'Religion gone bad': What makes a cult, a cult? Was the Elder Council one?

LEESBURG — News of a 17-year-old Leesburg High School student allegedly being enticed into a sexual relationship with a guidance counselor, and covered up by the band director, was disturbing enough.

But when young man started talking about a “cult-like” group, it turned the community upside down.

Guidance counselor Lenny Finelli and band director Gabriel Fielder resigned before they could be fired for what school officials described as ethical violations but concluded that there was “no evidence of a cult.”

Former members of the now defunct Elder Council disagree, and the young man’s therapist who reported the incident described it as a “shame-based atmosphere that caused anxiety, depression and PTSD, serious enough to require therapy.”

'We trusted him': Former member of The Elder Council shares her experience in 'cult-like' group

Report: LHS band director, counselor violated conduct standards, but 'no evidence' of cult

Original story: Leesburg High band director, counselor ran 'secret society,' hid sexual messages, former student tells police

'Religion gone bad'

So, what is a cult?

J. Gordon Melton, Ph.D., one of the world’s foremost experts, has described cults as “religion gone bad.”

The founder of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and Distinguished Professor at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, Melton has written several books, including the “Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults.”

Included in the book are 14 characteristics cited by anti-cult writer Marcia Rudin.

1. Members swear total allegiance to an all-powerful leader whom they believe to be the Messiah.

2. Rational thought is discouraged or forbidden.

3. The cult’s recruitment techniques are often deceptive.

4. The cult weakens the follower psychologically by making him/her depend upon the group to solve his/her problems.

5. The cults manipulate guilt to their advantage.

6. The cult leader makes all the career and life decisions of the members.

7. Cults exist only for their own material survival and make false promises to improve society.

8. Cult members often work fulltime for the group for little or no pay.

9. Cult members are isolated from the outside world and any reality testing it could provide.

10. Cults are antiwoman, antichild, and antifamily.

11. Cults are apocalyptic and believe themselves to be the remnant who will survive the soon-approaching end of the world.

12. Many cults follow an “ends justify the means” philosophy.

13. Cults, particularly in regard to their finances, are shrouded in secrecy.

14. There is frequently an aura of or potential for violence around cults.”

Melton cautions that "while no group may embody all of them, any 'cult' will possess a majority."

Fielder never claimed to be the Messiah, but former students of his have described him as a man who “sees himself as a prophet, or like a channel of God.”

“We were under the belief that the rules that we did have to follow were not from Gabriel, that they were from God," a former Elder Council member said. “He told us basically that he had such a close relationship with God that it was very, very, very rare and uncommon for him to get things wrong. And that we should just trust him right away with whatever he said. He would call them ‘directives.’ He would say, ‘If I give a directive, I expect you to give it out.’ And his thing was ‘If I’m wrong then God’s going to correct me, you guys don’t need to correct me.’”

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Fielder created since-deleted YouTube videos showing him sitting alone in his car or home talking about messages he has received from God.

He also warned against “false spirits invading our church looking like angels of light. They are deceiving many, many, many people and the true remnant are the people that hear his voice, and they don’t accept every wind of doctrine and random teaching that comes along.”

He said he was drawing from dark, personal experience with demons.

“I’ve walked in agreement with one for 13 years. They override you… they get into you, they start manifesting what they want out of you and it’s always urgency, demand and violence. It’s ever the loving presence of our Father.”

He also expressed fear that the group would be persecuted for its beliefs.

The young woman, who talked to the Daily Commercial on the condition that her name not be published, said Elder Council started out as a normal, off-campus Bible study, but it became “something that was more controlling and more manipulative.”

The group disbanded last year.

More on cults: Was the former Leesburg High band director's 'Elder Council' a cult? What is a cult?

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Speaking in tongues and spirit walking

Edan Shettian, 19, who described Fielder as a self-proclaimed prophet, said he tried to get him to go into a meditative, trance known as astral projection.

