“A cult is a religious or semi-religious sect whose members are controlled almost entirely by a single individual or by an organization.” (“What”). Families are forced to leave their homes and life behind by a dream that the cult will take them to bigger and better places. Some of these cults also cost these members their lives. There is always that question of why they do it because it is far from believable. These leaders are manipulators dragging in their pray in like flies. Heaven’s Gate is a cult. People don’t just have their mind set and say “I’m going to go join a cult,” they are looking for a safe haven. They have different beliefs and rituals. A religious cult isn’t just a group of people left to their beliefs, but yet it is a threat to our nation and the people in it. “The mind of the fanatic” wants but more so “needs something to worship, even to the point of annihilation.”(Katherine Ramsland).
Marshall Herff Applewhite was the leader of the Heaven’s gate religious group. He was a prophet and dies with the group in their mass suicide in 1977. He drew most of his reading from scientific fiction and scripture. Marshall Herff Applewhite was born May 17, 1931 in Spur, Texas. Applewhite was known for his angelic voice and his music interests. He tried for a while as an actor, but failed at that and ended up being an assistant professor at the University of Alabama. He served as a choir mater there and then moved back to Texas and became the head of the music department at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. While Applewhite was in Houston him and his wife got a divorce, they shared two children together. People say was struggling with his sexual identity. In 1970 he left his job and seemed to be having a nervous br...
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...f Heaven's Gate - The Millennial Madness." The Keepers of Heaven's Gate - The Millennial Madness. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 May 2014.
Holliman, John. "Applewhite: From young overachiever to cult leader." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 4 May 2014. .
"Marshall Herff Applewhite." 2014. The Biography.com website. May 02 2014
Ramsland, Katherine. "The End Is Near." The Heaven's Gate Cult — — Crime Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2014.
"What Is a Religious Cult? - Christian Research Institute." Christian Research Institute What Is a Religious Cult Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. http://www.equip.org/perspectives/what-is-a-religious-cult/ `.
"'95 Statement by an E.T. Presently Incarnate." '95 Statement by an E.T. Presently Incarnate. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2014.
Looking at his most recent mug shot, no one would guess that Warren Jeffs was once a prophet and leader to a church with nearly ten thousand members; without Warren’s dark brown hair and the suits he commonly wore, Warren could be passed off as any other hardened criminal. Despite the dramatic change in his appearance, it is speculated that the convicted sexual predator still manages to maintain control over his people. While the FLDS Church followers believe that Warren is the one and only mouthpiece of God today; the Jehovah’s Witnesses, on the other hand, have a governing body of seven men that lead their denomination. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society is “the oldest and most important of the corporations of the Jehovah's Witnesses”, and the President of the Society used to be part of the governing body. However in October 2000, the current president Don Alden Adams, resigned from the governing body to take on a purely administrative role which has no influence on the doctrine. (WatchTower.org) Adams is considered to be a 50-year veteran of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and like Warren, Adams grew up with his current religion. (Ostling) Don and Warren slightly resemble each other with their long faces, prominent noses and thin framed glasses, however without their shared belief in a god, their appearance is the extent of their likeness. Just as the FLDS Church and the Jehovah’s Witnesses both share a belief in a higher power, they differ greatly in their origin, doctrine, and practices. By comparing these denominations, it will become clear why one is more popular than the other.
The Watchtowers are gardens of the four corners , the directions east, south, west, and north and are where the four elements live , that are earth air, fire and water..
The cult had many beliefs that our human bodies were only vessels, occupied by members of the “Kingdom of Heaven.” They believed that Marshall Applewhite was a link between their cult and their god. It was said that god spoke to them through Applewhite. He was considered an equivalent to the Christian religions Jesus. And that people need to follow him as people had followed Jesus 2000 years ago. The cult believed that their time on earth was only a schooling to learn how to become a member of the kingdom of heaven. Do (Applewhite) taught them that in order to leave behind this world and move on to the next, people had to give up their family, sensuality, selfish desires, your human mind and your human body if necessary.
