The Life Story of Helge Fossmo, Former Pastor of Knutby Filadelfia, as Told in Prison
A Narrative Analysis Approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v6i1.21034Keywords:
Knutby, narrative analysis, Pentecostalism, anticult paradigmAbstract
In January 2004 the religious community of Knutby Filadelfia gained notoriety in Sweden after a young woman was shot dead and a young man seriously wounded. One of the pastors, Helge Fossmo, the husband of the murdered woman, was later found guilty of incitement or conspiracy to murder and was sentenced to life in prison. The actual perpetuator was, however, one of his mistresses, who was committed to psychiatric care. The case became subject to extraordinary media attention, with focus on the congregation’s charismatic head pastor, Åsa Waldau, and the innovative teachings of the group. This article is based on a narrative analysis of an interview in prison with the former pastor Helge Fossmo, as a step towards understanding the psychological, social and ideological forces that may have contributed to the violence in the Knutby case. Narratives are culturally framed and draw on cultural resources, are socially constructed, and become consolidated by repetition. The narrative of Fossmo draws upon the cultural resource of the “evil cult narrative,” as well as the social resource of his therapist, whose perspective is strikingly similar to the one Fossmo presents.
References
Berger, Peter. 1967. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Anchor Press.
Bruner, Jerome. 2004 “The narrative creation of self.” In The Handbook of Narrative and Psychotherapy: Practice, Theory, and Research, edited by L. Angus and J. McLeod, 3–14. London: SAGE Publications. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412973496.d3
Jansen, Wayne. 2008 “Overcoming impediments to cell phone forensics.” Paper presented at the 41st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. www.forensicswiki.org/w/images/9/9c/JensenCellPhones.pdf
Kohli, Martin. 1981 “Biography: Account, text, method.” In Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences, edited by D. Bertaux. Beverly Hills: SAGE Publication.
Kvale, Steinar. 2013 Doing Interviews. London: SAGE Publications.
Laing R.D. 1960 The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and The Divided Self Madness. London: Tavistock.
Lieblich, Amia, Rivka Tuval-Mashiach and Tamar Zilber. 1998 Narrative Research: Reading, Analysis, and Interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publication.
Lundgren Eva. 2008 Knutbykoden. Stockholm: Modernista. Knutby-koden / Eva Lundgren ; översättning: Silje Lundgren
Mattingly, Cheryl. 1998 Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots: The Narrative Structure of Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139167017
McAdams, Dan P. 1993 The Stories We Live by: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self. London: The Guilford Press.
Mischler, Elliot G. 1997 “The interactional construction of narratives in medical and life-history interviews.” In The Construction of Professional Discourse, edited by B-L. Gunnarsson, P. Linell and B. Nordberg, 223–244. New York: Longman.
Riessman, C. Kohler. 2008 Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. London: SAGE.
Robèrt, Rigmor. 2005 “Kristi bruds hemliga profetia ger förklaringar till mordet i Knutby.” http://www.dagensmedicin.se/nyheter/kristi-bruds-hemliga-profetia-ger-forklaringar-till-mordet-i-knutby-/
2013 e-mail to Liselotte Frisk 2013-03-25.
Shupe, Ansom and David G. Bromley, eds. 1994 Anti-Cult Movements in Cross-Cultural Perspective. New York: Garland Publishing.
Squire, Corinne. 2011 “Experience-centred and culturally-oriented approaches to narrative.” In Doing Narrative Research, edited by M. Andrews, C. Squire and M. Tamboukou, 41–63. London: SAGE Publications.
Stone-Mediatore, Shari. 2003 Reading Across Borders: Storytelling and Knowledges of Resistance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wells, Kathleen. 2011 Narrative Inquiry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195385793.001.0001
