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Defining Cults - Cults Are Not All Alike
Cults basically have only two purposes: recruiting new members and fund-raising. Established religions and altruistic movements may also recruit and raise funds. Their sole puprose, however, is not simply to grow larger and wealthier; such groups have as goals bettering the lives of their members or humankind in general, either in this world or in a world to come. A cult may claim to make social contributions, but in actuality these remain mere claims or gestures. In the end, all work and all funds, even token gestures of alturism, serve the cult.
Sayfa 11
Defining Cults - Definitions and Characteristics
I perefer to use the phrase "cultic relationships" to signify more precisely the processes and interactions that go on in a cult. A cultic relationship is one in which a person intentionally induces others to become totally or nearly totally dependent on him or her for almost all major life decisions, and inculcates in these followers a belief that he or she has some special talent, gift, or knowledge.
For our purposes, the label 'cult' refers to three factors:
1. The origin of the group and role of the leader.
2. The power structure, or relationship between the leader (or leaders) and the followers.
3. The use of a coordinated program of persuasion (which is called thought reform, or, more commonly, brainwashing)
Sayfa 7
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.
Sayfa 28
Defining 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' kind of influence when we're not engaged in a meaningful personal relationship, job, edcuational 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. Unsettling personal occurences are commonplace: A gigh school senior is rejected by the college of 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 there might be strings attached.
Sayfa 20
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.
Sayfa 29
Defining Cults - Coordinated Program of Persuasion
Cults tend to be totalistic, or all-encompassing, in controlling their members' behaviour and also ideologically totalistic, exhibiting zealtory and extremesim in their worldview.
Eventually, and usually sooner rather than later, most cults expect members to devote increasing time, energy, and money or other resources to the professed goals of the group, stating or implying that a total commitment is required to reach some state such as "englightenment." The form of that commitment will vary from group to group; more courses, more meditation, more quotas, more cult-related activities, more donations. Cults are known to dictate what members wear and eat and when and where they work, sleep and bathe as well as what they should believe, think and say. On most matters, cults promote what we usually call black-and-white thinking, an all-or-nothing point of view.
Cults tend to require members to undergo a major disruption or change in life-style.
Many cults put great pressure on new members to leave their families, friends and jobs to become immersed in the group's major purpose. This isolation tactic is one of the cults' most common mechanisms of control and enforced dependency.
Sayfa 10