Rick Ross

Or do they characterize it in some negative way and dismiss it and basically denigrate anyone that questions them? Because typically, a group will have accountability for its leadership.

that may be democratic governance, financial transparency, and groups can, you can be involved in an organization and still be very active with your family, your old friends, people that become cut off and isolated because of a group. That is a really big warning flag, that something's amiss.

I would say that they ease people into it, and that's what I think people don't recognize is that it's indoctrination incrementally. It's a slow drip. and you get involved.

But I would say if your family starts to question and your old friends start to question what you're involved with, depending on their closeness to you and their concerns, that could be something that the group will become very concerned about very early on. Because what they want, these groups, is they want you to not have feedback from people outside of the group's control.

What they want is for you to be embedded within this environment that they control, where the only feedback you hear is reinforcement from other group members and the leader. So when your family begins to question the group, and old friends begin to ask critical questions, and the group responds by saying, well, you need to really kind of cut them off.

That is very much an early warning sign that could be a kind of trip wire to notify you, this is a problem, this group is a problem. Okay, okay.

Sean, look, the Jehovah's Witnesses have been around for over 100 years. So what you see with some groups that began as cults, which in my opinion, Jehovah's Witnesses began as a personality cult. They were led by Charles Taze Russell, who devised their belief system. And he was an absolute totalitarian leader. and he was the defining element and driving force of Jehovah's Witnesses.

After he died, another dictator ruled over the Witnesses, and that was a man named Rutherford. But after Rutherford died, power devolved into what is called the governing body. And the governing body is like a dozen men who run Jehovah's Witnesses.

And I would say that without the presence of a single personality that is an object of worship, that is the defining element of the group, the group has changed from a personality cult led by one absolute leader to what could be seen as a destructive authoritarian organization, but not a personality cult organization. as it once was.

So what you see with some groups is they evolve and change, particularly when the founder leader dies, and then the group may disintegrate and vanish, or the group may have a successor, as Russell did. And that group, by the way, the Jehovah's Witnesses were once simply called the Russellites, which tells you quite a bit. So what now they have is- The Russellites? Wow.

They were called the Russellites. So typically, a group identifies with that leader to the extreme that they might be called by the leader's name. For example, the Unification Church founded by Reverend Moon was often called, the followers were called the Moonies. And that was because of how strong their identification was with Reverend Moon, who was an object of worship.

So in my opinion, the Jehovah's Witnesses continue to be a destructive authoritarian organization, but I would not call them a destructive cult. I think they've evolved beyond that point. But they still have practices such as their encouragement of their members not to have blood transfusions, which results in deaths every year. And also they have very extreme beliefs about the world.

The reason that they don't salute the flag or pledge allegiance or belong to organizations is because per their belief system, they believe that there is only one organization established by Jehovah God on earth, and that is Jehovah's Witnesses. And therefore they cannot have any dual loyalty or allegiance. And this is the reason they're not,

open to being in a political party, voting, being in the armed services. And in fact, they became conscientious objectors during wartime and so on. But today, if you leave the witnesses and about 50% of the young people that are raised witnesses will eventually leave, you may be cut off by your family. And they have a practice called disfellowshipping or shunning.

And if you leave and they announce that you have been disfellowshipped, your family may shun you.

Now, some witnesses may navigate that a bit more carefully. For example, Michael Jackson was raised a witness and he left, but his family continued to talk to him. Some would argue, well, he was a rich celebrity and they gave him special treatment. But on the other hand, I think he did what was called disassociation.

So there was a little bit more of a nuanced departure for him and he wasn't cut off by his family. So I think it's possible to navigate out of the witnesses without that, but many, many people are shunned and disfellowshipped and they go through an enormous amount of pain and suffering.

And I have testified in court many times about the witnesses in custody cases and in one wrongful death case, the Coughlin case, which we talked about on the way over. And, you know, what happens is, let's say there's a couple and they're both witnesses, but one leaves. Divorce. And then custody battle over the minor children.

And it can get very intense, where the children really get caught in this war or struggle because the witnesses feel that they can't celebrate birthdays, they can't celebrate Christmas, They don't acknowledge holidays. Only the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and Jehovah's Witnesses is what they celebrate or adhere to or whatever. So the end result is that the child is in the middle

and the parents are fighting, and the witness parent wants to raise the child as a witness. And frequently what happens is they will, if they have custody, turn that child against the non-witness parent. This is happening to my editor right now.