What Was Jim Crow?. (n.d.). What was Jim Crow. Retrieved April 11, 2014, from http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm
Some say that cults are all religious and work together, in fact the definition of a cult is “a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object”, yet this can vary. Cults are not all religious or trying to reach a spiritual goal and in a lot of cases it is mostly all about one goal that is completely derived off his followers. Most cult leaders are so infatuated with their goals that they truly believe the psychological damage they are causing is good for the world (Cults). As seen in Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate, cults tend to use psychological skills to torment, manipulate and brainwash their members to grow stronger and reach the leader’s ultimate goal.
There are numerous different kinds of social groups in the world, but clearly not all of them are cults. So what makes a cult a cult? [So where is the distinction?] Where is the metaphorical line drawn and what has to be done to cross it? Cult psychological experts Joseph Salande and David Perkins say the differences between a cult and a group are the methods of control and the negative effects on its members (Salande and Perkins 382). They define cults as “groups that often exploit members psychologically
And it was his duty to carry on the last task, as promised by the Book of Revelation; to provide vessels in which souls returned to heaven. This process, according to the Book of Revelation, offered a way for cult members to gain access or membership into the evolutionary level above humans. According to Applewhite, the evolutionary level above human is synonymous with the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. The only way to enter was to join Applewhite and Nettles and learn to release themselves of their “humanness” and their material possessions. The group was very close knit; they shared all that they had communally.
Many studies about Jehovah Witnesses state that they are the strictest religion out there. They have rules that should be followed or the person ends up condemned. They do not believe in other religions whatsoever, in any shape or form. Jehovah Witnesses God’s name to them is Jehovah. The sociological concepts discussed will be social class and norms, a function and a dysfunction of Jehovah Witness religion, a symbolic ritual, and an aspect of this religion that entails conflict.
Mystery cults greatly influenced the development of Pythagoreanism as Pythagoreans adopted many of their traditions, behaviors and beliefs. Pythagoras, the founder of the Pythagoreans, established a school in which he developed and taught these adopted cultural behaviors and beliefs. "The nature of daily living in the school, both its moral and its intellectual disciplines, can perhaps best be understood as an intellectualized development from earlier mystery cults such as the Eleusinian" (Wheelwright 201). The Pythagoreans and the mystery cults were not identical, but they shared many similar beliefs on subjects such as the soul, transmigration and reincarnation, and they practiced many of the traditions of initiation, ritual and secrecy. Pythagoreans combined the mystery cults' views on these subjects with philosophical thought as a foundation to develop their own unique beliefs.
For many years, cult leaders always had a psychological hold on their followers' minds. Whether it was to kill other people or to kill themselves, they did it without question. Some cult leaders used fear, violence and guilt as a means of a weapon to control the minds of their followers. Other cult leaders used persuasive and spiritual speeches that made their followers believe they were doing good and fulfilling God's plan. Because cult leaders are powerful through 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.
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).
Father Gregory Boyle’s magnificently crafted novel, Tattoos on the Herat, exemplifies how Jesus is telling us how to live our life here on Earth. Father Boyle devotes his time managing a self-produced business to redirect the lives of both men and women on the consuming streets of Los Angeles, California. Gang members visit his HomeBoy Industries in search of a new beginning, one that which involves God and compassion. Despite their territorial enemies, Father Boyle teaches and explains the importance of God in their lives, and we are all brothers and sisters on the eyes of our Creator. Father G looks beyond these gangs members previously committed sins, and gives them a new perspective of how life should really spent.
Walker’s publication of her latest novel, The Temple of My Familiar, has raised the criticism bar. They complain that Alice Walker has adopted a mushy new age philosophy to confront historical Christianity that has misled and misplaced black women. (Hall 8)
Lifton, R., foreword, Cults In Our Midst, by Margaret Thaler Singer & Lalich (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995).
Albert "Apple" Craig was the youngest son in a family of ten children. He was the apple of his father’s eye so they called him Apple. One of the major inspirations in Apples life was his mother. She was a spiritual healer and told him that one day he will be a great leader in the world and millions of people will follow behind him.