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For example, cults burgeoned after the fall of Rome. At the time of the French Revolution, cults spread not only in France but across Europe. When the Industrial Revolution came to England, cults spread once again as thousands of people moved into the larger centers where industries were building. European colonization resulted in the emergence of various cults in other parts of the world as well.
Cults sprang up in Japan after World War II, when the social structure in the defeated country left many people not knowing where they fit in or how to make decisions in the new and puzzling world around them.
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A Brief History of Cults
Whether the lure is warmed-over ancient lore or the most avant-garde secrets of the universe, followers are expected to step into the elite compound, community, or sphere of the leader. To do so usually means leaving behind family and friends and forsaking most of the ordinary world. In return for participating in this elite group, followers are told that they will be let in on the special knowledge.
Historically, we have seen that as the fabric of a society unravels, self-appointed leaders easily recruit a following. People at a loss to make sense of the mayhem around them look for direction and become more approachable and vulnerable to the manipulations and expoitations of these skillful con artists. Certainty and simple solutions for the complex problems of decision making become attractive offerings in a world that appears to be unstable and rapidly changing.
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A Brief History of Cults
Pied pipers attract only modest followings in eras when a society is functioning in a way that conveys structure and a sense of social solidarity. Citizens understand their expected paths in these eras, and most members of society know the acceptable behaviours—whether they like them or not. However, when segments of society cannot see where they fit in, what the rules are, or what the socially agreed-upon answers to life's big questions are, then, like a dormant disease, the ever-present potential cult leaders take hold and lure followers to their causes.
These determined self-designated gurus seem always to be lurking on the sidelines ready to step in and offer answers to life's problems. They claim they have the only and sure way of life. They induce people to follow them by touting a special mission and special knowledge. The special mission is to preach the contents of a supposedly "secret" learning, which the leaders assert can only be revealed to those who join them.
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A Brief History of Cults
History tells us something about the periods when cults thrive. It appears that there have been legions of self-appointed messiahs, gurus, or pied pipers (I use the term interchangeable) throughout time. But these types, ever present in our midst, only obtain substantial followings in certain periods. Traditionally, these periods have been marked by unusual social or political turbulence or breakdowns in the structure and rules of the prevailing society. Such are the times when cults flourish.
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Who Joins Cults? - Blaming the Victim
If you buy a pair of shoes that don't fit, you can usually return them. But once you join a cult, it may be years before you get out.
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Who Joins Cults? - Blaming the Victim
If a man in the jungle walks near a river and a crocodile bites his leg, the unlucky victim will be blamed for getting close enought to the water that a crocodile could harm him. Few will take the time to learn that the crocodile was lying in wait, hidden, and the man had no idea danger was so close. So, too, when an old lady is bilked out of her money by a swindler, her friends are prone to say it was her fault for being gullible. So it is also when a person becomes involved with a cult. The person is blamed for being a seeker, gullible, or mentally aberrant. The actions of the cult are overlooked in the appraisal.
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Who Joins Cults? - Myth of the Seeker
Former cult members commonly reveal that they were looking for companionship or the chance to do something to benefit themselves and mankind. They say they were not looking for the particular cult they joined and were not intending to belong for a lifetime. Rather, they were actively and/or deceptively pressured to join, soon found themselves enmeshed in the group, were slowly cut off from their pasts and their families, and became totally dependent on the group.
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Who Joins Cults? - Myth of the Seeker
As we have seen, a cult can be defined in many ways, but for our purposes and to explain most modern-day cults, it is necessary to think of a process, not an event, and to view life in the cult as a process. Processes evolve and unfold, something goes on between people. There is an interaction, a transaction, a relationship established.
The act of joining a cult results from a process put in motion by a cult recruiter. Cult practices make it clear that recruits are propagandized and socialized to accept the life conditions of the group. These conditions are revealed slowly, and the recruits do not know where they are going when they start. How can they be seekers for a particular result when they are unaware of the final patterns and contents of the group that they join?
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Who Joins Cults? - Why Do They Join?
I have found that two conditions make an individual especially vulnerable to cult recruiting: being depressed and being in between important affiliations. We can be especially vulnerable to persuasion and suggestion because of some loss or disappointment that has caused a depressed mood or even mild to moderate clinical depression. And we're especially prone to the cults's kind of influence when we're not engaged in a meaningful personal relationship, job, educational or training program, or some other life involvement.
Vulnerable individuals are lonely, in a transition between high school and college, between college and a job or graduate school, traveling away from home, arriving in a new location, recently jilted or divorced, fresh from losing a job, feeling overwhelmed about how things have been going, or not knowing what to do next in life. Usettling personal occurences are commonplace: A high school senior is rejected by the college or her choice. A man's mother dies. A woman decides to sell her condo and travel after an unhappy ending to a long-term relationship. At such times, we are all more open to persuasion, more suggestible, more willing to take something offered us without thinking there might be strings attached.
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