I was part of a cult. Actually, that’s not entirely true because my parents were the only ones who took it all seriously. What’s more, the cult never really thought of me as a good member. They did not take me under their much needed wing of compassion and longing. Why? Because, I never acted in the way that they saw fit. So much so that I was eventually expelled from their schools, ostracized from the community, and basically blacklisted.
Before I get any further into this essay, I think it’s important to provide some background information of the cult. Firstly, it was founded as the Society of Saint Pious X (SSPX) in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who I do not believe was a cult leader. In fact, I think he was only an overzealous archbishop. Which is supported by his “breaking away” from The Vatican in 1988, not because he wanted to become a cult leader, but I think because he thought it was his only option.
He was actually excommunicated when he disobeyed papal orders. Which directed him not to consecrate four bishops. By ignoring these orders and consecrating the bishops anyways, Lefebvre knowingly had himself and the newly ordained bishops excommunicated. Three years later Lefebvre had died and the SSPX was in tumult. It begin a difficult process of falling apart into many different varieties of religious cults. Also, what was left of the SSPX grew more and more cultish in direct proportion to the disillusionment. What’s left today is not a conventional cult. Depending on each church most of them are what I call sub cults. Each placing the pastor in charge as the leader of that specific church.
Growing up, I didn’t realize that I was part of something strange. I believed, we were normal and everybody else was strange. ...
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...ildren should be raised and punished.
The SSPX was the only church anyone ever needed, elitist and polarized from society. With that status they were able to justify everything that they did. All members would be constantly pressured to volunteer and bring in new members. Those that did this were exalted and hailed as heroes. There was no life outside of the church.
In conclusion, being a part of that cult has taught me a great deal. Now, I am able to understand people better and also much more aware of lies that society perpetrates. I believe that most any group will knowingly or unwittingly use cult techniques. Fr. Stanich has given me a great deal to think about. He was a classic narcissist and one of the vainest people I have ever known. But, I am now able to understand much more about persuasive rhetoric and the phony lies that are told to control people.
Cults are dangerous institutions that have existed for many years, corrupting and reforming the minds of innocent people into believing outrageous doctrines that eventually result in disaster. Horrifying cases involving men such as Charles Manson, Jim Jones and David Koresh have bewildered people and raise the question: how could individuals be easily susceptible to the teachings of these men, so influenced that masses go as far as to commit the unthinkable? Individuals who are in a vulnerable position in search for an identity are attracted to cults because they offer a sense of belonging. In addition, isolation from society contributes to the functioning of a cult for it creates an atmosphere where submissiveness and obedience runs high. These two factors seem to hold true for one of the most notorious cults currently established in the United States and Canada. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or, FLDS, is an international polygamist sect that incorporates belonging and isolation along with a dangerous mentality that have resulted in the abuse of women and children in the name of God.
A cult society is an organization that basically disguises itself as a religion. In a cult, they normally perform rituals. There are usually many people in these societies. In Jim Jones’s cult, there were at least one thousand people in this community.
Bloody rituals and moonlit sacrifices define a cult. As long as religion exists, cults also exist. Initiation involves feats of courage and skill and often results in fatality. Once they complete their initiation they gain the status of an official member. Members advance in rank by following the regulations and being faithful to their deity. New recruits rank lowest and the priest or prophet are the highest ranking members; climbing through the ranks takes years. Judith Lorber, the author of “Believing Is Seeing: Biology as Ideology,” assists in understanding the ideas presented in Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber’s article “The Spread of the Cult of Thinness…” ; society gives “cult” members body expectations they must follow for them to secure their places in the “cult” of thinness, or society rejects them.
Individuals with certain preexisting or underlying psychological issues can render them more likely to join a cult. It’s evident that there are severe psychological problems originating in childhood including physical, sexual and emotional abuse and neglect in the cult members. There seems to be a life-long pattern of self-destructive patterns of behavior that manifests in early childhood, which include self-mutilating behavior, chronic substance abuse, absent parents, and sexual perversion. Placing these individuals in emotionally and physically vulnerable situations such as in a cult seems to have adverse effects. The severity of the cult members’ psychological problems...
People join cults as a way of feeling a sense of belonging within a community (Winner 2011:417). This need for belonging is eventually why members find themselves so involved that they cannot get out. This is especially true in the case of the cult created by Jim Jones. He established a cultic Church called the People’s Temple, most famously known for being the largest group suicide consisting of 909 people, including 276 children (Nelson 2006). Between five to seven million young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 are involved in cult groups (“Cult statistics” 2010). Nearly 180 000 people are recruited into cults each year (“Cult Statistics” 2010). The sense of identity, purpose, and belonging are appealing aspects to why people join cults as the use of power and manipulation coerces them to stay.
...psychological offenses, the people that belong to their cults are brainwashed into doing things they wouldn't normally do in their right state of mind. Cult leaders used various ways of molding a follower's mind and brainwashing them to do things for them. Some cult leaders used punishments as a way of breaking the follower's that were resistant to their demands. Others used and perfected the art of persuasion. Either way, the mind of their followers or 'family' are in total control of the leader.