“He was like there is a place that God created for you, it’s like where your spirit can go.”

Shettian, who was not a member of the Elder Council, was in the school band, but quit, saying Fielder made him uncomfortable.

The young woman who was a former member of the Council said Fielder described it as “spirit travel,” and that it was Biblical “and that we could only do it under God’s guidance, so we did it frequently when we prayed.”

“We would sit in a quiet room, and we would either start off in tongues, which again is a personal thing," she said. "I believe in tongues, but I also believe tongues can be a form of manipulation because they’re having you enter into this trance-like state. So, we would all enter in tongues and then he would have people start talking like saying what you see and then finding some way to make what everyone was seeing correlate.”

More coverage: Former students describe 'toxic' environment, astral projection under Leesburg band director

Pentecostals and practitioners of other charismatic religions believe in the practice of speaking in “tongues.”

The Bible, in Acts 2:1-4, talks about the Holy Spirit entering a group of Christ’s followers on the Day of Pentecost. A large group of people nearby thought they were drunk until Peter pointed out that they were not babbling, but speaking their native language so that nonbelievers could understand the message from their countrymen.

The apostle would later say that no one should be speaking in tongues unless an interpreter was present.

The Rev. Trueman Hurley of Faith World Pentecostal Church in Leesburg has been following the Daily Commercial stories about the Elder Council.

“I never saw us in anything like this,” he said.

Astral projection is not Christianity, he added.

“It’s cultish and manipulative.”

One of the phenomena among Christians in recent years, pastors say, is cherry-picking from other religions if it sounds appealing, including New Age beliefs.

Fielder, in texts to the group, mentioned Yom Kippur and Yom Teruah services. They are two important dates on the Jewish calendar.

The young woman also talked about “deliverance,” a practice in some Pentecostal churches.

“It wasn’t an exorcism, but if you had something afflicting you, inside of you, you could cast it out,” she said.

The group recommended she try it when she confessed to Finelli that she was depressed.

He convinced her that they had seen visions from God showing were meant to be married, even though he was 10 years older.

They began dating and talked about having children together, but he was never interested in her sexually, she said. It was the young man he was focused on.

'People are so vulnerable': Retired principal weighs in on LHS band, Elder Council incident

Shunning, tithing and mandatory work

Meetings were mandatory, and members risked being ostracized if they did not attend, including workdays on Fielder’s farm in Ocklawaha.

They were to plant a vegetable garden on the farm so they would have food when the tribulation came during the apocalypse. And they were to live in a commune forever, paired off as couples.

Hurley acknowledges that people today are divided, sometimes into fringe groups, including politics.

“We’re middle-of-the-road,” he said of his church.

“For $50, anybody online can become an ordained minister,” said Hurley. “You can get incorporated, and you can set up your own little kingdom.”

Elder Council was set up in 2019 as a nonprofit corporation so it could collect money, the young woman said. Its stated purpose was “not-for-profit missions and teaching activities for the greater evangelical Church globally.”

Fielder was listed as president and Finelli vice president. LHS students made up the other officers.

Money came from tithing 10% of their income, with funds going into making improvements on Fielder’s 13-acre farm in Ocklawaha, including a pole barn and a shed. Fielder said the goal was to build a studio for a YouTube channel.

Workdays and meeting attendance was mandatory, and members had tracking apps on their phones so Fielder, who called himself “the governor,” could watch every move.

These practices, too, do not jibe with Hurley’s church.

“There are members of our church we haven’t seen for a year because of COVID,” he said.

A former local Baptist pastor used to jokingly tell his congregation, “there are some people on our rolls that the CIA couldn’t find.”

Hurley said his men’s ministry group voluntarily does work in the community, painting houses and doing other work to improve the area, but it is not “free labor” for working on his private property or any other selfish reason.

Like other churches, tithing is encouraged, Hurley said, “but it’s for spreading the Gospel.”

