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Missing Sect Members Found Alive; Freed Prisoner Back in U.S.; Murkowski versus Miller; Hurricane Igor Pounds Bermuda; Inside the Cult Mindset

Aired September 19, 2010 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone thanks for joining us. I'm Don Lemon.

In southern California right now, a scare about a possible cult suicide appears to have been a false alarm. A group of 13 Salvadorian women and children who had been the subject of an intense manhunt are safe and sound right now.

In fact, they were found praying in a public park in Palmdale, unaware that police had been looking for them all night.

CNN's Thelma Gutierrez has been piecing together this bizarre tale and sorting out the fantasy from the fact in this case.

Thelma, were these people part of a cult or not?

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, there's a lot of questions about exactly what they belong to. They belonged to a Christian church and then they broke off from that church and they formed their own prayer group.

But they say it wasn't a cult, it was just simply another prayer group. I want to tell you they were actually found right here, Don, that group of 13. They were sitting right here on the ground. They were in the midst of prayers. In fact, you can see their bibles just right here on the grass.

They were in the midst of prayer, when all of a sudden, they have these sheriff's deputies roll up to them. And this media that start coming up and asking them, "Are you ok?"

Now the women told me in Spanish that they were fine, they were completely unaware that anybody was looking for them. They were a little annoyed that all of this attention was being given to them. And apparently, it was initiated when their husbands went to authorities yesterday and said that they were concerned they had gone off with this prayer group to the high desert and that maybe they were in harm's way.

And here is what they had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE WHITMORE, SPOKESMAN, L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: I don't know if they were letters, they were -- they were written exclamations if you will, proclamations. And the letters themselves could be interpreted many ways.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So they weren't addressed to anyone?

WHITMORE: No, as far as I know.

Now, some of the language in it could be interpreted of saying good-bye to relatives. But that's an interpretation when you couple that with the missing person report and that concern and the fact that we can't find them, the fact that you can't call them, the fact that they're unaccounted for.

So we -- we -- and I said this earlier and the sheriff's department believes this, as all law enforcement does. It is better to overreact than under react.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTIERREZ: Now, in addition to those letters that were left behind, the women also left behind cell phones, money, personal belongings and that gave authorities some reason to be a little bit concerned, but they say that group leader is now being questioned by authorities and she's also under psychological evaluation because they say that she did appear to be confused. But I should emphasize that they say no crime has been committed and no one Don, has been charged with any crime.

LEMON: And everyone is safe and sound. Thelma Gutierrez, thank you Thelma.

We want to get back now to American soil and this young lady is back on American soil after more than a year in an Iranian prison. Sarah Shourd today touched down in the U.S. following her release last week.

Shourd was let go after she reportedly found a lump in her breast, but now, she says that doctors in Oman told her she is physically well. Shourd is one of three American hikers detained by Iran after they allegedly crossed over the border from Iran in July of 2009.

Today, she thanked Iran for letting her go, but called on the country to release her fiance Shane Bauer and their friend Josh Fattal. But you know Shourd's arrival comes as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is visiting New York for the United Nations General Assembly session that begins tomorrow.

He is addressing the assembly on Thursday when he is sure to bring up the U.N. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. In an interview with ABC, Ahmadinejad talked about the release of Sarah Shourd and said that he'd like to see some reciprocation from the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, IRAN (through translator): It's true that the Islamic Republic of Iran took a humanitarian measure and released one of the three individuals who entered our borders, Miss Sarah Shourd. This was a huge humanitarian gesture.

Now, you may be aware that eight Iranian are illegally being detained in the United States. So, I believe that it would not be misplaced to ask that the -- the U.S. government should make a humanitarian gesture to release the Iranian who were illegally arrested and detained here in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: The hikers' families have asked for a meeting with Ahmadinejad while he is in New York, but no word on whether it will happen.

Hear more from Ahmadinejad this Wednesday on "Larry King Live." The Iranian President will be Larry's guest 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

BP's become the oil well is officially dead. Federal officials made the announcement just before at 7:00 this morning. Pressure testing overnight confirmed the so-called "bottom kill" procedure had worked bringing to a close the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Oil stopped flowing two months ago, but it took until now to drill a secondary well that could permanently fill it with cement.

