What is the Difference Between a Cult and a Religion?—Part One

Photo by Sander Weeteling

We moved to a small town in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon six years ago after buying a business with our partners. Each partner thought the place was lovely but me. I thought the town seemed backward and uncared for.

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We learned that the community used to be a thriving, small city several years ago when a big lumber company employed many people and was relied upon for the success of many businesses. That is until the mill company was made to stop their tree cutting in an area where the spotted owl, a threatened species, was found to reside. Or so the story went. The company had to move.

We’d heard that the town, in its heyday, had twelve restaurants, a few used and new car dealerships, a bowling alley, a theater, and businesses for repairs and supplies that made the little city self-sustaining. When the mill moved out, most of those businesses closed because many of the citizens, suddenly without jobs, moved to areas where there were jobs. That left a big void and many of the businesses didn’t have enough local customers to stay open.

The businesses that did stay open were those that could hang on from the tourists that came to the town who were either passing through or were there because the area had become known as the mountain biking capital of the Northwest, as well as having trails for side-by-side ATVs. A mecca for outdoorsy people.

Other citizens who stayed were dependent upon the welfare system and were either too old, indigent, or too uncaring to seek new jobs or leave their comfort zones. Many of those people couldn’t afford any other living space but the old, dilapidated trailers or mobile homes they were used to at some of the ratty-looking trailer parks.

I’d noticed when we first arrived that those places showed the questionable state in which the town had fallen. That also made me realize that the people who remained in the now much smaller community had never quite gotten over the shock of changing from prosperity to pauper status. Strangely, for whatever reason, some of those old-timers felt resentful toward anyone coming into the community to try and make something happen with new growth. Thus, things stayed in limbo for many years while usable buildings deteriorated and became eyesores along with those unkempt trailers sitting like tattered flags of defeat.

Changes have been made little by little since we arrived six years ago, but it’s been a slow-go with a town council that is filled with more inertia than energy. I suspect, though, that it was that inertia that led to an opportunity for a religion, which needed a place under the radar, away from those who might question its validity to become established. At least that was my sense from a recent discovery.

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Two sweet ladies, members of the questionable religion I’d never heard of, had been housecleaning for us for four years. They were of impeccable trustworthiness — vital for people who clean — and they always did a good job. Their names were Margery and Lolly, in their late 50s or early 60s, and roomed together in one of the small houses in a little community out of town. They considered themselves sisters.

Photo by Kia Sari 

Margery was tall and slender, with a long gray ponytail hanging under her cap, which she always wore, and she was outspoken and opinionated, yet kind and giving, and had a car. Whereas Lolly, who was from Fiji and had a slight accent, was small and dark-complexioned with a full head of dark, bristly, curly hair. She was quiet and very sweet but didn’t drive. She had to rely on Margery to take her wherever she needed to go.

The women of the religion always wore plain, long dresses, a hat or scarf on their heads, and carried a very small purse for lists or car keys. They wore no make-up and had no cell phones to put into a normal-sized purse. Their phones had been taken away by members of the religion a couple of years before.

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When we returned from our winter sojourn this last spring, we called “the girls”, as I call them, and asked when they would be available to begin their summer cleaning for us. They were happy to have us back and a date was established. We looked forward to seeing them again.

The girls had told us that their church leaders made their members get rid of their cell phones because they thought phones were instruments of the devil, used for spying on the group, and they didn’t want anyone to know the church’s business. They believed that the phone service company, or others who chose to hack into their lines, would listen into conversations and glean information through their cell phones. Which was a bit weird, I thought. But they had their landline phones for communications.

I thought the church’s edict for getting rid of a cellular phone was a bit paranoid and odd, but I didn’t want to judge. I didn’t know enough about the church’s teachings to condemn and I didn’t ask the ladies many questions about their religion because they seemed reluctant to talk about it. I felt I should respect their privacy. Yet why the privacy? I wondered many times. My old church was ready and willing to chat about its doctrines. They valued new members.

Another even odder surprise about the church came the day before the ladies were to come and clean for us as planned. We received a phone call from Margery telling us, “We won’t be able to clean for you anymore. Lolly has to move out of our house, I can’t be seen with her, and I have to leave the church. Since Lolly can’t drive and we can’t be seen together, she will be unable to get to your house to clean.”

“Oh, my God, Margery! Why? What happened?” I asked.

“I’m not allowed to talk about it,” she responded.

“So, the reason you can’t clean is because you can’t be seen together?” I was astounded.

“Yes, that’s right.”

Not wanting to lose our cleaning ladies I asked, “What if you came for a couple of hours and then after you leave, we’ll pick Lolly up to come for a couple of hours? Would you be willing to do that?” Both women each had their own specific jobs when cleaning, so I thought that would work.

“That might be all right. I’ll talk to Lolly about it before she moves out. She’s able to stay until she finds another place,” Margery told me.

“Okay. Thanks! I hope it works! I hate to lose you two!”

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As things turned out, Lolly became our cleaning lady for the entire four hours because Margery decided it was time to retire, and moreover, I suspected, she didn’t want me asking her questions.

Along with my surprise about the church’s rules came another when my husband picked Lolly up. She told him she had to sit in the back seat because a female was not allowed to be in a vehicle with a man by herself unless she was in the back seat. When he questioned her about the situation, hoping she would give up a clue or two as to what was going on, she said that she was unable to talk about it with anyone.

Mmmmm. Why the secrets? Was Margery’s misdeed that bad? Or was it the fact that there were secrets the leader of the church didn’t want to get out? I was crazy with curiosity with no way to satisfy it. We’d asked other members of that church what they knew about the ordeal, but each one said the same thing: “I’m unable to talk about it.”

I mentioned the strange situation to a friend who I was doing business with and was stunned by his instant reaction. “It sounds like a cult to me,” was his immediate reply. He continued to explain about cults being different than religions because of their secrecy and strange rules. “Do you know about the cult in Wasco County in northern Oregon several years ago that was started by a guru named Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh? Osho is his more familiar name.”

Photo by pawel szvmanski 

I knew a bit about Osho but had never heard about the cult he’d started in Oregon, and I told him so.

“Have you seen or heard of the documentary called Wild Wild Country?” he asked.

I hadn’t. He suggested that we watch it, saying it was a fascinating account of the agricultural commune they called the Rajineeshpuram and about the woman who ran it for Osho, named Ma Anand Sheela, his personal assistant “who was a real piece of work,” he’d stated.

Interested, and hoping to catch some insight as to what made a cult versus a religion, we watched in fascination this documented account of a supposed religion and its followers. It reminded me of another cult group led by David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidians, an offshoot of the Seven-Day Adventists in Waco, Texas in the 80s and early 90s. That group had as bad an end as the Jim Jones followers nearly two decades earlier.

However, I realized the Osho group had nothing to do with the ladies’ religion I was concerned about in our town. But what did it compare to? I had other friends who were also members of the secret church, I was concerned for them and decided the best answers might come from the internet, so I began my research. I wanted to know if this was a true religion or if it was a cult, as suggested. I didn’t get my question answered, but what I found was astonishing.

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To be continued here in Part Two.