Ticket to Heaven: The Cult Fraud

Ticket to Heaven is a story about how a young Toronto man vacationing in California to get over his lost girlfriend gets enticed into a religious cult and deprogrammed out of it. Accompanying a young woman he wants to date to her "group," David is taken to the site of the cult of "Father." David is drawn into forceful sermon-lectures and multiple group activities, being deprived of sleep and of protein in his food and--above all--never having any time to himself to think about what is going on. Soon he becomes a sincere member of the cult, trained to ask for religious donations from people on the street and to be paranoid about Satan. Meanwhile, when his worried family and best friend discover where he is, they recruit a deprogrammer. They track him down, abduct him, and over a period of several intense days expose the fraud of "Father," ultimately reconciling with him.

The entire film of Ticket to Heaven is a detailed dramatization of how cult

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hey live very well. The photograph of Father does not show a simple-living peasant such as Gandhi but instead a very well-dressed businessman. The conclusion is that Father benefits from the unpaid labor of the cult members. A fourth characteristic of cults is that they foster anxiety and dependency (Langone, 1996). That is revealed in the film in the constant reminders of Satan and constant mention of the horrors of being kidnapped and deprogrammed by parents. There is physical dependency because cult members do not have any money, food, or shelter. That helps explain why the members let loose in the city to beg will indeed come back to the van at the end of the day. Even so, there is tremendous anxiety evident inside the van, as Patrick forces everybody to chant in praise of Father and against Satan. Back at the cult, members have to worship the photograph of Father, which reinforces the dependency idea. It might seem strange that David, who is portrayed as a teacher, could get enticed into the cult of Father. However, that also has research to support it. Many ex-cult members report that before joining the cult they had psychological problems, some of them quite severe (Galanter, 1989). The way that is covered in the film is t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1401
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)