Just ahead here on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R), ALASKA: You had the Tea Party Express, this -- this California-based group, come in at the last minute in the campaign, run a -- a mud-slinging, smear, just a terrible, terrible campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Lies, fabrications and mischaracterization. Senator Lisa Murkowski says that's how Joe Miller defeated her in the last year's Republican primary. Her exclusive interview and Miller's reaction, next on CNN.

And don't just sit there. Become part of the show. Send us a message on Twitter or Facebook and go to our blog at CNN.com/don and look for us on FourSquare.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The Alaska senator who lost her primary bid to keep her seat is now claiming to be the victim of a smear campaign. Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski is launching a write-in campaign after losing to Joe Miller on Tuesday. Now, she's accusing the Tea Party Express which backed her opponent of dirty tricks in an interview with CNN's Candy Crowley on today's "State of the Union."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN'S HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": Doesn't it look like sore loser to now launch this write-in campaign?

MURKOWSKI: What happened in my particular race, you had the Tea Party Express, this -- this California-based group come in at the last minute in the campaign, run a -- a mudslinging, smear; just a terrible, terrible campaign with lies and fabrications, mischaracterization. They came in, they dumped $600,000 into a -- into a small market here in Alaska. And they absolutely, clearly influenced the outcome of that election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: The man who beat Murkowski in the primary, Joe Miller, tells Fox News that she is just not getting the message.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE MILLER (R), ALASKA SENATE CANDIDATE: She is not listening very well to the Alaskan voters because this primary, we had the largest turnout of Republican voters in the history of the state and they said resoundingly, well, 2,000 votes, I guess that's as resoundingly as it gets, that, in fact, the views we've expressed during this campaign are the views that the future of the state needs to embrace.

So I think that really, she's just got a real disconnection from reality in thinking that the voters of Alaska are extreme.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: It is time right now for "CNN Equals Politics" update. We're keeping an eye on the latest headlines on the CNN.com Political Ticker.

So let's join CNN's senior political editor, Mark Preston, of course, from "The Best Political Team on Television". Mark, tell us what is crossing right now.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR: Well, Don, you know, there's been a lot of talk about what is President Obama's religion. Well, of course, we all know that he's a Christian or most of us know that he's a Christian. He actually attended church today. This is the first time that he has actually attended church in about six months. The last time he was there was at Easter.

There's a church right across from Lafayette Park right near the White House, St. John's Episcopal. He went there today with his wife and two daughters as well. You know, interestingly enough, Don, there is this poll out, a recent poll that came out, a Pew Poll -- one in five people still think that President Obama is a Muslim.

So, clearly, he's not. He's a Christian, you know. Good Christian today, going to church. I can't say -- I wasn't a very god Christian, I didn't go today. My wife did but that's probably worth something anyway.

But moving on to more serious matters, Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party favorite, Don. Well, guess what? She didn't appear on two national television shows today. She decided to skip those. Said she wanted to campaign back home in Delaware.

Well, she had some questions to answer, specifically about witchcraft. Now, this is a social conservative Don, someone who's a Tea Party favorite, somebody who has really made a name for herself certainly social conservative issues.

Well, in this newly unearthed video, she talks about how she went on a date with a witch and had a -- had a first date on a satanic altar. I can't make this up, you should see the video, it's actually on CNN.com and you can also read the story as well.

And our Steve Brusque as well is sitting here next to me and pounding away and getting ready for the week, tells me that she answered the question today. She said, "I was in high school. Who didn't hang out with questionable people in high school? Well, I was probably one of those questionable people. I certainly wasn't a witch."

But definitely interesting news today from the Christine O'Donnell campaign.

And moving on, the Republican in-fighting of course this story was going to happen, Don. The fact is, Republicans are on such a surge. Now the question is what direction is the Republican Party headed in? Are they going to be the party of fiscal conservatives, are they're going to be the party of social conservatism and morals or are they going to be the party of both.

Well, this past weekend, we had the Values Voters' Summit here in Washington D.C. and many of those leaders said, don't leave us behind. A lot of people in the Tea Party Movement have just been stressing economic issues. So of course, this is all coming to a head.

