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So when a charismatic, mentor-type figure says the Qur’an says something, they don’t know that it also says contrary things. They may just be starting to start read the Qur’an. In the Victoria (British Columbia) bomb-plot trial, we saw suspect John Nuttall was so pleased to meet the police informant because he finally had someone to talk to about Islam with.

Q. You study new religious movements – the formal term for cults – and have noticed patterns used by terrorist groups.

A. In just reading the literature about terrorism in case studies, I was struck over and over again about the tremendous similarities to my years of talking to people in new religious movements.

The people who join these aren’t idiots or losers. They have been captain of the swim team; they’ve done well in school. For many, when they become young adults, they’re very disappointed with the world; it’s full of apathetic and hypocritical people.

When people join new religious movements, there was almost always a contingent factor when they joined. That just when they were feeling and thinking a certain way, they met certain people. And it’s quite accidental.

They’re feeling there’s more to life; they’ve just succeeded at something, but it’s disappointing. Along comes a guy strumming a guitar taking about a new Jesus movement; how everyone’s getting ready for the Second Coming. They get wrapped up and carried away in it.

And these people when interviewed, after they’ve left the group, admit that if somebody had come along and said they’re heading off to Guatemala to build schools for impoverished communities, they would’ve joined that.