WIRE:12/28/1999 03:32:00 ET [headline] ALBANY, Ohio (AP) _ After quietly existing deep in southeast Ohio's Appalachian foothills for 14 years, a treatment center for former cult members anticipates that the year 2000 could be a busy one.

The Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, which bills itself as the nation's only live onsite counseling center for recovering cult victims, expects cultists disillusioned by unfulfilled millennial prophecies to soon dot its client list.

"It could be an interesting year," said founder Paul Martin, a psychologist and former cult member. "There won't be some quantum shift in the need for our services, but there could be a lot of failed prophecy after this event."

And that, he said, "could lead to cult members questioning their leaders and possibly leaving."

Already, the staff _ composed mostly of former cult followers _ has lined up more than 75 clients to treat in 2000, compared with about 50 seen in 1999, said Liz Shaw, an outreach coordinator.

Many cult leaders have predicted the return of Jesus Christ, the apocalypse and mass deaths with the turn of the century.

Members of Concerned Christians, a Denver-based group, were expelled from Athens, Greece, earlier this month and went missing amid fears the group was planning to mark 2000 with a mass suicide. The group's leader, Monte Kim Miller, has said he would die in the streets of Jerusalem this month and be resurrected three days later.

Relatives of Miller's followers fear that when the apocalypse doesn't arrive, he will create the scenario for his own martyrdom and take his flock _ which includes infants, his 10-year-old son and a 69-year-old woman _ with him.

In October, Israel expelled more than a dozen Americans believed to be part of doomsday cults. The Americans are suspected of planning events they maintain would bring about the second coming of Christ at the Mount of Olives, where Christians believe Jesus will return.

"I will be dumbfounded if there isn't some sort of millennial cult-related tragedy," said Larry Pile, a Wellspring counselor and cult researcher.

Wellspring counselors recall that the center's admissions went up slightly after 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide in conjunction with the passing of the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997.

Said to be the worst mass suicide on U.S. soil, the cult members were found in a Southern California home dressed in black with "Away Team" patches, Nike tennis shoes, purple shrouds and plastic bags over their heads. They left behind a video saying they were shedding their "earthly containers" to join a spaceship trailing the comet.

Wellspring is the only counseling facility recommended by the Christian Research Institute, a cult education group based in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., said Sam Wall, a researcher there.

"They're the only organization that has met what we believe to be the right approaches in therapy," he said. "And we'll still send people there, even if they do have more clients."

Eric Falstrom said he sought treatment at the center, about 65 miles southeast of Columbus, after spending 1{ years in a nomadic cult called The Brethren, and 6{ more trying to rebuild his life.

Falstrom stayed at Wellspring in March 1998 for two weeks, attending the center's private counseling sessions and workshops to learn why and how he became part of a mind-controlling group.

"That experience enabled me to see through the brothers' twisted beliefs and understand what happened to me," said Falstrom, 29, from his Cincinnati home. "I felt for the first time ever that someone really understood what I went through, what I was going through."

Before Wellspring, Falstrom was so depressed that he couldn't leave his home, let alone hold a job or return to college. Now he is finishing an art degree, has a part-time job and has joined a traditional church vastly different from The Brethren.

Wellspring claims success with most of its more than 500 former clients, and says only five have returned to cults.

"You just can't bat a thousand every time," Martin said.

Nor, he said, can Wellspring affect more than a fraction of the 2{ million Americans he and the Christian Research Institute estimate are part of cults.

"It's pathetic, so very pathetic," Martin said. With a tight budget and a small staff, "we're a little outgunned and trying to battle a major societal problem. All we can do is help one person at a time."

© Copyright 1999 ABC News Internet Ventures.

Go Back