You just talked about how Lisa Murkowski on air and how she feels that she was smeared by the Tea Party Express.

So a lot going on Don in this very, very busy political week.

LEMON: Mark Preston, with the help of Mr. Steve Brusque, tell Steve we miss him here in Atlanta.

PRESTON: I shall, I will.

LEMON: All right, thank you, Mark.

That's Mark Preston joining us from Washington.

And for the latest political news, go to CNNPolitics.com.

Hurricane Igor bearing down on Bermuda right now. Reynolds Wolf joins us live from the center of the storm and Jacqui Jeras is in our Hurricane headquarters to tell us where it's going, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Oh, man, it could be a really long night for Bermuda. It's getting pounded by Hurricane Igor right now and the huge storm hasn't even made landfall. Many residents are in the dark with no power at all.

So let's go straight now Reynolds Wolf. He is at Bermuda's Elbow Beach and getting tossed around a bit the winds. I'd say, more than a bit. What's going on, Reynolds?

REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don the latest we've got (INAUDIBLE) a little bit closer to shore -- now, thing is, this storm is not nearly as strong as Fabian which struck back in 2003 that caused all kinds of damage throughout the island, killing four people. This storm is actually a lot bigger.

But in terms of overall (INAUDIBLE) it makes more -- in sheer size. Bermuda, a very, very small island; in fact, it's a series of 138 islands joined together (INAUDIBLE). This storm has been for the (INAUDIBLE) very strong winds, incredible rainfall at times and waves that are unbelievable.

Just to give you and the viewers across America a bit of a background, I'm on top of the (INAUDIBLE) Elbow Beach that is off in the darkness. Right before sun down, Chris Shore (ph) our photo journalist and I walked down there. We walked the best we could; as you can see in the video, it's very hard to stand at times. Not that it's only the wind, it was also the (INAUDIBLE) rain and massive waves right up to the shoreline, over the beach, right into the main structure here in Elbow Beach Resort.

It has been the story up and down much of the island. Those waves not only bringing some problems, of course, this goes a little further inland causing quite a bit of flooding in a few places.

There have been some evacuations. We've had about 60 people according to shelters around Bermuda. Power outages, Don, as you mentioned right off the top; about half the population here of 67,000 right now without power.

The airports, closed. Many of the roadways, closed. A thoroughfare that leads track over to parts of Bermuda, the causeways also have been shut down. They don't expect that to open up until the winds die down.

As Jacqui mentioned earlier this evening, it's going continue to hammer this island tonight and tomorrow. By mid day, we should see it begin to let up a little bit. And then the clean up begins.

Don, that's the story. Let's send it back to you my friend.

LEMON: All right. Reynolds, again, stay safe and we'll get back to you a little bit later on here on CNN.

Let's turn now to Jacqui Jeras, our meteorologist in house. Jacqui, it was hard hearing him at times. So translate.

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Wind -- obviously, winds continuing to be a huge issue here. We've had about five hours where we've been receiving reports of hurricane force wind gusts. That's 74 miles per hour or more. The most recent report though I saw was down just a little bit at 67.

But we're really in the height of this storm in terms of its impact on Bermuda. It's going to last probably until after the midnight hour and then we'll watch for strong, tropical storm force winds to continue to lash the island for much of the day tomorrow.

There you can see this large storm. And if you take a look at it and kind of compare it to the U.S. coastline, that almost fills up the entire Atlantic coast. And we are feeling the impact, especially in the Outer Banks and down towards South Carolina and Florida's coastlines where we've had a number of rip currents being reported throughout the day. So, dangerous beach conditions are going to continue across the East Coast at least through tomorrow.

Here's the forecast track. The storm is moving to the west of Bermuda now, but the hurricane force winds extend so far out from the center of the storm, 90 miles out, that's where they're getting beat up by a storm that's not even going to be making landfall.

It is expected to take a right hand turn after it makes its closest pass to the island, maybe within 30 miles even or so before it starts to weaken and move on out. Here, you can see the current radar from the Bermuda Weather Service, thanks to them for letting us use it. There's the biggest island and here you can see some of those outer bands are just on the threshold of coming through there, so conditions are going to get worse very shortly -- Don.

