Analysis Of Religious Cults Essay, Research Paper

There are many types of cults in the world, cults are

everywhere but you just do not see them. Every person in the world

has been in contact with them in one way or another in many cases you

cannot see them. The closest cult we know of is on Rice Lake called

the Moonies led by Reverend Myung, where I have currently visited.

Cults can be involved in churches and even are earliest religions are

called cults. Cults are not the strongest groups’ sects are the

strongest group. When you join a sect you cannot get out of them but a

cult you can leave without having any problem or commitment. Sects

will not let you out because many times it’s illegal and they are

afraid that you will say something to the public. Cults sometimes are

illegal to.

Religious cults are in every town and village there is no

definition of a cult that is accepted by sociologists and psychologist

or religion many types of activities will take cult like structures,

an example would be any popular trend like physical exercise this is

called the physical fitness cult. Famous athletes are a big figure

when it comes to cults, many times Movie stars, professional athletes

will endorse a product and a trend will start, making it turn into a

cult. Also people who generate beliefs of something like flying

saucer, aliens or any unknown figures can be cult. In religion when

people call a church they are referring to a sacred organization

having a highly structured or formalized dogma and hierarchy, but also

allowing a bit of flexibility about membership requirements allowing

you to go to a church and leave church when you want to. Although

sects are against church attempts to accommodate to secular society.

Sects believe that they are protecting a true faith or belief. Sects

tend to stay away from world events , and also they believe in a

strong strict behavioral code and demand a commitment out of their

people. The differences between cults and sects are sometimes the

same. Many scholars do not make distinctions between the two. Cults

are different because they do not expect as much commitment. Many

times’ cults do not expect couples to become apart. Cults do not last

as long as sects. Many times’ cults survive through a decade, and also

cults allow you to come and go as you want. Leaders of cults build

around a charismatic leader who has a lifestyle dedicated to a

specific spirituality group that they know other people will follow.

The word Mormonism began as a small cult then grew bigger until it

became a sect and eventually into a church. All the new religions

followed the same thing by beginning small and getting bigger than

becoming a church.

Cults go back as far as we know of life, cults began to get

bigger and be known throughout the world in the late 1960?s and early

70?s as people were better educated and better understood how they

were formed and how they were run and people began to join. During

this time Youths and middle class people began to join cults because

of the in thing to do and they felt more secure about themselves.

Cults really started to fascinate people when Jimmy Jones cult began

in November of 1978 when all attention was focused on the mass

suicide in Jonestown, a similar event happened in 1993 when federal

agents engaged in a shoot out with cult leader David Koresh.

Modern cults have many different practices and many different ways of

leadership. Some cults have a flexible functional leadership, like

the groups in the charismatic movement coming from the mainland

Christian religion, other cults have people who run and orchestrate

cult events, like Reverend Myung Moon leader of the unification

church. The reason people are attracted to modern cults because it

puts emphasis on community and on direct experience with the divine.

In cults’ participants often find a level of social support and

acceptance that they do not find in a nuclear family. This makes and

generates a sense of belonging to something profound and a feel of

being somebody. People who often join cults such as this, join

because they think they are getting something the world did not give

them. Several factors have been looked at to figure why people like

are modern youths join cults. Factors that were looked at were drug’s

war assignation of many unpopular presidents. Cults have been

questioned about brainwashing people, and found it to be true.

Cargo cults are usually neutralist and are in it for money.

The word cargo refers to foreign goods possessed by Europeans. Cult

members believe that goods belong to themselves and that , with the

help of ancestral spirits, the goods can be returned to them through

magic religious means.

Brainwashing is the process of deliberately subjecting people

to physical and psychological hardship in order to alter their

thoughts and attitudes, and actions. It also is a process of totally

cleaning a mind of one set idea and replacing them by another thought

or belief. This is called to indoctrinate cleaning a thought and

putting a completely new thought in mind. Indoctrinating can take

place without brainwashing. There are 2 aspects of brainwashing they

are confessions of past crimes or errors of the past and re-education

to new beliefs. Prisoners sometimes are made to confess by lack of

sleep and food and other forms of intense physical discomfort, also

isolation from victims’ families and from familiar surroundings.

Cult leaders show obedience, and humility and make other members give

social pressure to the new member to make them join. And the last

thing they do is make mutual criticism and self criticism sessions,

which make them have a generalized guilt feeling that all people have

acceptance of new ideas is again fostered by group pressure and the

anticipated reward of freedom.

People who have a better understanding of psychology and

neuophysiology have made larger groups create extremely effective

brainwashing programs. Their techniques however have been used

for centuries as inquisition making people give excited confessions

from alleged heretics. Religions sometimes use these methods like

scourging, rhythmic dancing and drumming and sometimes inducing a

trance like state in which the individual is open to conversion. In

the 20th centuries, most noticeably by the people’s temple of Guyana,

whose membership committed mass suicide.

Mystery Cults are usually in the ancient times whose members

believed that by means of the performance of particular secret rituals

they would gain knowledge that people in the normal world would not

have and that would make a mystical union with the divine. Mystery

cults make their members feel they are god and give them a feel of

immortality that they cannot be destroyed. Many times in mystery

cults, cult leaders feel they died and were brought back to be god or

Jesus.

In today?s society, cults are one of the many unfortunate

aspects endure in life. Leaders of Cults should be dealt with in a

more serious matter. Cult leaders are con-artists and are people that

like to control others. Cults should be controlled to protect

innocent citizens from being taken advantage of.

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Bibliography

CDROM: Religious Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc.. 1993

CDROM: Contemporary Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc.. 1993.

CDROM: Cargo Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc.. 1993.

CDROM: Contemporary Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc.. 1993.

CDROM: Religious Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc.. 1993.

CDROM :Contemporary Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc.. 1993.

CDROM :Contemporary Cults . Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc.. 1993.

CDROM :Cargo Cults . Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc.. 1993.