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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.
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- Bibliography
- CDROM: Religious Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc..
- 1993
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- CDROM: Contemporary Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing
- Inc.. 1993.
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- CDROM: Cargo Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc..
- 1993.
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- CDROM: Contemporary Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc.. 1993.
- CDROM: Religious Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc.. 1993.
- CDROM :Contemporary Cults. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc..1993
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- CDROM :Contemporary Cults . Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc..1993
- CDROM Cargo Cults . Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc ..1993
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- VII
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