LEMON: All right. Jacqui Jeras, thank you very much.

Police feared a mass suicide might be in the works. Well, that turned out not to be the case, but it raises question about what exactly is cult-like behavior and when should we be alarmed about it. A cult expert joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Fears of an impending cult suicide turned out to be a false alarm. The 13 Salvadorian women and children who had been reported missing were found safe and sound.

We now know that they were not missing, they are not part of a cult and they had no intention of killing themselves. But as we saw from the initial police response, just a hint of cult-like behavior sets off alarm bells in this county.

It's a topic we want to discuss tonight with a cult expert. His name is Marc Galanter, He is the author of "Cults, Faith, Healing and Coercion".

Marc Galanter joins us now from New York. Mark, was there any behavior from these Salvadorian women that was cult-like, do you believe?

MARC GALANTER, AUTHOR, "CULTS, FAITH, HEALING AND COERCION: Yes, I think there was. And I think we can underestimate how certain behaviors can evolve into very problematic, actual outcomes. So although these women apparently were not doing anything harmful, the very fact that evidence was found in these pocketbooks that they were going to rejoin their dead relatives may well have meant that something more problematic was in the back-mind of their leader at least.

LEMON: So do you think we're going to see something more coming out of this story, might investigators or authorities there in the California area be looking into this particular group more?

GALANTER: Well, I think now that they've gotten this much publicity, much to their surprise, they may be very cautious, but I think there are groups like this all around in many respects. They come to different conclusions. Most of them are relatively benign, but it's very hard to predict how a given group will unfold and what will transpire with them.

LEMON: Mr. Galanter, how do we know that something is in fact a cult or not? Some people would say that there are very popular religious groups, very popular religious groups, which we don't have to name, that they have cult -- they have cult-like parts to their organizations as well, so how do we know exactly what a cult is?

GALANTER: Well, I labeled my book "Cults" because I thought it was something that is understandable to most people. But actually the more appropriate term that's used in the book is a "charismatic group", which is a group that sees itself as transcendent in some way, that's highly cohesive, everybody supports each other, that has shared beliefs that can be either positive or can be problematic. They vary so much that there are some that historically have been actually and clearly very dangerous.

LEMON: You want to talk -- I mean we've talked about -- we know some of the ones: the Heaven's Gate, Jim Jones, all those sorts of cults. But one, you wonder what makes people become susceptible to these sorts of cults when there are other groups or religious groups that aren't considered cults where they can join and that have transcendent qualities but don't quite live up to being a cult.

GALANTER: They usually get involved with some charismatic person, some person that maintains that they have some contact with the divine -- some special message. And then, it plays into the psychological needs of people who may be depressed, who may be displaced, troubled over some personal matters. And then, as they support each other, they become involved in the beliefs of the group and once they do, they will comply with whatever the group leader feels is most important. And that could be positive, but it could also be negative.

LEMON: That's the thing I was going to ask you because if anyone is just dropping in on this conversation -- I have to be honest -- it may just sound like you're talking about religion.

Often at the head of a church, or what have you, you have a charismatic figure but it's usually positive to some extent. But you said even cults, it's not always positive, it's not always negative. But it sounds like, again, if I was just tuning in, it would sound to me that you could be talking about any religion that many Americans belong to, every day religions.

GALANTER: Well, religions can be very zealous and can conform to this idea of a charismatic group. And if they're deviant and people think that they don't fit in or they isolate themselves, then they are colloquially called "Cults". But in actuality, a lot of people who are born again, who come to some profound realization that changes their lives, may indeed be a part of a mainstream religion.

LEMON: Marc Galanter. Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. The book is called, "Cult, Faith, Healing and Coercion". Have a great evening ok.

GALANTER: Thank you.

LEMON: Coming up here on CNN, we'll give you a rare look inside the hospital that's often referred to as the last hope and last resort for many patients suffering from unsolved medical illnesses. It's failure rate -- 90 percent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Physicians are not used to failing at the rate that I fail -- or my team fails, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: We will show you what doctors are doing to solve the puzzle and defy the odds. The CNN "Cover Story" is next.

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