|
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.
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.
|
(0 vote)