Cults have existed throughout history since the beginning of time. A cult is defined in Webster’s dictionary as a “system of religious worship with a devoted attachment to a person, principle, etc.” Over the past thirty years numerous religious cults have caused “ tens of thousands to abandon their families, friends, education’s, and careers to follow the teaching of a leader they will never meet”(Beck 78).
In conclusion, the entire aura of the Heaven’s Gate cult seems like something straight out of a late night TV movie. Like most millennialist groups, members held a firm belief in an oncoming apocalypse and that only an elect few would achieve salvation. The spread of their doctrine on the Internet brought about widespread concern over the power of the web. The argument has subsided, however, with the passage of time. I, for one, find the supposed link between the Internet and cult activities rather absurd. Extreme gullibility and brainwashing, I believe, would be the only ways a recruit would ever accept such an outlandish set of beliefs.
“A cult is a group of religious and dedicated members directed toward a particular belief or figure” (Thriving Cults). Cults are often misjudged and mistreated because what they believe in is strange or different than what the rest of the world believe in. Lesser known cults are often persecuted for what a few evil and corrupted cults did, but they never stop and look and see if the cult is a truly peaceful group. People in cults are often persecuted for being devoted to the cause of the cult they joined. “Certain people lack the inner resources and inner abilities to fully understand the world going on around them. They do not enjoy feeling lost, feeling abandoned, or hopeless” (Church of Reality). “They have no real conception of themselves and a weak and uncertain sense of self-identity or self worth” (Campus Cults). Sometimes we feel that we lose the purpose of living and we need something to fall back to. “Naturally, we follow the advice of people or groups who seem to ...
The cult was mainly composed of men and women both. All members had crew cuts and were between the ages of 26 and 72. Although many members lived together in a mansion in California, they came from all parts of the country. Many were from California, but members also came from Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Minnesota, Utah, Ohio, and Florida. There were approximatly 39 members who lived in the 1.3 million dollar Rancho Santa Fe mansion. They operated a web site for their cult called “Higher Source”.
deviations and find themselves perfectly normal. For people shouldnt have that thought that what they
Society strives to feel a sense of belonging. We want to be a part of something that shares the same beliefs as us. We spend our time trying to place ourselves in a group to satisfy these needs, whether it is in a hobby club, a group of friends, or religion. Some people go to more extreme measures and find this in what we call a cult. According to Henslin, a cult is a new or different religion whose teachings and practices put it at odds with the dominant culture and religion. (2013:405) Cults are often identified with the ideas of mass murder, deviant behaviors, unusual beliefs, and extremely devoted members. Cults are also highly known for their leaders. The leaders of cults usually are the ones that portray the image for the entire group. Successful cults take a strong-minded and, according to Max Weber, charismatic leader.
The Salvation Army is well known around the world as a charity to help people living in poverty. Less known about The Salvation Army is that its original purpose was to become a form of religion. William Booth, the founder of The Salvation Army did not want the purpose of The Salvation Army to stray too far from the idea that all people are free to worship Christ. It was because Booth believed that the most efficient way to reach people living in poverty was to offer them food, clothing, and shelter while preaching to them. Booth was a very religious person from a very young age, more so after his family had lost their money and William had to work to get money for his family. Booth's understanding of life in poverty and his love for God would reflect in his life after he became a preacher. Soon after Booth had gotten his first full time preaching job, he met the love of his life and his partner in creating a faith, Catherine Mumford, who was also a very religious individual. He would also meet George S. Railton, who believed that God was more important than any worldly possessions. Railton would later become Booth's first lieutenant and a huge factor in the way the Salvation Army was run during the first years. --- William Booth believed that every person deserved to know Jesus regardless of their social class and that he should save everyone from Atheism.
To be considered normal or abnormal has been just a label society places on you to explain individuality. When we are younger, we were given a mixed message that being different and unique is acceptable, however growing up in a society that wants you to blend in and adhere to the norms and usual customs of that culture is difficult. Being dissimilar often leads you to be judged and considered deviant. What you perceive not only defines your idiosyncratic judgment, so does your culture, prejudices, upbringing and generation you belong to. In our modern day society a universal normal has not, nor ever will exist. We think, look and all act differently and the reality of it is, no one is normal.
Jenkinson (2008) labels this phenomenon as a ‘cult pseudo-personality’, the dropping of one’s old values and behaviours and internalising the cult’s worldview. This suggests that this collective-wide ‘cult pseudo-personality’ formed via the leaders socialisation is the controlling force of the collective behaviour. Under this new worldview, a person’s sense of individuality and reason may be weakened, possibly making them susceptible to external influence. This may explain why the followers of ‘The Heaven’s Gate’ cult committed suicide together, as this new personality governed their thoughts. Balch provides evidence of this socialisation within ‘The Heaven’s Gate’ cult. Balch (1995) described that each individual was completely stripped of his or her old identities and had their human form minimised. The cult members were to dehumanise themselves; they wore clothes to cover their bodies at all times, were banned from sex and sexual urges had to be repressed (the male members were castrated) and participated in rituals to focus on ‘The Next Level’ rather than human thought were designed to keep them busy at all times (Balch, 1995). Therefore, the socialisation in the Heaven’s Gate cult may have stripped the participant’s sense of being human and changed their meaning and purpose in life, enabling them to engage in the collective