their book, Captive Hearts Captive Minds, Madeleine Tobias and Janja Lalich inform that personality type is not a factor when it comes to an individual joining a cult. The factor is individual vulnerability. Persuasion from groups can be more intense when an individual is stressed, uncertain, lonely, indifferent, uninformed, distracted or fatigued. A single type of person cannot be singled out over another as being more prone. Two-thirds of youth that join cults are in a period of personal crisis. (p.27) A little stress, a little loneliness and a little personal crisis and anyone can be sucked in. . .be it a movie star or someone's brother. The needs vaccum is no respecter of persons. . . and it is that vaccum that cult leaders prey on.

Its prospective title will be 'Bounded Choices: The Dilemma of the True Believer', with University of California Press as the publisher. I think this will be based on Lalitch's Ph.D thesis--she recently passed defense and will join the sociology department at Cal State Chico as an assistant professor--you might contact her and see about trying to transfer to Chico to take some classes or seminars with her.

Ph.D theses may often be purchased, but you have to pay for a copy, which can be expensive. You might query Lalitch by e-mail and see if the material she covers will make it worth your while to purchase a copy. I found out about this because there was a San Jose Mercury article on John Walker Lindh, and Lalitch was interviewed. She said that the 'true believer syndrome' is destructive, because it involves a loss of perspective, its a commitment you pursue to the exclusion of all else, you cannot or refuse to see the damage you doing to your health, your reputation, your future prospects, or that you are hurting other people. She said it has less to do with belief system; its a specific mind set--you can develop true believer syndrome in relation to high risk investment (eg marketing cults), a sense of mission on the part of a corporation going down the tubes and screwing its employees (Enron) training for triathlons to the point where your family never sees you and you develop overtraining injuries, and yes, commitment to religions and political ideologies.

A seminary professor of mine studied conversion and said that if you ignore belief system and look at mindset, fanatics are the same, 'Its a case of same hardware, different software', Lew told us.

I never had the experiece of losing a loved one to a cult, the way you have. Good luck. You'll have to find a way to balance love and hunger for justice without falling victim to crusader/true belief mindset. I was involved with a spiritual director who was gifted, actually did a lot of good, but was poorly trained for his job. He was prone to overwork and risk taking most of his life, I think he was narcissistic and chronically depressed and his marriage in the doldrums. Then he became an unexpected celebrity in the local peace movement and the true believer syndrome kicked in and grabbed him. He could rationalize quite persuasively and I and others longed to have a hero in our lives.

Benefits.

Scientology is not a religion, it is
a company. The low ranking members
are essentially low paid laborers.
Their job essentially is to cater to
the higher paying members, the
higher ranking members, who don't
do any work beyond their little
religious ceremonies.

It's a service: If you are Tom Cruise,
you can go to the local Scientology
Celebrity Center and get whatever
you want. Need gardening work?
It's covered. Car broke? Someone
can handle it. Want a wheat field
for some reason? Again, it's covered.
The wheat field is something TC
wanted...

Anyway, once they are in they can
threaten with huge loads of slander
if they ever leave. Not only slander,
but also higher private investigators
to dig up the real dirt on them.
Thats how they beat the US government:
They beat the congressmen and
judges into submission by releasing
embarrassing and sometimes incriminating
information about their private lives,
murdering dogs, etc. etc. etc.
The war between the US government
and L.Ron's army of lawyers and
P.I.s went on for 25 years until 1993,
shortly after Clinton came into office.
I'll bet the private investigators had
more than enough info on him to control
him.

Scientology and many other cults
trap people. Thats how they work...
And big celebrities can sometimes
be even easier to trap because someone
with a lot of money has a lot to lose.

-Frapazoid.

Bob Dylan's experiences have ranged from ultra-orthodox Judaism to born-again Christianity. It seems to me that these stars have a longing for something deeper than what they themselves propagate. They need to attach themselves to someone or some movement that has "all the answers" or has
a way of making them feel fulfilled.
Perhaps, because the stars have to put some distance between themselves and their public, they try to find a way to blend back into the mainstream, or back into society in a way that
makes them the carrier of some beneficial message to the masses beyond the scope of their stage personas.

The question was posed about "why so many celebrities join or are attracted to cults. " Celebrites, in my opinion, are often targetted by groups because of the prestige, money and eventual legitimacy the cult group hopes to gain. Recently, "Uncle Jr." from the Sopranos has been supporting or acting as a spokesperson of sorts, for Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani's so-called youth program "The All Stars." While this endeavor sounds like a wonderful way to help inner city youth by giving them chances to perform, many critics think otherwise (see Ross' web site on social therapy and new alliance party). "All Stars" is one of many projects related to Fred Newman's so called "development community". Newman started a kind of therapy called "social therapy" which often relies on patients to do political work. Former members have spoken out about the abusive aspects to their "therapy." Newman and his supporters' "party" is now said to control much of the NY Independent party.
The Newman group, like other well-known groups deemed cults, are able to get a great deal of publicity and support when public figures and celebrities support them. It appears they are targetting others now, including, it is said, Arnold Shwartzenegger. Imagine how the Kennedy's would feel if Arnold ended up collaborating with a Marxist-Leninst so-called political party, so-called therapy practice, deemed by many experts to be a cult!

As to the celebrities, well, they are human after all, and the lifestyle they live is probably at times very alienating. It seems logical that famous people would want to be part of a community with deeper meaning and also to share their wealth for a cause they support. Unfortunately, it is the cults who take advantage of them and use them for their own selfish greed.

Richard Hayes, Social Worker

What is the group that Shirley McClain is involved with?

Being a star can be a cathartic experience. The journey to stardom is won and the star looks at himself and realizes that, well, it's not all it's cracked up to be. So he/she tries to find
a path in life that adds meaning and depth to a life that can be isolated and shallow.
After all, if you're in front of the cameras 12 hrs a day, and you only have a few hours to yourself, you really want to make those hours meaningful. And all that time spent on the set limits your social life, family life etc..
And stars already are icons. Perhaps they want to become a better icon, with a better image than their public persona on TV or in the movies.