'They're going to think we're a cult'

Elder Council members were also coached to hide some details from their parents.

“Like, ‘Don’t describe this like that because your parents aren’t open to all of this stuff yet. They’re going to think we’re a cult,” she said. “So, there were certain ways that we were supposed to talk about things, and you know some of us came from bad house backgrounds where pretty much anything we could’ve gotten away with. And then other people had parents that didn’t like it and were vocal about that but to us Gabriel would call them a ‘witch’ or a ‘heavy manipulator’ and we don’t need to listen to her.’”

The Elder Council was known for getting the entire group to agree on what was proper behavior.

Finelli told the group he had strong feelings for the 17-year-old boy. Later, he reportedly confessed to Fielder that he had sent texts to the young man, asking what kind of porn he watched and if he was sexually active with his girlfriend. He also asked about the size of his penis.

A school district investigation concluded that the messages were romantic, but did not contain explicit or pornographic material. And no criminal charges have been filed against Fielder or Finelli.

Finelli denied doing anything wrong, and said he was just “expressing that he was a unique person and I wanted to foster a friendship.”

The American Bar Association in a 2015 paper described such behavior as “grooming.”

“The offender may assume a caring role, befriend the child or even exploit their position of trust and authority…”

Fielder, who claimed he was unaware of what was in the texts, was furious, a group member said. He smashed Finelli’s phone, destroyed iCloud evidence and forbade the two to speak to each other unless another group member was present. He had the boy and Finelli “confess their sins to the group.” He told group members to keep it a secret.

Another former band student said Fielder seemed to be obsessed with homosexuality, frequently asking about his sexuality and criticizing his clothing.

'The goal is mind control'

Members of the Elder Council can be thankful for one thing. There has apparently never been any violence committed by the group, unlike the most notorious cult in Lake County history.

In 1996, 16-year-old Rod Ferrell, left his home in Kentucky with a handful of followers in his blood-drinking vampire cult and came to Central Florida to pick up a former classmate at Eustis High School, Heather Wendorf.

He murdered her parents, Richard Wendorf and Ruth Queen and stole their Ford Explorer. Three days later, the group, including 15-year-old Heather, was arrested in Louisiana. All were indicted but Heather, who said she didn’t know her parents would be harmed. The case made international headlines.

Ferrell was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, but his sentence was later commuted to life.

One of the things Ferrell did, a friend said, was to study psychology and black magic to control the group with brain-washing techniques.

“My goal is mind control,” Ferrell told a friend. “If people are in fear, they are easy to control.”

Ferrell’s cult members came from dysfunctional families, or teens from “bad house backgrounds,” as the former Elder Council member described it.

Ferrell’s goal was to create a vampire “family.”

'We need to stop this'

The young woman in Elder Council said she saw the light when the group was ordered to shun two members for missing mandatory meetings.

“And that’s the situation that basically opened my eyes to understand what was happening there was not OK. So, after that happened, I started praying a lot, and I started watching these videos, you know, ‘What does a cult look like?’ ‘What is too much power in the church?’ Stuff like that, and started to really line up everything and see like, ‘OK this is this.’ And so when I realized that I knew that if It didn’t at the very least I would have to leave.’”

She told other group members, “We need to stop this.”

“And most of them were on par with that. They were like, ‘Yeah, we agree, we just haven’t had the courage to say anything.’”

She said, like the young man, she too has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and has been forced to question her faith and relationships.

“It dramatically shook my faith. I still have it, I still believe in God. I still believe in prayer," she said. "When you go from wholeheartedly believing this man who you believe as an authority figure and you find out everything is wrong and he’s been basically taking advantage of you, it makes you question everything."

Frank Stanfield is the author of “Cold Blooded, A True Crime Story of a Murderous Vampire Cult” and has covered the case for 25 years.

This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Was former Leesburg High School band director's Elder Council a cult?