Australian cults investigation: We must question when the vulnerable have their choices taken away

Some of what happens inside extremist religious groups – cults – is about personal choice, a lot more is about manipulation and control, writes Kate Kyriacou.

Should we question someone’s right to choose a lifestyle that takes away their choices?

People certainly have a right to choose how they live, even if some don’t agree or find that lifestyle strange.

But if that lifestyle choice is causing harm to them or to others, what then?

For months we have been investigating extremist religious groups – cults. And while some of what happens inside these groups is about personal choice, a lot more is about the manipulation and control of vulnerable people.

There are too many similarities between how cults operate and the coercive control techniques used within domestic relationships. Love bombing, isolation, financial control, being told what to wear and who to speak to. The knowledge that, should you want to leave, you’d have nowhere to go, no money, no friends outside the situation you are in now. Sound familiar?

Daniel Landy-Ariel (centre) in the mid-1980s with members of what was then known as the Jesus People of North Queensland.

There’s a cult that started in Queensland that still operates today, with properties across two Australian states and in three overseas countries.

The group – the Jesus People of North Queensland – came to our attention via some old coverage about the 2011 capture of Australia’s Most Wanted, a murderer named Luke Hunter who had been on the run for more than a decade.

Hunter was able to remain on the run for so long because of the help he received from the Jesus People. Those who knew him said the cult managed to do what prison often doesn’t – reform and rehabilitate.

And on some levels, they have what some people might need. Structure and routine. Community support. A roof and ready made meals. At its rural compounds it has the beauty of the Australian bush, large playgrounds for children, swimming pools and produce gardens.

So is this a utopia where people live in harmony, spend their time in prayer and working for the collective good?

Past members say no, although it is extremely difficult to understand what life is like in cult compounds today.

We have spent a lot of time delving into this question, speaking to past members, contacting current ones, analysing public records and combing through a court file hundreds of pages long.

It is this court file that provides the clearest picture of life behind its walls.

This extensive documentation – the cult’s manifesto – was only publicly available because of a legal battle over the ownership of its many properties that was sparked by a fiery leadership spill.

The new leader used the manifesto as part of his case to show no one person within the ACMC could own property, that they all worked for the common good, and that the communes should be signed over to the people who live within its walls.

That legal case only finalised last year, and so at least up until then, members of the ACMC lived by the rules written by the group’s founder, Daniel Landy-Ariel, as provided to the Supreme Court.

Some of those rules might be considered a lifestyle choice. Others would be considered controlling. Others still would be considered outrageous in mainstream society.

To join the ACMC, you must hand over all your property and take on a biblical name. You agree to follow all the rules and the punishments that come should you break them.

You are fed (a restricted diet), clothed (in one outfit) and given a job either inside or outside of the community (but you never see the money).

In many cults, and from what past members have told us about this one, it is not always clear what you are signing up for.

There is a love-bombing phase. You are shown the beauty of communal living. One former member told us there had been something magical about not quite knowing which children belonged to who, that it was a “takes a village to raise a child” feel.

Visitors who have not yet joined are shown a house with real toilet paper (community members would use torn up Yellow Pages) and will notice a well stocked fruit bowl on the counter (community members eat discarded fruits and vegetables from bin-diving excursions).

When you are in, things gradually change. Women, in particular, are highly controlled. According to the court documents, they are encouraged to only take up professions like cooking or personal training (former members told us there were expectations around how women’s bodies should look), they cannot have a position of authority (each community is run by a governor, with supreme oversight by the leader, called the “Reshan”) and importantly, women can never make a complaint against the Reshan “personal or emotional” in nature.

Perhaps you weren’t immediately told to break contact with your family on the outside, but contact with them becomes very difficult.

According to one past member, a phone call to her family involved asking for a $5 phone card to be included on the week’s grocery list. That list had to be personally approved by the Reshan.

If approved, permission was then needed to access a car to drive to a phone booth to make that call. This whole process could take weeks and came with the shame of knowing that your request for a phone call was taking money away from others.

Others have told us they were taught outsiders were evil, that they were not to be trusted or contacted. They’ve told us that some people won’t leave because the people they leave behind will be forever shut off to them. Still others have told us they still hope to one day speak again to the family they left behind.

And of course, there were the stories of violence towards women under the now-deceased former leader. Some men, the ex-members said, considered it acceptable to physically discipline their wives.

For the children, we have heard mixed reports. Children are homeschooled in a restricted religious based curriculum. Some people told us that on the surface, it is a good life for children, with friendships and activities and often an idyllic rural setting. But it comes without choice. The children of cults did not choose to be there.

And should they choose to leave, they have limited education and limited knowledge of the outside world. But what they have in spades is distrust and fear of wider society.

It is not for us to judge those who choose to live differently. But it is for us to question whether vulnerable people are being born into, or lured into, a situation where their choices have been taken away.

Do you have a cult story or know anything about the ACMC? Contact [e-mail]