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1996-04-27
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Cults
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.
Contemporary Cults
Cults go back as far as we know of life, cults began to get bigger
and be known throughout the world in the late 1960Æs and early 70Æs
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
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
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
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.
Conclusion
In todayÆs 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.
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
VII